Yesterday, it came across GretaWire that the source, or at the very least, A source of the Herman Cain sexual harassment story over the weekend was Chris Wilson, a supporter of and pollster for Rick Perry – and that fact was revealed by Politico, the site that broke the Cain piece to start with.

I had mentioned earlier in the day yesterday in my piece, The Cain Scandal -Problematic but Not Yet Dire, “While this looks, for all the world, to be a bit of dirt dug up by a fellow GOP candidate, I’ll guess Perry as he’s slipping fast, and may be a lot of nothing, it will pale in comparison to the attacks which will come from the liberal machine should Cain actually garner the nomination; and if Cain, with 10 days advanced warning on this wasn’t prepared, some changes must be made and be made quickly.”

After the GretaWire piece broke yesterday in my article, Perry Dug the Dirt on Cain and Shoots Himself in the Foot I stated, “When I watched Perry over the weekend being so giddy in a speech, it was clear he knew something the rest of us didn’t and it was his jabbing at Cain during that speech which tipped me off.”

In that piece I also said that, “Perry, in order to save what’s left of his campaign will have to fire Chris Wilson and detach from anything to do with the smear but NOT before issuing an IN PERSON and heartfelt PUBLIC apology to Herman Cain.”

Since posting these pieces a great deal has happened.

First, the Cain camp issued this statement on Fox News through spokesman Mark Block: “This is one of the actions in America that is the reason why people don’t get involved in politics. The actions of the Perry campaign are despicable. Rick Perry and his campaign owe Herman Cain and his family an apology.”

The Cain campaign is pointing at 2 sources for this, Wilson and Curt Anderson. Anderson was a part of the Cain Senate campaign in 2004 and apparently had been filled in on the sexual harassment charges by none other than Herman Cain. Anderson is now working for…Rick Perry.

Wilson has released this statement: “To be clear, and you can ask any of the reporters covering this story, I had nothing to do with leaking this in any way, and I’ve never discussed or shared this story with any of my clients – period.”

Anderson also has strongly denied having anything to do with the Politico piece and even has denied knowing anything regarding the sexual harassment charges before reading them in Politico over the weekend which doesn’t match up with the claim that back in 2004, he was personally debriefed on it by Cain.

Second…We have the official response from the Perry Camp spokesman Ray Sullivan: The charge by Block is “reckless and false. For a candidate and campaign that claim to be the victims of unfounded and unproven accusations, they are awfully quick to hurl unfounded accusations themselves.”

Well, THAT sounds pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Sullivan is calling out Block and the Cain campaign for making rash and “unfounded accusations” in this strong statement.

Then, Sullivan went on to say that the Romney campaign was behind the whole thing stating, “I wouldn’t put it past them.” Sullivan was citing blogs that have pointed out Cain’s successor at the Restaurant Association “is a big Romney donor. There are much closer connections between the Restaurant Association, Cain and the Romney camp than there are with us.”

Okay…Sullivan, on behalf of the Perry campaign strongly accuses Cain of making “unfounded accusations” and then Sullivan himself…Makes an unfounded accusation.

Finally, we have the Romney campaign response to the Perry Campaign’s response to the Cain Campaign.

Romney spokesperson, Andrea Saul offered this in-depth response: “Not True.”

Kudos to Andrea Saul for not repointing the finger.

I would think Politico would know who gave them the story and it was Politico who told GretaWire it was Chris Wilson from the Perry camp. It is possible that Wilson was tipped off by Anderson – but Politico, if they were giving up sources, would have given up Anderson if he was part of the source wouldn’t they?

When Perry discovered that the named source was a part of his campaign, he SHOULD have immediately suspended Wilson pending an internal investigation and fired him if he found that Wilson was indeed the source but that is not at all what he did.

Instead, Perry, via his spokesman Ray Sullivan, acted like a 6-year old with a quick “It wasn’t me…HE did it!”

In this regard, Perry is digging himself into a deep hole.

Cain can emerge from this stronger than before with a clear, concise and consistent response to further questions regarding the allegations but must take the high road in doing so. That means no more finger pointing.

At this point, any other candidate that thinks of jumping into this fray should take a long hard look at what would be a disastrous decision.

Supporters of other candidates should also take the high road as trying to make hay with this for their chosen candidate only makes them look unhinged. In that respect, I give you a couple of examples from  Ron Paul followers on dailypaul.com:

“Someone’s orchestrating all this…and someone who knows how to throw a wrench into any campaign to create chaos. At this point it could be anyone in the blame game…including Obama’s people or Cain’s people themselves”. – Submitted by shuleba on Wed, 11/02/2011 – 19:41.

“I hope I’m wrong, and I very well may be, but if Cain handles this properly, this could help him more than hurt. I still can’t help but think this is just a distraction to take the focus off of Cain’s lack of understanding in economics and foreign policy.” – Submitted by Obomba on Wed, 11/02/2011 – 20:57.

Only the unhinged would think that Cain was behind this story and I guarantee that ANYTHING Cain says in the foreign policy debate will be more credible that Obomba’s post or the idea of allowing Iran to get a nuke.

Finally, we have the Washington Times making a weird claim that, “A friend of the Cain campaign believes a National Restaurant Association (NRA) employee out of the Chicago office leaked the story to the Perry campaign via information and influence from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office.”

Must be a slow week in Chicago huh?