ATLANTA, Georgia, Dec 3, AFP): Herman Cain said Saturday he is suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination for the US presidency, citing the pain caused to his family of allegations sexual misconduct.
“I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt caused on me and my family,” he told supporters in Atlanta, Georgia.
Cain said he would endorse another Republican for the party’s nomination in the near future, but vowed to continue to speak out in the future despite his decision not to go forward.
The dramatic announcement effectively ends a campaign that took Cain, a former pizza executive who rose from humble origins, to the front ranks of a Republican field despite his lack of political experience.
His decision followed a drumbeat of accusations that erupted early last month when two women came forth to charge that he sexually harassed them while he was president of a trade lobbying group in the 1990s.
The final blow came this week, when Atlanta businesswoman Ginger White disclosed she had had a 13-year extramarital affair with Cain that ended only eight months ago.
Cain has vehemently denied the charges.
“These false and unproved allegations continue to be spinned in the media and in the court of public opinion so as to create a cloud of doubt over me and this campaign and my family,” he said.
“That spin hurts. It hurts my wife, it hurts my family, it hurts me and it hurts the American people because you are being denied solutions to our problems.”
Poll
Cain, once polling at the top of the Republican field in the key state of Iowa, is losing support at a rapid rate there, a poll to be released Saturday shows.
Beset by a series of sex scandal allegations, the former pizza executive is now only pulling eight percent support among likely participants in the January 3 Iowa caucuses that kick off the 2012 presidential nominating season, The Des Moines Register said in a preview of its poll.
That’s down from 23 percent in late October.
And he fared even worse in single-day polling. On the first day of polling Sunday, Cain had 12 percent support, which dropped steadily over the four-day poll to four percent Wednesday.
Cain has denied allegations of sexual harassment from two women and claims from the latest woman to come forward, businesswoman Ginger White, that she had a 13-year affair with him that ended just a few months ago.
But in the wake of the alleged affair, 47 percent of respondents said Cain was the candidate most likely to have a scandal in the White House by the time the poll ended, up from 25 percent at the start of polling.
He has also acknowledged his wife was unaware of the relationship until it grew into a media firestorm this week.
The explosive sexual allegations, and past stumbles on major foreign policy issues, made Iowans less eager to meet Cain in person.
While the candidate saw 22 percent of caucusgoers say they wanted to meet him face-to-face during a two-day rolling average of Sunday-Monday polling, that number dropped to eight percent for Tuesday-Wednesday results.
“You have to know all the issues, foreign, domestic everything,” poll respondent Carol Bohlen, 61, told The Des Moines Register. And, she added: “I just feel there’s too much coming out about his past, and I don’t think that would be very presidential.”
Selzer & Co of Des Moines conducted the poll of 401 likely Republican caucusgoers November 27-30. The poll, due to be released in full at 7:00 pm (0100 GMT) has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.