Rick Perry slips, Herman Cain rises in bid for GOP nomination, poll finds

[Douglas Carpenter]

Source: Washington Post

By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen, Tuesday, October 4, 2:01 PM

After a quick rise in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has experienced an almost equally dramatic decline, losing about half of his support over the past month, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Perry’s slide, which comes after several uneven performances in candidate debates, has allowed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney to resurface atop the GOP field. But the most direct beneficiary of the disenchantment with Perry is businessman Herman Cain, who is now tied for second place.

snip:

Among announced candidates — without Christie or Palin in the race — Romney leads with 25 percent, which is identical to his support from a month ago. Perry and Cain are tied for second with 16 percent, numbers representing a 13-point drop for Perry and a 12-point rise for Cain since early September.

snip:
Obama’s approval rating — while not significantly different from a month ago — is at a new career low, his disapproval number at a new high. In all, 42 percent approve of the job he is doing, while 54 percent disapprove. Barely more than a third of independents give the president positive marks, as 60 percent now disapprove, a new high. For the first time, fewer than half of moderates approve of the way Obama is handling his job.

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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rick-perry-slips-herman-cain-rises-in-bid-for-gop-nomination-poll-finds/2011/10/03/gIQASiJiJL_story.html

[DonCoquixote]

1. Independents

You cannot depend on these folk, as many of them are just GOP that are to weak to realize that their wealth comes from the safety features installed by the left, as opposed to the illusions on the right. If they continue to dominate politics, the nation will be mediocre, as the mediocre will get the deciding vote.

[BlueMTexpat]

6. In my experience, true "independents" are those who nominally

belong to one political party, but who on occasion will vote for a candidate in the other party because they genuinely believe that s/he is the best person. I suspect that if someone actually did a study on the voting patterns of so-called "independents" today, that study would bear out exactly what you say. In fact, there probably are already studies that bear that out.

Unfortunately, voting for another party's candidate because that candidate is the better selection - if that is truly the case - can only happen at the level of state or local elections. In our dysfunctional political system, the problem with voting for the candidate of the Other Party in a federal or Presidential election now almost invariably means (the few exceptions have usually been Dems who have appointed moderate to liberal Reps - such as don't seem to exist any more) that you get someone who will appoint only members of his/her own party or people whose political philosophy is acceptable to his/her own party to important political posts in an effort to enact that party's agenda.

Today's GOP is nothing like the GOP of yesteryear, certainly nothing like the GOP of the Eisenhower years that the few thinking Reps I know seem to venerate. It has moved steadily rightward since the 1960s and is now fascist in tone and action. Now all Reps at the national level, seemingly without exception, march in lockstep to the tune of the TP and radical religious RW.

Anyone who truly cannot see the significant differences between the agendas of the two parties that are realistically the only choices we have either does not have all brain cells a-firing, has literally been living in a cocoon or not paying attention to what has been happening, or just wants the attention the M$M are only too happy to provide.

[mikekohr]

15. Great post!

[rocktivity]

2. The script is playing out just as planned

Perry slips, Romney takes the lead, the Rethug leaders cheer, and Cain, Palin, and Christie get buried.

:boring:
rocktivity

[MADem]

5. What happens to Huntsman? He's still there, hanging back,

staying vague, a tabula rasa upon which the dissatisfied and pouting can sketch their hopes and dreams.

He's a second stringer, but if there's no clear leader at the convention, he could be a Great Compromise.

And he's not as 'icky' a Mormon as Romney is. Did his grampa run to Mexico to escape authority with all his wives, too???

[BlueMTexpat]

7. The answer is in your own response.

Today's GOP will never compromise.

Huntsman is the only one I can stand to listen to. Still, I would never vote for a GOP candidate for POTUS in this day and age. Ever.

[MADem]

19. He's the only one in the entire field that makes me a bit nervous, frankly. nt

[AlinPA]

14. He is not teabagger material.

[reformist2]

11. Exactly. The sheeple need to be corralled to the chosen candidate.

The funny thing is that they keep running to one new candidate after another.... the sheeple really, really don't like Romney! lol

[SoapBox]

3. I just want them ALL to slip.

*banana peel*

Opps!

[ellisonz]

4. Please let it be Mittens.

[AndyTiedye]

8. I Hope the Repigs Pick Mittens Too

The crazies won't like him and many of them will hopefully stay home.
That will help us oust the teabaggers down-ticket.

O can hopefully beat Mittens by enough to keep the Repigs from stealing it,
but even if he can't, the country would probably survive Mittens.
It would not survive Perry.

[ellisonz]

12. They're going to have to confront their own hatred...

...do they hate Barack or Mormons more...I mean it's not like Mitt reads the same holy books.

[mwb970]

17. Mitt's too Mormon, Huntsman's too sane.

Bachmann's a nut, Christie's a pain.
Perry's too "lib", Newt has a stain.
Paul has no chance, neither does Cain.

What's a republican to do?

[Bucky]

9. Too bad about Perry. I would've loved to see Obama mop the floor with him.

Cain's lucky that Perry was around long enough to make Cain look like the sane alternative to Romney.

[rasputin1952]

10. Perry is an idiot...

he has more baggage than Ellis Island on a good day.

Just by being governor of TX has him equated w/bush, (another idiot), which is enough to quash any presidential ambition.

I was off, I thought he'd be gone by the end of Sept...my Crystal Ball now says the middle of Oct...:D

[customerserviceguy]

13. The interesting part of this story

is that Romney hasn't changed one iota no matter whether Perry or Bachmann have been up or down on the see-saw. Clearly, his support has a ceiling, and my suspicion is that it's because of fundies who will absolutely not vote for a Mormon, even if the other choices are complete nut cases.

[mwb970]

16. Trump up, Trump down. Bachmann up, Bachmann down.

Perry up, Perry down. Cain up now, down soon. Now, time for Christie up! Then guess what?

What a worthless bunch of candidates they have on the far right!

[newspeak]

18. yeah, well you still got a corporatized media

with enough money for a massive PR campaign and a slavering media, they could make any nut job look sane, and have done so. Look what they did for little boots. Poor military service record, poor record in Texas, actually caught lying about the children's health insurance, alleged insider trading of his own company, cleaned up driving record, drug use allegations, and buying the pig farm before the elections to give him that "good ol' boy" persona."

And the media basically let him slide, while propping up that "everyone wants to have a beer with him."

[toopers]

20. there is a good chance that Cain will end up with the nomination . . .

he is now getting the presss time and people will move monetary donations from the "also rans" to the leaders.

[shinyhead]

21. dont think dismissing cain is smart

I think he may end up a force to watch. GOP voters are not as 2 dimensional as most would like to believe and underestimating the enemy is not wise.