-By Warner Todd Huston
A gathering of Tea Partiers in Palatine, Illinois held a straw poll of 38 attendees and Herman Cain came out on top. The group met to watch Tuesday’s GOP debate.
38 Republican primary voters attended a “viewing party” in Palatine, IL on Oct. 18, 2011 for the Republican presidential candidate debate in Las Vegas on CNN. Compare these results to the straw poll for a very similar group last week after the debate in New Hampshire. Herman Cain expanded his lead with this group. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich remain close to each other, and Michele Bachmann picked up some support. Rick Perry continued to decline.
This poll of a small group of Tea Partiers may seem sort of meaningless. Maybe on its face it is but this poll seems to reflect what Tea Partiers and conservatives are feeling throughout the movement, so this is a pretty good snapshot of where we stand today.
Cain was the big winner reflecting his high profile among Republicans generally. Even though the other candidates tried as they might to destroy Cain’s 999 plan, he came through this debate unharmed. His support continues to surge.
Coming in second to Cain, Romney still has the “but he can win” vote tied up, though, which I hate to see. I’d personally put the flip flopping former Governor of Massachusetts at the bottom of the list with only Ron Paul sitting lower. Romney has no principles that he won’t compromise to win.
Coming in third Newt is as big a surprise as Cain. Newt’s performances in the debates have really gone a long way to temper the hard feelings that many conservatives have had against him for the last several years. Newt was really on the outs with many conservatives when he first announced his run for the WHite House and for months afterward his campaign seemed to be simply a joke. But as each debate aired people gained a renewed respect for Newt’s sagacity and capabilities.
Perry’s poor showing shows that he is quickly losing any chance to get his mojo back.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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