GOLLY, I CAN'T IMAGINE WHO (cough ROVE cough) COULD POSSIBLY BE BEHIND THIS STORY! (updated)

New Cain development:

Oklahoma political consultant Chris Wilson says if the woman behind the reported sexual harassment complaint against GOP Presidential hopeful Herman Cain is allowed to speak publicly, it'll be the end of Cain's run for the White House.

Interviewed today on KTOK's Mullins in the Morning, Wilson, of Wilson-Perkins-Allen Opinion Research headquartered in Washington, D.C. explained he was a witness to the incident....

And Chris Wilson is who exactly?

Chris Wilson (born October 24, 1968 in Lawton, Oklahoma) is a Republican American pollster and political strategist....

Wilson served as Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas when President George W. Bush was governor, working directly for Karl Rove, and following Karen Hughes when she left the Party to join the campaign.

(Emphasis added.)

Imagine my amazement.

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UPDATE: In a post about this at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey speculates on a possible connection to another candidate:

[Wilson's] firm has conducted polling in this presidential race for the Make Us Great Again PAC. And guess which candidate is favored by MUGA-PAC? Why, none other than ... Rick Perry. The PAC has no formal connection to Perry's campaign, but it's certainly boosting Perry as the Republican nominee in the primary.

Fox Nation -- the message-board site of Rove's TV employer -- pulls this out of the middle of Morrissey's post and posts it as a stand-alone item under the screaming headline Perry Connection to Cain Sex Harass Story?

Trying to throw us off the scent, Karl? Trying to damage Cain and Perry with this?

Yes, Wilson's firm polled for the Perry-linked super PAC. But, as far as connections go, compare that to this, from a 2006 report on the gubernatorial campaign of Ernest Istook in Oklahoma:

The McCarville Report Online has been told Rove will headline an October 9th fundraiser, the goal of which is raise $500,000 for Istook's campaign.... Rove, perhaps the single most controversial figure in the Bush Administration, is a longtime friend of Oklahoma City pollster and Istook consultant Chris Wilson of Wilson Research Strategies; the two worked together in Austin, Texas in the mid-1990s when Wilson was executive director of the Texas Republican Party and President Bush was governor of Texas. Such trips by Rove are said to be rare; while he's been known to help congressional candidates, help for gubernatorial candidates apparently has been far less frequent.

I still say that's where this trail leads, folks.

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UPDATE: Cain thinks Perry's campaign is responsible for all this? Isn't that more evidence that Perry's not involved? Cain is wrong about everything else -- why would he get this right?

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UPDATE: Retitled because I realize that everyone now thinks the story was leaked Perry except me.