On Sunday, Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain admitted his campaign has lost some ground, but said he wasn’t giving up in the face of numerous sexual-harassment allegations. But Monday on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO revealed that an Atlanta TV station will soon ratchet up the pressure with a story featuring allegations from a woman that he had a 13-year affair with her. And he conceded that the impact of another scandal on his family might be enough to bring his exit from the GOP primary.
“They haven’t given us all of the information they will put in the story,” Cain said. “They just said — they mentioned the name of the individual. And I do know who she is, and they mentioned what the accusation is going to be. But until the story comes out I’m not at liberty to respond to something at this point.”
Cain went ahead, however, to issue a stern denial of the likely allegations and said his attorney would respond.
“When the story breaks, through my attorney, Lin Wood of Atlanta, Ga., we will respond,” Cain said. “We chased all of these other rumors for two weeks before. As it turns out, they were baseless. Why? Because they weren’t able to come up with any documentation, any proof or anything that was credible. And so we will address these when they come out, but at this point — I just wanted to give you a heads-up — I don’t have anything to hide, and we will address the details as we know them.”
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Cain told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the emerging story made him concerned less about his campaign’s viability than about how another attack on his character might affect his family.
“I’m more worried this is going to hurt my wife and my family,” Cain said. “Because it’ll be proof it was probably something else baseless. And the court of public opinion does not consider that when they want to pass that judgment. I can take the lumps. I expected this kind of stuff when I decided to run for the president of the United States of America. But [what] I’m worried about is the impact it is going to have on my wife and family. But they should not be subject to allegations that are not true.”
Cain suggested racial motivations could be behind the latest accusation, but said he wasn’t certain. Nonetheless, for the first time he mentioned that he would consider dropping out of the race if it hurt his family.
“One of the reasons I’m running [for president] is to change the system,” Cain said. “This is one of the aspects of ‘it is just the way it is,’ but I’m not going to allow this sort of thing to cause me to drop out simply because it is tough on me. I don’t want it to be tough on my family, but there comes a point when it becomes tough on my family, [and] I have to consider that at that particular point in time.”
Later on “The Situation Room,” Cain’s attorney Lin Wood offered a statement saying the newest allegation was a private matter.