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WASHINGTON — An explosive allegation that GOP presidential front-runner Herman Cain sexually harassed at least two women in the 1990s as president of the National Restaurant Association surfaced last night.
The Cain campaign denounced the accusation that his sexually suggestive banter made the women angry and uncomfortable, and that the restaurant group paid them to go away.
Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon told The Post that the candidate was the victim of a smear campaign of “unsubstantiated personal attacks.”
He accused Cain’s detractors of “dredging up thinly sourced allegations . . . that never stood up to the facts.”
“Since Washington establishment critics haven’t had much luck in attacking Mr. Cain’s ideas to fix a bad economy and create jobs, they are trying to attack him in any way they can,” Gordon said.
“Sadly, we’ve seen this movie played out before — a prominent conservative targeted by liberals simply because they disagree with his politics.
“Mr. Cain — and all Americans — deserve better,” Gordon said.
The allegations were reported by Politico.com, which did not identify the women.
The report cited unnamed sources confirming the restaurant group gave the women separation packages in the five-figure range.
Cain’s alleged inappropriate behavior was said to include conversations filled with sexual innuendo and physical gestures that weren’t overtly sexual but made women uncomfortable, the sources said.
Cain has made his success as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza the cornerstone of his campaign. But he hasn’t talked as much about once running the restaurant-trade group.
The allegations are the latest speed bump for Cain’s runaway campaign, including his wavering on abortion, proposing a deadly electric border fence and running a commercial that shows his campaign manager, Mark Block, smoking a cigarette.
CBS newsman Bob Shieffer yesterday took Cain to the woodshed over the web ad.
“I just have to ask you, what is the point of that? Having a man smoke a cigarette in a television commercial?” Schieffer demanded to know in a bizarre exchange on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Cain explained, “One of the themes within this campaign is ‘Let Herman be Herman.’ Mark Block is a smoker and we say, ‘Let Mark be Mark.’ We believe ‘Let people be people.’”
Schieffer, a survivor of smoking-related bladder cancer, hounded Cain, complaining that the ad “sends a signal that it’s cool to smoke.”
“No, it does not,” responded Cain, who has survived colon cancer that was not caused by smoking. “We weren’t trying to say it’s cool to smoke.”
Schieffer berated Cain until he delivered an anti-smoking message.
“Young people of America, all people, do not smoke,” Cain said.
“And it’s not a cool thing to do,” prompted Schieffer.
“It’s not a cool thing to do,” Cain agreed. “And that’s not what I was trying to say.”
Meanwhile, a Des Moines Register poll released over the weekend showed Cain with 23 percent against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s 22 percent in Iowa, which holds its first-in-the-nation caucus Jan. 3.