Free Republic

ORLANDO – The alarm bells are ringing for Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. The Texas governor, who leaped to the top of national polls immediately after his August kickoff, finds himself suddenly reeling from a pair of setbacks in the country’s most prominent political battleground. First, Perry drew a round of scathing reviews for his unfocused debate performance in Orlando Thursday night. Then he suffered a thumping defeat in the Florida GOP’s straw poll – to long-shot candidate Herman Cain, no less – that amounted to a vote of no confidence from dissatisfied activists. The back to back stumbles added up...

It wasn't fully clear at the time, but the political ground was shifting under Rick Perry's feet from virtually the moment he arrived here in Orlando for the Republican presidential debate and Florida GOP straw poll. Just how much the ground shifted wasn't apparent until early Saturday evening, when Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced the poll's results: Perry, and fellow leader Mitt Romney, and the rest of the Republican field finished far behind longshot winner Herman Cain. ..... Perry made a big effort to win the straw poll, and a week before the voting, it appeared he would reap big...

If you watched the Fox/Google debate that kicked off the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida this week, you'll know which video clip we're going to embed below. If you didn't, you're in for something of a treat. Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, created waves when he entered the GOP race for the presidential nomination. His entry scared off other vultures who were circling, like Giuliani and Palin perhaps, and he robbed momentum from the now almost absent Michele Bachmann. Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul all saw their own figures give way as the Governor of...

After the FoxNews/Google debate, it had begun to crystallize in the view of many Republicans is that Rick Perry isn’t the candidate many had hoped. Capturing the straw poll in Florida on Saturday, Herman Cain reached new heights as Perry’s slide down hill has accelerated. Bachmann has peaked and begun to taper off, while Gingrich, Paul, Santorum and Huntsman continue to struggle in the middle-to-low single digits. This leaves Mitt Romney out front, not because he’s such a great candidate, but because to date, his chief opponents have grossly underperformed. This begs the question most conservatives want most to ask:...

Reporting from Tampa, Fla. -- A black, threatening cloud hung low over the Orange County Convention Center on Saturday evening as top members of Gov. Rick Perry’s brain trust left a place their candidate would love to forget. At best half showed up, leaving tables groaning with uneaten bagels, scrambled eggs, bacon and fruit cocktail. At the end of the governor’s rather perfunctory eight-minute speech, the breakfast crowd offered a rather perfunctory round of applause, the first public clue that all might not be going well in Perryville. The Texan’s campaign fielded the largest cadre of volunteers and paid staff...

ORLANDO — Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain won the Presidency 5 straw poll here Saturday, delivering a blow to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s frontrunner status and a victory for a candidate who has struggled to transform his grassroots popularity into strong showings in national polls. “Tonight’s winner is Herman Cain,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced. “It shows you something, the road to the White House come through Florida, and it pays to spend time here.” He received 37 percent of the more than 2,600 votes cast. “Thank you to the Republican voters for this incredible honor of being named...

In a severe embarrassment for the Republican presidential frontrunner, businessman Herman Cain tripped up Gov. Rick Perry in a straw ballot of Florida Republican activists Saturday. The vote has no bearing on the choice of a 2012 nominee but, along with recent campaign events, is likely to increase the chances that the Republican presidential contest will tighten. It comes on the heels of a poor performance by Perry in a Florida debate Thursday night that disappointed conservatives, including delegates who came to Orlando expecting to back the Texas governor. Cain received 37% of the vote, more than twice as many...

He did it!

Results Herman Cain 37% Perry 15% Romney 14%

I mentioned Rick Perry’s DREAM Act debate blunder in my round-up post. It gets second place. The cringe-worthiest moment, by a hair, was when Perry botched what should have been his most potent attack on Mitt Romney’s chronic flip-flopping. As I noted on Twitter when it happened, any random high schooler at the CPAC conference in Washington could have done better than this. If this is how Perry’s going to take Obama on in debates, we’re in trouble. Someone inject him with some Red Bull and a dash of Herman Cain’s personality.**snip** Perry said he’s in favor of making English...