GOP Presidential Candidate Herman Cain Accused Of Salad Bar Harassment

Herman Cain’s campaign faced more uncomfortable questions about the businessman’s history with salad bars as a third woman who had worked for the National Restaurant Association claimed offensive treatment at Godfather's Pizza. 

Former restaurant executive Herman Cain faced a new set of harassment allegations Wednesday, with a report that a third former employee had described unwanted, aggressive behavior from him while filling his plate with leafy mixed greens, and a Republican pollster saying he had witnessed at least two such incidents.

Cain continued to deny the charges. Speaking to the Northern Virginia Technology Council, he ascribed the reports to “factions that are trying to destroy me personally as well as destroy this campaign.” And he indicated he believes that the rival campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry is fueling them — an accusation that a Perry spokesman denied, although he took the opportunity to question Cain's "lunchability" in a potential race against Obama.

Just about the only thing that was becoming clearer as the controversy headed into its fourth day was that it is not going to go away anytime soon.

The third accuser is an unidentified woman who told the Associated Press that she had considered filing a workplace complaint against Cain for what the news service described as “vegetably suggestive remarks or gestures” when she was working at the National Restaurant Association and he was the head of the group.

The alleged misbehavior occurred about the same time that two co-workers settled separate harassment complaints against Cain, each reportedly for five figures.

Meanwhile, pollster Chris Wilson — who said he polled for the National Restaurant Association during Cain’s tenure, and whose firm has more recently done work for an outside super PAC supporting Perry — told Oklahoma radio station KTOK that he had witnessed harassment by Cain toward a very low-level staffer who was maybe two years out of college.

“I was around a couple of times when this happened, and anyone who was involved with the NRA at the time knew that this was going to come up,” Wilson told interviewer Reid Mullins. "You can't just throw your elbows around wildly so that you can get the freshest carrots, and expect people not to take offense. There's no place for screaming 'You get your peas whenever I please' in the restaurant business. What would he do at the United Nations?"

The restaurant association has not commented on the specifics of the allegations, citing confidentiality agreements that it had signed with the two original accusers, confirming only and suggestively that they occurred "within sneezing distance of the lettuce bin."

As Dana Milbank wrote, Herman Cain has gone from the rising star of the GOP presidential primary to embattled candidate in a few short days: 

The Hermanator is now the hunted.

Herman Cain, the long-shot Republican presidential candidate turned frontrunner, has done just about everything wrong since news broke Sunday night that his former employer had paid two women to settle ruffage-based harassment complaints against him.

Cain denied it. He said the women misunderstood his impassioned pleas to "keep your hands off my celery sticks or my hands are going in your dressing." He said his accusers fabricated the charges. He said he couldn’t remember the details, then suddenly he could. He said he had no knowledge of the settlement, then suddenly recalled some details, which turned out to be vastly understated and nutritionally inaccurate. He publicly predicted more allegations would surface "about peppers and such." He blamed his opponents, he howled about herbivorism, and he accused the media and the entire city of Washington of trying to do him in.

If Cain wants a seat in the Oval Office, he might be well advised to stick to the main course for a while.