The leader of a tea party group is calling for scandal-embroiled GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain to drop out of the race.

Judson Phillips, the founding leader of Tea Party Nation, said Cain’s flailing response to sexual harassment allegations brought forward by several women was simply unacceptable.

“Herman Cain has got to go,” Judson said in an email to Tea Party Nation members. “I do not believe Cain’s accusers. There are too many questions about them. The allegations are not why Cain should leave. The campaign’s response is why he should now withdraw.”

“Ten days in, the Cain campaign is still stumbling around like newly castrated cattle. [Campaign manager] Mark Block should have been gone nine days ago,” Phillips continued. “Cain should have a competent team in place by now as well as someone really good at crisis management. So far, it is not there.”

When the allegations against Cain first surfaced, Phillips called them a “hatchet job,” but the Cain campaigns response has convinced Phillips that Cain is not prepared for office. Read more at dailycaller.com

The New Hampshire Republican presidential primary debate gave voters a glimpse into a bitter feud between what some might consider unlikely political foes: Texas Congressman Ron Paul and Atlanta-area businessman Herman Cain.

Moderators gave each candidate one chance to pose a single question to any one of his or her opponents. Paul used his turn to attack Cain.

The former Godfather’s Pizza CEO “belittled” him and his followers, who want the Federal Reserve to undergo a major audit, Paul said.

“You said — you’ve used pretty strong terms — that we were ignorant and that we didn’t know what we were doing, and therefore there is no need for an audit anyway because if you had one you’re not going to find out everything because everybody knows everything about the Fed,” Paul said during the Oct. 11 debate at Dartmouth College. Read more at www.politifact.com

Well, it looks like the former House speaker will get his chance to reprise another famous chapter from history when he and fellow Georgian Herman Cain stage a contemporary version of the Lincoln-Douglas debates to talk Medicare and Social Security reform.

Messrs. Cain and Gingrich have reportedly accepted an invitation offered by the Texas Tea Party Patriots to stage a wide-ranging debate on fiscal austerity, according to the National Review Online.

During the last Republican presidential debate, Mr. Gingrich called for a Lincoln-Douglas style showdown with President Barack Obama should be come from behind to win the nomination.

An organizer told NRO that the debate will be broken into a discussion over how to tame the three major entitlement programs – Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Read more at www.wallstreetjournal.com

One of the biggest issues leading to the formation of the Tea Party movement was -— after the burgeoning deficit -— reaction against the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) law. Many Americans joined the Tea Party to stop what was obviously political favoritism being sold by fear-mongering government leaders, and it resulted in a number of pro-TARP Republican veterans losing their primaries and anti-TARP Republicans winning the November 2010 general election.

Herman Cain: Cain called TARP a “win-win for the taxpayer” in an October 20, 2008 column. “Unprecedented problems require unprecedented solutions. The actions by the Treasury are a win-win for the taxpayer.” After Congress passed the TARP bailout, Cain complained about how the money was doled out, but not about the principle of crony-capitalism where profits are privatized and losses are socialized. Cain said in the October 11 Bloomberg/Washington Post debate, “They were discretionary in which institutions they were going to save, rather than apply it equitably, which is what most of us thought was going to be done. The implementation of it is where they got off-track.” Cain has never made it clear who he believes should have gotten a bailout that didn’t, or even if he believed that every failing institution should have been bailed out by taxpayers, but it’s clear from that statement that he believed that the taxpayer bailouts didn’t go far enough.

Ron Paul: Congressman Paul publicly opposed the TARP bailout and voted against the bill as Congressman. He charged that the bailout was the antithesis of the free market. Instead, Paul asserted, “What we’ve had is cronyism, it’s interventionism and inflationism, and corporatism. That’s what is wrong. What we need is more freedom, not more government.” Read more at www.thenewamerican.com

WASHINGTON — Herman Cain’s rise in the polls this week doesn’t change the fact that Mitt Romney is still the most likely Republican nominee for president, but it does underscore the biggest remaining question mark about him: If he wins the primary, will that kill the Tea Party?

In other words, will the conservative grassroots turn out in force for a Romney ticket — not only to vote, but also to organize and recruit supporters — like they did in the 2010 midterm elections? Romney’s critics argue they won’t.

FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe raised the prospect of a third party candidate if the former Massachusetts governor is the nominee, telling The New York Times this week that at the very least, a Romney candidacy would discourage conservative activism in the 2012 election. Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

The new Washington Post/ABC News poll confirms what the Florida straw poll showed last month: Rick Perry is bleeding support from activist conservatives.

In the national survey, Perry’s share of the GOP primary vote has fallen to 16 percent – a tie with Herman Cain and 9 points behind Mitt Romney, who draws support from a quarter of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

Ron Paul is in fourth place, with 11 percent, followed by Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich tied at 7 percent. Rick Santorum takes 2 percent and Jon Huntsman takes half that.

It’s still too soon to write Perry’s political obituary. His 16 percent of the vote still places him within striking distance of Mitt Romney, whose base of support has not grown beyond the mid-20 percent range despite having had one of the best months of his campaign. Read more at www.politico.com

After Morgan Freeman criticized the Tea Party and called their actions “racist,” Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is firing back … with compliments!

Cain made an appearance on Fox’s Your World with Neil Cavuto, where he addressed Freeman’s remarks.

“Well, first of all, I doubt if Morgan Freeman, with all due respect, who is a great actor, has ever been to a Tea Party,” Cain said. “Most of the people that are criticizing the Tea Parties … about having a racist element, they have never been to a Tea Party.” Read more at today.msnbc.msn.com

Although the latest CNN/ORC poll has presidential hopeful and former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain polling at just 6%, he has strong support in the Tea Party, the movement that was extremely influential in last year’s GOP primaries in the midterm elections that helped the Republicans win back control of the House of Representatives.

“My supporters are consistent, and they don’t defect,” Cain says on today’s American Morning. “So we are going to continue to move up.”

Cain is optimistic as he looks toward tonight’s CNN/Tea Party debate in Florida, where himself and seven other GOP contenders for the Republican nomination will square off about issues like the economy and Social Security.

Cain breaks down his 999 jobs plan and weighs in on racism in the Tea Party with Ali Velshi on today’s show. Read more at am.blogs.cnn.com

Herman Cain,  a successful business executive, is one of the many candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.  Cain has never held elected office but during an appearance in Dover, it was claer that Cain was making inroads with the sort of anti-Washington voters who shaped the last election.

When Herman Cain spoke at the Hellenic Center hall, he joked that he was beginning to recognize some of the faces in the crowd.   The event was a fundraiser for the state GOP.  Before the speech,  61-year-old Rochester independent, Catherine Spreeman already had a sense of what she would hear.

“What I know about Herman Cain is he’s not a politician,” she said.  “I like people who don’t mince their words.  Who don’t tailor their message by who’s sitting in front of them and that’s what I like about him.” Read more at www.nhpr.org

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain told Hotsheet Wednesday that racist accusations about the movement are “ridiculous.”

“I have been speaking to Tea Parties, Americans for Prosperity, since 2009, before it was cool,” Cain said, before pointing to victories in recent straw polls. “…If the Tea Party organization is racist, why does the black guy keep winning all these straw polls?”

Asked if part of his appeal to the Tea Party is that he is an African-American carrying a conservative message, Cain said no.

“They really wouldn’t care if I was green, red, blue or yellow - seriously,” he said. “That’s not the reason why. There is no remorse about - ‘OK, we voted for President Obama, we’re trying to send a message that the conservatives are not racist.’ No. I don’t believe that’s it at all.” Read more at www.cbsnews.com