Posted on 10/15/2011 3:54:14 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi
The world according to polls, or some part of it anyway, is telling us that former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain is now the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. The latest NBC News/Wall Street public opinion survey has him the choice of 27 percent of GOP primary voters asked, to 23 for Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and only 16 for Rick Perry of Texas. Is there anybody in the general audience willing to bet his first-born, or even second or third, that Mr. Cain will be his party's nominee next year, let alone be sitting in the Oval Office come January 2013? Mr. Cain himself jokes about being "the flavor of the month" -- he's Haagen-Dazs Black Walnut, he says. But history shows few such flavors ever survive the long haul.
The last true presidential long shot who did was former one-term Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia in 1976. He camped out in Iowa for most of a year, won a surprise caucus victory kicking off the process and went on from there. The Carter phenomenon thereafter encouraged a host of other gamblers, but no other has since succeeded.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Here is how I arrive at that determination:
1. First you start with the fact that Romney will NEVER under any circumstances be the nominee.
2. Then you eliminate everyone who has already imploded beyond their ability to come back.
3. Then you simply look at who left: Santorum, Gingrich, Cain
4. And then ask yourself, if those were your only 3 choices who would you pick, and you will quickly come to the conclusion that Cain is going to be our nominee.
Well reasoned. You also forget, which one has the most Tea Party support....and growing.
I see this as RNC Establishment (Romney) vs Tea Party (Cain).
Poly - you make salient points well worth considering. However, I think there is a dynamic that you have not touched upon.
There is a powerful ANTI-Romney coalition amongst the conservative wing of the GOP. A substantial portion of them were hoping for a Palin candidacy. That never happened. BUT, Cain IS a candidate. He is the best chance for the Anybody But Romney voters to coalesce into a unified force. Look what that unified force did last November.
The grass roots money is beginning to flow to Cain. Romney cannot get above 25% to 30%. He’s been stuck there for six months. Romney has money, the establishment AND name recognition. Among the voters who only casually pay attention, Cain still has room to grow. Romney doesn’t.
The grass roots dynamic and Cain’s “sound bite” style may be all it takes to turn this into a serious race where Cain has a very legitimate chance of winning. You simply cannot ignore Romney’s inability to crack 30%. There are more people like me who would NEVER vote for him than there are people who are openly supporting him.
No matter how much money Romney blows on ads, he will not change our minds and, consequently, he will not dissuade us from voting for a conservative alternative to him.
Cain’s Memphis speech 10/14/11
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2792911/posts
Could be, but he has one thing going for him that the previous flavor of the month didn’t have — Palin has officially announced she is not running, so there’s no reason to attack him.
Butter Pecan Rules!
If they think it’s Cain’s month, it’s going to be a VERY LONG month...something on the order of 385 days.
Let's hope it's more like 2920 days.
“Let’s hope it’s more like 2920 days. “
Good call.
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