This was supposed to be the week Herman Cain wowed Washington with his plan to turn the American economy around. Instead, it’s a week in which the Republican presidential frontrunner is scrambling to deflect sex harassment accusations from anonymous employees who worked for him when he headed the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.
Cain’s schedule on Monday showed how crazy things can be when a top presidential candidate runs smack into the Washington scandal machine while trying to keep his campaign on track.
Cain began his day at the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank where wonks have raised questions about his 9-9-9 tax reform plan. In what was probably a first for that gathering of scholars, he spent a significant amount of time discussing the pizza business. He explained how, as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, he simplified operations, getting rid of specialty crusts and poor-selling pizzas and introducing a new product called Big Value. Cain carefully designed Big Value, he said, to appeal to customers who needed to save money while not turning off those who wanted a higher-quality product. “That kind of thinking inspired 9-9-9,” Cain said, noting that the tax plan had something both for conservatives who want a flat tax and those who want the Fair Tax.
Cain received a respectful hearing, although a lot of conservatives believe adding a nine percent retail sales tax, as Cain proposes, could prove disastrous in the long run. But the AEI gathering had a slightly surreal sense about it, because all the reporters in the room wanted to hear about was the sex harassment issue. They tried to get a question in, but Cain and his hosts shut them down.
From that appearance, Cain dashed over to Fox News for a late-morning interview. Then he headed to the National Press Club for a long-scheduled appearance at which he hoped to lay out his entire agenda, not just for economic recovery but for foreign policy, too. But the sex accusation followed him there, and when the question-and-answer time came around, topic number one was the sex controversy. Cain offered few details, but was animated when asked whether he believed any of his political rivals were behind the story. The frontrunner is always a target, he said with a laugh, and “I told you this bull’s eye on my back has gotten bigger.”
Cain didn’t know it at the time, but the easy part of his day had just ended. After the Press Club, he headed again for the Fox News Washington bureau, where Greta van Susteren, a lawyer with experience in sex harassment cases, waited for an interview.
Whatever direction the Cain controversy takes, it is likely that the van Susteren interview will be viewed as a turning point. In extended questioning, the Fox host walked Cain through the story, eliciting for the first time details from Cain about what had happened, with whom, and where.
As he had before, Cain said an internal Restaurant Association investigation found that all the charges against him were baseless. But he also revealed new details — all he knew, he said — about the women involved. One was a writer in the Restaurant Association’s communications department, Cain said, while the other worked with the Association’s political action committee.
Cain also revealed for the first time what he said was the only actual action he could remember that was part of the first woman’s complaint. “She was in my office one day,” Cain told van Susteren, “and I made a gesture saying — and I was standing close to her — and I made a gesture saying you are the same height as my wife, and I brought my hand up to my chin saying, ‘My wife comes up to my chin.'” At that point, Cain gestured with his flattened palm near his chin. “And that was put in [the complaint] as something that made her uncomfortable.”
Under van Susteren’s quiet, careful questioning, Cain also offered previously unknown details about the money settlement with the first woman. “My general counsel said this started out where she and her lawyer were demanding a huge financial settlement … I don’t remember a number … But then he said because there was no basis for this, we ended up settling for what would have been a termination settlement.” Cain said he didn’t remember the precise amount, but he guessed “maybe three months’ salary.”
Cain’s words immediately set off more questions. Did he remember something in one interview that he said he didn’t remember in another? Did all the details match up? Cain came to Washington wanting to talk economics but ended up talking about sex. That’s what a hint of scandal can do.
Byron York, The Examiner’s chief political correspondent, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
