Sexual harassment claims derail Herman Cain campaign

JUST WHEN it looked as if Herman Cain had become a serious contender for the Republican primaries, with poll after poll giving the former Godfather’s Pizza boss 'front-runner' status, the unlikely black candidate has been knocked sideways by a sexual harassment scandal.

Two women who worked for the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, when Cain headed the organisation, left their jobs after complaining about "sexually suggestive" behaviour by their boss, according to Politico.

The women were left feeling "angry and uncomfortable" and eventually agreed to leave the organisation after being given payments in return for their silence.

In a dramatic encounter on the pavement outside the Washington offices of CBS News yesterday, Cain was asked by a reporter: "Have you ever been accused in your life of harassment by a woman?"

Politico reports: "[Cain] breathed audibly, glared at the reporter and stayed silent for several seconds. After the question was repeated three times, he responded by asking the reporter, 'Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?'"

Cain's campaign for the Republican nomination had been going so well. Earlier this weekend, he topped an opinion poll in the local Des Moines Register on likely voting in the Iowa Caucuses on 3 January, the first votes of the campaign.
 
He beat Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor, by 23 points to 22. Former hotties Texan Rick Perry and Tea Party Michele Bachmann were left in single digits.

Poll after poll, debate after debate, has left Cain ahead, despite insistence from the media and Republican grandees that Romney is the "real" front-runner.
 
Cain, the multi-millionaire former boss of the Godfather's Pizza chain, came to the race late and as a bit of a joke. He had no political experience and no campaign funds. Even today he counts his war chest in mere millions.

But the Register's Jane Jacobs pointed out that with unemployment and the economy as the big issues, the poll shows "a resounding 71 per cent of likely Republican caucus goers say business experience is more important than having held office".

Until yesterday's sexual harassment revelations, people liked Cain. He has a folksy charm that echoes that of another unlikely US President, Ronald Reagan. Sunday’s talk shows had been mostly about two Cain minor gaffes, neither of which had shown signs of sticking.

A Cain campaign spot went viral as 'The Smoking Man' because it featured his senior adviser Mark Block drawing on a cigarette, an image instantly damned as a form of political suicide. Cain was berated on the CBS show Face the Nation show by an interviewer who has survived cancer, as has Cain.

Cain said he was sorry for offending folks, but his message is about letting "people be people", and he "didn’t have a problem" if Block, who is white, smokes. In two days the spot reached more than 700,000 viewers.

On the Christian Broadcasting Network, Cain announced that his response to a "gotcha" question like "Who’s the president of Uzbekistan?" would be "I don’t know" and "How’s that going to create one job?" For good measure, he mangled the country’s name to "Uzbeki-beki-beki-stan-stan."

But it is his performance over the next few days, when he will have to take allegations of sexual harassment a good deal more seriously, that will determine whether we will see the unlikely scenario of a black Republican nominee challenging a black Democratic incumbent in 2012. ·