Meanwhile, Ron Paul’s surge continues in Iowa, with a new Public Policy Polling survey showing the Texas congressman taking the lead there with 23 percent.

Paul’s first-place showing makes him the sixth candidate to lead the field in Iowa. At various times, Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Gingrich and Romney have topped polls in the Hawkeye State.

The loser of the week appeared to be Gingrich, who fell behind Romney in the latest PPP Iowa survey. Romney garnered 20 percent, while Gingrich had 14 percent. Bachmann, Perry and Rick Santorum were tied at 10 percent, and Huntsman trailed with 4 percent. Read more at www.sunshinestatenews.com

In response to all the Occupy and left-wing socialists, I’d like to point out a little about capitalism.

Instead of spending all your time whining about the 1 percent, do something to become one of the 1 percent! If you spent as much time working on ways to make money as you do standing on street corners asking the “gummet” to help you, maybe you’d become one of the 1 percent. You are picketing in the wrong place. You need to be standing in front of the White House, Senate or House office buildings.

The problems we have were mostly orchestrated by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and his supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which encouraged (read “forced”) the banks to finance houses for people who couldn’t afford them. This eventually resulted in a failing housing industry and caused the current recession. Yes, the banks were equally responsible but only as directed by the government.

Stand with the Tea Patriots and we’ll clean up the mess brought on by both parties. Read more at www.bradenton.com

Today the Washington Post reported that African Americans, who are 12.6 percent of the U.S. population, make up only 1.6 percent of Occupy Wall Street.

It’s too bad the Occupy Movement couldn’t be like the tea party.

An April 2010 Gallup poll found that 6% of tea party support came from non-hispanic blacks.

See more at www.humanevents.com

Two national polls of Republican primary voters released today, one from Marist / McClatchy and the other from CBS News, show former House Speaker Newt Gingrich surging. This confirms what pundits have chronicled for several weeks – that Gingrich’s campaign has entirely recovered from mistakes earlier in the year due to his rather stellar debate performances. The question these polls leaves us with, however, is Cain losing support rapidly or weathering the storm? These polls leave us with conflicting results.

In the CBS poll, Cain maintains his frontrunner status with 18 percent support.  Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Gingrich are tied at 15 percent. However, in Marist’s poll, Cain drops to third place, behind Romney’s 23 percent and Gingrich’s 19 percent support among Registered Republicans.

Romney’s support is static at 23 percent and 15 percent respectively in these polls. This is reflective of a trend that has been a constant through the year; Romney’s support has a floor of about 15 percent and, evidently, a ceiling at around 25 percent. Romney’s support comes from the country club, anti-populist wing of the GOP and is not going anywhere. This is not a fluid group of voters, and they are locked in to their support for Romney (and probably make up a significant portion of the 30 percent of voters who say they are committed to their candidate in the Marist poll.

The Marist poll could foreshadow a Gingrich surge at the expense of Cain’s support – 28 percent of voters who identify with the Tea Party support Gingrich over 22 percent for Cain. This is a rather significant reversal of fortunes for Cain who had solid Tea Party support until recently. CBS confirms this trend with 21 percent of Tea Partiers preferring Gingrich to 19 percent for Cain. Last month, CBS measured 32 percent of Tea Party voters supporting Cain with only 15 percent for Gingrich. Read more at www.ology.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

Since Ron Paul arrived in Washington more than 30 years ago, he has been spreading the same message of personal freedom and limited government, based on the Constitution and Austrian economics. Sound familiar? It should—Paul’s philosophy shares the same foundation that the Tea Party is built from.

Much of Paul’s platform aligns with the populist Tea Party movement, which has made a big difference for him this time around. At this point in 2007, the Gallup poll showed 3 percent for Paul, placing him seventh. This past Tuesday’s USA TODAY/Gallup poll reported Paul garnering 13 percent of support, putting him in a strong third-place position and making him the only candidate outside the two front runners in double digits. But Paul is still a long way from enjoying the level of support that the first tier candidates have. The question is whether 13 percent is as high as he can go. Read more at www.weeklystandard.com

Most members of the Tea Party movement reject the idea that global warming is real, according to a new survey conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. Its report, Politics and Global Warming, states 53 percent of Tea Party members say global warming is not happening

Surveyors interviewed 1,010 adults from across the nation earlier this year, identifying them as Democrat, Republican, Independent, or Tea Party members. The latter made up 12 percent of respondents, while Democrats held the plurality at 39 percent.

The majority of the other three groups believe global warming is indeed happening, but Democrats are the only group with a majority — 62 percent — who name human activities as the culprit. Fifty-one percent of Tea Party respondents say they are not at all worried about global warming and believe it will never harm people in the United States or around the world. In contrast, 72 percent of Democrats worry about it, and 45 percent say it is already harming people. Read more at www.thenewamerican.com

The Post’s polling guru Peyton M. Craighill has some interesting stats on the makeup of the Republican primary electorate. The most recent Post/ABC News poll of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents who are registered to vote shows this breakdown for Tea Party supporters:

— 80 percent support the Tea Party (28 percent support it strongly, while 53 percent support it somewhat);

— 15 percent oppose the Tea Party;

— 5 percent have no opinion.

This is a good reminder that, even within the likely GOP primary electorate, there is some ideological diversity. The candidate who can put together all the pieces of the party will be the nominee. Read more at www.washingtonpost.com

President Barack Obama was in New York last night, raising cash for his re-election amongst such bold-face names Gwyneth Paltrow, Alicia Keys and Jimmy Fallon. But if Obama ventured outside the comfortable West Village home of Harvey Weinstein, he would have discovered a much different reception.

A new poll out by Quinnpiac University today finds that more New Yorkers disapprove than approve of the job the president is doing. The results mark the first time that the president has had a negative score in New York.

New York State voters disapprove 49 – 45 percent of the job Obama is doing, a huge drop from his 57 – 38 percent approval June 29. Democrats approve 75 – 19 percent, down from 82 – 12 percent in June.  Disapproval is 86 – 10 percent among Republicans, compared to a 74 – 23 percent disapproval in June, and     58 – 36 percent among independent voters, compared to a slightly positive 49 – 45 percent in June. Read more at blog.timesunion.com

The McClatchy-Marist Poll, which was released last Monday, revealed that those calling themselves Tea Partiers have little interest in doing anything substantial about cutting government spending. This cuts the legs out from under any attempt by conservatives in Washington to rein in that spending and it  also gives President Obama a huge edge going into the 2012 elections.

Despite 49 percent of those polled disapproving of the job the President is doing (and 80 percent of those calling themselves Tea Partiers in the poll disapproving), and 57 percent of those polled giving top priority to cutting the deficit, when the question was asked: “Do you support or oppose cut[ting] Medicare and Medicaid?,” 70 percent of Tea Partiers opposed any such cutting. And when it came to reducing military spending, 66 percent of Tea Partiers were opposed as well.

But when those polled were asked if they supported raising the federal debt ceiling, 81 percent of Tea Partiers were opposed to such a raise.   Read more at www.thenewamerican.com