SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Under rising pressure from
fellow Republicans, presidential hopeful Herman Cain sought to muddy the
reputation of one accuser, forcefully denied any and all allegations of sexual
impropriety and vowed Tuesday the growing controversy would not drive him from
the race for the White House.
"Ain't gonna happen," he declared.
Cain flashed defiance one day after a woman
publicly accused the candidate of groping her more than a decade ago, adding
her voice to three other accusers with allegations that presidential rival Mitt
Romney called "particularly disturbing."
Speaking at a news conference, Cain vowed,
"we'll get through this," as he sought to steady a campaign that has
made him the leader in an unofficial race to emerge as Romney's principal
conservative rival.
At one point he said he would be willing to take a
lie detector test, but then appeared to hedge his answer seconds later.
The Georgia businessman was in the midst of his
second week trying to curtail the furor surrounding his unorthodox campaign.
There were signs his political trouble was far from over less than two months
before the leadoff contests of the GOP nomination fight.
Romney joined other GOP opponents in urging Cain to
answer the allegations. Prominent Republicans pressed for a full accounting.
And there were growing indications of unease in conservative circles.
"If there is a pattern then it's a part of his
character and then, yes, it is going to matter," Tony Perkins, head of the
conservative Family Research Center, said in an interview.
Another name confronted Cain, as well, when one of
his two original accusers gave an interview to The New York Times and was
identified publicly by news organizations including The Associated Press as
Karen Kraushaar, now a spokeswoman in the Treasury Department's office of
inspector general for tax administration.
When asked about Kraushaar, Cain said he recalled
her accusation of sexual harassment but insisted "it was found to be
baseless."
Kraushaar did not respond to questions from The
Associated Press. But her lawyer, Joel Bennett, said she has agreed to hold a
joint news conference with as many of Cain's accusers as will appear.
An upstart in the presidential race, Cain shot to
the top of opinion polls and emerged in recent weeks as Romney's main opponent,
with tea party activists and other conservatives flocking to the former pizza
company executive's tell-it-like-it-is style and outsider image.
But, since Oct. 30, he's been dogged by accusations
from women that he acted inappropriately toward them while he headed the
National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. And in recent days, the women
have started to step forward publicly.
At least two women who worked at the restaurant
association the same time as Cain filed sexual harassment complaints with the
trade group and received financial settlements.
One of them was Kraushaar.
After her name was revealed by several news sites
on Tuesday, the AP chose to publish it after independently confirming she was
one of his accusers.
Kraushaar and her attorney previously had attempted
to keep her name out of the public discussion, but they issued an anonymous
statement last week that confirmed she had complained of sexual harassment and
received a financial payout from the trade group. Kraushaar later confirmed to
news organizations that she had filed the complaint. And she spoke publicly on
Tuesday to the Times, saying she had decided to speak out since her name was
public.
"When you are being sexually harassed in the
workplace, you are extremely vulnerable," she said. "You do whatever
you can to quickly get yourself into a job some place safe, and that is what I
thought I had achieved when I left."
Kraushaar, 55, previously worked as a news
reporter, and she has held other U.S. government jobs since she left the
restaurant association after she settled her complaint against Cain. She also
has written a children's book with her mother-in-law, "Gas Station
Charley," about a dog. Her husband, Kevin, has worked as a lobbyist on
environmental, municipal and health issues. He has donated money to both
Democrats and Republicans. They live in suburban Maryland.
A third woman told The AP last week that she
considered filing a workplace complaint against Cain over what she deemed
sexually suggestive remarks and gestures that included an invitation to his
corporate apartment. And a former pollster for the restaurant association has
said he witnessed yet another episode involving a different woman.
The AP has not identified the other woman who filed
a claim against Cain while working at the restaurant association. It also has
not identified the third woman, who did not file a claim, because it promised
confidentiality to her because she said she feared retaliation if her name
became public.
Sharon Bialek came forward Monday to say that Cain,
an acquaintance, groped her in car in July 1997 after they'd had dinner in
Washington. Cain led the association at the time, and the unemployed Bialek was
seeking job advice. She said she had been fired from her job raising money for
the trade group's education arm — told, she said, that she had not raised
enough money.
Early Tuesday, Cain's campaign sought to undercut
her credibility.
It issued a tough statement about Bialek including
references to civil lawsuits in the Cook County Court system in Illinois
allegedly relating to her and cited news reports of her involvement in a
paternity case and a bankruptcy filing.
"In stark contrast to Mr. Cain's four decades
spent climbing the corporate ladder rising to the level of CEO at multiple
successful business enterprises, Ms. Bialek has taken a far different
path," the campaign said.
It also questioned whether Bialek had a financial
interest in stepping forward.
"Who is financing her legal team, have any
media agreed to pay for her story, and has she been offered employment for
taking these actions?"
In a round of media interviews, Bialek was asked
repeatedly about her motives in speaking out after staying quiet for 14 years.
"I'm just doing this because it's the right
thing to do," she said. She said she was neither paid nor offered a job to
go public with her allegations. She said she waited so long to come forward
because "I was embarrassed ... and I just kind of wanted it to go
away."
She said she wasn't paying a fee to Gloria Allred,
the attorney whose name has become synonymous with women's rights issues.
Late in the day, Cain fought back, standing before
a crush of reporters at a hotel on the outskirts of Phoenix. Outside,
protesters waved signs that read: "Hey Herman. How many more women will
you be calling liars?"
Cain said he called the news conference because he
wanted to speak directly to the public, accusing the media of distorting his
response to the allegations. He said he had never seen Bialek until she called
her news conference on Monday in New York, alongside attorney Allred.
"I don't even know who this woman is," he
said of Bialek. "I tried to remember if I recognized her and I
didn't."
Cain said it was "a remote possibility"
when asked if it were possible he would recall Bialek's alleged incident in the
future.
"I seriously doubt I'm going to have an 'a-ha'
moment later," he said.
Cain contended that "the Democratic
machine" was pushing the allegations but said he could not point to anyone
in particular. He also suggested his accusers were lying.
Earlier, Romney, the former Massachusetts governor
who has been a GOP front-runner for months, told ABC News/Yahoo! the
allegations were serious "and they're going to have to be addressed
seriously." He called the latest accusations disturbing, and Cain didn't
disagree.
"He's right. They are disturbing to me,"
Cain responded. "They are serious. And I have taken them seriously."
But they're untrue, he declared.
Other Republicans sounded alarms about Cain's
troubles and the impact on the GOP race as the party gears up to try to defeat
President Barack Obama next fall.
"Get all the facts in front of people,
otherwise he's going to have this continuing distraction," Mississippi
Gov. Haley Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman with deep
ties to the GOP establishment, told MSNBC.
Though recent polling shows Cain still doing well,
party operatives suggested it was only a matter of time before his political
standing could suffer.
"Herman's base is going to stick with
him," said Republican strategist Rick Tyler, Newt Gingrich's former
spokesman. "But the average Republican voter who is not as engaged as
intensely in the race, is sick of this and, for Cain, the concern is they will
pass on it and pass on him."
Cain looked to keep those supporters in his corner.
"We are not going to allow Washington or
politics to deny me the opportunity to represent this great nation," he
said.
"As far as these accusations causing me to
back off and maybe withdraw from this presidential primary race? Ain't gonna
happen. Because I'm doing this for the American people, and the children and
the grandchildren."
McCaffrey reported from Atlanta. Associated Press
writers David Espo in Washington and Becky Bohrer in Alaska contributed.
Copyright
2011 The Associated Press.
(AP
Photo/Darryl Webb)
