Who will emerge from the GOP field to challenge Mitt Romney for the nomination? Romney rivals continue to implode

ROCHESTER, Mich. – Rick Perry is reeling after a debate gaffe for the ages. Herman Cain is fighting off allegations of sexual impropriety. The rest of Mitt Romney’s would-be rivals are either broke, deeply flawed or both.

It’s viewed as a foregone conclusion that somebody will emerge from the GOP field to challenge Mitt Romney for the 2012 presidential nomination. But as of now, less than two months before the first votes are cast in Iowa, it’s still uncertain who will give Romney a real primary fight.


To go only by the polling, it would seem that Cain, who in most surveys leads or narrowly trails Romney, is best-positioned to take on the former Massachusetts governor.

From a financial standpoint, Perry appears strong. The Texas governor has a well-stocked campaign war chest and a Super PAC also airing ads on his behalf.

But after a wince-inducing 45 seconds on the debate stage here in suburban Detroit, it’s not clear whether any amount of cash can buy back the respect of Republican primary voters.

“Perry doesn’t control his own destiny anymore,” said GOP strategist Christian Ferry in the aftermath of Perry awkward failure to remember a third federal agency he wanted to abolish if elected president. “He has a lot of money in the bank, which will keep him going and allow him the opportunity to right his ship. But he will need outside help from Cain potentially falling apart and [Newt] Gingrich not catching on, or catching on and fading.”

Officially, Romney advisers resisted the impulse to pile on Perry Wednesday night. Several Romney strategists, who’ve previously delighted in tweaking the rival they view as the most formidable, declined to comment on the Texas governor’s debate stumble.

“There is nothing I could say that could darken the moment that Rick Perry had up on stage,” intoned senior Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom. “But we continue to take him and all the other candidates very seriously as competitors for the nomination.”

Asked when his candidate would stop being viewed as a weak front-runner, Fehrnstrom answered: “Maybe when the voting begins and we start winning primaries.”

But Romney backers are exquisitely aware that their only opponent with a conservative record and a sizable pot of campaign cash may have just imploded for good since his gaffe came in the wake of several exceptionally weak debate performances. There’s still a gaping space in the field for an anti-Romney conservative, but the list of plausible options is narrowing to approximately none.

Cain got a boost from a partisan audience here that booed a question from the CNBC moderators relating to the allegations of sexual misbehavior toward four former employees of the National Restaurant Association he once led. But the charges — and his stumbling response to them — continue to hang over his bid, and his rivals won’t keep ignoring such an explosive topic if his numbers don’t start dropping.

Cain did, though, get something of a momentary reprieve, thanks to Perry’s deer-in-headlights moment.

The Texan — who froze up on stage when he tried to name the three federal departments he’d eliminate as president — copped to an “embarrassing” debate outing in the spin room at Oakland University.

“I stepped in it out there,” Perry said Wednesday night, in an unusual appearance with reporters following the debate: “I may have forgotten [the Department of] Energy, but I haven’t forgotten my conservative principles.”

Perry planned to appear on the morning television shows Thursday, giving him an opportunity to try to change the subject. But his prime-time fumble threatens to set back weeks of effort — and hundreds of thousands of dollars in television ad spending — that his campaign poured into rebuilding Perry’s battered image.

Perry rivals were already circling the Texan’s wounded campaign Wednesday night.

Jesse Benton, chairman of Ron Paul’s underdog presidential bid, said Perry looked like he was down for the count and predicted that would open up a new cache of votes for other other small-government, states’ rights conservatives.

“Everybody has been looking for a candidate to be the anti-establishment, anti-Romney guy,” Benton said. “Perry rode in and surged, people didn’t like what he was having to say at some of those debates, he came down. It looks like his little recent bounce has just been a dead-cat bounce. It looks like he’s going to be on his way out of the race.”

But with Perry and Cain now in potentially terminal condition, Romney’s challenge may come from another candidate.

Jon Huntsman has confronted red ink and staff struggles, but his one-state strategy in New Hampshire could position him to become Romney’s chief rival if only because of the momentum a solid Granite State showing could mean in subsequent states.

Abandoned by his campaign staff this summer and also deeply in debt, Gingrich has fought his way back to relevance, thanks to a series of solid debate turns and speeches in which he’s showed off his erudition and rhetorical chops. The former House speaker still has little cash and the same personal baggage he brought into the race, but his public performances have often been matched only by Romney.

Colorado-based activist Charlie Smith announced he was forming a super PAC — Solutions 2012 — to support Gingrich’s campaign and said the debate here created a golden opportunity.

“If Rick Perry gave that performance as the Republican nominee, they wouldn’t have to count the ballots; it would be over on the spot,” Smith said in an email. “Compare that to Newt, who showed the kind of intellect that conservatives have long known and respected. That contrast will absolutely lead to more support for Newt.”

Perry’s rivals mostly went easy on him, apparently leaving him for dead.

Jon Huntsman told reporters that Perry was a “fine governor” and a “good candidate,” whose fumble shouldn’t disqualify him. Michele Bachmann said on CNBC after the debate that all the other candidates “felt very bad” for Perry, while Cain suggested that “the American people can be very forgiving.”

That’s a far cry from the way those candidates — Huntsman and Bachmann especially — handled Perry back in September, when he held an imposing lead in national GOP primary polling.

These hopefuls all see a path to become the chief alternative to the front-runner.

Others in the party concluded that Perry is all but finished — and they also think Romney is all but coronated.

Asked how damaging the Texan’s gaffe was, longtime GOP strategist Rich Galen said: “deadly.”

And Romney’s stiffest competition?

“Obama,” said Galen.

Reid J. Epstein contributed to this report.