Daily Caller - Speaking at the 2011 Values Voter Summit, Texas Governor and GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry threw red meat to the conservative crowd, touting his pro-life, pro-Christian positions, but his message fizzled with some attendees.

ContributorNetwork - ANALYSIS | Sarah Palin decided not to run for president, ending months of speculation as to her political future. ABC News posted a letter Palin wrote Oct. 5 in which she said that she will not seek the GOP nomination. The former governor of Alaska also stated she will help the cause of conservatives and independents who are running for office.

In a speech at The Citadel on Friday, the former Massachusetts governor known more for his business acumen than his foreign-policy experience said he wants to increase the military budget. A weaker military and a smaller global footprint, he argued, will compromise America's leadership in the world.

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Daily Caller - ARLINGTON, Va. — Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said Sarah Palin’s supporters should give him a good look now that the former Alaska governor isn’t going to make a run for the White House in 2012.

Confessore & Parker, New York Times
Mitt Romney appeared on Thursday to be rapidly consolidating support among some of the Republican Party’s most sought-after uncommitted donors, who have joined Bush administration veterans and other stalwarts of the Republican establishment in backing him as the Republican field settles. The latest on the 2012 election, President Obama, Congress and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion. Those who have committed to Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, include James B. Lee Jr., the vice chairman of JPMorgan Chase, who raised more than...

Before he was elected governor of Texas, or to any of a series of positions going back more than 25 years, Perry grew cotton and raised cattle on land that his family had worked since the late 1800s. In every campaign, he's run as a man shaped by that experience. But real life on the farm was far less romantic.

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WASHINGTON — Rivals Rick Perry and Mitt Romney are furiously scurrying to recruit heartbroken holdouts who had hoped GOP celebrities Chris Christie or Sarah Palin would join the Republican presidential contest.

With a slew of donors and activists now up for grabs, the leading two Republican candidates redoubled their efforts – and made personal appeals – this week to win over unaligned high-dollar and high-power GOP players in what's become largely a two-man nomination fight.

"We're at a point when the large group of undecided activists are going to choose their candidate," said Jennifer Horn, a conservative activist in New Hampshire who hasn't picked a contender. "People are starting to accept the field and accept that these are our choices. It's time to get behind someone who is a candidate, someone who is running."

Romney, who essentially has been running for president for five years, spent a chunk of the week calling fundraisers and activists anew who have long sat on the sidelines; the former Massachusetts governor hoped they would finally decide to back him. Perry, who entered the race just seven weeks ago, was working to make up quickly for lost time; the Texas governor hoped that new supporters would give his campaign a lift after a few rocky weeks.

Both proved persuasive – to a point.

Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, a Christie backer, quickly joined Romney's team. So, too, did billionaire supermarket executive John Catsimatidis and hedge-fund giant Paul Singer. Romney was trading friendly emails with the three even as they were publicly calling for Christie to join the race. Former Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson also said he would back Romney in the wake of Christie's exit.

Romney also picked up support from two former Tim Pawlenty supporters in Florida, former Jeb Bush aides Slater Bayliss and Justin Sayfie. And he announced the backing of Jerry Carmen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party who has deep ties in the state.

Perry successfully wooed Iowa developer and casino owner Gary Kirke, one of about a dozen Iowa Republicans who had traveled to New Jersey last May to urge Christie to run. Kirke endorsed Perry Tuesday, calling him the one with the "skills, ideas and conviction" to be the party's nominee.

The Texan also released a list of his top supporters in New Hampshire, including people who had been sitting on the sidelines. Backers include former Sen. Gordon Humphrey as well as John Stephen, the GOP gubernatorial nominee in 2010. And a Perry aide said he plans to release a list of supporters in South Carolina next week who just signed on.

It's not clear whether Romney or Perry have been more successful at courting Christie supporters, including Wall Street donors. And it's equally unclear where Palin supporters – many from the party's conservative and tea party wings – will end up. Many turned to social networks to blast her decision not to run for president but they also didn't indicate who they would back instead.

Of the two candidates, Perry may have the better shot at picking up Palin backers, given his links to evangelical voters and tea party activists. Those constituencies aren't a natural fit for Romney, a Mormon who has switched positions on issues social conservatives hold dear. To that end, Perry's central challenge is to convince social and religious conservatives to unite behind him in places like South Carolina and Iowa instead of splintering among other candidates like Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Sen. Rick Santorum.

In South Carolina, Perry's campaign has been checking in regularly with the more than fifty local tea party groups to gauge their support. And they've been in touch with the state's pastors and religious leaders. He also plans to meet with social conservatives including some pastors when he travels Saturday through northwest Iowa, the geographic center of Iowa's evangelical conservative movement.

To varying degrees, both Romney and Perry are in a race to get the stamp of approval from the GOP establishment, which hasn't fallen in line behind any one candidate as it searches for the strongest Republican to challenge President Barack Obama.

Not everyone was picking a candidate.

Christie's most dogged suitor in Iowa, energy company owner Bruce Rastetter, said he planned to take his time before deciding who he would endorse. Rastetter expects to talk with Perry, Romney and perhaps others in the coming weeks. Romney aides said they had reached out to Rastetter and were planning a conversation, either by phone or in person.

"I look forward to engaging them in a discussion on some of the issues," Rastetter said Thursday. "I want to kind of evaluate it."

The behind-the-scenes courtship of donors and activists is a laborious – but necessary – process for the candidates.

"These races take so much money and so much organization, and of course a candidate who really knows the issues – including having a real understanding of foreign affairs," said Austin Barbour, a member of Romney's fundraising team. "It just can't happen overnight."

Money is a main goal. Romney got a head start in fundraising, bringing in $18 million in his first three months of collecting; he's likely to come in below that mark for the past three months, though he most certainly will lead Perry in cash on hand given his head start. Perry's team said he raised $17 million in his first seven weeks of campaigning and had $15 million of that in cash on hand.

The courtship of new donors and grass-roots activists reached a critical phase this week because the primary calendar has been shortened, with primary voting set to begin in just three months. In the coming weeks, candidates will have to spend more and more time campaigning to meet voters instead of making phone calls or holding private meetings

___

Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

Erin McPike, RealClearPolitics
Within a few weeks of Rick Perry's entry into the presidential race, the media seized on the narrative that the contest for the GOP nomination had rapidly narrowed to a two-man race, an alpha-male duel between the Texas governor and Mitt Romney. But conservative voters are having none of it.And so, a month later, a once little-known business-turnaround artist has surged into the lead in several state polls and one national poll. His name is Herman Cain, a Georgia native who has never held elective office. As such, he's not a politician by training, and he readily admits to not...

Erin McPike, RealClearPolitics
Within a few weeks of Rick Perry's entry into the presidential race, the media seized on the narrative that the contest for the GOP nomination had rapidly narrowed to a two-man race, an alpha-male duel between the Texas governor and Mitt Romney. But conservative voters are having none of it.And so, a month later, a once little-known business-turnaround artist has surged into the lead in several state polls and one national poll. His name is Herman Cain, a Georgia native who has never held elective office. As such, he's not a politician by training, and he readily admits to not...

Augusta, Maine -- Almost 3,200 miles separate Sacramento and Augusta, but the gulf between those two state capitals actually seems much greater when measuring the comparative trust that political leaders there have placed in health insurance companies.

This week and next, I will provide a glimpse into the contrasting approaches California and Maine are taking to their health care systems, especially as those approaches relate to health insurance.

We'll start by looking at what the Republican-controlled state government in Maine has done to dramatically affect the cost of health coverage for the state's 1.3 million residents. Next week, I'll share the perspective of California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, a Democrat who made it clear during his campaign last year that he will be tough on insurers as he seeks to protect the interests of the state's 37 million residents.

Golden State voters last year elected a Democrat, Jerry Brown, to succeed Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor, and kept Democrats in control of both chambers of the legislature. Maine voters did exactly the opposite; Democrats lost control of both the House and Senate, and Republican Paul LePage was elected governor by slightly more than 10,000 votes in a field of five candidates.

It would be hard to find a state where the investment in campaign contributions by the insurance industry has paid better dividends than in Maine. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, for instance, gave $7,500 last year to the Republican Party or party committees, and contributed an undisclosed amount to LePage's transition efforts. By the time the governor and legislators were sworn in earlier this year, the insurance industry must have had its wish list ready and its lobbyists poised to begin drafting industry-friendly legislation for lawmakers to introduce.

The insurers hit the jackpot in the spring when the industry's legislative allies rushed a bill through--which LePage quickly signed--that will indeed reform the state's health insurance marketplace--exactly the way insurers want. In many ways, it is taking the state in the opposite direction of the consumer protections enacted as part of the health reform legislation that Congress passed last year. The state law took effect last month. In anticipation of the law becoming effective, insurers prepared new rate quotes that enabled them to increase premiums--in many cases dramatically--for policies that renewed Oct. 1.

The industry's lobbyists must have been pinching themselves that they were able to get everything they wanted to ensure their employers will reap handsome profits over the next few years. In addition, the state's insurers are in firm control of a committee the governor appointed to advise lawmakers on how to set up the state exchange, or insurance marketplace, required by the federal law.

It's hard to imagine what else they could have asked for that they didn't get.

To give you an idea of just how quickly the industry's bill made it to LePage's desk compared to other important pieces of legislation, consider this: lawmakers passed the measure just a week and a half after the first public hearing on the bill. By contrast, the legislature devoted 48 days to the contentious debate over whether to call the whoopie pie the state's official dessert or the state's official treat. Seriously.

The fast-tracking of the insurance industry's bill was ordered by legislative leaders so that consumer advocates would have virtually no time to amend or kill the bill, which with the stroke of LePages's pen abolished consumer protections enacted over two decades of previous gubernatorial administrations.

Among other things, the legislation did away with hard-fought protections for rural families that had required insurers to have at least one doctor in their provider networks within 30 miles of where those families lived and at least one hospital within 60 miles. As a result, many families in the far northern reaches of the state will have to drive several hours to get to a doctor or hospital in their insurers' networks.

The new law also allows insurers to charge older Maine residents far more than is allowable today. Given the fact that Maine has the country's oldest population, that means skyrocketing premiums for a large percentage of the state's residents.

Before the law was enacted, insurers could not charge older residents more than one and a half times as much as younger residents. Now they can charge them three times as much, which is the limit established in the federal reform law. The new Maine law will let insurers charge older residents five times as much if they can get around the federal law.

As a result, some small businesses with the older workers are already seeing their policies soar by 90 percent or more.

The new law also allows for the sale of out-of-state insurance policies from four of the five other New England states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island), which means that the Maine Bureau of Insurance will have no jurisdiction over those policies. Maine residents who buy those out-of-state policies will get no protection from Maine's insurance regulators.

Finally, insurers in the state will no longer have to file for a rate review by state regulators unless their rate increases are 10 percent or more.

With all of these changes, there is no doubt insurers that do business in the state will be able to achieve profit margins never before even imagined. Regular Mainers, on the other hand, are not going to fare nearly as well.

WASHINGTON -- The GOP presidential field apparently set, Republican primary voters are likely facing a choice between an experienced, establishment candidate in Mitt Romney and an insurgent presidential campaign novice in Rick Perry.

With three months until voting begins, that's the dynamic that's starting to emerge now that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have said they won't run for president in 2012.

Their decisions – announced over the past two days – mean it's all but certain that the Republican nominee will come from the current crop of candidates despite earlier hunger within the party for more options.

For now at least, the race is focused on Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who lost the Republican nomination in 2008 and in recent days has started to shore up support among long-time party leaders, and Perry, the Texas governor who has emerged as the top challenger despite a rocky few weeks that have stoked concerns among GOP elders about whether he's ready to take on President Barack Obama.

The dynamic is familiar.

In 2000, Arizona Sen. John McCain mounted an unexpectedly fierce challenge to George W. Bush, who had the backing of much of the Republican establishment. McCain won the New Hampshire primary but lost the nomination to Bush.

Eight years later, McCain ran for the party nomination a second time and, early on, struck a tone of inevitability and got many party leaders to support his bid. He flamed out for a while and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who hadn't run for president before, came out of nowhere to win the Iowa caucuses. Huckabee briefly emerged as the alternative to McCain, but the Arizona senator eventually won the nomination.

This year, a segment of the party's conservative base has been eagerly rallying around candidate after candidate without finding a favorite. They flirted with real estate mogul Donald Trump; they backed Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann in a key test vote in Iowa; now they're driving a surge in polling for businessman Herman Cain.

Christie's backers, who include many party elders and long-time donors, and Palin's ardent fans had been waiting to see whether either of them would run.

Now that neither of them are, those supporters are free to choose sides. It's unclear where they will turn.

In bowing out of a bid, Palin, whose unconventional style and sheer celebrity would have been an unpredictable but unquestionable force in the primary season, made clear she still would try to have a voice in the 2012 race.

"You don't need a title to make a difference in this country," Palin said Wednesday. She declined to endorse anyone but indicated she would back the eventual nominee.

It's unclear whether her backers will heed her advice. Many turned to social networking sites to assail her decision.

Romney, meanwhile, is pursuing Christie's supporters, with some success. Several high-profile figures backed him after Christie's announcement Tuesday, including New York financier John Catsimatidis and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone.

Romney has a strong case to make. He has national name recognition and a top-notch national campaign staff. He has a national fundraising network. His weaknesses already have been vetted and he has been able to dispatch questions about them. He's built a strong campaign in New Hampshire and is quietly organizing in Iowa, where he learned from the mistakes he made last time and is working to keep expectations low. He's racking up endorsements in key states like Florida. And while he's had trouble winning over the restless conservative base, he can argue that his even-keeled campaign can take its well-honed economic message and use it to beat Obama.

But what Romney hasn't shown is that he can gain from Perry's stumbles. The latest Washington Post-ABC news poll of Republicans found Romney's popularity unchanged at 25 percent. Perry dropped to 16 percent from a previous survey, tied with Cain, the former pizza executive who has surged in recent weeks.

"Nobody wants to put a candidate forward just because they happen to be the most electable," veteran campaign consultant Terry Nelson said.

Perry announced Tuesday that he had raised more than $17 million in the first six weeks of his presidential bid. He has a third-party SuperPAC to raise outside funds, so he potentially could match a similar effort by Romney's team. On Tuesday, he earned the support of a prominent Christie backer in Iowa. And much of his support comes from the tea party Republicans – a group in part defined by their opposition to establishment politics – who are driving Republican enthusiasm in 2012. An August AP-GfK poll showed 74 percent of tea party backers viewed Perry positively.

But because he's the new guy, most voters are still learning who Perry is. His inexperience has shone through, and it's already driving doubts about his candidacy and left him to prove to both voters and to party insiders that he's ready to be president.

Perry stumbled in recent debates. On the campaign trail, he's been pushed off his core message about jobs in Texas by voter questions about immigration, Social Security and other issues that are of less concern to voters.

And he's behind Romney in setting up campaign organizations in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early voting states. That's a weakness made even worse by an accelerating primary election calendar. Nevada Republicans announced Wednesday they will hold their caucuses Jan. 14. That's likely to push the New Hampshire primary up to early January and could mean Iowa caucus-goers meet in December.

 

As I started to write this piece, Republicans and Democrats were aquiver with apprehension about whether New Jersey governor Chris Christie would seek the Republican presidential nomination. I wrote that if he did, he would be seeking to duplicate the feat of perhaps the president he least resembles in all of American history: Woodrow Wilson, who successfully sought the presidency after just one term as New Jersey’s governor. And then, of course, Christie declared he would not be a candidate.

Keep reading this post . . .

AP - Rick Perry brags that Texas has created more than 1 million jobs during his 10 years as governor, trumpeting the state's hands-off regulatory climate and business-first policies. But another part of his jobs agenda, the part that promotes investing state money in private companies, is drawing new criticism as he runs for the Republican presidential nomination.

Leadership, said New Jersey governor Chris Christie in his press conference Tuesday announcing he would not reverse his decision not to run for president, is something you can’t be taught or learn. “Leadership today in America has to be about doing the big things and being courageous.”

No one doubts that Christie has shown this kind of leadership in New Jersey. Call him loudmouthed, call him confrontational, but don’t call him wobbly. He leads, and even with a Democratic-majority legislature, the state is moving in his direction.

Keep reading this post . . .

Froma Harrop, Providence Journal
You can't blame Chris Christie for not running. Monied Republicans had been urging the popular New Jersey governor to seek their party's nomination for president. But by deciding against it, Christie spared himself the ordeal through which all Republican moderates must go: the Night on Bald Mountain.You remember the last segment in Walt Disney's "Fantasia." Angry spirits fly up the jagged peaks and spend the restless night carrying on. They torment their foes, throwing them into the fire pits.The Republican primary contest is kind of like that. Before conventional...

ContributorNetwork - COMMENTARY | Alaska governor Sarah Palin finally announced her intentions with respect to the GOP presidential primary Wednesday, saying she will not run. In a letter to supporters, Palin described her priorities as God first, then family, then her country. She said common sense conservatives and independents have made achievements over the past year, and she can be more effective in a supporting role than as a leader.

ContributorNetwork - COMMENTARY | Recently, Texas governor and GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry has come under some heat for his policy in the state of Texas to allow children of illegal immigrants to pay for their higher education in Texas at in-state tuition rates. According to Gallup polls, this topic is one that is very important to Republican voters 2-1 over Democratic voters. It is so importation to Republican voters that they strongly back anyone who stands up in defense of the law. This can be seen in the recent immigration lawsuit challenge between Arizona and the Obama administration where a full 79% of Republicans backed the state. Only 27% of Democrats did likewise.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will not be adding her name to the pool of candidates running for president in 2012. In a statement provided to the Mark Levin radio show, Palin said, "I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for president of the United States."

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AP - Republican Rick Perry raised more than $17 million in his first seven weeks running for president, a large haul that helps cement his status as the top alternative to rival Mitt Romney despite the Texas governor's recent campaign struggles.

ContributorNetwork - ANALYSIS | Imagine a state election the year before a Democratic presidential reelection bid. The state's elections had been dominated by Democrats for years. A wealthy Republican businessman runs against the Democratic political heir apparent to the governor's mansion on the heels of a messy spat between a new GOP Congress and a Democratic president amid a shaky recovery from a recession. Does it sound familiar?

Public Policy Polling (D)
9/30-10/3/11; 760 likely voters, 5.2% margin of error
353 likely Democratic primary voters
Mode: Automated phone
PPP release

North Carolina

2012 Governor
47% McCrory (R), 42% Perdue (D)
42% McCrory (R), 42% Boweles (D)
42% McCrory (R), 39% Cooper (D)
46% McCrory (R), 32% Dalton (D)
45% McCrory (R), 30% Faison (D)

Job Approval / Disapproval
Gov. Perdue: 37 / 51

Favorable / Unfavorable
Erskine Bowles: 32 / 31
Roy Cooper: 26 / 23
Walter Dalton: 8 / 23
Bill Faison: 6 / 19
Pat McCrory: 30 / 28

2012 Governor: Democratic Primary
62% Perdue, 18% Faison

Martin, Haberman & Smith, Politico
If Mitt Romney can’t start locking up the GOP nomination now, he may never be able to.The former Massachusetts governor’s charmed path toward the presidential nomination was made even smoother Tuesday when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie opted out of a campaign and recommended that voters choose the candidate with the “best chance” of beating President Barack Obama.

John Dickerson, Slate
It was the strangest case of autocorrect in history. Chris Christie kept saying, "No," but Republican dreamers in green rooms and board rooms kept hearing, "Please ask me again." On Tuesday the New Jersey governor finally put an end to the requests that he run for president.  "New Jersey, whether you like it or not you're stuck with me," he said at a packed press conference from the state capital.And now back to our regular programming, the “Romney and Not Romney” show. For those just tuning in, the role of Not Mitt Romney is...