There are two ways to look at the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Either it’s gone further than any primary before it, or it’s literally gone nowhere at all.
Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney is again at the top, splitting hairs on issues when he talks to GOP audiences (even if they boo a member of the United States Military). At the level below, candidates battle each other for conservative support, which changes seemingly by the hour. This hour? Rick Perry is tanking, and Herman Cain is soaring. For Cain, it’s the second time.
The takeaway here is neither that Herman Cain is gaining momentum and rising in the polls (which he is, right now) or that Rick Perry is falling like a rock (which he is, for the moment). It’s that the one constant in the Republican primary race is that there is no constant, except for the guy who’s been running since 2007. Whether GOP voters accept Mr. Inevitable or not is probably irrelevant, they will continue to look for someone else.
The latest switch, from Rick Perry being sufficiently conservative and electable at the same time to the hardcore Tea Party support of pizza mogul Herman Cain, actually had some data to back it up. Simply put, the more people heard about Perry, the more they disliked the idea of his candidacy. Both Gallup and a survey from ABC News and the Washington Post showed that with Cain, it was the opposite.
To illustrate just how quick the switch was, CBS News took their new poll released Tuesday and matched it up with data from two weeks ago. First, Romney and Cain are now locked in the lead at 17 percent. Two weeks ago Perry had the lead with 23, Romney second with 16. But beyond the toplines, critical Tea Party support has swung wildly from Perry over to Cain: two weeks ago, 7 percent went for Cain, who increased his take four times to 24 percent now. Perry went from 30 percent to 12 in the same time period.
If all that movement didn’t make it clear, CBS drove it home with this: 76 percent of GOP voters in the poll who chose one of the current candidates say they could move to someone else. Meaning, even though they decided today, they haven’t decided for tomorrow.
But wait! There was data the last time too. Perry’s favorability was soaring with GOP voters, pushing past Mitt Romney on his way to the front of the pack. Then, he angered the Republican base when some of his policy decisions came to light (defending in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants, mandating a vaccine that prevents HPV in women) and turned in some terrible debate performances, which were highlighted throughly in the media. Now he’s someone to get away from, and Republicans are following suit.
But wait! Didn’t Cain already have a boomlet, in early summer, only to be pushed aside by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)? Yes, yes he did. In fact, Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll and is still a sorta-contender in the state, but has been completely pushed aside by Perry, who scooped up conservative voters when he entered the race.
But wait! Wasn’t Mike Huckabee going to run a be the next President? Why yes, yes he was. In fact, now he won’t rule out running, probably because of the reasons listed above.
And we won’t even mention Donald Trump.
The term “full circle” doesn’t do the race justice in this sense: with Cain, history is literally repeating itself. Yesterday, PPP found him to be leading the GOP field in North Carolina, Nebraska and West Virginia. There are major blocks of GOP voters who are literally answering that they like a candidate one week, and running away the next. Swings happen within races, but they usually have to do with the events surrounding the contest (a scandal, shift in the economy, so on). There have been no real events that have moved Republican voters. They are moving themselves.
The GOP primary voters are not just fickle, they are desperately trying to find someone, anyone, who will both beat Obama and not be Mitt Romney. That option just doesn’t seem like a choice right now. And Republicans are listening to all options in a truly wide open race.
