Matt Lewis & The News

Seeking to woo skeptical conservative bloggers during a March 2011 conference call, Herman Cain pushed back hard against the notion that opposition research might turn up skeletons in his closet.

Asked directly about negative information that might arise from opposition research, Cain never revealed the sexual harassment allegations he had known about for more than a decade, instead joking about his golf game — and aggressively insisting there was nothing to worry about.

“I don’t have any of those kind of skeletons in my closet,” he assured the conservative bloggers. “And what I have told people [is] if they come up with something to try to damage my reputation, they will have made it up.”