United Liberty

Rassmussen released a new survey out of Iowa on Friday, their first since the Ames Straw Poll, showing Texas Gov. Rick Perry with a double-digit lead over Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

• Rick Perry: 29%
• Michele Bachmann: 18%
• Mitt Romney: 17%
• Ron Paul: 14%

According to Rasmussen, nobody else in the race polled above 5% (that info is behind a paywall and I’m reluctant to share it here), so it’s a four person race; including Texas Rep. Ron Paul. Bachmann and Romney were at 22% and 21%, respectively, in the last Rasmussen poll out of Iowa. Paul was at 16%. But there has been a shakeup in the race since then as Perry has jumped in (he polled at 12% in the last Rasmussen poll) and Tim Pawlenty has dropped out (he was at 11%).

A group supporting Michele Bachmann, who is struggling to remain relevent in the race for the Republican nomination for president, has purchased airtime in South Carolina for an attack ad against Rick Perry, who holds a substantial lead in the state:

Criticisms against Perry on spending and taxes have merit. I understand that the tea party is seemingly in love with him, Perry isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. Those issues will no doubt be fleshed out during the course of the race, but it’s clear that most view Perry as the most electable conservative in the race.

But on the other hand, Bachmann is sort of an oddball that doesn’t seem to understand that our defense spending is just as unsustainable as our entitlements. Despite her attempts to gain a larger base of support, Bachmann’s appeal will always remain limited.

While the last few polls in the GOP race have showed Rick Perry with a double-digit lead over Mitt Romney, a new poll from Quinnipiac has him up by a much smaller margin:

• Rick Perry: 24%
• Mitt Romney: 18%
• Sarah Palin: 11%
• Michele Bachmann: 10%
• Ron Paul: 9%
• Herman Cain: 5%
• Newt Gingrich: 3%
• Jon Huntsman: 1%
• Rich Santorum: 1%
• Thad McCotter: 1%
• DK/NA: 18%

Romney is down 7 points since the last poll was released by Quinnipiac back in mid-July. Bachmann is down 4 points. Perry has jumped by 14 points, though he wasn’t a candidate at the time of the last poll. Paul also saw a respectable 4 point jump from July.

Here is a look at the race without Palin:

• Rick Perry: 26%
• Mitt Romney: 20%
• Michele Bachmann: 12%
• Ron Paul: 10%
• Herman Cain: 5%
• Newt Gingrich: 4%
• Rich Santorum: 2%
• Jon Huntsman: 1%
• Thad McCotter: 1%
• DK/NA: 19%

Quinnipiac also ran the head-to-head numbers of the top four Republican candidates, including Sarah Palin, against President Barack Obama. Here’s a look at the matchups.

Barack Obama v. Rick Perry

• Obama: 45%
• Perry: 42%
• Other: 2%
• DK/NV/NA: 10%

Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney

Someone pointed out not too long ago that history shows that whoever won the Iowa caucus and South Carolina primary has traditionally gone on to win the Republican presidential nomination. According to polling in the Hawkeye State, Rick Perry is holding a small lead there over Mitt Romney. But a new poll from Public Policy Policy out of South Carolina shows Perry running away with the state:

• Rick Perry: 36%
• Mitt Romney: 13%
• Sarah Palin: 10%
• Herman Cain: 9%
• Michele Bachmann: 7%
• Newt Gingrich: 7%
• Ron Paul: 5%
• Rick Santorum: 4%
• Jon Huntsman: 2%
• Other/Not sure: 7%

And without Palin in the race:

• Rick Perry: 36%
• Mitt Romney: 16%
• Michele Bachmann: 13%
• Herman Cain: 9%
• Newt Gingrich: 8%
• Ron Paul: 5%
• Rick Santorum: 4%
• Jon Huntsman: 2%
• Other/Not sure: 7%

While Romney would best Bachmann, 45% to 40%, in a head-to-head match up, Perry would beat him decisively, 59% to 28%. That’s certainly an ominous sign for Romney in a crucial early primary state.

Over at The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf goes through a series of statements made by Rick Perry in a recent foreign policy-based speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and finds that he made several contradictory statements as he tried to pander to the factions in the Republican Party on the issue of national defense; or international offense, depending on how you view our interventionist foreign policy:

Unilateralism or Multilateralism

GOP Candidate A: “It’s not our interest to go it alone. We respect our allies and we must always seek to engage them in military missions”

GOP Candidate B: “We must be willing to act when it is time to act. We cannot concede the moral authority of our nation to multilateral debating societies, and when our interests are threatened American soldiers should be led by American commanders.”

Interventionism or Restraint

GOP Candidate A: “I do not believe that America should fall subject to a foreign policy of military adventurism. We should only risk shedding American blood and spending American treasure when our vital interests are threatened.”

GOP Candidate B: “As the 10th anniversary of the attacks of 911 approach, we must renew our commitment to taking the fight to the enemy wherever they are before they strike at home. We should always look to build coalitions among the nations to protect the mutual interests of freedom loving people.”

Qualifications to be Commander in Chief

Candidate A: “I think the military men and women respect the commander in chief regardless of who it is.”

Mitt Romney, who has seen his lead vanish in national polls, has put his new strategy of going after Rick Perry in action. Yesterday, while visiting Texas, Romney knocked “career politicians” for the nation’s current problems:

Though Mr. Romney has assiduously avoided taking on one rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, Mr. Romney took a veiled swipe at Mr. Perry in a speech Tuesday before the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in San Antonio.

“I have spent most of my life outside of politics, dealing with real problems in the real economy,” Mr. Romney said. “Career politicians got us into this mess, and they simply don’t know how to get us out.”

The attack line, which lit up the Twittersphere Tuesday morning when the campaign released some early excerpts, was met with some applause, but it is a point that Mr. Romney makes frequently on the campaign trail. Mr. Romney often argues that he is not a career politician and is one of the few candidates, having spent 25 years in the private sector, with the executive know-how to create jobs.

In his speech before the V.F.W., Mr. Romney tried to walk the line between offering an optimistic vision for the nation’s future — he even name-checked former President Ronald Reagan and mentioned “the shining city on a hill” — and painting a grim picture of the country under President Obama’s leadership.

“I believe in America,” Mr. Romney said, wearing a blue tie and speaking in a measured, even voice. “We believe in freedom and opportunity. We believe in the inherent dignity of every human being. We have deep and abiding faith in the goodness and the greatness of America.”

With the last few polls showing Rick Perry as the frontrunner in the Republican field for president, Mitt Romney is no doubt trying to figure out how to slow that train down. Pver the Washington Post, Marc Thiessen explains Romney’s plan:

If Perry fails to implode and continues to surge in the polls, Romney eventually will have to go on the attack — an assault his advisers say will commence “at a time of our choosing.” Romney strategists are quick to note that in his book, “Fed Up!,” Perry writes that “By any measure, Social Security is a failure” and calls the program “something we have been forced to accept for more than 70 years now” that was created “at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government.”

Look at what happened to Paul Ryan when he proposed a plan to save Medicare, they say. Romney’s campaign will argue that Perry is against the very idea of Social Security and Medicare, and that he will use Perry’s book to scare seniors in early-primary states with large retiree populations, such as Florida and South Carolina.

Three polls last week showed that Texas Gov. Rick Perry has come on strong since announcing his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. The latest poll from CNN only drives that fact home:

• Rick Perry: 32%
• Mitt Romney: 18%
• Michele Bachmann: 12%
• Newt Gingrich: 7%
• Ron Paul: 6%
• Herman Cain: 3%
• Gary Johnson: 2%
• Jon Huntsman: 1%
• Rick Santorum: 1%
• Thad CcCotter: 1%
• Other: 4%
• None/No opinion: 10%

Here are the numbers with Giuliani or Palin:

• Rick Perry: 27%
• Mitt Romney: 14%
• Sarah Palin: 10%
• Michele Bachmann: 9%
• Rudy Giuliani: 9%
• Newt Gingrich: 6%
• Ron Paul: 6%
• Herman Cain: 2%
• Gary Johnson: 2%
• Jon Huntsman: 1%
• Rick Santorum: 1%
• Other: 3%
• None/No opinion: 8%

Interestingly, Gary Johnson polls higher than Huntsman and Santorum and is tied with Cain. Unforunately, he still is unlikely to be included in Politico’s debate next week.

For sake of keeping it simple, we’ll confine commentary to the poll without Giuliani or Palin. Perry has jumped by 14 points while Romney has seen a 7 point drop in him numbers from the poll released by CNN earlier this month. Bachmann hasn’t moved at all. Ron Paul’s support dropped by more than half, from 14% to 6%; suggesting that Perry is, perhaps, taking support from him.

There’s not much else to take from this than we haven’t already said in the last week. In fact, it feels like we’re suffering from polling overload at this point.

The candidates have been set for the debate, sponsored by Politico and NBC News, on September 7th at Ronald Reagan Presidential Liberty in Semi Valley, California. According to the press release from Politico, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have all confirmed for the debate.

Unfortunately, Gary Johnson and Thad McCotter have been excluded; although they did include Jon Huntsman, who is barely registering some polls.

The debate will air live on MSNBC at 8pm on Wednesday, September 7th. We’ll probably be live-blogging it here.

Here is the full press release from Politico.

Candidates Announcement for September 7 Debate

As noted yesterday, Magellan Strategies, a Republican firm, put out a poll on Wednesday showing Mitt Romney and Rick Perry doing very well against President Barack Obama in Florida. Well, that poll isn’t a fluke. Mason-Dixon, a national non-partisan firm, released numbers from the Sunshine State showing somewhat similar results, with Romney doing the best among the three candidates polled.

Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney

• Obama: 43%
• Romney: 51%

Barack Obama v. Rick Perry

• Obama: 45%
• Perry: 46%

Barack Obama v. Michele Bachmann

• Obama: 46%
• Bachmann: 44%

Magellan’s numbers may have been somewhat inflated, as I acknowledged yesterday, but this about what I expected. We also learned yesterday that Obama is struggling in New Jersey, a traditionally blue state, where 47% of voters say he doesn’t deserve re-election and a majority disapprove of his job performance.

Mason-Dixon also had numbers specific to the Republican primary in Florida, which shows Romney leading Perry but 7 points and Michele Bachmann a distant third: