Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain addressed the media Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Cain was responding to Sharon Bialek, a Chicago-area woman, who accused him of making an unwanted sexual advance against her in 1997.
“Yes. I absolutely would,” Cain said when asked about taking a polygraph test. “But I’m not going to do that unless I have a good reason to do that. Of course I would be willing to do a lie detector test.”
Sharon Bialek has accused Cain of putting his hand under her skirt and pushing her head toward his crotch after a dinner meeting in 1997, after she had been let go from the National Restaurant Association. She was the first woman to make the claim publicly, though three other women had done so anonymously.
During a press conference in Scottsdale to address the scandal threatening to engulf his campaign, Cain repeated his claim that he did not recognize Bialek when he saw her at her press conference Monday and said he did not remember her name.
“I tried to remember if I recognized her, and I didn’t. I tried to remember if I remembered that name, and I didn’t,” he said.
As he has repeatedly, Cain categorically denied having all of the allegations leveled at him, saying, “I have never acted inappropriately with anyone. Period.”
As for Bialek’s claims, Cain said, “They simply didn’t happen. They simply did not happen.”
Cain said that his withdrawal from the presidential race “ain’t gonna happen” and vowed “we will get through this. We will get through this.”
“The Democrat machine in America has brought forth a troubled woman to make false accusations,” said Cain, who did not offer support for the claim that “the Democrat machine” was behind Bialek’s decision to go public.
Cain’s campaign has aggressively attacked Bialek, emailing reporters a note Tuesday laying out what it cast as her “long and troubled history, from the courts to personal finances.”
Bialek is the fourth woman to claim that Cain has acted inappropriately with her — but the first to do so publicly. The identity of another of Cain’s accusers, 55-year-old federal employee and registered Republican, was revealed by iPad newspaper The Daily on Tuesday. A number of media outlets, including CBS News, had previously withheld Kraushaar’s name at her request.
After her name was revealed Tuesday, Kraushaar told the New York Times she was disappointed her identity had been revealed. She declined to reveal more details but said she would consider “a joint press conference where all of the women would be together with our attorneys and all of this evidence would be considered together.”
Asked about Kraushaar Tuesday, Cain said “That is the one [accuser] that I recall that filed a complaint but it was found to be baseless.”
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