Whether Herman Cain’s surge in the polls is temporary or has staying power, he’s enjoying a big enough bounce to take a very slight lead over President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 matchup. At the moment, the Georgia businessman is the only Republican with a lead of any kind over Obama, although former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has held a similar advantage several times and is currently trailing the president by just two points.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows Cain attracting 43% support, while Obama earns 41%. Given such a matchup, eight percent (8%) prefer some other candidate, and another eight percent (8%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Cain is tied with Romney for the lead in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. Nobody else is even close at the moment.
Last week, Cain trailed Obama by three. The week before, he was behind by five. “Cain now has the chance to make the case for why he should be the challenger to Mitt Romney,” says Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports. “Many others have auditioned for the role and fallen flat, and it remains to be seen whether Cain’s fate will be similar.” Rasmussen interviewed Cain for the Rasmussen Report on radio show.
There is no reason why we should settle for a squishy moderate who is liberal on social issues when we can have Herman Cain and still win the election.
House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan said in an interview with The Daily Caller that he “loves” the idea of having “specific and credible” plans, like presidential candidate Herman Cain’s signature “9-9-9″ proposal, in the national debate about tax policy.
Ryan told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview that Cain’s plan is a good starting point for debate, and shows the GOP presidential campaign season has entered into a more advanced stage where ideas — not just personalities — have come to the forefront.
“We need more bold ideas like this because it is specific and credible,” Ryan said. “I’m more of a flat-tax kind of a guy.”
The budget chairman went on to say that ideas like Cain’s plan could help shape the debate over tax reform moving into 2013.
“It’s great to see such bold ideas,” Ryan told TheDC.
[…]“I consider Paul Ryan to be one of the brightest minds in Washington, D.C.,” said Mark Block, Cain’s chief of staff, “Mr. Cain looks forward to sitting down with Congressman Ryan.
House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan “loves” Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan and sees the proposal as “specific and credible” – a major endorsement for a surging GOP presidential candidate.
“We need more bold ideas like this because it is specific and credible,” Ryan said in an interview with the Daily Caller. “I’m more of a flat-tax kind of a guy.”
Cain is returning the love. He said Wednesday that he sees Ryan as the type of person he would want as a Vice Presidential nominee were he to win the Republican primary, the Hill reported.
“I’ll give you a name, like representative Paul Ryan. I’m not saying he would be a V.P. pick. He might be. But that’s the type of person that I would want in my cabinet. He is the type of person,” said Cain on the Steve Gill Show.
Ryan said hoped Cain’s plan – which would replace the current code with a 9 percent tax on all personal income, corporate income and sales – would encourage legislators to consider tax reform in coming sessions, the Hill reported.
Ryan says that Cain is thinking the right way, and that he believed that critiques of the plan would make it stronger.
The famed economist told HUMAN EVENTS that the proposal was pro-growth and would create the proper conditions for America’s economy to expand and thrive again.
“Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan would be a vast improvement over the current tax system and a boon to the U.S. economy,” Laffer told HUMAN EVENTS in a statement. “The goal of supply-side tax reform is always a broadening of the tax base and lowering of marginal tax rates.”
Added Laffer: “Mr. Cain’s plan is simple, transparent, neutral with respect to capital and labor, and savings and consumption, and also greatly decreases the hidden costs of tax compliance. There is no doubt that economic growth would surge upon implementation of 9-9-9.”
Laffer also said that “such a system provides the least avenues to avoid paying taxes, yet also maintains the strongest incentives for work effort, production, and investment.”
Everyone is talking about Chris Christie’s endorsement of Mitt Romney… but Christie is a RINO. I’m sure that Romney will get endorsements from John McCain, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, too. But Paul Ryan’s endorsement is the endorsement that really matters.
WINTERY KNIGHT 