You understand, of course, that Herman Cain is never going to go away.

"Me, a womanizer? I would never have thought they'd come up with that one," Cain wrote to his supporters this week in an essay promising to – yes! – keep talking.

Where do you think he'll pop up next? As the newest Fox commentator? On "Dancing With the Stars?" As Donald Trump's guest judge on "Celebrity Apprentice?" As a contestant on "Celebrity Apprentice?"

We'll know all too soon. The only part of his last chapter that remains sort of fascinating is Ginger White, the accuser who has been given credit in some corners for bringing the Cain campaign down. All things considered, that couldn't have been much of a strain. ("Rumors of Extramarital Affair End Campaign of Presidential Candidate Who Didn't Know China Has Nuclear Weapons," read a headline in The Onion.)

But about Ginger. White has been on an interview tour, telling a story that gets increasingly dismal as she goes along. "It wasn't a love affair. It was a sexual affair, as hard as that is for me to say and as hard as it is for people to hear it," she told Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC.

By the time she got to The Daily Beast, White was confiding that "one time we were having sex and I was looking up at the ceiling, thinking about, 'What am I going to buy at the grocery store tomorrow?' "

Until now, I always thought the most depressing story of love with a married political celebrity was that of Kay Summersby, who was Dwight Eisenhower's chauffeur during World War II. She published a memoir that I have always believed – just as I believe Ginger White's interviews – because nobody would want to make up something so bleak.

Summersby said that she had, indeed, fallen for Ike, who made declarations of love in return but was unable to consummate the affair. After the war, perhaps hoping to give it another try, he promised to bring her back to the United States. Then he broke off the relationship in a letter dictated to his secretary, with a personal note written on the bottom that said: "Take care of yourself and retain your optimism."

Now if that isn't enough to quench the embers of political passion I don't know what is. Unless it's White's description of asking Cain for more financial support and having him demand that she sell the freeloading family dog first.

As she's expanded on her story over and over again, White has made it clear that she's spent much of her adult life trading sex for financial support, all the while denying that she is "a woman who sleeps with men for money." The mystery is why in the world she went public given that she has kids to protect and a completely unflattering saga to tell.

White claimed that she knew it all would come out anyway, and "I wanted to give my side of the story." This makes no sense because 1) her side of the story is so awful, and 2) the media seldom go after stories of consensual sex unless one of the participants holds a news conference. This is particularly true in the case of candidates who no one believes will ever get elected anyway, a category in which Herman Cain has always been Exhibit A.

Until now, the champion terrible explanation for going public was Gennifer Flowers' contention that she was disclosing her long-term affair with Bill Clinton because he was "denying our love." These days, according to her website, Flowers is a motivational speaker whose "two favorite speech topics are: 'Surviving Sex, Power and Propaganda,' and 'The M Years … Surviving Menopause Mania!' "

As you can see, these things almost never end really well for the woman. And they generally work out fine for the man. Cain is headed just where he always was meant to be headed, except now he will be able to charge much higher speaking fees. And he's been replaced as the tea party's darling by Newt Gingrich. Never has the voting public's lack of concern for a politician's private behavior been more crystal clear.

Given these facts of life, it's hard for an aggrieved former lover to even get basic revenge. One of the few ex-political mistresses I can think of who actually did get lasting retribution was Anna Bradley, the mistress of Utah Sen. Arthur Brown, who in 1906 discovered Brown was sleeping with an actress and shot him to death.

Let me emphasize that this is definitely not a strategy I am recommending.

It turned out that Brown had an ex-wife who had also tried to shoot him for infidelity and an overall back story so unsympathetic that restaurants offered to cater Bradley's meals at the House of Detention. The Times, looking for something nice to say about Brown, noted that he was "known to be intensely loyal to his male friends."

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Gail Collins writes for the NewYork Times.

• Read more articles by Gail Collins