The sexual harassment allegations lodged against Herman Cain haven’t changed Mary McCane’s steadfast support for the GOP presidential candidate.
McCane, who resides in Cain’s hometown of Stockbridge, said she doesn’t buy the accusations. She thinks they could be part of a Republican opponent’s plot to derail his campaign.
More than a 1,000 miles away in Neola, Iowa, Maureen Olsen is seeing a different reaction among women voters. Olsen, the president of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women, said the allegations are making some think twice about voting for Cain in her state’s hugely important Jan. 3 caucuses.
Olsen and McCane’s views illustrate how the allegations are dividing Republican women. A CBS News poll released Friday, which shows Cain as the front-runner, underscores those divisions.
The poll shows 61 percent of likely Republican primary voters say the harassment accusations won’t make any difference in their vote. But 30 percent say the allegations make them less likely to support him. That rises to 38 percent among women. Cain has lost support among women since last month, from 28 percent in October to 15 percent now.
Cain has vigorously denied the allegations brought by four women, saying the “Democratic machine” is behind them. Two of those women have come forward publicly and two have received paid settlements from the National Restaurant Association, where Cain was CEO in the 1990s.
The controversy could become a challenge for Cain, especially if he wins the GOP nomination, said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. More women than men turn out to vote in presidential elections and women are more likely to support Democratic candidates, according to the center’s research.
“He is not just saying it didn’t happen,” Walsh said. “He is calling these women liars. He is attacking their character, which is probably making them angrier… How he is handling this is extremely problematic. And I think the question is: ‘What does this mean about his future as a candidate and where he is going?’”
Still, Cain remains on top of Republican pack, according to the CBS News poll. Cain collected 18 percent support, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who were tied at 15 percent.
At the same time, Cain is continuing to attract hefty campaign contributions amid news of the allegations. The campaign boasted Thursday that it had collected $9 million since Oct. 1, with a quarter of that coming in the last 10 days.
And on Wednesday, the campaign highlighted an endorsement it has received from Renee Unterman, the only Republican woman member of the Georgia Senate. Unterman said she doubts the accusations against Cain, calling celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred -- the attorney who is representing one of the accusers -- a “Democratic operative.”
“I have been in politics for a very long time and when you are leader, everyone is after to you,” Unterman said. “Your own party is after you because you have so many people running in a primary… It’s like you throw everything against a wall and see what sticks.”
McCane, the Stockbridge voter, is among several Georgian and Iowan women who told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution they doubt the allegations. Some questioned why Sharon Bialek is going public with her complaints more than a decade after the alleged encounter with Cain. She accused Cain of groping her in 1997 when she was seeking his help finding a job.
Others point to how a second accuser, Karen Kraushaar, filed another workplace complaint at the former federal Immigration and Naturalization Service, three years after settling her sexual harassment complaint against Cain at the restaurant association. The Associated Press reported this week that Kraushaar argued her supervisors there unfairly denied her request to work from home after a car accident and accused one of them of circulating a sexually oriented email.
“I could go out and get four people to say they hate chocolate ice-cream, especially if there was something in it for them to say that,” said McCane, who has donated more than $200 to Cain’s campaign.
Cain said he didn’t recall ever meeting Bialek, calling her a liar and a “troubled woman.” His campaign has sought to undercut her credibility, pointing out that she has struggled financially. Cain has also hired a high-powered Atlanta area lawyer, who has warned any other women to think twice about bringing similar accusations.
McCane said she has met Cain several times and doesn’t believe the allegations.
“He does not seem like that type of person,” she said. “He seems to be upright. He seems to be Christian… I just can’t imagine him doing that.”
Others, however, point to a pattern, referring to how four separate women have made similar complaints about Cain.
“At first there was a tendency to dismiss them as a campaign ploy, but the sheer numbers of allegations are beginning to pile up and, I think, have more of an effect,” said Olsen. “More and more people are coming forward and it is making people think twice who were leaning toward Mr. Cain.”
Meanwhile, the controversy has sparked a discussion in the Atlanta area about what women face after going public with such complaints. During a talk at the 21st Annual Georgia Women’s Assembly in Atlanta Thursday, Atlanta author and feminist Pearl Cleage said Cain’s accusers are being “demonized.”
“In this day and time,” Cleage said in an interview Friday, “after there has been so much talk about sexual harassment and so much effort to really educate people about the issue, I was very surprised that he didn’t take it more seriously and that he went a very traditional demonize-the-woman route.”
Janelle Carter of Marshalltown, Iowa, called the allegations “horrible,” though she indicated she was skeptical about them. She and her husband contributed $250 to Cain’s campaign, though she is leaning toward voting for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.
“I am very cautious with the media, so I haven’t pushed [Cain] aside at all,” said Carter, a college student. “I am watching him carefully…I am keeping an open mind.”
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