Newt Gingrich

CHART OF THE DAY: Gingrich Tax Plan Would Codify Lower Taxes On Rich Than On Middle Class

Brian Beutler | December 13, 2011, 5:04AM

Newt Gingrich addresses a tea party rally in Staten Island, NY on December 3, 2011.

On Monday, the Tax Policy Center published an analysis of Newt Gingrich's plan to overhaul the tax code -- the latest in a series of of analyses of GOP presidential candidate tax proposals. And like all the plans that came before it, Gingrich's constitutes a massive tax cut for the rich. Indeed, no matter how you stack the numbers, Gingrich wants a tax system that permanently holds tax rates on the highest earners lower than tax rates on the middle class.

There are a lot of ways to parse the data. Gingrich proposes creating an alternative tax system that would significantly flatten the code, while keeping the current one in place as an option. So you can run the numbers assuming everybody jumps into the new system, or you can run them assuming that the only people who hop into the new system are people who would benefit financially as a result. And you can compare Gingrich's plan to current tax policy -- including the Bush tax cuts and other temporary tax policy -- or you can compare it to current law, which assumes all of these policies will expire in the next year, and go up on just about everyone.

To be as fair as possible, let's take Gingrich at his word that he would extend the Bush tax cuts for those staying in the current system, and that the only people who would opt into the new system are those who would pay lower taxes as a result.

Here's what happens to people's average federal tax burden as a result.

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Rick Perry

CHART OF THE DAY: Rick Perry Proposes A Tax Plan Aimed At The One Percent

Brian Beutler | November 1, 2011, 11:49AM

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R)

Recall that Rick Perry's so-called "flat tax" plan isn't flat at all, but rather an alternative tax system that would constitute a massive tax cut for the rich. For people above a certain income, his plan would be worth opting into, and for the rest of earners, it would make sense to stay in the current tax system.

The Tax Policy Center has posted data neatly illustrating this bug (or feature, depending on your point of view). Here it is in handy graph form.

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Flat Tax

Rick Perry's Flat Tax Plan: Not A Flat Tax

Brian Beutler | October 26, 2011, 6:00AM

Rick Perry

The flat tax is such a popular idea in conservative circles that Texas Governor Rick Perry is trying to revive his presidential primary campaign by proposing one.

Except for the flat tax part.

It turns out Perry's plan isn't flat, doesn't eliminate the current tax code, as many conservative elites claim to want, and would likely blow a huge hole in the federal budget.

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Haley Barbour

Flat Tax-Mentum! Barbour Backs Flat Tax, Privatized Social Security

Brian Beutler | October 25, 2011, 11:21AM

Haley Barbour (R)

The flat tax is becoming a litmus test for Republican presidential candidates, and on Tuesday it won a key endorsement from the former chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

At an event sponsored by the American Action Forum, at the National Press Club in Washington, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour argued in favor of key elements of Rick Perry's freshly released budget plan, which includes the option of a single income and corporate tax rate, unspecified spending cuts, a spending cap, and private savings accounts for workers as an alternative to Social Security.

"Is a flat tax good tax policy? Yes. It's not the only good tax policy. But it's certainly can be very good tax policy, particularly if you eliminate a lot of deductions so that it increases the appropriate amount of revenue," Barbour said.

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Barack Obama

White House To GOP Critics On Libya: We Were Right

Susan Crabtree | October 20, 2011, 7:25PM

The White House is brushing aside criticism -- from the GOP presidential field and others -- that Obama doesn't deserve credit for the death of ousted Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

In a lengthy press briefing after President Obama heralded Qaddafi's death and publicly congratulated the Libyan people for winning their revolution, White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked whether the President felt validated by Qaddafi's killing and the conclusion of the Libyan civil war.

"Well, I think I've made clear that we believe that the President made the right decisions to work with our allies, to work with NATO, to work with the United Nations, not to do something on the cheap but because it was the right policy answer to the situation that presented itself, taking a long-term view about what outcome do you want in Libya," Carney said.

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Rick Scott

Unpopular Gov. Rick Scott Wants To 'Make Sure Florida Is The Model For The Country' (VIDEO)

David Taintor | September 14, 2011, 12:08PM

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) on MSNBC's Morning 9/14/11

Highly unpopular Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) sat down with the folks of Morning Joe on Wednesday to discuss the Republican presidential candidates' chances in Florida as well as some of his state's own issues.

Asked how Mitt Romney and Rick Perry would do in Florida, Scott said he thinks either candidate could win in a general election. And Scott doesn't think Perry will be in much trouble for calling Social Security a "monstrous lie" and a "ponzi scheme."

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2012

Gallup and ABC/WaPo: GOP Voters Like Perry, But Haven't Dumped Romney Yet

Kyle Leighton | September 6, 2011, 6:15PM

Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) and Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry might be the leader in the race for the GOP Presidential race at the moment, but the previous frontrunner isn't too shabby in the eyes of Republican primary voters either. New data from Gallup and an ABC/Washington Post survey both show that the candidates enjoy high favorability ratings among party faithful.

In the Gallup poll Perry is viewed favorably by 73 percent of GOP primary voters, while Romney sits at 71. Even though Perry has moved ahead of Romney in national polls, Romney still occasionally outpolls President Obama in match-ups, and has also been shown in some surveys to be the candidate that voters think could do better on the economy than the President. The advantage within the numbers for Perry is that for the moment, he's rated "strongly favorable" by fifteen points more than Romney, meaning his support is more intense.

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Rick Perry

What Kind Of Debater Is Rick Perry? A Good And Cautious One

Evan McMorris-Santoro | September 6, 2011, 9:30AM

Rick Perry speaks at a campaign stop in Florence, SC, August 19, 2011.

Politico's Molly Ball takes a deep dive into Texas Gov. Rick Perry's past debate performances as his first appearance in a presidential debate approaches Wednesday night.

What did she find? A man who has kept off the debate stage as much as he could during his unprecedented three terms as governor of Texas (he's debated just four times since he got the job), but "rarely makes a mistake" when he takes the stage "and almost always manages to win by not losing."

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Rick Perry

Ron Paul Calls Rick Perry 'Al Gore's Texas Cheerleader' In TV Ad

Benjy Sarlin | September 6, 2011, 9:00AM

New Ron Paul TV Ad, "The One"

Not all Texans are enamored with Rick Perry, as Ron Paul's new TV ad demonstrates. The new TV spot goes after Perry hard over his late conversion to the Republican Party in 1989, selling Paul as the true heir to Ronald Reagan...who also used to be a Democrat.

Here's the spot, which Politico reports will go on the air with a six-figure buy.

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Polls

Speech Week: Obama, Romney Battle For The High Ground On Jobs

Kyle Leighton | September 6, 2011, 6:15AM

President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)

Congress is back from recess this week, and as TPM has pointed out, the 2012 election starts Thursday. The President will be delivering his highly anticipated jobs speech then, after former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney lays out his plan on Tuesday. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, ahead in the polls for the GOP presidential nomination, has been talking about his record as a job creator at home, but hasn't been particularly specific about what he would do as president.

As voters tune back in again as fall approaches, there will be effectively one question on their minds: who can revive the economy? It remains the most important issue, and unless something drastically changes, it will be the issue that the 2012 election hinges on. So when it comes to the economy, who's on the best ground in prelude to this weeks' big events?

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Rick Perry

Meet The Money Behind Rick Perry

Benjy Sarlin | September 6, 2011, 6:10AM

Texas Governor and Presidential Candidate Rick Perry (R)

Texans don't like the government interfering with their business, especially campaign donations, where state laws allow contributors to fork over unlimited cash. No one has benefited more from this arrangement than Rick Perry, who has raised $100 million over the last decade, nearly half of which came from just 204 ultra-wealthy donors.

You're going to be hearing a lot about those donors over the next few weeks, for a couple of reasons. One is that Perry has a reputation for being especially friendly with his most loyal backers: separate analyses by the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times concluded that large percentages of his top donors received some benefit from the state during his tenure as governor. Perry's camp told both papers, as they've told the Texas press for years, that they were doled out on the merits.

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Polls

And Another One: New Poll Shows Perry Leads Nevada Too

Kyle Leighton | September 2, 2011, 1:30PM

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R)

Tex. Gov. Rick Perry has taken the lead nationally, but GOP voters are really starting to catch on with his campaign in key primary states as well. Recently, Perry's stormed to the front in South Carolina and Iowa in multiple surveys, and a Republican poll out Friday shows him at the top in another early state in the GOP nomination process: Nevada.

A Magellan Strategies poll out Friday showed that Perry is the first choice of 29 percent of Neveada GOP caucus-goers, followed by former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney at 24 percent. The survey shows pretty much a two way race: the rest of the field is in single digits, and former contender Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is down to fourth with 6 percent, behind businessman Herman Cain's 7.

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Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney Tries To Make August Job Numbers Rick Perry's Problem

Evan McMorris-Santoro | September 2, 2011, 9:12AM

GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA)

It's clear to Mitt Romney what Americans should do about the terrible August job numbers released Friday.

"In order to change the direction of this country, we need to change presidents," Romney said in a statement Friday. President Obama "has failed," he said, and it's time for the country to move on from hope and change.

But it's also clear to Romney what Republican primary voters should do in the wake of the ugly jobs report: go against what appears to be their nature and pick someone other than Rick Perry to be their presidential nominee next year.

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2012

Perry Slams 'Blatantly False' Attack Ad From Pro-Bachmann PAC

Benjy Sarlin | September 1, 2011, 4:32PM

A Super PAC supporting Michele Bachmann's campaign, Keep Conservatives United, threw one of the first on-air punches of the 2012 GOP primary this week, lighting into Rick Perry as a big spending governor who is not a "Tea Party guy." Now the Perry camp is pushing back hard, condemning the South Carolina TV ad and releasing a detailed fact check disputing its claims.

"Gov. Perry is a proven fiscal conservative, having cut taxes, signed six balanced budgets, and led Texas to become America's top job-creating state," Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan told reporters. "Congresswoman Bachmann's front-group ad is patently and provably false. Unlike Washington, the Texas budget is balanced, does not run deficits and limits spending, even as Texas added jobs and population in big numbers."

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2012

Poll: GOP Insiders Overwhelmingly Favor Romney

Benjy Sarlin | September 1, 2011, 1:09PM

GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA)

Republican "insiders" are wary of Rick Perry's ability to win, according to a survey by National Journal, picking Mitt Romney by a wide margin as the more electable candidate.

The poll, which regularly checks in with a pool of Republican and Democratic strategists, finds both parties in agreement that Romney is the superior candidate. Republicans think the GOP would be better off nominating him by a 69% to 31% margin. That number is even higher among Democratic insiders, 83% of whom see Romney as the better bet versus 17% for Perry.

Unnamed insiders from both parties cited questions about Perry's ability to win over independents given his resume as a hardline conservative, red-state governor. "Perry can fire up the base, but this election will be won in the middle, not on the fringes," one Republican said.

Given his recent appeals to the Tea Party, winning a poll of veteran Republican politicos may not be the most exciting achievement for Romney. And given that Perry is amassing a solid lead in national polls and surging in a number of early primary and caucus states, it may not be the most representative slice of GOP opinion either. A recent PPP poll of South Carolina, for example, showed Perry cleaning up not only with the conservative, Tea Party wing of the GOP, but with more moderate Republicans that should in theory be Romney's base.

Rick Perry

Rick Perry's "Star Wars" Problem Haunts Him As He Heads For The Reagan Library

Evan McMorris-Santoro | September 1, 2011, 9:08AM

Next week -- as everyone in the universe now knows -- Rick Perry will appear in a televised debate at the Reagan Library in California. The debate will be Perry's first as a presidential candidate, and it takes place on what is virtually hallowed ground for Republicans.

But Perry will walk in facing questions about one of Reagan's favorite projects: the Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed "Star Wars." On the trail recently, Perry's been trying to deflect his past as a Democrat and supporter of Al Gore's first presidential bid. One method of doing that has been playing down Gore's 1988 position on "Star Wars" or SDI.

But as ABC News' Michael Falcone points out, Perry's SDI talk is somewhat short of the mark.

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Rick Perry

Rick Perry Defends Early Praise For Clinton Health Care Plan

Benjy Sarlin | September 1, 2011, 6:15AM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

Rick Perry says a letter he wrote in 1993 praising Hillary Clinton's health care reform efforts is misunderstood and should not be taken as an endorsement of the law.

The correspondence, recently dug up by The Daily Caller, dates back to when Perry was serving as Agriculture Commissioner in Texas. In it, he asked that rural communities be taken into consideration as a task force led by First Lady Hillary Clinton prepared their recommendations. But he also had some kind words for Clinton personally, writing "I think your efforts in trying to reform the nation's health care system are most commendable."

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Polls

Quinnipiac: Obama Matchups With Romney, Perry In A Dead Heat

Kyle Leighton | August 31, 2011, 7:40AM

President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)

A new national poll from Quinnipiac University shows that national races on both the presidential level and for Congress are in a dead heat as Washington prepares to return to work in September. Tex. Gov. Rick Perry now leads the announced GOP field in his quest for the presidential nomination, the first choice of 26 percent of Republican voters, followed by former frontrunner former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney at 20 percent, in what is now the fifth national poll Perry has taken the lead.

The poll also shows that President Obama, whose approval rating has been weakened by a slow economy and general disdain for Washington, is running very closely with both Perry and Romney. Obama leads Perry with 45 percent to the Texas governor's 42, and ties Romney at 45 percent. Both matchups are within the poll's margin of error and therefore a statistical dead heat.

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2012

Romney Re-Do: From Inevitable Candidate To Fighting For Iowa

Kyle Leighton | August 31, 2011, 6:10AM

GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney (MA)

Over the last week we've seen that the "inevitable candidate" strategy from former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney will surely need recalibration -- mainly due to Rick Perry's arrival in the race. Where Perry has succeded in crafting both hype around his candidacy and real support amongst a wide section of the GOP base, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has struggled to expand her appeal beyond the far right of the party, influential though it is.

But is Romney finished just because of a round of bad polls? Of course not. In fact, it's been reported that he'll now contest Iowa, something he had previously not committed to given his polling leads in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. That lead in South Carolina is now gone, according to two new polls, and it vanished within a few weeks of Perry entering the race. So now Romney may be in the fight for Iowa, and as such could make moves towards a new strategy. Sure, Romney was on soft ground as the frontrunner, but that ground doesn't immediately harden when Perry puts his feet down.

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2012

Mitt Romney To Attend First Big Tea Party Rally

Benjy Sarlin | August 30, 2011, 3:32PM

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney will speak at a Tea Party Express rally in New Hampshire on Labor Day, his first appearance at a high profile event associated with the movement.

Romney's scheduled appearance, first reported on CNN, comes as he faces renewed pressure on his right flank thanks to Rick Perry's surging campaign. Perry was one of the earliest national politicians to jump on the grassroots bandwagon -- he made his famous "secession" comments at a Tea Party rally in April 2009 -- and is currently polling very well with self-identified Tea Partiers. He, Michele Bachmann, and Herman Cain will attend a forum with the Tea Party-leaning Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) in South Carolina on Labor Day.

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2012 Presidential Primaries

The Romney Ceiling: South Carolina Poll Shows Perry Taking Mitt's Moderate Base

Kyle Leighton | August 30, 2011, 11:35AM

Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) and Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

With four national polls in the last week showing Texas Gov. Rick Perry ahead of the field in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, it looks more like the contention that former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney was a weak frontrunner has proved true. But as the primary season prepares to kick into high gear, how has Perry moved to the front so quickly? Numbers released on Tuesday from a Public Policy Polling (D) poll of crucial primary state South Carolina tell the story not just of Perry's new dominance of conservative voters, and Romney's weakness on the right, but of more concern for him -- they show a real vulnerability in the center as well.

The fact that Perry is now dominating in South Carolina, a conservative state, is probably not news to campaign watchers. The PPP survey shows him with 36 percent of the potential vote, followed by Romney with 16 and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) at 13, the second poll in five days to show Perry with a big lead. But the crosstabs show that Romney, the presumed "moderate" candidate (or at least more moderate), cannot even defend his own turf in the middle of the GOP electorate in a conservative state. He faces an implacable right wing of the party, which is fully in Perry's column, and moderate sect that is willing to support Perry despite his more strident views.

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2012

Romney's Foreign Policy Speech Takes On 'The Harvard Faculty Lounge' And (Basically) Rick Perry

Benjy Sarlin | August 30, 2011, 11:19AM

GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney (MA)

Mitt Romney took a pointed dig at Rick Perry in his own home state on Tuesday, alluding to his lack of business experience in an address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio.

"I am a conservative businessman," Romney told the VFW audience, which Perry had addressed the day before. "I have spent most of my life outside of politics, dealing with real problems in the real economy. Career politicians got us into this mess and they simply don't know how to get us out."

Romney has been playing up his private sector experience in the 2012 race, hoping to distinguish himself from fellow governor Perry, and it's likely the "career politicians" line is going to get a lot of spin before the race is over.

Romney began with a riff on the economy, but the audience was there for a foreign policy speech and that's what he delivered. Expanding on the themes of his "No Apologies" book, Romney repeatedly painted President Obama as a weak and ineffectual leader who kowtowed to tyrants.

The Obama administration, Romney said, "leaves us with the belief that America should become a lesser power. It flows from the conviction that if we are weak, tyrants will choose to be weak as well; that if we could just talk more, engage more, pass more U.N. resolutions, that peace will bill break out. That may be what they think in that Harvard faculty lounge, but it's not what they know on the battlefield."

But Romney crafted his anti-Obama message long before the president initiated a bombing campaign against Libya, which has all but destroyed dictator Moammar Qaddafi's regime and killed many of his family members. He also crafted it before the President ordered the death of Osama Bin Laden in an operation where he deliberately kept US ally Pakistan in the dark.

The president's increasingly hawkish resume sits uncomfortably with the "weak" message, but Romney did his best to square the circle. He detached Bin Laden's death from any White House action by playing up the Navy SEAL mission as a bipartisan affair, telling the crowd that "the final image that Osama bin Laden took with him straight to Hell" was not an elephant or donkey but an American flag. For Romney, it seems, that if on 9/11/01 we were all Americans, then on 5/2/11 we all ordered the Abottabad raid.

On Libya, Romney repeated a familiar GOP line that Obama had failed to explain the mission to the public or define its goals. Speaker Boehner has employed similar rhetoric, which has the benefit of appealing to both pro- and anti-intervention Republicans. Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul firmly opposed the NATO operation, while Romney supported the decision to attack Qaddafi's forces.

"Today, Qaddafi is on the run and we congratulate the Libyan people and the extraordinary professionalism of our men and women in the armed services," Romney said. "But when a president sends our men and women into harm's way, he must first explain their mission, define its success, plan for their victorious exit, provide them with the best weapons and armor in the world, and properly care for them when they come home." Unmentioned was the fact that so far not a single American soldier has died in the Libya operation.

While Romney pledged to cut waste in defense, he accused Obama of endangering the military by agreeing to "a budget process that could entail cutting defense spending by $850 billion." The number refers to the debt ceiling agreement between President Obama and House Republicans, which cuts defense spending $350 billion over the next decade but also includes a trigger that will automatically cut an additional $500 billion over the same period if a bipartisan committee can't agree to savings elsewhere. As Romney noted in the speech, incoming Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned the triggered cuts would be severe if enacted.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from Romney and Perry's two VFW speeches is that the party does not have a clear post-Bush consensus on foreign policy at the moment beyond unconditional support for Israel and a general suspicion of international institutions. It's an economy-focused election so this isn't entirely surprising, but it also speaks to real disagreements within the GOP. Conservative commentators took note that Perry winked at both the more neoconservative and isolationist camps in the GOP in his VFW speech on Monday, condemning "military adventurism" while also calling on Americans to "renew our commitment to taking the fight to the enemy wherever they are before they strike at home." And that's nothing compared to some of the lower-tier candidates' contortions.

Rick Perry

Clouds On The Horizon? Rick Perry Faces Barrage Of Negative Headlines

Evan McMorris-Santoro | August 30, 2011, 6:20AM

Texas Gov. Rick Perry

The polls show Texas Gov. Rick Perry is the clear frontrunner at the moment when it comes to Republican support in the presidential nomination fight. But as he treads further into the center stage, Perry's facing down growing media scrutiny -- especially over his own past statements.

How he plays this next phase of his campaign will be key to his viability over the long haul -- if Perry ignores the growing questions about his record, he risks damaging the electability quotient that has helped rocket him ahead of Michele Bachmann by appealing more to Republicans beyond the Tea Party. But if he bows too much to critics, shifting his stances to be more in line with a mainstream electorate, he risks alienating those Tea Partiers who are still the voters Republicans running for president are afraid of.

So far, it seems that Perry is sticking with the Tea Party and letting the attacks fall where they will.

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Sarah Palin

Who Doomed Sarah Palin's Presidential Dream?

Benjy Sarlin | August 30, 2011, 6:15AM

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin is expected to make up her mind about a presidential campaign by the end of September, but it's not clear it matters much either way. Polls show relatively few Republicans clamoring for a Palin run on a national level as the one-time supernova is eclipsed by a crowded presidential contest and an array of new rising stars. About two-thirds of Republicans say they're satisfied with the current primary field.

It feels as if Palin's fabled 2012 run, a source of fervent speculation since before the 2008 contest even ended, has already gone out with a whimper. Palin is polarizing even within her own party and has shown little indication she can reverse the nation's long-settled perception of her as a media phenomenon with little appeal outside her limited fan base.

But how did she end up this way? And who is to blame? Here's a look at five of the leading culprits.

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Rick Perry

Rick Perry: Social Security Is, In Fact, A Ponzi Scheme

Evan McMorris-Santoro | August 29, 2011, 12:30PM

Rick Perry

Sometimes campaign spin works to distance a candidate from his controversial past statements. And sometimes the candidate comes back and makes a hash of all the work his staff has done for him.

We could be witnessing the latter scenario when it comes to Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and one of the nation's most popular government programs. Last week, Perry's campaign spokesperson took to the Wall Street Journal to help back Perry off the less election-friendly sections of his book, Fed Up!. That includes Perry's suggestion that Social Security is an unconstitutional scheme which should be privatized post-haste.

Over the weekend, Perry walked all that back and fired off some more fiery rhetoric about the perils of the entitlement program that most Americans do not want to see changed.

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Polls

Perrymentum: Poll Shows Texas Gov. Leading In South Carolina

Kyle Leighton | August 26, 2011, 3:55PM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

To complete a week of good news for Tex. Gov. Rick Perry, in which polls found him leading nationally and in Iowa for the GOP presidential nod little over a week after he began campaigning, a new poll released on Friday now shows him ahead of the pack in South Carolina, with another lead outside the margin of error.

Perry captures 31 percent of the GOP primary voters surveyed, with former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney in second with 20 percent, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) at 14, businessman Herman Cain at 9, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 5, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) at 4, with former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and former Gov. Jon Huntsman both at 2.

The Texas governor is the most favorably viewed candidate in the race, with 61 percent viewing him that way against 17. Some of the candidates actually have underwater favorability ratings within the GOP electorate, including Gingrich, Paul, Santorum, and especially Jon Huntsman, who registers only a 9 percent favorability rating against a whopping 44 percent with an unfavorable view.

Gallup also revealed new information on Friday that showed Perry is really catching on with Tea Party supporters nationally, data which is reflected in the new South Carolina poll. Perry gets 37 percent of Tea Party supporters, double the next closest candidate, Bachmann.

The poll was conducted and sponsored by Magellan Strategies, and uses 637 automated interviews with likely South Carolina GOP primary voters. It was conducted from August 22nd -23rd and has a sampling error of 3.88 percent.

Polls

The Usual Suspects: Rick Perry's Support In Gallup National Poll Came From The Tea Party

Kyle Leighton | August 26, 2011, 2:31PM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) holds a copy of his book

A new detail from additional information released by Gallup on Friday about their national survey on the GOP presidential field: Tex. Gov. Rick Perry, who outpaced everyone in their recent survey with 29 percent of the total, captured 35 percent of those GOP voters who consider themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement.

Rounding out the candidates supported by Tea Party backers were former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), both at 14 percent, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) at 12, businessman Herman Cain at 6, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 5, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R) at 3 and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman at 1 percent.

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Donald Trump

Rick Perry Seeking Endorsement From Birther-In-Chief Donald Trump?

Evan McMorris-Santoro | August 26, 2011, 8:57AM

Rick Perry, by most measures the current frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination at the moment, has been chatting with Donald Trump lately.

Team Trump tells Politico's James Hohmann -- who broke the story Friday -- that Perry has called Trump "on 'several occasions." Trump's folks seem to think this means Perry's looking for Trump's endorsement, though Perry's campaign wouldn't discuss the nature of the conversations with Hohmann and didn't respond immediately to TPM's request for comment.

Trump's representative says Romney's calling, too, though Romney's campaign did not immediately respond to TPM's request for comment either.

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Iowa caucus

Pro-Perry PAC Survey: Texas Gov. Moves Ahead In Iowa

Kyle Leighton | August 25, 2011, 5:51PM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

Tex. Gov. Rick Perry's move from non-candidate to frontrunner in the GOP nomination process has been a big story, but a story driven largely by national polling. While Perry's starting to become the first choice of the national Republican electorate, the nomination process will go through Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where other candidates had a head start. But according to two new polls, that advantage has been lost.

A pro-Perry PAC just released a poll of GOP caucus-goers showing him in the lead with 23 percent, followed closely by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) at 20 percent and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney at 16. The rest of the field is rounded out by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) at 9 percent, businessman Herman Cain at 8, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (R) at 7, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 3 and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman at 2. The PAC also touts 30 percent support amongst self-described "very conservative" caucus-goers, which they say makes up 55 percent of that group.

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2012

On Talk Radio, Perry Fires Rounds At Romney, China, And Martha's Vineyard

Thomas Lane | August 25, 2011, 10:53AM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

Speaking to conservative talk show host, Laura Ingraham, Texas Gov. Rick Perry unloaded several rounds into typical right-wing targets, namely former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, China, and Martha's Vineyard.

The once GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney attracted a fairly minor barrage of fire by Perry standards. Baited by Ingraham to discuss the main albatross around Romney's neck, his Massachusetts healthcare plan that formed the basis for "Obamacare," Perry simply said, "I think Mitt is finally recognizing that the Massachusetts healthcare is a problem for him," before pivoting off to a broader attack on Obama's plan. Perry claimed to hope that this would not be a major issue in next year's general election because "hopefully" by then the Supreme Court will have ruled the individual mandate component of the plan unconstitutional.

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Polls

Rick Perry's (Southern) Charm

Kyle Leighton | August 25, 2011, 6:10AM

Texas Governor and Presidential Candidate Rick Perry (R)

America is a politically divided nation. For all the outcomes of the 2008 election, it wasn't a true redrawing of the political map. Some states, which were and continue to change demographically, were primed to become full-fledged swing states, and a strong Democratic candidate in a change election brought them to his side.

But two years later, the GOP was again winning statewide elections in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Virginia, and a return to the traditional calculus began. Now as the GOP moves ahead with the 2012 presidential primary process, Republican voters are starting to return to their roots: falling for a southern Governor.

Other GOP flavors of the month have so far been sampled: real estate mogul Donald Trump made some loud noises and bowed out, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) seemed interesting for a while but has probably peaked. Because in the end, what are the actual chances that the modern Republican Party will nominate a congresswoman from Minnesota, or a multi-millionaire former governor from an incredibly blue state? History tells us they aren't great.

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Rick Perry

Senate's Preeminent Climate Skeptic Backs Rick Perry For President

Evan McMorris-Santoro | August 24, 2011, 2:59PM

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) will endorse Texas Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign, he told the Tulsa Press Club Wednesday morning.

That marks a marriage of the U.S. Senate's chief climate skeptic with one of the nomination fight's most anti-climate science candidates.

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Rick Perry

Perry Vaults Into Lead For GOP Nomination In Two National Polls

Kyle Leighton | August 24, 2011, 2:40PM

Former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney has been the frontrunner in most national polls of the GOP primary over the last year, and the general punditry considered it his nomination to lose, at least at first. And while it's still early, new polling released on Wednesday shows his unchallenged time at the head of the pack may be over.

A new national Gallup poll of GOP and GOP-leaning voters shows Romney, who had more than a quarter of the total vote in Gallup's June numbers in the same poll, has fallen to 17 percent, while newly minted candidate Tex. Gov. Rick Perry surges to 29 percent and the lead. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), considered a top contender, falls to fourth with 10 percent, behind Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) at 13 percent. The rest of the field is in single digits.

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China

Conservatives Spin Biden's Comments On China's One Child Policy

Thomas Lane | August 24, 2011, 12:26PM

Vice President Joe Biden is in a fix: he criticized China's one-child policy, but then found himself in trouble for *not* criticizing it.

The trouble began on Sunday, when Biden was delivering a speech at a Chinese university. Discussing a possibly looming entitlements crisis, he told the crowd: "You have no safety net. Your policy has been one which I fully understand -- I'm not second-guessing -- of one child per family. The result being that you're in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable."

Right now, Biden's office is engaged in stating the obvious: that this was a criticism of the policy. Despite the polite diplomatic throat-clearing that preceded his attack, he was still, as his spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff states, "point[ing] out, in China, that the policy is, as a practical matter, unsustainable."

However, conservative critics seized on quite a different part of the remarks: they lathed onto the word, "second-guessing."

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Rick Perry

Perry Camp: Repealing 16th Amendment And Instituting National Sales Tax Probably Ain't Gonna Happen

Brian Beutler | August 24, 2011, 11:36AM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

Figuring out Rick Perry's current position on the 16th Amendment and the so-called Fair Tax is the parlor game of the moment in politics. See Greg Sargent here, and CBS here. His campaign released a recent statement suggesting that though Perry backs the "Fair Tax" option in his book, altering the Constitution and implementing an actual national consumption tax is probably too heavy a lift.

"The 16th Amendment instituting a federal income tax starting at one percent has exploded into onerous, complex and confusing tax rates and rules for American workers over the last century," reads a statement from Perry spokesman Mark Miner. "The need for job creation in the wake of the explosion of federal debt and costly entitlement programs, mean the best course of action in the near future is a simpler, flatter and broader tax system that unleashes production, creates jobs, and creates more taxpayers. We can't undo more than 70 years of progressive taxation and worsening debt obligations overnight."

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Polls

PPP: Iowa Becoming Perry Country As Bachmann Falls

Kyle Leighton | August 23, 2011, 12:23PM

As TPM reported Tuesday morning, Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) time as a legitimate contender for the GOP presidential nomination could be up, as a new survey from Public Policy Polling (D) shows her the third choice of Republican voters in Iowa, a state essential to her campaign. The new horserace with the full announced GOP field shows Tex. Gov. Rick Perry at the top with 22 percent, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney at 19 percent, Bachmann at 18, and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) at 16 percent.

There's no way around it -- Bachmann's popularity has taken a huge hit over the last two months, as shown by the PPP numbers. In June, Bachmann enjoyed a favorable/unfavorable rating of 53 - 16. That statistic is now 47 - 35, still positive, but not particularly high considering these are GOP voters. Perry, on the other hand, has gone from relatively unknown (a 21 - 16 favorability rating in June, majority undecided) to well liked, with a 56 - 24 rating. Paul has increased his favorability rating by 11 points over that time, and Romney has dropped slightly over the last two months.

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Rick Perry

Perry Backs Radical National Sales Tax Plan To Starve Federal Government

Brian Beutler | August 23, 2011, 6:30AM

Rick Perry speaks at a campaign stop in Florence, SC, August 19, 2011.

Rick Perry's recent political manifesto Fed Up doesn't just hint that Social Security should be privatized. It also advocates for a farther-reaching overhaul of the tax code than most conservatives support.

Perry says that government's access to new sources of revenue should be fundamentally limited -- either self-imposed by Congress, or by the Constitution itself. "One option would be to totally scrap the current tax code in favor of a flat tax, and thereby make taxation much simpler, easier to follow, and harder to manipulate," Perry writes.

"Another option would be to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution (providing the power for the income tax) altogether, and then pursue an alternative model of taxation such as a national sales tax or the Fair Tax. The time has come to stop talking about fixing the broken and burdensome tax code and to take bold action to replace it with one that is not a burden for the taxpayer and that provides only the modest revenue needed to perform the basic constitutional functions of the federal government."

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Michele Bachmann

Peaked? Polling Shows Bachmann Support Withering After Perry's Debut

Evan McMorris-Santoro & Kyle Leighton | August 23, 2011, 6:30AM

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

There have been several chapters in the still-extremely-early 2012 presidential race. There was the time that Newt Gingrich's smarts and policy chops was going to shake up the contest. That ended. There was the time Herman Cain's business acumen and tea party ties were going to be a real factor in the race. That didn't work out. Then, of course, there was Donald Trump. Remember him?

Now, it appears, Michele Bachmann's moment has come and gone.

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Social Security

Perry Camp Claims Fed Up Call For Privatizing Social Security 'Not A Campaign Blueprint'

Brian Beutler | August 22, 2011, 11:10AM

Rick Perry

Texas Governor-turned-Presidential candidate Rick Perry is already walking away from his brand new controversial political manifesto Fed Up, and in particular its attack on Social Security as an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme.

His campaign spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that Fed Up "is a look back, not a path forward" written "as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto."

That's not exactly true. Perry spends most of the book criticizing New Deal, Great Society, and Obama administration policies, among others. But there are plenty of shoulds, coulds, and ought tos -- both explicit or implicit -- scattered throughout the book.

Here's one section on Social Security.

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Rick Perry

Well, If You Insist: Rick Perry Takes The Bait, Runs Against Washington

Evan McMorris-Santoro | August 20, 2011, 3:26PM

Texas Governor and Presidential Candidate Rick Perry (R)

ROCK HILL, SC -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry responded to his Washington critics here Saturday in a way that could make you wonder if those critics are actually playing for Team Perry.

On Friday, Politico reported on the concerns of some Republicans in Congress that Perry's Texas-style rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail is perhaps a little too Texas.

Speaking to reporters today, Perry responded by essentially saying he doesn't give a rip about what those Washington fat cats have to say about him. It was a move so slick that Perry could have scripted it.

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