Candidate Cain is the one to blame

“Herman Cain nearing decision on candidacy

By Karen Tumulty and Sandhya Somashekhar, Updated: Friday, December 2, 3:38 PM

Embattled presidential candidate Herman Cain is inviting his top supporters and donors to Atlanta on Saturday for a meeting in which he will give them advance word of whether he intends to continue his campaign, sources close to the campaign said Friday.

"Tomorrow in Atlanta, I will be making an announcement. But no one is gonna get me to make that prematurely," Cain said Friday at a town hall event in South Carolina.

 GOP presidential contender Herman Cain has been battered by bad press — centered on a series of allegations of sexual harassment leveled against him — for much of the last month and is now reassessing his candidacy.

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain told the N.H. Union Leader in an interview shown on C-SPAN that his wife didn't know of what he called a friendship with Ginger White until she said publicly that she had a 13-year affair with Cain. (Dec. 1)

One supporter who has been summoned to the private session said he believes that Cain is likely to announce he is ending his candidacy.

Another who has been invited to the morning meeting says attendees have been told he has made no decision, but wanted to meet with some of the supporters to expresshis gratitude.

Several sources indicated that Cain is likely to announce his plans publicly at a news conference after the meeting. Cain had already scheduled an event on Saturday — the grand opening of his national headquarters in his hometown of Atlanta, as well as the announcement of his campaign’s freshly minted senior leadership team for the state of Georgia.

In an apparent signal that it was not done fighting, the campaign Friday announced the creation of “Women for Cain,” a group headed by Gloria Cain and designed to “inspire a national women’s alliance in support of Herman Cain for 2012,” according to the campaign’s Web site. But the group quickly came under fire after media organizations noted that the photo of four women giving the thumbs-up signal on the Web site was not truly of Cain supporters but a stock photo.

Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Cain enjoyed a brief reign at the top of the polls, in part because rank-and-file Republican voters viewed him as a refreshing outsider.

However, his campaign stumbled when he was accused of sexually harassing several women during his stint as head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

Earlier this week, another woman, Ginger White, went public with an accusation that Cain had conducted a 13-year consensual extramarital affair with her. She producedphone records that indicated they had been in contact dozens of times.

Cain has since acknowledged giving Whitemoney to help her through difficult financial times. Cain, however, has denied that he and White had a sexual relationship.

Steve Grubbs, who is overseeing Cain’s Iowa operation, said the newest numbers from the Des Moines Register’s new Iowa poll are “not good” and are consistent with the campaign’s internal analysis of the state of play there.

But he said he believes Cain still has a solid 10 percent support in the state and can finish in the top three in the Iowa caucuses. He acknowledged that Cain is now trailing well behind former House speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, after being at or near the top of the field. But he said the campaign’s internal numbers show other candidates were either tied with Cain or running behind.

Grubbs said Friday morning he had no inside knowledge of Cain’s future plans and is continuing to focus on the organization in Iowa.

“If I could have a couple of drama-free weeks, I think we could get back on track,” Grubbs said.”