WASHINGTON — Supporters are leaping off the Herman Cain train, but the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO insists he’s moving forward with his run for president.
The one-time poll leader said in Ohio yesterday he is “re-evaluating and reassessing” his campaign — two days after Georgia businesswoman Ginger White claimed the two carried on a torrid affair on and off for nearly 14 years.
White told ABC’s “Good Morning America” yesterday that Cain “consistently” gave her gifts and money and took her on several trips — even flying her to Las Vegas to catch a heavyweight boxing match between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.
“I can’t make this stuff up,” White said, acknowledging some financial difficulties. “And frankly speaking, I wouldn’t want to make this up.”
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said Cain should let voters “move on” from the distraction. “Beyond reassessing his campaign, he probably needs to understand that he is a ‘distracter’ for what’s going on right now and we should move on,” West told WMAL radio.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Whether or not the allegations are true, it looks to me like it’s going to be very hard for him to be able to breathe life back into this campaign.”
Iowa GOP officials said Cain has been losing support at the precinct level since the latest charges surfaced.
Some of Cain’s backers in battleground Florida appear to be conducting their own reevaluation — and flocking to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who holds a stunning 41-17 percent polling lead over Mitt Romney there, with Cain dropping to third at 13 percent.
“Gingrich right now is going to be the Republican nominee. Mitt Romney is a dead duck and unless Newt screws up by raising his head in the next month and a half or saying another daffy comment, he is the next GOP nominee for president, period,” said Matt Towery, a former Gingrich aide who conducted the poll.
The Cain camp announced it was moving “forward” and running ads in Iowa and New Hampshire, saying the “Democratic Party and their surrogates in the mainstream media are out to derail Herman Cain’s candidacy” as part of a “desperate strategy to destroy him personally.”
Additional reporting by S.A. Miller