The Ron Paul “bad lip reading” video may be the best one yet in the series.

Others: Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann.

[Read more…]

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder (R) will not run for governor in 2012, Politico reports.

“The seismic decision comes after months of damaging headlines over past trips to a strip club, taxpayer funded hotel stays and jarring outbursts on his Twitter account.”

“Kinder was making calls to donors and supporters as recent as this week informing them that he would still pursue his dream of the governorship, but sources say he changed his mind in the last 36 hours. ”

A new Magellan Strategies poll in New Hampshire finds Mitt Romney barely edging Newt Gingrich among GOP presidential primary voters, 29% to 27%.

They are followed by Ron Paul at 16%, Herman Cain at 10%, Jon Huntsman at 8%, Michele Bachmann at 2%, Rick Perry at 2% and Rick Santorum at 1%.

“I haven’t had a gaffe or something that I’ve done that has caused me to fall in the polls.”

— Rep. Michele Bachmann, in an interview on Fox News.

“It’s politics and campaigns. I don’t think he’s going anywhere from here at this point, anyway.”

— New Hampshire Union Leader publisher Joe McQuaid, quoted in a front page story in his newspaper, saying he’s not concerned Herman Cain backed out of an interview with the editorial board.

Rick Perry’s fundraising efforts have run into trouble amidst a series of debate gaffes and poor poll numbers, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“Perry’s
associates and supporters say his campaign has redoubled its
money-­raising efforts in the past week to ensure that his campaign will
have enough money to survive the first three contests of the 2012
election calendar… But Perry’s loyal backers are running into
resistance from Republican donors. One Perry fundraiser, who asked not
to be named, said he received 15 RSVPs for a recent event from potential
donors saying they might attend. But after a gaffe-marred Perry debate
performance, none showed up… Another Perry fundraiser said he expects
the Texas governor to raise between $3 million and $5 million in the
final three months of 2012 — less than one-third of what he generated in
the first six weeks of his candidacy.”

A Smart Politics analysis “of the last seven nationally televised debates since Rick Perry entered the race finds that Newt Gingrich is the only candidate yet to be on the receiving end of the more than 150 verbal attacks that have been levied by the Republican field.”

As Herman Cain continues to stress that he is an outsider running an “unconventional” presidential campaign, Chris Cillizza argues that Cain’s approach may be too unconventional for its own good.

“Being
unconventional in terms of campaign messaging is one thing. Then
Illinois Sen.Barack Obama did that with much success in 2008… But,
Obama also put a very conventional campaign team and organization in
place to ensure that the skeleton that held up his message was
strong. Cain hasn’t done that. He continues to try to do things so
differently that his campaign has proven virtually incapable of getting
out of its own way. Cain is learning the hard way that unconventional
can only get you so far.”

The New Hampshire Union Leader reports Herman Cain “was a no-show” for an interview with the newspaper’s editorial board.

“The interview was scheduled last week and was supposed to last between an hour and about 75 minutes. Initially, the Cain campaign agreed to the full hour or more but then told the newspaper it did not want C-SPAN to tape the interview.”

Likely reason? Cain’s last editorial board meeting that was videotaped didn’t go so well.

A new Rasmussen survey in Iowa shows Newt Gingrich leading among likely GOP caucus-goers with 32%, followed by former Mitt Romney at 19%, Herman Cain at 13%, Ron Paul at 10%, Rick Perry at 6% and Michele Bachmann at 6%.

Cain led in a similar survey conducted just last month.