WASHINGTON -- Perhaps there really is no such thing as bad publicity.
On the day presidential candidate Herman Cain faced a barrage of questions about sexual harassment allegations leveled against him in the 1990s and his shifting responses drew criticism, his campaign received a significant financial lift.
Campaign officials said they experienced the most lucrative 24-hour stretch of the campaign as the scandal swirled, bringing in $400,000 in online and phone donations. The one-day take was more than the campaign's monthly average for donations.
"Supporters are fired up and are rallying around Mr. Cain," the campaign wrote in a news release.
Cain continued to deny that he had sexually harassed employees at the National Restaurant Association, allegations stemming from a report that broke Sunday on the website of the Washington newspaper Politico and sparked a media firestorm. Cain said that he recalled one woman's accusation that was settled internally but said it was baseless and the payout, as a result, was small.
Politico did not reveal specifics of the allegations by two women, only that they involved suggestive comments and gestures that, though not overtly sexual, made them feel uncomfortable. The newspaper reported that both women reached confidential settlements with the association. Cain recalled that one of the gestures in question came when he mentioned an employee and his wife were the same height and Cain brought his hand to his chin to make the comparison while standing close to the woman.
Cain insisted that he was the target of a smear campaign and many conservatives rallied to his side. Americans for Herman Cain, a so-called super PAC that can take unlimited personal and corporate donations but cannot coordinate with the Cain campaign, issued a fund-raising appeal Tuesday that compared Cain to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who survived accusations of sexual harassment by a former employee during his confirmation hearings.
"They're at it again. The left is trying to destroy Herman Cain – just like they did to Clarence Thomas," the email states. "They are engaging in a 'high tech' lynching by smearing his reputation and attacking his character. The idea of a black conservative like Herman Cain as the GOP nominee is Barack Obama and the Left's worst nightmare. That's why they will do anything to take him down."
The candidate kept up his television tour Tuesday, appearing on CNN Headline News and Fox News as he remained in Washington. Cain canceled a scheduled appearance at a Fulton County Republican Party dinner and campaign staffers did not reveal why.
The Stockbridge resident and former Godfather's Pizza CEO has more events in Washington this week, including a speech Wednesday morning at the conservative Docs4PatientCare conference and a meeting with Georgia's Republican members of Congress. He is also slated to speak Friday at a Washington summit put on by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity before traveling to Texas for a Lincoln-Douglas style debate Saturday with fellow Georgian presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich.
On CNN Headline News, Cain was forced to defend his apparently shifting recollections of the sexual harassment allegations. He said his initial statement that he did not recall a settlement was accurate because he does remember what he termed a "separation agreement" with one woman. He recalled that it was "somewhere between three and six months' pay" but that it was not a "legal settlement."
He said he does not recall a second woman's harassment claim, as reported by Politico, and cannot remember details from the first woman's allegations beyond the height comparison to his wife.
"The reason I forgot them is because they were ridiculous," he said of the first woman's additional claims.
Cain also tried to focus attention on whoever leaked the story. He cited this week's fund-raising success as evidence that the harassment story has failed to stem his rise to the forefront of the presidential field.
"It has backfired on those who are trying to put a cloud over my campaign," he said, "because they can't shoot down my ideas."
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