Cain assessing future of campaign

Associated Press

ATLANTA

Herman Cain told aides Tuesday he is assessing whether the latest allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior against him “create too much of a cloud” for his Republican presidential candidacy to go forward.

Acknowledging the “firestorm” arising from an accusation of infidelity, Cain committed only to keeping his campaign schedule for the next several days, in a conference call with his senior staff.

“If a decision is made, different than to plow ahead, you all will be the first to know,” he said, according to a transcript of the call made by the National Review, which listened to the conversation.

It was the first time doubts about Cain’s continued candidacy had surfaced from the candidate himself. As recently as Tuesday morning, a campaign spokesman had stated unequivocally that Cain would not quit.

Cain denied anew that he had an extramarital affair with a Georgia woman who went public a day earlier with allegations they had been intimate for 13 years.

“It was just a friendship relationship,” he said on the call, according to the transcript. “That being said, obviously, this is a cause for reassessment.”

He went on: “With this latest one, we have to do an assessment as to whether or not this is going to create too much of a cloud, in some people’s minds, as to whether or not they would be able to support us going forth.”

Saying the episode had taken an emotional toll on him and his family, Cain told the aides that people will have to decide whether they believe him or the accuser. “That’s why we’re going to give it time, to see what type of response we get from our supporters.”

Ginger White’s accusation of an affair prompted New Hampshire state Rep. William Panek, who endorsed Cain at a news conference earlier this year, to pull his endorsement and instead support former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the upcoming primary. Panek said he rethought his position when White showed evidence that she traded 61 text messages and cellphone calls with the candidate.

In Iowa, Cain’s campaign has lost some precinct-level supporters in light of the new allegations, Steve Grubbs, Cain’s Iowa chairman, said during an interview with CNN.

Cain has denied the affair as well as several other accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior that have dogged his candidacy over the past month.

On Monday, Ginger White, 46, said in an interview with Fox 5 Atlanta that her affair with Cain ended not long before the former businessman from Georgia announced his candidacy for the White House.

Cain went on television to flatly deny White’s claims even before the report aired.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said then. On Tuesday, he told his staff “I deny those charges, unequivocally,” and went on to say he had only helped White financially “because she was out of work and destitute, desperate.”