In a pathetic speech that demonstrated zero self awareness and blamed everyone but himself for his OWN horrible behavior, Herman "999" Cain just announced that he's "suspending" his campaign for President.
Who benefits from this? Clearly, according to Public Policy Polling (one of the best pollsters in the business):
If Herman Cain really ends up dropping out of the race Gingrich's surge should continue in the next few weeks, unless/until something starts happening to erode his popularity. Why? Because Cain's supporters absolutely love Gingrich. And they absolutely hate Mitt Romney.
Our last national survey found that Gingrich's favorability with Cain voters was 73/21. Meanwhile Romney's was 33/55. That's the same basic trend we've seen in every Republican primary poll we've done in the month of November. On average in 7 polls we've done this month Gingrich's favorability with Cain voters is 69/22. Romney's average is 31/57. In other words Gingrich's net favorability is 73 points better with Cain supporters than Romney's. Here's how they stack up:
In other words, right now Newt Gingrich has a huge smile on his face. Mitt Romney? Well, he's probably figuring out how he can flip flop and endorse "999" or whatever it takes to get Herman Cain's endorsement. Unlikely that will happen, though. Bottom line for Romney: he's in serious trouble heading into the Iowa caucuses in just 30 days or so. Personally, as a partisan Democrat, I couldn't be happier to see Newt Gingrich, with his tremendous character flaws/warts/etc. as the Republican nominee. But even if Mitt's the nominee, I'm confident that the American people will choose the infinitely better Barack Obama for reelection over the flip-flopping (including on his own flip flops! LOL), valueless, soulless, "corporations are people," career politician Mitt Romney. So, farewell to Bad Pizza Dude, watch out as the Newt-ster rises, and Go Obama (who also benefits if Newt wins the nomination)!
P.S. That's one less candidate for Krazy Kookinelli to question tonight on Faux "News." Such a shame.
P.P.S. How does Cain's wife do this pathetic "stand by your man" thing, when we all know that Cain is a serial and shameless adulterer? She really needs to divorce his sorry be-hind.
UPDATE: I couldn't agree more with John McCain's 2008 campaign manager, who says, "That Cain's candidacy was taken seriously for longer than a nano-second in a time of genuine crisis for the country raises fundamental questions about the health of the political process and the Republican party." I mean, seriously, "999" made Voodoo Economics look like it should be up for a Nobel Prize, and Herman Cain himself...my god, where do you even start with how crazy, wacky, weird, clueless, and unqualified to be president that guy was. Yet he actually LED the Republican field for a while, and was in double digits for longer than that? Yikes. This party is truly off the deep end. Of course, they were also off the deep end in 2008, when they - John McCain's campaign, that is - picked Sarah Freakin' Palin for VP. It's simply astounding to think what's happened to this once-great party...
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