Presidential candidate Herman Cain hit Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, for hunting at a camp that had a racial slur as a name, as reported in the Washington Post – although Perry’s campaign says Cain and the newspaper are mistaken about when the Perrys effaced the name.
The Washington Post reports that Perry’s family hunting camp is known by a racial slur, one that Chris Wallace mentioned in an edited form, during his interview with Herman Cain this morning, as “N-head,” Wallace said. “But, obviously, [the name of the camp] wasn’t just N-head . . . And he was part of that camp even as governor.”
Cain, who recently bested Perry in a Florida straw poll, took a shot at the Texas governor over the camp name, exacerbating what could potentially be a very embarrassing issue for Perry:
Cain also recently said that black voters in this country have been “brainwashed” into supporting Democrats almost exclusively against Republicans.
Perry’s campaign released a statement this morning in response to the Washington Post story and Cain’s comments that dispute the story. The campaign says that the Perry family painted over the name of the hunting camp shortly after leasing the hunting rights to the property.
“Mr. Cain is wrong about the Perry family’s quick action to eliminate the word on the rock, but is right the word written by others long ago is insensitive and offensive,” said Perry’s communications director, Ray Sullivan in a statement. “That is why the Perrys took quick action to cover and obscure it.”
The Washington Post story says that the name “did not change for years after it first became associated with Rick Perry.” But Perry disputed that claim to the Washington Post, saying that his father “took the first opportunity to paint over the offensive name” when he first got on the lease in the early 1980s.
