With Newt Gingrich the latest Republican presidential candidate to become a frontrunner, First Read notes this “leaves just Ron Paul and Rick Santorum as the only GOP presidential candidates who haven’t enjoyed being the GOP flavor of the month.”

“Good news for them: We have still have two months to go. Of course, all of this volatility underscores the extent to which GOP voters are undecided, the extent to which Mitt Romney hasn’t closed the deal with them (at least not yet), the extent to which the debates have come to matter in the modern TV era, and the extent to which things can still change before the contests begin in January. And Newt’s current rise underscores how much can change — and how much people can forget — in just a few months.”

Stu Rothenberg: “OK, I give up. I don’t know what the heck is going to happen in the Republican race.”

Mitt Romney “veered into some talk about the political chessboard” at a Florida fundraiser, the St. Petersburg Times reports.

“Romney said after airing ads in Iowa for nearly an entire year during the 2008 campaign, he has not run any spots to date. Romney told the crowd his campaign calculus was that he could spend nothing and come in fourth or spend a bit and finish second or third. He guessed that Republicans could split the first three events, which would make Florida particularly important.”

“Romney predicted a Tea Party favorite would win Iowa and that he would take New Hampshire, according to interviews with six people in the audience. Romney told the crowd he would seal the nomination by then winning Florida’s Republican contest.”

A new Bloomberg News poll in Iowa shows Herman Cain at 20%, Ron Paul at 19%, Mitt Romney at 18% and Newt Gingrich at 17% among the likely attendees with the caucuses that start the Republican presidential nominating contests seven weeks away.

Key finding: 60% of respondents say they still could be persuaded to back someone other than their top choice and 10% are still undecided.

Said pollster Ann Selzer: “In Iowa, it’s long been a two-person race between Romney and someone else. It is now a four- person race between Romney and three someone elses.”

“If you’re not tough enough to withstand this kind of scrutiny, you’re sure not tough enough to be President of the United States.”

— Newt Gingrich, in a Fox News interview, saying his support “clicked” because Republicans “want someone who can debate Obama.”

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A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds Herman Cain’s unfavorable ratings have soared by 17 points in the face of allegations of past sexual harassment, including a sharp increase in negative views of Cain within his own party.

“President Obama called for the removal of Gaddafi. Just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say, yes I agree, I know I didn’t agree. I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason — no, that’s a different one. I gotta go back to… Got all this stuff twirling around in my head. Specifically, what are you asking me, did I agree or not disagree with on what?”

— Herman Cain, struggling to collect his thoughts in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which was recorded on video.

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The effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) will start at midnight, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Organizers have to gather more than 540,000 signatures to force a recall election against Walker but they hope “to gather 600,000 to 700,000 signatures to allow a cushion if some signatures are found not to properly count.”

Joshua Spivak notes the signature requirement “is not low: The 540,000 represents 25% of the vote for the governor’s office in the last election.”

New research from the Federal Reserve concludes that the European debt crisis is raising the odds of a U.S. recession, with economic contraction more likely than not by early 2012, according to Reuters.

A new CNN/Opinion Research poll finds Mitt Romney leading the GOP presidential field, but just barely.

Romney leads with 24%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 22%, Herman Cain at 14%, Rick Perry at 12%, Ron Paul at 8% and Michele Bachmann at 6%.

Key finding: While Romney’s support has pretty much stayed the same, Gingrich has seen his support jump 14 points since last month.

This post is part of our guest series from Inkwell Strategies analyzing the 2012 campaign ad war.

As the 2012 ad war heats up, political action committees are starting to get in on the action. Case in point, Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS just announced a major ad buy targeting President Obama in several key battleground states.

Looking past the GOP primaries to a tough general election, the ad, entitled The Two Presidents, knocks Obama on tax policy. Unlike many of the campaign ads we’ve highlighted to date — which are produced primarily to garner free media coverage — this is a major buy. Crossroads is spending $2.6 million to run the ad in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Colorado — all states the president carried in 2008.

[Read more…]

A new Public Policy Polling survey shows Newt Gingrich taking the lead in the GOP presidential race.

Gingrich leads with 28%, followed by Herman Cain at 25% and Mitt Romney at 18%.

The rest of the field: Rick Perry at 6%, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum each at 1%.

Key findings: “Gingrich’s lead caps an amazing comeback he’s made over the last 5
months.  In June his favorability nationally with Republican voters
plummeted all the way to 36/49. Now he’s at 68/23, representing a 58
point improvement in his spread since then. As recently as August
Gingrich was mired in single digits at 7%, and even in September he was
at just 10%.  He’s climbed 18 points in less than 2 months.”

A new survey from The Polling Company (R) in Iowa finds Herman Cain leading the GOP presidential field with 20%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 19%, Mitt Romney at 14% and Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 10%.

All other candidates were under 5% with another 13% of likely voters still undecided.