We've Got an Update on the First Political Sex Scandal of Election Season 2020
Gerry Broome. Shutterstock Images.Yesterday brought us what for many of us was the first thing to bring any sort of entertainment value to the 2020 elections, the sex scandal involving Senate candidate out North Carolina, Cal Cunningham.
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tl;dr: Some news outlet was given texts from a woman who is not Cunningham's wife, one Arlene Guzman Todd, making arrangements with him to ditch their spouses and get together, with a lot of kissing talk:
I haven't used the word "allegedly" or any of its synonyms because Cunningham's campaign acknowledged the texts are authentic.
I will use "alleged" for these other texts that ended up on NationalFile.com because they're only reportedly from Guzman Todd to a girlfriend, and no one has confirmed them:
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And Guzman Todd also was reported to have texted nasty, catty remarks about Cunningham's wife and threatened to leak nudes of him. The initial reports said there would be updates. And there are. We didn't even make it to the weekend before other shoes have dropped.
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Ahh, the classic way to handle a scandal. Especially a sex scandal. Issue a vaguely worded apology. Don't deny it, but don't own up to it. Don't say anything specific enough to entrap you later. Change the subject. Refer back to your earlier remarks. Repeat. Well played, sir. Whatever you do, don't wag your pointing finger at people and claim you never did what you have to later admit you did do, like Clinton did. He ended up as a punchline for that. In 2020, you'd just be begging to have your entire life reduced to a meme.
Again, allegedly. Maybe Cunningham has some reason all his own to not deny there are other sidepieces on his other sides. But human nature tells me you don't answer the question because you don't want to step in a trap - think Mark McGwire's "I'm not here to talk about the past" in front of congress - or because you want people to think something is true.
Like if you were to say to me, "Jerry, by any chance did you once sit on a hillside in Tuscany watching the sunset with Monica Bellucci in a fetching sundress while she fed you cheese and bread and Chianti and then the two of you made love like crazed weasels until dawn?"
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I would say, "I can neither confirm or deny that."
My assumption, and it's an assumption and of course he's entitled to the benefit of the doubt, is that Cunningham is giving those questions a good leaving alone is the first reason. Just taking a wild guess.
So I'm sure there'll be more in the days to come. Until then, maybe he'll really bring this scandal into the stratosphere but just owning up to it. The way Councilman Dexhart used to.
We should be so lucky.