Former Godfather's Pizza CEO and Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain sat down with three GQ reporters to talk pizza, ice cream and his campaign in an interview published Monday.
The reporters asked him about which ice cream flavor his opponents were.
He said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is often perceived as boring, is "just plain vanilla." Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has stumbled in his campaign after being the frontrunner in late August shortly after his campaign started, was "rocky road." When asked about Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), he said, "Michele Bachmann ... I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it." When pressed again, he said, "Tutti-frutti. I know I'm going to get in trouble!"
After former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called Cain the "flavor of the week" in a September Fox News appearance, Cain said on "The Tonight Show" that he was "Haagen-Dazs Black Walnut" and that the flavor "lasts longer than a week."
He said in another interview, "I can eat black walnut all the time -- it's not a flavor of the week! It's not that heavy. You can eat it on the cone or in a cup." Haagen Dazs no longer makes the flavor, which was a limited edition.
In the interview with GQ, Cain also said the prospect of a Bachmann presidency would make him "a little nervous." He said twice that the Minnesota congresswoman "doesn't have a plan" on the economy. Bachmann has criticized Cain for his 999 tax plan and said that he has an inconsistent record on abortion. (Cain gave contradictory answers on his abortion stance in interviews last month.)
Bachmann and Cain, however, both said they would use waterboarding as president Saturday night in a GOP debate in South Carolina, which Cain said was not torture.
Cain was also asked by GQ what you can tell about a man by the kind of pizza he likes. "The more toppings a man has has on his pizza, I believe the more manly he is," he said. However, he said a pizza "piled high with vegetables" was "sissy pizza."
The interview took place before allegations surface that Cain had sexual harassed women when he was president of the National Restaurant Association. Monday afternoon, high-profile attorney Gloria Allred will be holding a press conference with a former boyfriend of Sharon Bialek, who worked at the National Restaurant Association Education Foundation.
Bialek, with Allred at her side in a press conference last Monday, accused Cain of groping her in 1997. Cain has denied remembering Bialek and has maintained that he never sexually harassed anyone.
