Daily Events...
Mondays with Tony Lee
10.10.11           

In a recent New Hampshire poll, Mitt Romney leads with 38 percent of the vote. 

Surprisingly, Herman Cain is in second with 20 percent, despite having done very little retail politicking. 

Which brings us to the question: Can Herman Cain actually be the anti-Romney and win the nomination? Or will Cain just help Romney split the conservative anti-Romney vote and enable Romney to win the nomination? 

There is much to like about Cain. He’s refreshingly honest. He has had executive experience in the private sector many Democrats like Obama lack. He has turned around failing businesses, such as Godfather’s Pizza, and made them profitable. 

He has an inspirational life story, is unremittingly optimistic, and is offering solutions. In addition, he has shown his depth the past week by rebutting many of the criticisms that have come his way. 

He also seems nerdy, having been a ballistics engineer, and has experience on corporate boards—so he is also not unfamiliar with Wall Street. 

This has been a cycle that has seen candidates rise and fall swiftly. New technologies and mediums such as Twitter allow information to be absorbed at a more rapid clip. 

One thing that has been stable, though, has been Cain’s high positive intensity score (consistently the highest among all the candidates) and his low name identification numbers. 

As Cain’s name identification increases, two questions will remain: Will his positive intensity score stay the same? And, can an increase in his name identification translate into actual votes in the early primary states? 

At this point in time, Cain’s shot at actually winning the nomination seems to be less improbable. And he may have a better chance to beat President Obama in a potential general election match-up than people are giving him credit for. 

— Tony Lee