Poll: Cain Continues To Lead Iowa

Herman Cain continues to lead in Iowa, according to a new poll, despite taking a hit in his national standing.

According to a survey from Iowa State University, the Gazette Newspaper and TV station KCRG, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO leads the GOP field in the hawkeye state with 24.5 percent support among likely caucus voters. Ron paul comes in second with 20.4 percent and Romney third with 16.3 percent.

Newt Gingrich, who has risen in prominence in recent weeks, comes in with only 4.8 percent, behind both Perry and Bachmann who chart at 7.9 and 7.6 percent respectively.

When respondents were asked who they would vote for as their second choice, Cain and Texas Governor Rick Perry came in neck and neck, with 16.9 percent for Cain and 16.7 percent for Perry. Romney received 11.8 percent and Paul came in at 11.1. No other candidate scored double digits.

The poll was conducted among 1,256 likely caucus voters between November 1st through the 13th. 979 registered Republicans were included in the survey as were 277 registered independents.

In a new national poll from Fox News, Cain comes in third. His diminished standing likely comes from sexual harassment allegations as well as his campaign’s lackluster response to them.

The Iowa Caucus is scheduled to be held January 3rd. 

Full poll results can be found here.

Poll: Romney Leads Obama By Double Digits In NH

In a hypothetical matchup in New Hampshire, President Obama trails GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney by 10 percentage points, according to a Bloomberg poll. 

Obama carried the northeastern swing state 54-45 percent in 2008 due in large part to the high volume of support among independent voters, a key constituency that has been turned off by the ongoing fiscal crisis facing the country.  

According to the poll, Romney rakes in 15 percent more of likely independent voters than Obama does. Forty percent of New Hampshire residents and 37 percent of its independents say the approve of Obama’s performance during his first three years in office.  

The New Hampshire could hold the key to the White House given that the Granite State has voted for the winning candidate in four of the last five presidential elections.

The results of the poll based off the surveys of 500 New Hampshire residents, 324 of whom are likely general election voters.

Perry Pitches Part-Time Congress

Texas Governor Rick Perry today detailed a new plan to significantly reform the size and scope of the federal government.

In a speech to voters in Bettendorf, Iowa, Perry proposed turning Congress into a part-time job for lawmakers, ending lifetime appointments for federal judges and abolishing a trio of federal agencies that he said would help balance the nation’s budget.

And yes, this time he remembered all three departments he’d cut.

The plan is lofty, to say the least, but Perry’s camp hopes it will catapult him back into contention in Iowa, where voters will participate in a primary caucus less than two months from now. The one-time frontrunner has a world of ground to make up in the Hawkeye State, where a new Bloomberg poll released today showed him tied for sixth place among all GOP candidates at seven percent.

The plan he unveiled today goes beyond perhaps any other recent proposal to change the structure of Washington, with all three branches of government — the executive, the legislative and the judicial — subject to massive restructuring.

Perry said he’d impose term limits on “unelected” federal judges because “Too many [of them] rule with impunity from the bench, and those who legislate from the bench should not be entitled to lifetime abuse of their judicial authority.”

He pitched cutting the salaries and schedules of lawmakers and their employees in half. “Congress is out of touch because Congressmen are overpaid, over-staffed and away from home too much. Americans have had enough.”

Perry argued that lawmakers have “abused the public’s trust,” citing a recent ‘60 Minutes’ report that linked members of Congress to insider stock trading. He called on lawmakers to outlaw the alleged practice.

“Any Congressman or Senator that uses their insider knowledge to profit in the stock market ought to be sent to jail – period.”

In a stunningly embarassing moment during a debate in Michigan last week, Perry failed to remember one of the three federal agencies he’d do away with as president. Today, however, he had no such trouble.

“We will eliminate agencies that perform redundant functions. I will get rid of the Commerce Department, the Department of Education, and the Department of Energy,” he said.

Perry accused the Transportation Security Administration of harassing “law-abiding travelers,” and proposed privatizing the department. He said he would audit the entire federal government and look closely for waste in the defense budget. He also pledged to put a hold on all pending federal regulations, end the government’s conservatorship of twin mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and reduce salaries by 50 percent for “every bureaucrat except our military and law enforcement.”

Following Perry’s speech, critics lampooned the measure.

When informed of some of the particulars of the proposal, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) rhetorically responded, “is this a serious plan?” Hoyer then suggested that Perry is merely “pandering to the Tea Party.”

And in his summary of the plan, The New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny referred to it as “radical.”

Dems Hit Romney Over Flip-Flops, Romney Calls Them "Obsessed"

The Democratic National Committee is continuing to attack Mitt Romney for flip-flopping on a host of key issues.

In a statement put out last night, the group’s Executive Director, Patrick Gaspard, accused Romney of changing his stance on tax cuts for middle income Americans.

During a New Hampshire debate last month, Romney referred to President Obama’s plan to extend payroll tax cuts for workers as “temporary little Band-Aids” that would do little to bring real relief to the struggling middle class.

The DNC responded two days later by releasing a web video accusing the GOP candidate of being out of touch with millions of voters who would benefit from the tax cut by as much as $1,500 per year.

Gaspard wrote to supporters last night that Romney reversed position during a debate in Michigan last week when he said, “I don’t want to raise taxes on people in the middle of a recession.”

“This kind of behavior is part of a disturbing pattern where Romney says one thing and then the exact opposite, sometimes within the span of a few paragraphs, and hopes no one calls him on it,” Gaspard added.

Meanwhile, a top spokesman for Romney said Monday that Democrats are “obsessed” with him.

In a fundraising memo, Romney’s communications director, Gail Gitcho, said “it’s becoming increasingly clear that Obama’s political machine prefers to focus its time and energy on attacking Governor Romney than fixing our economy.”

According to Gitcho:

- “Obama’s press secretary, Ben LaBolt, has referenced Mitt Romney over 110 times on Twitter in the last month. On the other hand, he mentioned “jobs” 11 times and “Iran” twice.”

- “In the last five days, “Romney” has been mentioned 37 times on the Democratic Party’s official Twitter feed, with no mention of any other GOP candidate.”

- “The DNC has released 26 attack videos on its YouTube channels. Unsurprisingly, all 26 videos have only one target - you guessed it, Mitt Romney.”

“This is only the beginning of their attacks,” she added. “You can be certain that this obsession will only grow.”

Polls: Gingrich Hits Top Tier Status

After a rocky start, it appears that Newt Gingrich has attained status as a top tier Republican candidate.

According to two new polls, the former House Speaker has had a recent surge in support. In a survey from Public Policy Polling [PPP] conducted among likely Republican voters, Gingrich leads the GOP field with 28 percent, coming in 3 points ahead of Herman Cain and 10 points ahead of Mitt Romney.

In a separate poll from CNN/ORC International, Gingrich runs neck and neck with Romney at 22 to 24 percent among Republicans and far ahead of Cain, whose support has dwindled to 14 percent.

Gingrich, who is widely acknowledged to have performed well in the debates, is the latest candidate to threaten to shake up the race. Texas Governor Rick Perry and former businessman Herman Cain have both represented alternatives to the former Massachusetts Governor, but have both seen their support dwindle. Cain continues to grapple with sexual harassment allegations and Perry suffered from a high-profile gaffe after forgetting mid-debate the name of a government agency he would cut if elected.

The CNN/ORC poll was conducted among 480 Republicans and Conservative leaning independents between November 11th and 13th. The Public Policy Polling surveyed 576 Republican primary voters between November 10th and 13th.