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WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain skipped a scheduled interview in New Hampshire, days after struggling with a question about Libya in a debate. Cain canceled the interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper in Manchester Thursday during his short visit to the state, the Chicago Tribune reported.
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The cancellation came just a few days after Cain stumbled through answering a question about Libya during a taped interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Cain was scheduled to meet with the publisher of the Union Leader, its editorial editor and a reporter after a trip to the New Hampshire secretary of state's office.
The campaign reportedly called the newspaper before the interview and to say C-SPAN cameras would not be permitted to tape the session and then called back to say Cain would only be able to 20 minutes instead of the scheduled hour.
Drew Cline, the editorial editor, said the newspaper told Cain's campaign it was "not worth our time to do it for 20 minutes."
The campaign told the Union Leader it would get back to them, but never did.
"We thought they were coming. I don't know what happened," Cline said, adding it was a "communications failure on their end."
Cain did a shorter interview with the newspaper earlier this year.
Instead of going to the extended interview, Cain arrived early for an appearance at WMUR, the state's primary television outlet.
Reports say Cain was more than an hour late for his only public event of the day, a meet-and-greet at the Nashua hotel.
Meanwhile, a Secret Service spokesman says Cain is the first of the Republican presidential candidates to request a Secret Service detail. Cain's request was granted Thursday but Edwin Donovan did not say when the protection would begin, only that it would start soon, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Donovan didn't say what spurred the request.
Federal law requires Secret Service protection for major presidential candidates and their spouses within 120 days of a presidential election. But the Homeland Security secretary also may grant protective status to candidates based on an advisory committee's recommendations.
Cain's private security team has had several run-ins with reporters in recent weeks, Politico reported. A Washington Post reporter said a Cain guard backed into him during an event in Iowa Tuesday. The New York Times said a female reporter alleged a security guard tried to touch her during an event in Michigan last week.
As the Texas governor, presidential candidate Rick Perry travels with a detail of Texas Rangers, the Times said. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the GOP front-runner, often travels with one private security officer.
Two polls released this week indicate sexual harassment allegations and a flubbed response on Libya haven't hurt Cain's support.
An Iowa State University poll released Thursday indicated the former Godfather's Pizza chief executive officer remained the choice of voters in the state, garnering nearly a quarter of the respondents, The Hill reported. He's also held on to his top-tier status in most national polls and is raising money at a fast pace.
A poll released Tuesday by The Washington Post and ABC News indicated people who said they were "strongly conservative" were far less likely to have an unfavorable opinion of Cain following the allegations of harassment while he led the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. Half of Republicans still viewed Cain positively while slightly more than a third viewed him negatively, the poll said.
