Sharon Bialek told reporters at a press conference that Herman Cain had inappropriately touched her when she asked him for help finding a job. When she resisted, Bialek said Cain told her, “You want a job, don’t you?”

The Cain campaign immediately denied the story saying all sexual harassment accusations are “completely false.”

Some reactions:

Ben Smith: “Gloria Allred knows what she’s doing, and the details of Sharon
Bialek’s story today just look quite awful for Herman Cain. These things
always do in their details, and the press conference ended a streak in
which allegations had remained vague.”

Michelle Malkin: “Twittersphere is lighting up with diverse reaction from
conservatives. Some find Bialek ‘very credible.’ More obituaries being
written for Cain. I need to know more.”

Andrew Sullivan: “Absent any more details, all I can say is that, at the very least, Cain
needs to respond to this specific allegation. I believe the woman, but I
tend to believe most professional women who give credible evidence of
abuse of power by bosses.”

[Read more…]

A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds Herman Cain and Mitt Romney tied for the lead nationally among Republican voters at 21% each. Newt Gingrich moves up to third place with 12%, followed by Rick Perry at 11%. The other candidates are in single digits.

Of the sexual harassment allegations against Cain, 47% of Republicans say the accusations are probably false while 33% say they are probably true.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds 54% of Republican voters say they aren’t concerned about the sexual-harassment allegations directed at Herman Cain while another 15% say they are “just a little” concerned.

By comparison, just 13% of Republicans say they are a “great deal” or “quite a bit” concerned about voting for Cain.

Rick Perry defends his loopy speech in New Hampshire last week in a brutal Saturday Night Live skit.

[Read more…]

“Unfortunately for too many Republicans, they also aspire to be frugal socialists. We can’t preserve liberty if the choice is between a frugal socialist and an out of control socialist.”

— Rep. Michele Bachmann, quoted by Politico, on her GOP presidential rivals.

A new We Ask America poll in Iowa finds Herman Cain leading the GOP presidential field with 22%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 18%, Mitt Romney at 15%, and Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 11%.

No other candidate gets more than 5%.

Radar Online reports a new woman alleging sexual harassment by Herman Cain “will break her silence at a news conference with her powerhouse attorney Gloria Allred Monday afternoon in New York City.”

The press conference is at 1:30 pm ET.

Ben Smith: “This should, in principle, harden Cain’s support among his defenders.
After all, if it was difficult to pin political motives on women who
filed complaints a decade ago and then refused to discuss them, it’s not
so hard to pin a pecuniary motive on people whose press conferences
with Allred leak to radar.”

It may be the middle of a presidential campaign, but Newt Gingrich has a new book out: The Battle of the Crater, written with William R. Forstchen.

First Read looks at the battleground map and shows a presidential contest is shaping up to be potentially very close, or as they put it, “think 2004 meets 2000, with the 2008 states.”

Solid Dem: DC, DE, HI, MD, MA, NY, RI, VT (67 electoral votes)

Likely Dem: CA, CT, IL, ME, WA (98)

Lean Dem: MN, NJ, OR (31)

Toss-up: CO, FL, IA, MI, NV, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, WI (147)

Lean GOP: AZ, GA, MO, NE (one EV), NH (42)

Likely GOP: AL, AR, IN, LA, MS, MT, NE (four EVs), ND, SC, SD, TX (100)

Solid GOP: AK, ID, KS, KY, OK, TN, UT, WV, WY (53)

Chris Cillizza
looks at the electoral map math for President Obama to secure
reelection and finds that “the ground on which the 2012 election will be
fought still favors him and should give Democrats some hope that he can
claim a second term in a year’s time.”

“In New Mexico (five electoral
votes) and Iowa (six electoral votes), Obama has an edge… Assuming
Obama can win those two states again — and hold the 19 other states he
won that also went to the Democrat, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), in 2004 —
he would be just 12 electoral votes shy of 270. That means Obama could
would need to win only one of the following states to be reelected:
Florida, North Carolina, Ohio or Virginia… What would mess up that
math for Democrats, however, is if Obama were not able to hold some of
the states that backed both him and Kerry. The epicenter of that
potential Democratic problem is in the Rust Belt.”

The Hotline:
“After months of debate inside the Romney camp over whether to compete
in Iowa, it seems the decision has been made: Romney will play in Iowa,
and he will play to win. The most recent evidence: Romney will hold
campaign events Monday in Iowa, his second trip in three weeks after
visiting the state only twice in the previous 12 months; His son Josh
and wife Ann have quietly canvassed the state in recent weeks, and both
have campaigned vigorously there for the Republican candidate in a
crucial state Senate race; and Romney just launched aggressive robocalls
in Iowa attacking Perry over his immigration policies, throwing the
first punch in what could be a heavyweight Hawkeye State bout.”

“The
question is no longer whether Romney competes in Iowa; the question is
how much time and money he’ll invest in the state that so wounded his
candidacy in 2008.”

Despite passed filing deadlines in several early states, Matt Latimer thinks it might still be possible for another Republican presidential candidate to enter the race.

“This year feels very different, as if anything could happen. Who knows: if an establishment favorite like Romney falters early, it is always possible that an entirely new candidate might yet decide to jump into the contest. Hoover, FDR, Kennedy, Nixon, and LBJ each won presidential primaries as write-in candidates. If things continue to be so unsettled, it’s not impossible that someone may decide to repeat that feat in 2012. Just don’t anybody give that idea to Donald Trump.”

David Remnick: “The knowing people who know things in Washington generally believe that, once the electoral process begins, in January, Romney will shed Cain, Perry, Bachmann, and the rest in rapid fashion. Perhaps. To look at Romney is to see plausibility. But a large portion of the Republican electorate seems determined to hop from one fantastically flawed alternative to the next rather than settle on him. A few may be loath to vote for a Mormon; others have ideological differences that make it hard to embrace him. It is Romney’s spooky elasticity, his capacity to reverse himself utterly on one issue after another– health care, climate change, abortion, gun control, immigration, the 2009 stimulus, capital-gains taxes, stem-cell research, gay rights — that seems to bother voters most. They might rightly ask if there is even one thing that Mitt Romney believes in with greater conviction than his inevitability.”

Niall Stanage: “Mitt Romney could be the Hillary Clinton of 2012.”

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds Mitt Romney has a significant advantage over his GOP rivals in just one area — electability.

“The survey tested the candidates on six attributes or characteristics. Romney has a sizable lead in just one: One-third of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents say he has the best chance of anyone in the field to defeat Obama in 2012. Running second on that question is businessman Herman Cain. About one-fifth say Cain would be the party’s strongest candidate.”

“In the other five areas tested in the new survey, Romney shows no greater strength than other GOP contenders. On empathy, 21% say Cain is the one who best understands their problems, compared with Romney’s 17%. On honesty, it’s Cain at 22%, Romney at 17%. The two also run closely on the economy and issues generally, while Newt Gingrich rivals Romney on upholding core Republican values.”