One week after sexual harassment allegations from more than a decade ago resurfaced, GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain addressed the controversy in an interview that aired on Fox News' "Geraldo At Large" on Sunday night.
Cain discussed the feelings his wife Gloria had about the ordeal. His remarks came after she had a change of heart about making a public appearance on Fox News last week.
"My wife, obviously like most spouses, actually took it harder than I did because she knew about this, she knew that there was baseless from 1999," Cain told Rivera. "And I've had people telling me that usually the family members, um, they're the ones that emotionally take it so much -- take it harder than the candidates. See the candidate being me, it's like I'm in the boxing match every day, throwing punches back, alright. Well when you've got to turn on the TV and watch all of the, uh, exaggerations and innuendos about your husband that you know hadn't done anything wrong, it can have an emotional toll. But she's doing fine now, she's doing fine now."
In assessing actions from his campaign to do damage control over the past week, Cain acknowledged that things "got off to a little bit of a bumpy start" and explained "that was because we made a decision and I thought that when we make the final decision, that I wanted to confront this immediately because I knew I had nothing to hide." He added, "I knew that that there was nothing to these faceless claims. I knew that. And even though I may not have responded on Monday morning as crisply and precise as I did later in the day, I'd do it all over again if I had to."
Allegations aside, Cain vowed that he's in it for the long haul. He cited last week's fundraising figures, which showed him netting hundreds of thousands of dollars on the web.
"I am in it to win it," Cain told Rivera. "And far as we're concerned, these allegations aren't going anywhere. I mean people might make up some more stuff. We are in it to win it. And here's one other thing. Last week, in the middle of this fire storm, we have had the best fundraising week in the history of this campaign. The American people are sick of government politics."
Cain predicted that his campaign will not be adversely affected by the accusations. Despite several twists and turns surrounding his public statements on the charges, the former Godfather's Pizza CEO appears to be standing strong in key GOP footholds like South Carolina.
On Saturday, Cain appeared to be in no mood to field questions on the sexual harassment charges. He snapped at reporters before his one-on-one Texas debate with GOP presidential rival Newt Gingrich. He credited himself for sticking to a normal schedule (which included a ballad at the National Press Club).
"I did not think that it would be like this, this soon, in terms of, of how some people wanted to come after me and my campaign," Cain said. "That part surprised me. But it didn't surprise me that it was gonna happen, we just didn't know how, when, what, or whatever the case may be. And yes, it was a very challenging week. But what I'm proudest of is that first, we didn't cancel one engagement. I didn't cancel not one speech and not one interview. Because I refused to get thrown off message and I refuse to overreact to something that we knew or we know that eventually's gonna be shown that is really not factually driven."