Governor mitt romney, who has a commanding lead in new hampshire, is leading in iowa and leading nationally. the merit poll has numbers that demonstrate this profoundly. in the granite state, new hampshire, mitt romney is at 44 percent, that is a whopping 31-point lead over his nearest competitor, the georgia businessman, herman cain at 13 percent, and cain is tied with texas congressman ron paul in new hampshire at 13. that is a huge gap, the nearest competitors after that, you got to go down into single digit, rick perry and jon hauntsman sman, way, way back. then there s iowa, the leeoff caucus state where romney has not been campaigning aggressively and has signaled perhaps he will not significance anify all that much. it s at 23 percent, but a tight race with cain at 20 percent, ron powell paul, 11 percent, michele bachmann at 10 percent, tied with rick perry at 10 percent. texas governor rick piry has
Here s what i want to ask you, john. among all voters and we re just not talking about republican, 14 percent say rick perry is too extreme. does perry need to deal with that, and if so, how? perry has his own problems because there s this texas swagger that programs people may have had too much of during the bush years and the texas style doesn t appeal to independents in the northeast and the west, so rick perry has got to show his record of governance in texas, he s the state s longest serving governor, overcomes awfully that and he has to be a good listener, he has to say look, i may have a certain style but i can listen to your concerns and reach out to you. right now i think rick p.y is a very strong primary candidate but he does have to convince primary voters he s electable in the fall against barack obama. gregg: it s stuff like calling for social security as failure, he objected to in theco tax, called for the state sledge late
Storm chaser lindsey phillip n. her car when she caught this tape, the tornado west offal begany. this happens just one week after it was slammed, that aim area, by flooding and damage from hurricane irene. coming up, we re going to be talking to lindsey philips about that dramatic video. republican presidential candidate jon hauntsman huntingman own the campaign trail, the former utah governor says the key to winning the 2012 election will be rallying former republicans to return to their gop roots. the republican party is with ind hents, we need to win back democrats who used to be republicans a long time a. the reagan democrats, so called, we ve got to have numbers on our side, so drawing contrast is one thing but we ve got to have a candidate who have foster boundies and bring in
Message. ever since rick perry has jumped into the race, he has galvanized many of the tea party fans. i think mitt romney has to appear before the tea party, he has to answer their tough questions, but i give him points, he didn t pander yesterday, he spoke to a tea party group, he never mentioned the words tea party. so i think he s learned there there was an opinion that he thaupbt awe tenic in his view, jumping around lot. i think mitt romney is going to say i am what i am, you may not like it but he s going to have to get the neutrality of the tea party, because the republican image has changed from 2008, the moderate party, those who like romney the best has gone from 35 percent to 25 percent, so the tea party is the reality and he has to deal with it. gregg: governor perry has moved into the lead as the candidate that republicans prefer. let s put it on the screen, 26 percent according to the fox news poll, versus romney s 18 percent.
Those type of legs when she gets out of iowa and has to really deal with the rest of america who isn t going to be on the side of the social conservatives and you know, mostly her tea party support base. they re comparing her a lot to mike huckabee who went and won iowa and then sort of fizzled out after ward, but again, look at john mccain, he entered the race, his campaign impleaded and he rose again to get the nominee. so look, some of these candidates could implode, he hope i hope they don t, mitt romney or governor perry but look, that s how she s going to hang on and fight, she s an excellent candidate, she does well in debates so it s any man or woman s race. heather: thank you very much for joining us, again, happy labor day. anda, jamil, thank you. in terms of our coverage, we are teaming up with google to host a gop presidential debate on september 22nd that, will be in orlando, florida, and you will be able to submit