Mitt Romney “is biding his time and saving his campaign cash as he benefits from the missteps of his rivals,” Bloomberg reports.

At this point four years ago, Romney had spent $11 million on television advertising. Today, with the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary fast approaching, Romney has yet to spend a dime on commercials.

Washington Post: “Mitt Romney was firm and direct with the abortion rights advocates sitting in his office nine years ago, assuring the group that if elected Massachusetts governor, he would protect the state’s abortion laws. Then, as the meeting drew to a close, the businessman offered an intriguing suggestion — that he would rise to national prominence in the Republican Party as a victor in a liberal state and could use his influence to soften the GOP’s hard-line opposition to abortion. He would be a ‘good voice in the party’ for their cause, and his moderation on the issue would be ‘widely written about.'”

In a Fox News interview, Rick Perry mocked those who want to build a fence along the Mexican border.

Said Perry: “I think the idea of saying, ‘Listen, I’m gonna build a double fence, we’re going to put alligators between it, and we’re going to put lava in there, as well.’ You know, one tries to outdo the other one. That’s 2,000 miles. The idea of building a 2,000 mile fence costs a huge amount of money, takes a very long time.”

As Christian Heinze notes, it’s the same joke President Obama used earlier this year — and one that Perry himself criticized the president as someone “interested in trying out for Saturday Night Live, it seems like. He wants to play to what he considers to be the humorous side.”

“I’ve always thought, as a business man turned politician, that Herman Cain has the same problem I had in my first race back in ’98. To go directly from being a business man without substantial time in the government arena, both the vetting and the knowledge of it, is really hard — it’s virtually impossible. And that going directly to president seems to be a bridge too far.”

— Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), in an interview with David Gregory.

As President Obama’s re-election team “begins in earnest to attack Mitt Romney, Obama faces one of the most difficult tests of his political career: to tear down Romney without getting a single smudge of dirt on his own shirtfront — a trick he has performed deftly in previous races,” Politico reports.

“The early salvos are also familiar moves in a strategy that has worked in each of the four federal campaigns Obama has run: disqualifying character attacks from aides or outsiders, executed brutally as Obama himself floats above the fray.”

Larry Sabato: “The lesson of history is clear, as our quick-take chart shows: From 1976 to 2008, there has been a major surprise every time either in Iowa or New Hampshire. A back-of-the-pack candidate greatly exceeds expectations. Or the frontrunner stumbles. Or the field is scrambled in some other way.”

Herman Cain lashed out at Rick Perry, “accusing the Texas governor’s campaign of orchestrating the original report about allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior,” Politico reports.

Said Cain: “We’ve been able to trace it back to the Perry campaign that stirred this up in order to discredit me. The fingerprints of the Rick Perry campaign are all over this, based on our sources.”

First Read: “But the blame game only works for a short period of time. What ultimately matters is the story — not who leaked it. Indeed, here’s what NBC News has known since Monday: Two women accused Cain of inappropriate sexual conduct, and at least one woman received a financial settlement because of it. Over the course of three days, Cain has tried to deflect blame, but hasn’t been able prove all the allegations as false. He’s complaining that he’s being treated as if he’s ‘guilty until proven innocent’… The problem for him is that while he’s been deflecting blame, he’s also evolved his explanation so much that it’s confirmed some of the charges, making his denials on all of them harder to believe.”

Nate Silver develops a forecasting model for the 2012 presidential election and runs the numbers:

“Average these four scenarios together and the probabilities come out to almost exactly 50-50. A month or two ago, when Perry and Romney appeared about equally likely to be the Republican nominee, it would therefore have been proper to think of the election as a toss-up.”

“With Perry having slumped in the polls, however, and Romney the more likely nominee, the odds tilt slightly toward Obama joining the list of one-termers. It is early, and almost no matter what, the election will be a losable one for Republicans. But Obama’s position is tenuous enough that it might not be a winnable one for him.”

Associated Press: “A third former employee says she considered filing a workplace complaint over what she considered aggressive and unwanted behavior by Herman Cain when she worked for the presidential candidate in the 1990s. She says the behavior included a private invitation to his corporate apartment.”

Meanwhile, Politico reports talk radio host Steve Deace said Cain said “awkward” and “inappropriate” things to the staff at his station.

Oklahoma political consultant Chris Wilson tells KTOK that he was at a restaurant when Herman Cain sexually harassed a staffer.

Said Wilson: “It was only a matter of time because so many people were aware of what took place, so many people were aware of her situation, the fact she left — everybody knew with the campaign that this would eventually come up.”

Wilson said for legal reasons, he can not discuss details of the incident. “But if she comes out and talks about it, like I said, it’ll probably be the end of his campaign.”

Update: A reader notes Wilson does polling for a Super PAC backing Rick Perry’s presidential bid.

David Bernstein finds that just a quarter of those who gave large amounts to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign four years ago have contributed again this year.

“Even Romney’s earliest supporters are, for the most part, sitting on the sidelines. Just 30 percent of big donors who gave in the first three months of 2007 have given this year. Of those who gave in the very first week last time, the return rate is 40 percent — still well under half.”

Another in our guest series from Inkwell Strategies analyzing the 2012 campaign ad war.

With his campaign in free-fall and the Iowa caucuses looming, Texas Governor Rick Perry is attempting to turn things around with what has been described as a “significant ad buy” in New Hampshire, one of the 2012 campaign’s first major paid media campaigns.

In a strong departure from his glossy and stylish “Proven Leadership” ad, Perry’s new video is stylistically simple. Gone are the melodramatic crescendos and the Hollywood-inspired cinematography. With weak debate performances and a bizarre speech in New Hampshire that led to speculation that he was intoxicated, the new ad is a clear effort to counter the prevailing notion that Perry may not have the gravitas for the presidency. Rather than aiming for Beltway politicos, this ad aims at middle class conservative voters who will ultimately decide the GOP race.

[Read more…]

“What did I say? Excuse me. Excuse me! What part of no don’t some people understand?”

— Herman Cain, in a NBC News video, brushing off reporters who wanted to ask about the sexual harassment allegations made against him.

[Read more…]

The Washington Post’s excellent Republican Primary Tracker shows that Herman Cain hasn’t been to either Iowa or New Hampshire once in the last 30 days.