The story was barely mentioned on local conservative talk radio programs. Iowa yawns at Cain flap

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa — While Herman Cain struggled for a second day in Washington to push back against sexual harassment allegations, the high political drama almost went unmentioned Tuesday in one of the most important courts of public opinion — Iowa.

On the campaign trail, on local conservative talk radio and in conversations among activists, Republicans here have so far greeted the story with a shrug.


The reactions from Cain’s GOP rivals have been muted: His fellow 2012 candidates continue to tread lightly around the report that the likable front-runner reached settlements with two female employees while he was CEO of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

In front of the Iowa Association of Independent Baptists conference in a small church, Michele Bachmann from the pulpit offered only an oblique warning against “surprises.”

“This is the year when we can’t settle,” Bachmann said. “This is the year when we can’t have any surprises with our candidate. We have to have a candidate that we can know when we put them into office we can trust them with their record of what they have done and who they are. I have that record. And I have stood and I have stood strong on those issues.”

Rick Santorum told POLITICO the issue didn’t come up in 12 Iowa appearances Monday and Tuesday.

“We all have issues that we have to deal with on the campaign, and Herman’s dealing with the issue here,” Santorum said. “Look, I’m doing town hall meetings in little towns all throughout Iowa, and I’ll be honest about it, no one has asked me about it. I’ve gotten questions on the same issues I’ve gotten questions about before the story.”

Still, Santorum said the report is something Cain must address.

“That’s an issue for Herman, and he’s got to work it out. Having been through the crucible before, it’s not an easy thing to do,” he said. “It’s not my issue, it’s his issue, and he’s got to deal with it.”

For now, Iowa continues to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Speaking after a manufacturing forum in Pella Tuesday — during which Cain’s name was not mentioned — Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said he didn’t expect the harassment story to impact Cain here.

“Iowans are pretty fair-minded people,” said Branstad, after a forum that featured five presidential candidates. “Just because somebody makes an accusation — anybody that’s in a high-profile position has the potential to have people make these kinds of accusations, and I think Iowans will, you know, carefully look at the real situation and not jump to any conclusions.”

On the leading conservative talk radio program in Des Moines, the story barely merited a mention Tuesday.

Simon Conway, a conservative afternoon drive-time host on WHO-AM who on Monday offered Cain a soft place to rebut the story without pressing him on its details, didn’t give the Cain story any attention during the first two hours of his Tuesday show — which addressed the Occupy Wall Street movement, student loans and Branstad’s proposed education reforms.

In western Iowa, Sioux City radio host Sam Clovis said he touched on the story during the introduction to his Monday show on KSCJ-AM but hasn’t had a single listener call to discuss it.

“I didn’t get a peep on my show, other than what I talked about,” Clovis said. “For two days, I didn’t get a thing.”

The Cain camp, meanwhile, has sought to capitalize on the disconnect between the national media’s focus on the allegations and the perception on the ground in a key early presidential state. Cain’s Iowa chairman, Steve Grubbs, said on Twitter that Tuesday was the “best day of the year for [the] Iowa Cain campaign organization” and that the campaign “landed more precinct captains than any other single day.”

Cain’s campaign manager Mark Block said Tuesday that Cain has raised $400,000 since the story broke.

Clovis said Iowa voters are, for now, taking Cain at his word that nothing inappropriate took place.

“People are pretty satisfied with what they’ve heard,” Clovis said. “If he said he didn’t do it, and it appears that his explanation is that he recused himself and the general counsel and the human resources director came in and investigated and they cleared him, and that’s the end of it. I’ve been down this road myself. When he said that, I said, ‘Hell yeah, that’s exactly what you do.’”

Gregg Cummings, the Tea Party Patriots’ Iowa state coordinator, said among tea partiers the story of Cain’s sexual harassment allegations pales in comparison to the desire to have a conservative — “not Romney” — win the caucuses and the nomination.

“Hardly anybody is talking about it,” he said. “It’s not a big issue, in other words. I think the urgency of making sure that we get a conservative candidate to win the primaries is of greater concern to most of the tea party folks right now.”

The allegations against Cain aren’t resonating in Iowa because Republicans here are veterans of campaign politics and will reserve judgment until the story is more complete, said Bob Vander Plaats, the social conservative leader and 2010 gubernatorial candidate.

Iowans, Vander Plaats said, have “been through this before. So they’re not going to jump to quick conclusions. And so I think they’re going to let the process play out and see what comes of it.”

But Cain, Vander Plaats said, bears a responsibility to maintain a straight story and stop having to retract things he says.

“The concern for Mr. Cain is that he doesn’t want the narrative to be that I’m constantly walking back some comments,” he said. “So whether it is, will you negotiate with terrorists or not, the sanctity of human life, what are you for or aren’t you for, a federal marriage amendment, this deal, did you know of a settlement or not a settlement, he doesn’t want those questions to be looming in caucus-goers minds when they go to caucus.”