Quinnipiac 2012 Presidential Survey

• Barack Obama 47% [42%] (45%) {47%} [47%] (44%)
• Mitt Romney 42% [46%] (45%) {41%} [41%] (45%)

• Barack Obama 50%
• Herman Cain 40%

• Barack Obama 52%
• Newt Gingrich 37%

• Barack Obama 52% [45%] (45%) {50%}
• Rick Perry 36% [44%] (42%) {37%}

(more…)

Quinnipiac 2012 GOP Nomination Survey

• Herman Cain 30% {18%} [5%] (6%)
• Mitt Romney 23% {24%} [20%] (28%)
• Newt Gingrich 10% {9%} [4%] (6%)
• Rick Perry 8% {15%} [26%] (10%)
• Ron Paul 7% {6%} [10%] (6%)
• Michele Bachmann 4% {5%} [12%] (17%)
• Jon Huntsman 2% {1%} [1%] (1%)
• Rick Santorum 1% {3%} [2%] (1%)
• Don’t know 16% {19%} [19%] (22%)

(more…)

At the end of the segment, O’Reilly asks Cain to come back every week or so regularly.

If you’re on this site regularly, just like me, just like probably everyone writing here, you’re a political junkie.

Politics is something we spend hours on, reading and listening to analysis, watching ads and interviews, posting on forums, parsing words.

We know everything, everything that is, except what actually matters to voters. We know all the minutae of every political story. The problem? We suffer from what Chip and Dan Heath call, “The Curse of Knowledge.” As it applies to politics, we constantly imagine that average Joe voter at home who spends ten minutes catching up a politics a day knows everything we know from our microscopic examination of an election or an issue. We assume when imagining how an election will come out that everything we know everyone else knows and will interpret it in the same way you do.

Generally, this gets bolstered by the fact that if we do have less political people around us, they either: a) generally agree with us or b) get a lot of their political information from conversations we have with them

It’s why, Huckabee opponents are confounded with his continuing popularity and polls that showed as a leading presidential contender. I watched the sheer volume of attacks that Huckabee sustained in November/December 2007 and thought it would finish him at the Iowa Caucusues. It didn’t and he won more states than Bob Dole in 1988 or John McCain did in 2000.

I remember when Huckabee made a dumb remark about Obama ducking at an NRA Convention in 2008, there were people declaring his career over. And Huckabee has been declared dead over fatal gaffes.

Conservatives were equally surprised that Obama won despite all the reports about things like Bill Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge, and Obama’s radical Chicago ties.  But how many voters knew about this?

The same thing is going on with Herman Cain. We heard that Cain’s momentum would be stopped once Republicans got hold of the confusion over his statement on Piers Morgan on abortion. Well, we’re sitting here and polls this week taken after the blow (though admittedly before this current issue broke) show Cain leading in Maine! (Yes, Maine.) and essentially tied for first in Florida.

In addition, this issue which is going to throw Herman Cain back to Earth in a horrifying crash doesn’t appear to be doing it:

Washington (CNN) – Herman Cain’s campaign says it raised more than $400,000 on Monday, a “clear vote of confidence from his supporters,” after the story broke alleging he had been accused of sexual harassment while head of the National Restaurant Association…

Steve Grubbs, a veteran political organizer in Iowa who is the volunteer chairman for the Cain campaign in the state, said he was not sure what the reaction would be among Iowa Cain supporters when the story broke. But so far, he said he has not seen any dent. He said he signed up 40 precinct chairmen on Monday, a major jump from Friday.

Put another way, yesterday in one day,  Cain raised half of what Newt Gingrich did for the entire third quarter.

So what’s going on in America? Not the same thing that’s going on in the blogosphere, where saturation with the issue and all its intricacies are blinding us to where the American people are.

Maybe we don’t have to, like Socrates, confess that all we know is we know nothing. However, when it comes to knowing how the American people will react, that’s pretty close to the truth.

We are slowly getting some of the pieces of this sexual harassment scandal put together – courtesy of yet another Cain misstep, and courtesy of the gossip mongers at the Old Grey Lady.

Last night on PBS, Herman Cain detailed the now famous “You’re the same height as my wife” incident, and said it was the only incident he could remember between him and that particular woman in question. Specifically, he said, “The only one I could recall, after a day of trying to remember specifics, was once I referenced this lady’s height.”

But that was far from the only complaint the women had against Cain, according to… Cain. This morning on CNN, Cain suddenly remembered there were other charges leveled against him in that same case, but explained them this way:

Cain said in Monday television appearances that he could remember only one specific incident in his accuser’s complaint. He described that episode again to Headline News this morning, saying it involved “putting my hand under my chin, standing near this lady, saying, ‘Oh, you’re the same height as my wife.’”

But this time, Cain went on to say that there had been “a couple of other things” in the complaint filed during his time at the National Restaurant Association, though he claimed not to remember the specifics.

The complaint concerned “the gesture with the height thing and there were a couple of other things in there that I found absolutely ridiculous,” Cain said, as HLN’s Robin Meade cut in, asking him what “ridiculous” things he was referring to.

“I don’t even remember. They were so ridiculous, I don’t remember what they are,” Cain said.

The anchor pressed him: “You remember they were ridiculous, but you don’t remember what the other things were?”

“The reason I forgot them is because they were ridiculous. I dismissed them out of my mind,” Cain said.

Um, count me in the camp of incredulity along with that anchor. “You remember they were ridiculous, but you don’t remember what the other things were?”

Let’s review: on Sunday night, after a disastrous call-in to Geraldo, the Cain campaign said they were denying the truthfulness of the Politico report. Then on Monday morning, Cain admitted the Politico story was true – that he had been charged with sexual harassment – but said that he did not harass anyone. He also said that he only remembered one woman accusing him of harassment, not two, and that he was completely unaware of any settlement(s) made in the case. Later Monday afternoon, he admitted that he did actually know about the settlements. Then Monday night, he could suddenly recall one incident that caused one of the women to accuse him, and this morning he remembered there were several other incidents that she interpreted as harassment.

Oh, Herman…

Charles Krauthammer is already questioning whether Cain is being “Clintonian” in his response to this whole dust-up, but I think that misses the mark. Clinton was at least politically adept enough to weasel his way out of a sex scandal. This (much smaller – so far) NRA scandal is succeeding in putting Cain on display with a huge sign around his neck that says, “In Over My Head.”

Another small but interesting piece of information comes via the New York Times tonight. Monday morning, remember, NBC did some investigating of their own when this story broke. They discovered who one of the women was, verified that she had received a five-figure settlement from the NRA, and then published a report saying just that. Well, apparently, the New York Times embarked on the same investigation, only they couldn’t see fit to keep the details from the public: they are reporting that one of the women received a settlement of $35,000 – equal to one full year of pay for her.

More interesting is that this settlement was given to the woman Cain claims to not remember anything about – not her name, not any incidents with her, not a harassment charge, not a settlement, nothing. The $35,000 settlement was given to a woman who is over 5 feet tall and who, according to her lawyer, brought different charges than the “same height” event Cain continues talking about.

How long until Cain suddenly remembers this woman as well, and describes one of the events that led to her harassment charges?

Of course, for now, the damage to Cain is that every appearance he makes is no longer about policy or vision for this country… every interview he does, every speech he gives now involves him putting his hand to his chin and describing alleged sexual harassment. Not a good way to spend the last 60 days before the votes start coming in.

When he first began talking about a Presidential campaign, I was excited. Listening to him speak about the fundamentals of conservatism was mesmerizing. His outsider credentials, his strong support among Tea Party voters, his vast business experience was impressive to me. I like outsider candidates, still do. I’m one of those rare people who genuinely likes 9-9-9. Still do. I jumped feet first onto the Cain Train and never planned to look back. I’m starting to.

It started out simply enough with an issue Cain was strong on, abortion. Cain is pro-life, I have no doubts of that. He has donated intensely to pro-life causes. He has a history of strong, bold stances on life issues. But every day came a rewording, modified statement that made him sound less and less pro-life. It became difficult to defend the man who I believed in.

Then came the sexual harassment charges. As I said before, I am still under the impression that this entire situation was a misunderstanding blown out of proportion. I don’t think Cain sexually harassed anyone. That said, his defense of himself for something that, as I said – I don’t think he did, has been weak at best. This could have been a chance for Cain to get this out of the way, get this explained in a straight forward manner, and could have been a boost to his campaign. It has provided him a financial boost today, but for a lot of us it shows a hole in his campaign. Again, this was something he should have been ready to respond to, instead he responded…modified his comments time and again. Those who called his response “Clintonian” almost feels fitting.

Now today Cain missed a fairly basic foreign policy issue – that China has nuclear weapons. Ace of Spades has the rest of the details including portions of the interview transcript. A Presidential candidate needs to know some very basic facts – the fact that China has nuclear weapons needs to be among them. While no Presidential candidate truly knows all that he or she “knows” when in interviews, but if Cain has not been briefed on something that basic, his campaign is flawed.

Cain needs to revamp his campaign. He’s in the big leagues now and still being coached by the JV squad all stars. He’s gotten some good new campaign members recently, but he needs to rapidly adapt. He needs to be better prepared. He needs to learn the political game just a little bit. The very thing that I liked about him, his lack of political experience, is shining light on his greatest weakness.

From the campaign that was the most energetic and had some of the fervent fans, I’ve become tired. I’m tired of defending Herman Cain. I’m tired of looking foolish for supporting the man as he fumbles along. I’m not quite ready to give up on him just yet…but, sadly, I’m getting there. I’m hoping to be proven wrong, but time will tell.

_______________________________________________________

-Matt Newman is a conservative blogger from Maryland who blogs at Old Line Elephant / Pundit League and Tweets far too often.

Suffolk University/WSVN-TV 2012 Florida Republican Primary:

• Mitt Romney 25%
• Herman Cain 24%
• Newt Gingrich 11%
• Rick Perry 9%
• Ron Paul 5%
• Jon Huntsman 2%
• Rick Santorum 1%
• Michele Bachmann 1%
• Gary Johnson 1%
• Buddy Roemer 0%
• Fred Karger 0%

Margin of error +/- 3.5%

It’s been awhile since national politics has featured a good bimbo eruption:

One of the women who accused GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain of sexual harassment wants to tell her side of the story but is barred by a confidentiality agreement, her attorney in Washington said Tuesday.

Lawyer Joel P. Bennett called on the National Restaurant Association, where the woman and Cain worked in the late 1990s, to release the woman from her written promise not to talk about the allegations or disparage the trade group.

…

“For all practical purposes, Herman Cain has already done that” — waived confidentiality, Bennett said. “But legally that might not constitute a waiver.”

Sorry folks, this story isn’t going away. And if Cain’s accuser does come forward, the Cain campaign will find itself in the unenviable position of brandishing the Clintons’ “nuts or sluts” defense, something that will almost certainly cause Cain to tank among GOP primary voters. A more likely outcome to all of this is that the accuser never gets to have her day in the court of public opinion, but that the story continues to simmer for the next couple of weeks, causing Cain to lose 35-50 percent of his support, and perhaps ushering in “Newt November,” given that the former Speaker seems to be benefiting in recent polls from the weakness of the Republican field.

PPP (D) Maine 2012 GOP Primary Survey

• Herman Cain 29%
• Mitt Romney 24% [15%] (18%)
• Newt Gingrich 18% [19%] (14%)
• Michele Bachmann 5%
• Ron Paul 5% [8%]
• Rick Perry 4%
• Rick Santorum 2%
• Jon Huntsman 1%
• Gary Johnson 1%
• Someone else/Undecided 11% [13%] (23%)

Would you say you are strongly committed to that candidate, or might you end up supporting someone else?

• Strongly committed to that candidate 33%
• Might end up supporting someone else 67%

Note: Maine’s delegates are selected at state conventions which are scheduled to run from February 4th-11th, 2012. In 2008, the final results were: Mitt Romney 52%, John McCain 22%, Ron Paul 18%, Mike Huckabee 6%, and undecided at 2%.

(more…)

PPP (D) North Carolina 2012 GOP Primary Survey

• Herman Cain 30% (27%) {9%} [9%] (9%) {21%}
• Newt Gingrich 22% (17%) {8%} [11%] (9%) {14%}
• Mitt Romney 19% (17%) {12%} [16%] (23%) {25%}
• Rick Perry 10% (15%) {35%} [17%] (14%)
• Michele Bachmann 4% (6%) {8%} [17%] (22%) {10%}
• Ron Paul 4% (6%) {10%} [11%] (6%) {9%}
• Rick Santorum 2% (2%) {4%}
• Jon Huntsman 2% (2%) {2%} [2%] (2%) {1%}
• Gary Johnson 0%
• Someone else/Undecided 8% (8%) {12%} [13%] (10%) {10%}

Would you say you are strongly committed to that candidate, or might you end up supporting someone else?

• Strongly committed to that candidate 34%
• Might end up supporting someone else 66%

Note: The North Carolina Primary is scheduled to be held on May 8th, 2012.

(more…)

PPP/Daily Kos/SEIU (D) Political Survey

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Barack Obama?

• Favorable 44%
• Unfavorable 51%

Among Democrats

• Favorable 77%
• Unfavorable 16%

Among Republicans

• Favorable 10%
• Unfavorable 88%

Among Independents

• Favorable 43%
• Unfavorable 51%

(more…)

Rasmussen 2012 Presidential Survey

• Barack Obama 44% {44%} [39%] (41%) {42%} [44%]
• Ron Paul 35% {34%} [38%] (37%) {34%} [35%]

Survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted October 28-29, 2011.  The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.  Results from the poll conducted September 24-25, 2011 are in curly brackets.  Results from the poll conducted August 15-16, 2011 are in square brackets.  Results from the poll conducted June 26-27, 2011 are in parentheses.  Results from the poll conducted March 20-21, 2011 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted between January 17-18, 2011 are in square brackets.

-Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

>Rasmussen 2012 Presidential Survey

• Barack Obama 43% (44%) {41%} [42%] (39%) {42%} [43%]
• Herman Cain 38% (38%) {43%} [39%] (34%) {35%} [25%]

Survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted October 30-31, 2011.  The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.  Results from the poll conducted October 21-22, 2011 are in parentheses.  Results from the poll conducted October 14-15, 2011 are in curly brackets.  Results from the poll conducted October 6-7, 2011 are in square brackets.  Results from the poll conducted September 26-27, 2011 are in parentheses.  Results from the poll conducted August 23-24, 2011 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted March 26-27, 2011 are in square brackets.

-Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

UW Washington 2012 Presidential Survey

• Barack Obama 50.2%
• Mitt Romney 40.7%

• Barack Obama 54.0%
• Rick Perry 40.7%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Barack Obama 52% / 43% {+9%}
• Mitt Romney 36% / 42% {-6%}
• Rick Perry 21% / 51% {-30%}

Survey of 938 registered voters was conducted October 10-30, 2011. The margin of error is +/- 3.2 percentage points.

-Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

We are now just 2 months away from the first votes being cast in the Iowa Caucuses and the race for 2012 has finally taken shape with it’s final field of candidates. Due to the shrinking field of contenders the Power Rankings will now shift to a Top 8 instead of Top 10.

Gov. Romney has solidified his status as the frontrunner and likely nominee for the GOP, so much so that the Obama Administration, still a year out from the election, is already launching a negative campaign against the former Massachusetts governor.  Romeny’s slow and steady approach has paid off as other candidates have risen and fallen around him over the past several months.  Romney’s destruction of Perry in the debates and Cain’s disturbing sexual harassment allegations have helped put Romney in his strongest position of the cycle. The question now is will Romney be tempted to go for the Iowa knockout or maintain his New Hampshire first strategy?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s decline has continued, despite his attempts to appear more energized in the last presidential debate.  Perry’s team has gone through a makeover with a number of national campaign veterans brought in to take the reigns from Perry’s faltering Texas staff.  The biggest acquisition was former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.  At this point Perry still has the resources to be a top contender, but his absurd New Hampshire speech and flirtation with birtherism still underscore the fact that Joe Allbaugh’s new job won’t be easy.

Georgia Businessman Herman Cain was riding high in the polls for most of the month before his campaign was rocked by a sexual harassment scandal.  The incident stemming from his time as the head of the National Restaurant Association has damaged Cain, not because of the allegations themselves which still seem to lack a smoking gun, but rather due to the incredible disorganization of his campaign’s response.  This week has highlighted why many continue to take Perry more seriously than Cain, as his operation seems to be amateurish at best and incompetent at worst.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul remains the only other contender raising serious money and building a legitimate organization.  Though it is still hard to see how Paul expands on his base, his large small donor list and impressive money bombs will make him a factor in the early states, and may surprise and confound the conventional wisdom.

The rest of the field continues to lack a number of qualities to be taken seriously, either due to money, organization, polls, or policy heft.  Rep. Michele Bachmann’s slide has hastened, as her team continues to hemorrhage staff and suffer dreadful process stories about her disorganization in the process. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is enjoying a bump in the polls due to his debate performances, but he lacks any serious organization in the early states and has seen his campaign fall into massive debt. Sen. Santorum’s fundraising has been abysmal, yet he has still managed to put together a respectable Iowa team on a shoestring budget.  Jon Huntsman has moved his campaign to New Hampshire in a desperate final salvo to save his sinking campaign which currently resides at 0% in a number of polls. Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson’s campaign was so unserious and disorganized that he nearly forgot to file his paperwork to qualify for the ballot in New Hampshire.

On to the rankings:

1. Mitt Romney
2. Rick Perry
3. Herman Cain
4. Ron Paul
5. Newt Gingrich
6. Rick Santorum
7. Michele Bachmann
8. Jon Huntsman

VP Watch: 1. Marco Rubio 2. Bob McDonnell 3. Rob Portman 4. Chris Christie 5. John Thune

Hat-tip: The Argo Journal

Let’s take a ride in the “Wayback Machine”. The year is 1992. George H.W. Bush is in his last year of his first (and only) term as President. The Democrats are busy deciding whom they are going to run against him.

The current governor of Arkansas is Bill Clinton. He is drawing a lot of attention from the voters. He is the consummate politician. Everyone seems to love him. “He feels our pain.” But there are several things troubling me about him.

First, he is accused of dodging the draft back in the sixties. That doesn’t really bother me that much. I do have that ten year statute of limitations on stupidity, after all. I lived through the sixties. It was a trying time for our nation. A lot of good men tried to avoid the draft. But there has been at least twenty-five years of water under the bridge since then. I could care less about whether he served with distinction or had been a miserable coward. It is in the past.

But what does concern me in 1992 is that Bill Clinton changed his story about avoiding service no fewer than three times. He stated one thing, and when evidence cast doubt upon that explanation, he stated another. And when that became untenable, he presented a third story.

Then there are his attempts at avoiding the question about taking drugs. Here again he changes his story once or twice until he is finally boxed in. At that point he makes his famous (now proverbial) reply, “Yes, I smoked marijuana once — but I didn’t inhale!”.

Now let’s hop back into the “Wayback Machine” and come forward to the year 2008. There is a young junior Senator from Illinois running for the Presidency. He is very good at reading speeches, but when he goes off script, his campaign is full of gaffes. “57 states” is just one famous one.  There are many more. His knowledge of foreign policy is poor, he has no executive experience of which to speak. He sat for twenty years in the pew of a virulently anti-American church that spewed out hatred of America on a regular basis.

Now let’s return to the present.We find that we have a President who can’t speak off-the-cuff without getting into trouble. His foreign policy is “do-what-seems-right-at-the-moment”. He goes around the world apologizing for America, and tries to change nearly everything that makes America great.

In the present, we members of the Republican Party are faced with a momentous decision. Whom will we pick as our 2012 nominee for President of the United States? One thing is for certain. We will not be selecting a 1994 version of Mitt Romney who was pro-choice. We will not be selecting a 1996 version of Herman Cain who stands accused of sexually harassing a pair of female employees. We will not be selecting a 1988 version of Rick Perry who was Al Gore’s Texas Chairman. We will not be selecting a 1999 version of Newt Gingrich who resigned in disgrace from being Speaker of the House. No, the person we choose to represent us will have to be the 2011 versions of these or other candidates.

By the same token, it is dangerous to choose what we hope will be the 2013 version as well. We cannot assume that once someone becomes President, that all their troubling traits will disappear, and that he will magically become a superior chief executive. The country did that with the 2008 version of Barrack Obama, and by-and-large the 2011 version is pretty much the same as the 2008 version. What-you-see-is-what-you-get must be our motto.

Which brings us to Herman Cain. As I stated in my earlier article concerning the sexual harassment charges, I really don’t care about what he did or did not do over ten years ago. We are not electing the man from the 1990s. We are considering the man from 2011. This Herman Cain has proven to be a bumbler, a stumbler, a “can’t get his story straight” talker, a “fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants” kind of guy. According to all accounts, his campaign knew about this scandal for ten days — TEN DAYS — before it broke, and yet he still fumbled the explanations. Is that what we want in a President? We already pretty much have that in Barrack Obama. Why would we want to go down that road again?

The 1992 version of Bill Clinton was a weasel. So was the 1993-2001 version. The 2008 version of Barrack Obama was a shallow thinking hater of what America stood for. So is the 2009-2011 version. The 2011 version of Herman Cain is a “winging-it”, “fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants”, “don’t-think-too-deeply”, “don’t-worry-too-much-about-preparation” guy. The odds are extremely good that the 2013 version will be the same.

And that is what troubles me about Herman Cain.