Herman Cain is facing four charges of sexual harassment from five different people, including corroboration from a Republican pollster who used to work for Cain at the National Restaurant Association. At the time, Cain was a married man, a CEO in a position of power over his employees, and was making advances to a woman not only less than half his age, but the same age as his own daughter.
A few more facts. Herman Cain, a Baptist, married his wife, Gloria, in 1968, one year after he graduated from Morehouse College. They have two children.
“Oklahoma political consultant Chris Wilson says if the woman behind the reported sexual harassment complaint against GOP Presidential hopeful Herman Cain is allowed to speak publicly, it’ll be the end of Cain’s run for the White House,” radio station KTOK reported Wednesday.
“‘I was the pollster at the National Restaurant Association when Herman Cain was head of it and I was around a couple of times when this happened and anyone who was involved with the NRA at the time, knew that this was gonna come up.’
“Wilson described the woman as a low level staffer who was maybe two years out of college. ‘This occurred at a restaurant in Crystal City (Virginia) and everybody was aware of it,’ he continued. ‘It was only a matter of time because so many people were aware of what took place, so many people were aware of her situation, the fact she left—everybody knew with the campaign that this would eventually come up’.”
In 1996, Herman Cain was 51, his daughter Melanie Cain was 24, and the young woman he stands accused of sexually harassing — who was described by a Republican pollster who worked for Cain and witnessed his sexual harassment — was as young as “maybe two years out of college.” So, 23 or 24. Not even half his age.
The Herald Sun offers more insight:
The woman who came forward on Wednesday said he made sexually suggestive remarks or gestures about the same time that two co-workers at the National Restaurant Association had settled separate harassment complaints against Cain.
She described in conversations with AP over several days situations in which she said Cain told her that he had confided to colleagues how attractive she was and invited her to his corporate apartment outside work.
She said she did not file a formal complaint against Cain because she began having fewer interactions with him and because her co-workers had already come forward.
The woman spoke only on condition of anonymity, saying she feared losing her current job and the possibility of damage to her reputation.
Currently, all the allegations of sexual harassment come from his stint as the CEO of the National Restaurant Association (NRA), 1996-1999. Cain was born in 1945, and was approximately 51 when he began working as the CEO at the NRA, and approximately 54 when he left. He had been married over 28 years at the time he began working at the trade lobbying organization.
Cain is an avowed traditional marriage supporter who has railed against not only same-sex marriage — calling for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage — but against homosexuality too boot. “It is a choice,” Cain has insisted, adding, “show me the science,” which he ignored when we did.
Perhaps the allegations of sexual harassment point to a history of infidelity? Has any reporter asked Cain if he has ever been unfaithful to his wife? It’s not out of the realm of possibility, nor is the question, given Cain’s railing against same-sex marriage, and singing the praises of traditional marriage, too personal.
And perhaps his possible infidelity is the reason Cain chose to not sign both the Family Leader’s marriage pledge, and the National Organization For Marriage’s marriage pledge?
For the record, there’s nothing wrong with the age difference — if it were a consensual relationship, if he weren’t married. But Cain was and still is married, with children, and was in a position of power over a young person starting their career, and used sex in an attempt to intimidate, dominate, bully, and coerce, not to mention, have extra-marital sex.
What’s also wrong? He has yet to apologize, publicly, to the ones he harassed, to the American people, and to his family.