Cain Stuns Perry In Fla. Straw Poll

25 September 2011 |permalink | email article

In a shock Godfather Pizza executive Herman Cain dealt a major blow to GOP presidential frontrunner Rick Perry in Florida’s straw poll with 2,600 participants on Saturday even though the Texan made a strong push to win after his weak showing in Thursday night’s debate.

Activists made clear that Cain is unlikely to become president, but rallied to his strait down-the-line conservative message. Cain got almost 40 percent; Perry, who left the state early, got little more than 15 percent; and Romney, who never competed officially, placed third with 14 percent. Rick Santorum led the second tier with 11 percent, followed by Ron Paul (10 percent), Newt Gingrich (8 percent) and Jon Huntsman (2 percent). Michelle Bachmann finished last. Perry’s in-state supporters, including Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon and other state legislators, were confident he would win. Talking Points Memo reported the biggest lesson comes from the conservative Tea Party wing of the party which is seriously disillusioned with Perry and is seeking a safe harbor that now is Cain. But the logical inference is that unless Perry gets his act together it could be Romney.

Meg Whitman Redux

The former chief executive at Hewlett-Packard, who went on to become a billionaire guiding EBay’s ascent, and ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for California governor last year, returned to H-P as CEO on Friday and got a rude shock: the company’s stock hit a six-year low. Some investors had previously criticized the board for choosing Whitman without an intensive search for a candidate. In addition, another drawback to Whitman is she’s spent considerable time supporting Mitt Romney in his presidential bid, and had focused much of her time and energy recently in the political realm.

L.A. TV News

Los Angeles Times’ media writer James Rainey is calling out Fox News’ new “Studio 11 LA” program for its sloppy, one-sided reporting soon after getting rid of veteran journalist John Schwada, a star reporter at the late Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and The Times before joining Fox in recent years. One edgy example: co-anchor Liz Habib, a reporter-weather-sports talker, confronted Eric Bauman, the L.A. County Democratic Party chairman, whose organization lost serious money in the alleged embezzlement by Kinde Durkee, long time treasurer for scores of Democratic elected officials. Habib questioned whether the victims had properly vetted Durkee, and “seemed to think they were in on the crime.” I mean, how dumb does it get?

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