Mrs. Cain to the rescue?

Herman Cain has often been asked why his wife has not joined him on the campaign trail, and he has consistently replied that the Cains decided that Gloria Cain would maintain the home and family, away from the public spotlight.  The reclusive shifts to the exclusive, however, as Cain announced yesterday that Gloria would shortly give an exclusive interview.  Is this a coincidence?

Gloria Cain has not been seen on the campaign trail with her husband of 43 years since he announced his presidential candidacy to a cheering crowd in Atlanta in May. But that will soon change.

“You will meet my wife publicly, in an exclusive interview that we are currently planning and anticipating,” Herman Cain said on Fox News on Monday, sounding every bit like a public relations strategist.

“She will be introduced in terms of some limited exposure. But it’s not her style for her to be with me on every campaign stop.”

Gloria Cain’s appearance on the stump could not come at a more awkward and crucial time for the GOP contender, who sits atop some polls, yet seems vulnerable to an implosion after acknowledging that he was accused years ago of inappropriate behavior toward a female employee.

I doubt that this is either coincidental or explicitly tied to the Politico story about vague allegations of sexual harassment.  The Cains had to know that if his presidential bid caught fire that Gloria would have to make at least one appearance on the national stage, if only to humanize the candidate and demonstrate that his family backs his bid.  Some sort of media appearance would have to be made between now and the end of the year.  However, the timing for the interview seems particularly propitious for Cain to get some distance from this story, and for a show of support from his wife at a moment when people are questioning Cain’s behavior more than ten years ago.

Cain also has had some people question the inconsistent responses that have come from his campaign and from Cain himself on this story.  Cain started off by saying that he didn’t recall any settlement, and then later last night recalled that the settlement with one woman had been remarkably small.  Laura Ingraham asked Cain to explain himself right away in an interview this morning (via The Right Scoop):

As I was telling Scott Hennen this morning, I had to conduct at least two investigations into allegations of sexual harassment about that same period of time, and I can’t recall most of the details today. Cain did have a few days’ notice before this story broke to refresh his memory, but these incidents took place more than a decade ago — and given the details we’ve heard so far, they don’t appear to have been particularly memorable, for Cain or anyone else except the complainants.

As Cain says, he’s expecting plenty of attacks in the next few weeks as his numbers remain high.  Cain relates one he’s seen but I hadn’t heard, which is that he got his Burger King executive job as a result of pressure from … Jesse Jackson.  I’m pretty sure that one’s not coming from the Obama team.