WASHINGTON — So who’s trying to sink Herman Cain?
The identity of whoever leaked an explosive story about sexual harassment accusations levelled against the Republican presidential hopeful more than a decade ago has become the biggest political guessing game in the United States this week.
It was Texas Gov. Rick Perry, say Cain’s campaign workers.
No it wasn’t, says Perry’s campaign team; it was Mitt Romney.
It was obviously a rival Republican campaign, says onetime candidate Mike Huckabee.
It was someone at the National Restaurant Association, where Cain was president when the alleged sexual harassment occurred, says a lawyer for one of the complainants.
It was Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, says the Washington Examiner.
The news organization that broke the story, Politico.com, isn’t saying. But plenty of people are emerging to insist they aren’t responsible for the leak in a titillating political mystery.
It is indeed standard operating procedure for rival campaigns to leak unflattering stories about their opponents. With primary season just around the corner, the fortunes of Romney and Perry have suffered in the wake of Cain’s sudden popularity among primary voters.
And even amid the uproar of the sexual harassment allegations, a poll released Thursday, conducted two days after the Politico story broke, still has Cain leading Romney. He’s also raised more than $1 million since the allegations emerged.
The Rassmussen survey suggests 26 per cent of Republican primary voters support Cain compared to 23 per cent for Romney. Newt Gingrich finished third at 14 per cent; Perry, once considered a front-runner, is in the single digits.
Cain continues to fly high even as one of Perry’s pollsters says he was personally present when the former pizza magnate sexually harassed a woman at a Virginia restaurant in the late 1990s, describing the incident as an open secret.
“This occurred at a restaurant in Crystal City, and everybody was aware of it,” Chris Wilson told an Oklahoma City radio station earlier this week.
“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.”
Wilson, who supports the Texas governor, wouldn’t divulge what Cain said or did to the woman, but added his conduct made other people at the table uncomfortable.
He added he had not shared the story with any of his clients and was not the source of the Politico story, although Cain aide Mark Block said Thursday he still has his suspicions.
Emanuel has issued a similar denial in the aftermath of a Washington Times report alleging that a National Restaurant Association employee in Chicago leaked the story at the behest of the onetime chief of staff to U.S. President Barack Obama.
“This story is patently false,” an Emanuel spokesman said Thursday.
Cain and his campaign team, who have denied he did anything wrong, spent the day on Wednesday pointing the finger at Curt Anderson, a top Perry aide.
By Thursday, they’d changed their tune, now a routine practice for a novice campaign team blindly stumbling its way through a major political scandal.
Block reversed himself on Anderson almost fawningly on a Fox News show on Thursday, saying he no longer believes the political strategist is the culprit in light of his strong denials.
“All the evidence that we had and what’s transpired in the last two weeks led up to Mr. Anderson as being the source,” Block said. “We were absolutely thrilled that he came on your show and said that he wasn’t, because Mr. Cain always had the utmost respect for him.”
But Huckabee, a onetime Republican presidential hopeful himself, has said it’s almost inconceivable that anyone other than a rival for the nomination is to blame.
A top Perry aide seemed to agree as he pointed the finger at Romney’s campaign.
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Ray Sullivan said, adding that Cain’s successor at the National Restaurant Association “is a big Romney donor.”
“There are much closer connections between the restaurant association, Cain and the Romney camp than there are with us.”
Romney’s campaign, just like Perry’s, denies being behind the story.
“Not true,” said spokeswoman Andrea Saul.
Gingrich said it would be despicable if it emerges that a rival campaign got the story to Politico.
“If it turns out that a Republican presidential candidate deliberately went out and created this kind of a story about a fellow candidate, that they would pretty rapidly become a pariah to the rest of us,” Gingrich said on CNN.
One of the candidates’ wives urged for an end to the speculation in an interview on Thursday.
“The finger-pointing that’s going on with all of this is unfortunate, and it makes me sad,” Anita Perry told ABC News, denying her husband had any prior knowledge of the accusations against Cain.
“It’s not good for our party.”