Video: Speaking at the National Press Club, Herman Cain responds to a report that two female co-workers said he displayed inappropriate behavior toward them. Cain said he was falsely accused.
“It’s hard to make a judgment on these things without knowing the facts,” said Charlie Black, a longtime Republican presidential strategist. “I suspect we’ll be in a feeding frenzy for a few days until the evidence weighs down on one side or the other.”
Other veteran strategists said that the way Cain handles the fallout could tell voters more about his character and trustworthiness than the accusations themselves.
GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain addressed past sexual harassment allegations during an interview Monday with Fox News.
“He’s forceful, he’s front and center, knocking it down,” conservative strategist Greg Mueller said. “Frankly, unless someone comes forward, or there’s some kind of conflict in his forceful knock-down of the story, I don’t know that it’s going to have legs for much longer.”
This is not the first time that Cain, when confronted with a problem, has offered an evolving and sometimes muddled response. The candidate spent several days in mid-October, for instance, explaining his opposition on abortion after he alarmed social conservatives by suggesting in a CNN interview that terminating a pregnancy is a personal decision.
The scrutiny comes as Cain, a former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive and political novice, has soared to front-runner status in the GOP presidential contest on the strength of his economic plan and folksy demeanor.
He pledged that there were no other harassment claims that could surface later. “In all of my over 40 years of business experience running businesses and corporations, I have never sexually harassed anyone,” he said at the National Press Club.
He suggested that the surfacing of the allegations was the product of a “witch hunt” spurred by his recent surge in the polls, which put “this bull’s-eye on my back.”
Conservatives defend Cain
Prominent conservatives and grass-roots activists in Iowa and elsewhere rushed to Cain’s defense on Monday. Commentator Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show that “the mainstream media have launched an unconscionable, racially stereotypical attack on an independent, self-reliant conservative black.” Commentator Laura Ingraham suggested that the story was an effort to put Cain “in his place . . . the back of the bus” and encouraged one caller who suggested picketing Politico’s offices.
In Iowa, Cain’s campaign chairman, Steve Grubbs, said that the “distraction” was not slowing Cain’s efforts to build a field organization and that the campaign had signed up new volunteer precinct captains for the Jan. 3 caucuses. “We don’t have anyone who’s rattled by it,” Grubbs said.
Cain is winning the hearts of conservative activists in Iowa, as he has nationally. A Des Moines Register poll of likely caucus voters published this weekend showed Cain effectively tied for the lead with Mitt Romney, 23 percent to 22 percent, with Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) in third place with 12 percent.
Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, said conservative activists are willing to give Cain the benefit of the doubt. “If he comes in and puts all his cards on the line and there’s nothing there, he probably doesn’t lose any support over it,” he said.
Throughout the campaign, Cain’s wife, Gloria, has stayed out of the spotlight. No one answered the door Monday morning at the family’s house, a handsome brick rancher in an upscale gated community in McDonough, Ga., about 20 miles south of Atlanta.
Meanwhile, Cain’s former business associates defended him in interviews Monday, calling the allegations out of character.
“The whole time I’ve known Herman, I’ve never heard of anybody saying anything about sexual harassment,” said Spencer Wiggins, who worked with Cain at Burger King in the early 1980s and later headed human resources under Cain at Godfather’s Pizza.
“He would do nothing to abuse his position,” said Larry Corbin, a retired executive at sausage-maker Bob Evans, who served on the restaurant association’s board during Cain’s tenure. “He’s a high-profile guy, and when you get to be in that position, a lot of times you have stones thrown at you.”
Staff writers Sandhya Somashekhar, Brady Dennis, Krissah Thompson, Perry Bacon Jr., Karen Tumulty and Michael S. Rosenwald; staff writer Laura Vozzella in McDonough, Ga.; and news researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
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