Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain on Tuesday flatly denied charges that he acted inappropriately with at least four women and accused his political opponents of using false sexual harassment charges to derail his campaign.
“I have never acted inappropriate with anyone, period,” Cain told a packed news conference in Phoenix, promising to take a lie detector test to prove his innocence.
Cain, who vowed to remain in the race, portrayed the sexual harassment charges as distractions from his campaign message and popular tax proposal, which have bolstered his poll numbers.
But his denial came as a second woman went public with her accusations and polls began to show Republican voters starting to get turned off by the allegations.
One of Cain’s accusers, Karen Kraushaar, told the New York Times Tuesday that Cain sexually harassed her when she worked for him at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. Kraushaar is one of two women who say that after accusing Cain they took a financial settlement from the association and left.
Cain said Tuesday he remembered Kraushaar. He said she may have been offended when he told her she is as tall as his wife and held his hand at chin level to show her.
Cain said even though the woman left the association with a five-figure payout, it was not a settlement.
“There was no legal settlement,” Cain contended. “There was an agreement between that lady and the National Restaurant Association and it was treated as a personnel matter because there was no legal basis for her accusations. When she made her accusations, they were found to be baseless and she could not find anyone to corroborate her story.”
Cain more vigorously denied the charges leveled publicly a day earlier by Sharon Bialek of Chicago, who said Cain put his hand up her skirt and tried to force her head in his lap while the two sat in a car on a dark Washington, D.C., street nearly 15 years ago.
“These accusations that were revealed yesterday simply did not happen,” Cain said.
Cain said he couldn’t even remember Bialek and portrayed her as a “troubled woman” working on behalf of a “Democratic machine.” His campaign tried to discredit Bialek as financially desperate by highlighting her past money troubles, including two bankruptcy filings.
“From a common sense standpoint, one would have to ask if, in fact, that might not have been a motivation for her being subjected to this,” Cain said.
Tuesday marked the ninth day Cain has been dogged by allegations that he behaved inappropriately around women. The Washington Examiner reported Tuesday that fifth woman, a former U.S. Agency for International Development worker, recalled Cain asking her to arrange a dinner date for him with an Egyptian woman who had attended a speech he gave in 2002.
Cain remains a front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, though 40 percent of Republican voters view him less favorably following the accusations, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday showed.
Cain’s Republican opponents have kept their distance while he battles the accusations, though they will have a chance to confront him directly at a candidate debate in Michigan on Wednesday.
