Posted on 09/29/2011 10:46:29 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Herman Cain's win in the Florida straw poll could very well be a harbinger of building momentum, according to a new poll of Republicans in the state released Thursday by SurveyUSA.
Pundits had initially questioned whether Cain's victory in the straw poll — in which he earned more than twice the votes of any other candidate — was a protest vote by Republicans disenchanted with the debate performance of presumptive front-runner Rick Perry. But Cain ranked second Thursday in the statewide poll of Republican voters, with 25 percent support — he trails Florida front-runner Mitt Romney by just 2 points. Both Romney and Cain have substantial leads over Perry, who finished third with 13 percent of the vote.
The news is especially troubling for the Perry campaign, which had hoped to make inroads in the crucial swing state. The Texas governor held a breakfast over the weekend for Florida straw poll voters and was actively courting support, while other candidates — including Romney, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman — all left to campaign in other states.
"There are a number of candidates who have spurned Florida's straw poll, and I think that's a big mistake," Perry said Saturday. "I have all my hopes on Florida."
But Perry did not seem to make a good impression with Florida voters, who may have been concerned by his debate performance or continued description of the Social Security program as a "Ponzi scheme." The SurveyUSA poll found that four times as many Florida Republicans had a favorable view of Romney relative to Perry.
Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, might have to be more concerned about Cain, who has been surging in national polls after the straw poll victory. On Wednesday, a national poll released by Fox News found the former pizza company executive running third behind Romney and Perry, tripling his level of support from a month prior.
Romney seems to be shoring up support among older voters, women and moderates, while Cain is gathering steam behind men, younger voters and Tea Party members. Perry's stronghold in Florida remains evangelicals.
Newt Gingrich, Bachmann and Texas Rep. Ron Paul effectively tied for fourth place in the SurveyUSA poll, with around 5 percent.
That was the date that then former California Governor Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination.
Nah...I just can’t vote CAin for Pres. I am of the mind that by the time our President takes office he’s going to have to hit the gound running without a learning curve threshold to cross, which Cain would no doubt have to do.
Borama still has plenty of time to further damage this nation and no doubt will do so in the coming months. He’ll create more crisis and attempt to be the hero of the day and as always it will get out of hand and he’ll do nothing.
Cains a good man and needs to be in Washington...but not as President yet. But I am all for a position for him and that without question.
Sarah Palin has a keen grasp of the obvious.
WE knocked Perry out of the race? That's a big LOL! Perry did that to himself. If he has any debating skills, he left them at home. He has mumbled and bumbled his way through and in the last debate it was down right embarrassing to watch him struggle.
Surely you realize that his positions on illegal immigration, and paying for illegals educations, are not in line with most conservatives.
Personally, Perry doesn't have to agree with me on everything in order to get my support. But he needs to appear Presidential and electable in the debates, if he expects to become the nominee. Perry entered the race late, and shot to the top. It was his race to loose.
Good job. Pat yourselves on the f*ing backs, all of you.
Your post reminds me of all the Obama supporters who blame Bush for Obama's mistakes. You need to get off your pity pot and stop blaming Conservatives for Perry's mistakes. Everyone here has their own opinion on who they want to win. That is the right and prerogative of every American. Live with it!
olololol. Most republicans in florida have never heard of freerepublic. No one in Florida has asked you who to vote for have they? This is a little microcosm. No offense to FR. Most people don’t know what was said on FNC or Rush either.
I’d gladly pat myself on the back for knocking out Perry! He needs to go....Meanwhile Cain and even Newt are gaining ground as people assess who and what about as this primary moves forward.
Newt and Cain could easily take on Obama.....and no doubt will do just that when the time comes. They’ll knock him out with a feather because Borama has nothing at all to stand on now.
Perry knocked himself out, but your comment was a new pathetic low. Your boy screwed up BIG TIME, because he never had it to begin with.
“Reagan had already run an infomerical that summer.”
Reagan had ALMOST WON the primary in 1976, challenging an incumbent, and in 1979 was a presumptive front-runner WELL BEFORE announcing.
here’s what was really going on .. without Gerald Ford in the race, Reagan was LEADING in NH polling. (in the end, Bush won Iowa, and Reagan won NH.)
http://ifbushhaddonethat.net/the-way-things-were/
“New York Times on October 16, 1979: George Bush wins straw poll conducted by Iowa Daily Press Assn. Is favored for Republican Presidential nomination by 35.7% of party members attending fund-raising dinner in Ames, Iowa. John B Connally receives 15.3% in poll, Sen Bob Dole gets 14.8% and Ronald Reagan, who did not attend, gets 11.3% New York Times on October 1, 1979: Ex-Pres Ford is considering entering ’80 Republican Presidential race with low-intensity campaign. Rules out exhausting load of personal campaigning, partially out of concern that it might threaten his wife’s recovery from drug and alcohol abuse. Supporters are concerned that Ford is understaffed and politically isolated, but are buoyed by fact that he consistently runs better than Ronald Reagan in national polls. Associated Press, September 17, 1979: A telephone survey of New Hampshire voters indicates that former President Gerald Ford still is the favorite Republican presidential candidate in that state. But without Ford as a candidate, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan is stronger than ever, pulling half the vote among a field of seven prospective candidates.”
As a Christian and a man married to the same woman for over 20 years I could never (With the exception of having no other way of keeping ‘Zero’ out of office) in good conscience vote for a man like Newt.
As I said I am ready to forgive Newt from his escapades in his private life. Not overlook them but forgive them....I have not forgotten either that Paul was certainly forgiven for murdering Christians...and sought forgiveness. So to has Newt for his escapades.
I can’t get that image out of my head of Newt sitting on a park bench with Nancy Pelosi discussing global waming.
Great, now we can get all the conservatives behind Cain and take out Romney!
Yes, 5 months before the first primary Ronald Regan declared he was going to run.
If Palin was going to declare on the same schedule as Reagan (5 months before the first primary), she would have declared in August.
Sara Palin is already way, way, way behind Regan's schedule. Months behind Regan's schedule.
More importantly, Reagan never really quit running after 1976. If anything, Regan's 1976 & 1980 campaigns parallel Romney's 2008 & 2012 runs. Lost the first go round, spent the next four years getting ready (in fact, he never quit running) and when he announced he was running, it was one of the biggest "Captain Obvious" moments in history.
Woo Hoo!!!! Romney’s First again in Florida. Mission Accomplished!! Rock On!!!.....
Oh wait,
we actually wanted to BEAT Romney, right? Not just destroy any candidate who COULD beat him.....
We wanted to beat RINO Romney with another RINO? Is it 2008 again?
BTW, I remember a conversation after the New Hampshire primary in 2008. I was a “supporter” of Romney at that point, along with Fred Thompson. But a lot of people were really happy that John McCain had just one the NH Primary. When I asked why, I was told that the important thing was to stop Romney, so they supported McCain in NH.
They figured that once they had disposed of Romney, they could easily beat McCain.
Didn’t work out that way.
Hopefully, we will get one of our conservatives (Cain, Bachmann, Perry, Palin if she runs) ahead of Romney before it is too late. I already think it is unrealistic to expect Gingrich or Santorum to get ahead of him; it is probably too late for Bachmann, since she was pilloried in August when she was actually becoming a threat to Romney.
It’s a lot easier to tear down fellow conservatives for minor missteps, then to take down Romney, who isn’t depending on conservatives for his support.
It’s spelled S*A*R*A*H not Sara.
The first primaries/caucuses were in April 1980? Really?!
Voting against a candidate because of a disagreement on the immigration issue, in THIS election, is also silly. We have at least 8 major issues on our plate that are clearly more important than the argument over whether a fence or border patrol is a better way to secure the border, or whether a few thousand kids in texas should get texas tax dollars for college.
But the fact Perry is attacked for Gardasil and tuition breaks for children of illegals kind of shows that he can't be attacked on the big issues: the deficit/debt, government overspending and overreaching, national security, our standing in the world including support for Israel, the economy/jobs/government regulation crushing our economy, the government taking over our lives, Abortion, Obamacare.
Are there more pure candidates? two. Which is great if either of them actually can get to where they poll BETTER than Romney; it would be nice to see them actually ATTACK Romney more. And there's always the non-candidate.
But I agree with Thomas Sowell, we spend too much time looking for perfection and destroying what isn't; If there was a better candidate who could win than Perry, they were going to rise to the top anyway, and Cain may well be doing it, but we don't have to be gleeful that Romney is back in the lead.
And if the rediculous trashing of Perry leads Chris Christie to jump into the race and become a serious contender, we will have SERIOUSLY hurt our message for 2012, because Christie is a very popular person in a narrow spectrum of our issues, and very bad for many of the secondary issues, which will hurt our true conservative candidates down-ticket.
I didn't mean to sound negative about Cain -- I like the guy, and would be happy for him to win the nomination. Of course, I've seen a good 6-or-7 attacks on him being less than a pure conservative thrown around here in the past week, and not just by the Perry folks. So I have no illusions that if he gets front-runner status, the circular firing squad might well fire up, especially if Palin is still talking about entering the race.
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