Cain denies sexual harassment allegations

WASHINGTON -- Trying to keep the lid on a budding scandal, presidential candidate Herman Cain denied on Monday that he had ever sexually harassed anyone and declared that reports of such allegations are a "witch hunt."

Cain acknowledged that he was accused of sexual harassment when he ran the National Restaurant Association during the late 1990s but said the organization investigated the claims and found them to be baseless.

"In all of my over 40 years of business experience, running businesses and corporations, I have never sexually harassed anyone,” Cain said during a question-and-answer session following a speech at the National Press Club in Washington.

The D.C. newspaper Politico, which first reported the story Sunday night on its website, said the restaurant association had paid cash settlements to two women who then left the organization.

They reportedly accused Cain of engaging in sexually suggestive and innuendo-filled conversations with them and making gestures that made them feel uncomfortable, though the gestures were not overtly sexual.

In an interview with PBS broadcast Monday evening, Cain described one of the allegations to the network's Judy Woodruff: A female employee on his communications staff, he said, claimed she felt uncomfortable because Cain described how the woman and his wife were the same height and Cain gestured with his hand that they both came up to his chin.

“Obviously she thought that that was too close for comfort,” Cain told Woodruff.

Cain said when employees made the accusations, he referred the matter to the association’s attorney and human resources manager. “I was unaware of a settlement,” he said at the National Press Club. “I hope it wasn’t for much because I didn’t do anything.”

Cain said he would not ask the association to release records about the matter.

“There’s nothing left there to clear up,” he said.

Patricia Barasch, president of the National Employment Lawyers Association, said she found it "highly unlikely that he wouldn’t know about the settlement given that the allegations were against him and he was the president."

The political ramifications for Cain, a Stockbridge resident and former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, are unclear. Many conservatives rallied to his side and said Cain was now a target because he is at or near the top in the latest polls. This was a point made by Cain himself.

“I told you this bulls-eye on my back has gotten bigger," he said. "We have no idea of the source of this witch hunt. Which is really what it is."

Radio host Rush Limbaugh blamed the press. "Herman Cain is obviously making some people nervous for this kind of thing to happen," he said.

Penny Nance, CEO of the Christian-influenced conservative group Concerned Women for America, revealed that she once left a job because she was the victim of sexual harassment, but said she believed Cain.

“Herman Cain was very believable and straight forward in his statement today," she said in a statement. "I believe that barring any new revelations he has put the issue to rest.”

The key now, experts said, is for Cain to make sure all the details get out.

Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University whose book “Sex Scandals in American Politics" was published in September, said the allegations will test Cain and his staff.

“Several months ago he said, ‘They are going to come after me,’ whoever ‘they' are. If no one else comes forward, he’ll keep banging that drum,” she said.

“But if there is something more to it, then this will probably sink him,” she said.

She said his followers are still relatively new to him and many will quickly abandon him if a woman comes forward with allegations.

At Emory University, political science professor Andra Gillespie said the allegations could cause serious image problems for Cain. If he has not been candid in his denials, he puts his cultivated image as plain-spoken, outsider at risk.

“If it turns out he is disingenuous and has misrepresented the facts in this case, then he looks like everybody else and it undermines his candidacy,” she said.

The claims against Cain, while vague, appear to be “a garden variety, powerful-man-behaving-badly kind of situation,” Gillespie said.

“It’s not a stretch to think that somebody thought he made crude comments, and that’s what this allegation seems to be,” she said.

But in Cain’s case, it already fits into a developing narrative of Cain as a loose cannon who speaks without thinking. Cain has been forced to defend off-the-cuff statements on immigration, abortion and other topics, and if the allegations boil down to “locker room talk” then further paints the candidate as one who cannot govern his mouth, much less the country, she said.

Friends and former colleagues backed Cain on Monday.

Joseph Fassler, chairman of the National Restaurant Association board of directors in 1998 and 1999, was unequivocal when asked if he ever heard of the allegations.

“Never once did I hear that. Never.”

Told that Cain said Monday that he had been “falsely accused” of harassment, Fassler said: “If that’s what he said, that’s what he said. I know I never heard of it.”

“What it could appear to be is that if you terminate someone and then give them a severance package, it leads [people] to think things,” said Fassler, a Phoenix businessman who was in the business 40 years and who now consults. “I don’t know if this is a sour grapes situation. Boards don’t get involved in day-to-day operations.”

He said he talked to Politico reporters three times last week.

“Quite frankly, it’s so typical of what happens. When someone gets traction in the political world, they tear you down.”

P.J. Morgan, who was mayor of Omaha during much of Cain's time there as Godfather's CEO, said the allegations of sexual misconduct come as a surprise to him.

“Never heard of that, so help me. Never slightly," he said. “Politics is a strange little game, but I never heard even a whisper of that.”

The allegations largely overshadowed Cain's comments on other topics as he appeared at the press club and the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think thank.

Cain focused much of his press club speech on foreign policy, his biggest acknowledged weakness. "The Cain philosophy is peace through strength and clarity," he said, accusing the Obama administration of not clarifying who America's friends and enemies are.

Cain also reaffirmed his anti-abortion stance but said he would have no “litmus test” for Supreme Court justices. He said he wanted to repeal the new Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform law, but added that he wanted to see “some responsible regulations relative to the derivatives markets.”

The AEI event focused on Cain’s tax plan, a revolutionary overhaul of the tax code to produce a flat 9 percent income tax, 9 percent corporate tax and 9 percent federal sales tax. The plan and simple slogan have been a big part of his rise to the top of the polls.

Cain promised “would be a fuel for the engine” to accelerate the economy. Foes, who label the consumption tax as a European-style value added tax “are trying to scare people,” Cain said. He said his plan is different because the sales tax is only levied once, as opposed to a VAT which comes at every level of the supply chain.

Though AEI organizers deflected questions from the harassment allegations, Cain made what appeared to be a vague reference to the budding controversy as he stood up to depart the AEI session.

“Yes I am an unconventional candidate, and yes I do have a sense of humor and some people do have a problem with that,” Cain said. “And to quote my chief of staff and all the people I’ve talked to around the country: ‘Herman be Herman.’ And Herman is going to stay Herman.”