What a difference a few debates can make.

Herman Cain's star has risen steadily in the past two months, from a largely unknown CEO running for president to a top-tier candidate in the Republican field for 2012 -- and now voters even rank him above the presumed front-runner, Mitt Romney, in a poll released Wednesday evening.

As GOP voters grow disenchanted with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and remain wary of Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, Cain, a onetime radio-show host and former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, catapulted into the lead in the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.


Drawn by Cain's blunt, folksy style in recent debates, 27 percent of Republican primary voters picked him as their first choice for the nomination, a jump of 22 percentage points from six weeks ago.

Romney held firm in second place at 23 percent, his same share as in a Journal poll in late August, while Perry plummeted to 16 percent, from 38 percent in August.

The poll of 1,000 adults, conducted from Oct. 6-10, comes as many Republican donors and officials have begun to rally around Romney as the party's likely nominee, despite a continued lack of enthusiasm for him documented in the new poll.

On Wednesday, with five of the Republican presidential candidates addressing members of the New Hampshire state legislature in the state capitol, Herman Cain fired up the crowd. His fiery speech drew several standing ovations in defending his "9-9-9 plan," which would replace the tax code with flat 9 percent taxes on businesses, personal incomes and sales across the nation.

The question is whether his newfound prominence will be a lasting phenomenon in a campaign that has seen many others surge and then fade. Since the spring, conservatives have given short-lived bursts of support for a string of contenders, including Donald Trump, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and Perry.

"Will I be the flavor of the week?" Cain said Wednesday in New Hampshire. "Well, the answer is an emphatic, 'No,' because Haagen-Dazs black walnut tastes good all the time."

Cain in many ways isn't operating a traditional campaign. He was on tour promoting his new book in recent weeks, and he will make stops between Memphis and Nashville on Friday and Saturday, though Tennessee is unlikely to factor in the Republican nomination. He doesn't plan to return to Iowa, site of the first nominating contest, for weeks, his aides say.

Cain, 65, held a New York fund-raiser Wednesday afternoon and an Ohio finance event Wednesday night. His campaign says it has a paid staff of 30, compared with more than 80 for Romney.

Pressed on how much money he had to ramp up his campaign, Cain would only say "enough," while insisting that money began to flow after his win in a Florida Republican straw poll last month.

Cain raised $2.5 million during the second quarter of the year, and one person close to his campaign said he isn't likely to have raised significantly more than that in the quarter that ended last month.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/12/cain-vaults-to-lead-in-poll/

Awesome! I love Cain and Perry! What a shock, Ron Paul came in last.

Gosh, Republicans are so racist that they now have a FULL blooded African American as their frontrunner for President of the United States now............

ITs not true that racists have no friends or colleagues of another race,, some racists even hold supremacist ideas about others of their 'own' race


but if accusations of racism are a concern,, this may not be the candidate to choose,, considering that following a joke by jon stewart regarding Cains suggestion that bills be three pages long his response was

"Sticks and stone may break my bones, words are not going to hurt me. I was on that radio show because a happen to be an American black conservative. I labeled myself. I’m an American Black Conservative, an A-B-C. They keep trying to put labels on me. I have been called “Uncle Tom,” “sell out,” “Oreo,” “shameless.” So the fact that he wants to mock me because I happen to be a black conservative, in the words of my Grandfather, “I does not care. I does not care.”



so I guess both sides are playing that racism card huh?

What I find to be stunning is the fact that you have people that continue to blame racism for problems in the minority community then you have someone like Cain rising to national prominence and the same clowns that talk about racism holding minorities back are thrashing Cain simply because he is a republican.

I watched it here in Maryland when Michael Steele ran for the Senate.

He was giving a speech in Prince Georges county and members of the NAACP were booing him and throwing oreos at him.

You want an inclusive society, yet when there is the chance to improve on where we have come the people that scream the loudest are going out of their way to tear it down..

That is a brilliant way to go about it..

Keep following the leftists.. They have done so much for you..

What I find interesting is when and how people come to the conclusion of anyones choice for a candidate or against them coming down to 'just' their race or 'just' their political affiliation

Here is a man, Cain, who was so vocal about how people call him and others racist for not agreeing with OBAMA

and then he does the same thing when a comedian tells a joke about one of his statements?

Here are supporters, of Cain, who insist regularly that OBAma was only voted in because he is black

but they support a candidate who regularly makes an issue of his race....



just seems odd to me,,,


I am choosing not to support Cain because he seems like just a frontman for what was there before OBAMA,, which (for me and most others I know) wasnt working well


HE has stated that he stayed on the sidelines of the civil rights movement that lead to such progress in the times,,,but now he will tout, without doubt, his 'blackness' as some badge to disqualify any allegations of bigotry or racism or classism because no black man would be any of those things right? and he will tout it to try to quiet anyone who opposes him(while bashing others for doing that very same thing to him regarding Obama)

I just see him as kind of a clarance thomas, who should probably stick to selling pizzas and making money for big business

as I am not big business, I dont see much evidence that he will give two cents about me or others who are not big business,,,

AMEN!