Romney rising, Cain dropping, Perry on life support in latest Nevada poll

This week, the Magellan Strategies polling firm, released their latest polling numbers on the republicans running for President.  The autodial survey of 673 Likely Republican Nevada Caucus Goers (LRNCG), has shown some major changes for the front runners since their last poll which was released the first week of September.

Romney, who won the Nevada caucus in 2008, would win again, if the Nevada republican caucuses were held today. But they’re not, and polls tend to change on a daily basis, based on who appears to be getting the most headlines or is talked about in the media the most that week.

Here are the latest numbers for ALL voters in the Magellan poll.

Mitt Romney: 38%

Herman Cain: 26%

Newt Gingrich: 16%

Ron Paul: 7%

Rick Perry 5%

Michele Bachmann: 2%

Rick Santorum: 1%

Jon Huntsman: 1%

In August, the poll showed Perry leading with 29%, Romney 24% and Cain with 7%.

The Magellan poll also shows the breakdown numbers for sub-categories as well; Male voters, Female voters, Senior voters, Social conservatives, Fiscal conservatives Mormon voters, Tea Party voters, and Non-2008 voters. 

Mitt Romney is leading in all the sub-categories except two, Tea Party voters, which should be no surprise because they tend to like those that are the most extreme, and Non-2008 voters. Click the links above to read the numbers in the sub-categories.

Was it a Debate or a Reality TV show, inquiring minds need to know

Last night, CNN hosted a spectacle, known as the Western Republican Presidential Debate, which kicked off a four day GOP cultist event, the Western Republican Leadership Conference.

In the debate opening scene, we have the introductions; each contestant/candidate was introduced one at a time, the crowd cheers as each name was announced, they walked briskly out onto the stage and took their place at their designated podium. The whole introduction, was remarkably reminiscent, and similar to how basketball players or teams are announced over the PA at a sporting event, then they come running out onto the court, sometimes busting through a team banner, sadly there were no CNN or GOP banners for the contestants/candidates to run through.

Once all seven were introduced, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the moderator of the debate, stood towards the audience and cameras and said, “ Ladies and Gentlemen, the Republican candidates for president of the United States.”

Then Cooper asked everyone to stand for the singing of our national anthem, which was sung by Tony award-winner Anthony Crivello, who stars as the Phantom in “Phantom Las Vegas”. At that moment as Cooper was introducing the name of the singer, some disappointed sighs could be heard, as the hopes of Hank Williams Jr. appearing to sing our national anthem were lost.

After the song, each contestant/candidate was given 30 seconds to say a little something about themselves.

Then, a loose debate took place.

Herman Cain, showed that he was not Able, to explain his 9-9-9 plan as the other contestant/candidates each took their turn at highlighting the various ways it increases taxes. At the last debate when Cain spoke about his 9-9-9 plan it was all described in the broadest of generalizations and nothing of substance. At this debate, he just told everyone your comparing oranges to apples. Cain has fine tuned his generalizations to produce.

Everyone attacked Romney for his “Romneycare” program that he signed into Law when he was Governor of Massachusetts, saying it was the blueprint for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which republicans and lazy pundits call “Obamacare”.

Rick Perry and Mitt Romney looked like they were about to come to blows, as each attacked the other on immigration and jobs.

Michele Bachmann, well, if you have ever seen Michele Bachmann respond to any question, you know that she simply ignores it,  then goes off into a rant against President Obama. 

Ron Paul, he still wants to bring our troops home (God bless him for that) from every country and base around the world, not just in Afghanistan and Iraq. We do have hundreds of bases in foreign nations, and closing many of them and bringing our troops home plays well with the majority of Americans. But not so much with defense contractors and the politicians whose districts they do business in.

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, they pretty much attacked everyone when they had a chance to speak, Rick whined about everything and Gingrich looked like he was ready to tell everyone to get off of his lawn.

After a debate of this type, the pundits, the so called experts, the talking heads, try to explain to you, the viewing audience, what was said and what the words really meant by those who said it. It is their job after all, they get paid to explain to you. Not a bad job either, they (media owners) assume that you, the viewing audience, are incapable of drawing your own conclusions. Many of you generation Xer’s may not realize it, but there was a time when news stations actually just gave you the news and it was left up to you to decide from there.

We were blind, but now we can see…

Below are links to a transcript of the debate, and a link to a video (11 parts on YouTube) so you can see for yourselves what the pundits are talking about if you didn’t see the debate, or if you simply want to refresh your memory. I recommend reading the transcript, which will give you a different perspective.

Transcript of the entire debate, click here. Video of the debate, click here.

Romney campaign lobbied Nevada GOP to move Caucus date

Former Nevada Governor Robert List, told the Las Vegas Review Journal this past Wednesday, that the Mitt Romney campaign lobbied Nevada Republicans to move the state’s caucuses up a month. The former governor is the Republican national committeeman on the State party’s executive board.

Yesterday, Mr. List tried to soften or walked back his statement, saying, “It was just friendly encouragement to accelerate. It’s my understanding that they were feeling that if he were to do well in Nevada and New Hampshire, that there could be sort of an escalating effect as he moved toward South Carolina and Florida. It could give them some momentum and could be helpful. They did feel that way. They were calling around.”

“But I want to emphasize that that isn’t why it was done,” he added. “The biggest picture is what was best for Nevada, and we wanted to protect our position, our voters’ opportunity to be the first in the West and to be a bellwether state in the cycle.”

The Romney campaign did not confirm or deny the report.

“Governor Romney is running a national campaign and is prepared to compete in every state ,” said Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the campaign. “He believes that Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus and New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary should be preserved, and he looks forward to competing in every other nominating contest – whenever they are scheduled. To be clear, states determine when their contests will be held. Governor Romney has always supported Nevada’s status as an early nominating contest.”

When Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian first heard of Florida’s plan to move up their primary date to January 31, 2012, she said she wasn’t sure if Nevada would change it’s caucus date.

“We’re a battleground state, but obviously Nevada is a smaller state, and I don’t want to lose our delegates,” said Tarkanian.

“The bottom line is: We want to follow the rules. Rules are made, we will follow the rules,” Tarkanian said. “But we want to have a voice. So if they expect us to stick to the rules, I really don’t have an answer” as to what Nevada will do.

If the Romney campaign lobby effort played a roll in the Nevada GOP moving its caucuses to January 14, 2012, you can be sure that it will not sit well with his rivals.

And Romney’s lobby efforts here in Nevada open up other questions, did his campaign also lobby in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina? Did his campaign push the Florida GOP into moving their primary to January, and therefore causing Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina to move their caucuses and primaries?

The political strategists for the other candidates are most likely asking themselves these same questions after learning that Mitt Romney lobbied Nevada to move up its caucus date.






Don't miss any of the Las Vegas Democrat Examiner articles: Click Subscribe and enter your email address or choose the RSS feed. Either way you’ll be alerted to the latest column when it's published. And don't forget to click Email to send this article to a friend.