ATLANTA —
The brief but dramatic campaign of Herman Cain ended on Saturday, when the little-known businessman who captivated the Republican race said the relentless attention on accusations of his sexual misconduct had become too much to bear.
Both defiant and passionate, Cain again denied allegations of sexual harassment and an extramarital affair, while declaring, “I’m not going away.”
But, he said, after “a lot of prayer and soul-searching I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt caused on me and my family.” Cain also cited difficulty in raising enough money to remain competitive.
Cain’s decision is the latest twist in a Republican primary contest that has been marked by a search for a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, the establishment favorite.
After a string of impressive debate performances, Cain assumed that role in late September. But amid mounting allegations and a series of gaffes, much of his support has shifted in recent weeks to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has joined Romney atop the polls.
The question now is where the rest of Cain’s backing goes. Asked in an interview in Iowa last week if he would pick up Cain’s supporters, Gingrich responded: “Oh, sure.”
The Gingrich campaign moved quickly to appeal to Cain supporters on Saturday, praising Cain’s ideas immediately after he announced the suspension of his campaign. Gingrich himself lauded Cain a short while later at a Staten Island event, saying that he “deserves credit for having the courage to talk about big ideas and focus on the economy.”
But there is also evidence that Romney could benefit from Cain’s departure. A Pew poll conducted before Thanksgiving showed that Cain supporters split evenly between the former Massachusetts governor and Gingrich when asked for their second choice.
A spokeswoman for Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who enjoyed a brief moment atop the polls in the summer, said Cain’s campaign had been in touch with the congresswoman. “We have received numerous calls and emails from his supporters, and we are happy to have them,” Alice Stewart said.
Cain gave no indication on Saturday who was his second choice for president, but he said he will endorse one of his former rivals “in the near future.”
Cain’s announcement that he is suspending, rather than terminating, his campaign appears to give him greater flexibility in the months ahead to transfer leftover funds to a candidate or political committee of his choice. “Suspension” has no legal meaning under Federal Election Commission rules, meaning Cain could continue to raise contributions and spend money until declaring a formal end to the campaign.
Plan B, as Cain put it, will be an organization that will allow him to “continue to be a voice for the people” and promote his tax plan. as of Saturday, it consisted of a single Web page, TheCainSolutions.com, where supporters could submit their email addresses and await more information.
In a Republican nominating contest that has seesawed from one front-runner to another, Cain, 65, was perhaps the unlikeliest to rise to the top of the pack. A former pizza executive with no political experience, little campaign organization and a schedule tailored more to selling books than winning votes, Cain nevertheless captured the hearts of Republican voters with a clear message, confidently delivered.
“I’m upset. I feel like the other side won, their dirty tricks,” said Marelli Gardner, a health care coordinator and tea party activist from Cummings, Ga., who drove 45 minutes to hear Cain speak on Saturday. She left before his remarks were over. “A lot of people had a lot of hope in Herman Cain.”
At his rally Saturday, Cain said, “I have made many mistakes in life, everybody has.” But he also offered his story as evidence of the nation’s strengths.
“I grew up in a world of segregated water fountains,” he said. “My father was a chauffeur and my mother was a maid. We showed that you didn’t have to have a degree from Harvard in order to run for president. We showed that you didn’t have to have a political pedigree. … I am proof that a common man could lead this nation.”
In a field of politicians and Washington insiders, Cain presented himself as the businessman outsider with “bold new ideas.” while Romney had a 59-point economic plan and a 160-page book to explain it, Cain said the nation’s ills could be fixed with three simple numbers: 9, 9 and 9.
Cain talked so incessantly about his “9-9-9″ tax plan, which would have scrapped the current tax code and replaced it with a 9 percent tax on individuals, a 9 percent tax on businesses and a 9 percent sales tax, that it became both a punch line and a selling point.
But for the past month, Cain has held on as an embattled candidate, denying accusations that he had sexually harassed several women when he headed the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.
On Monday, Atlanta businesswoman Ginger White alleged that she and Cain had carried on a 13-year affair. Cain acknowledged a friendship with White and said he had been helping her financially, but insisted it was not sexual.
The former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive has fiercely denied all of the accusations, and told supporters Saturday that “one of the first declarations I want to make with you today is that I am at peace with my God. I am at peace with my wife. And she is at peace with me.”
When she started out studying chimpanzees in Tanganyika, Jane Goodall didn’t have a graduate degree in animal behavior. She didn’t even have an undergraduate degree: she’d just graduated from secretarial school. but in her first few weeks of observing the chimps, she “she made three observations that rattled the comfortable wisdoms of physical anthropology: meat eating by chimps (who had been presumed vegetarian), tool use by chimps (in the form of plant stems probed into termite mounds), and toolmaking (stripping leaves from stems), supposedly a unique trait of human premeditation. each of those discoveries further narrowed the perceived gap of intelligence and culture between Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes.
