The Des Moines Register came out today with a much anticipated poll that shows that Herman Cain has fallen out of favor as the latest flavor of the month in the Republican race to go sour. What the poll showed even more importantly, however, is that Ron Paul is now in second place in the Iowa caucuses race, trailing just the latest flavor of the month, Newt Gingrich. Mitt Romney is now in third place and falling.

The efforts of the Paul campaign in Iowa to reach out to voters, energize them, and build the growing Ron Paul Revolution has been paying handsome dividends. The caucuses are all about which campaign is best able to get voters to the caucuses, and virtually all political observers now recognize that the Paul campaign is the clear leader in this regard.

Gingrich is the latest flavor of the month, having absorbed most of the lost support that abandoned Cain this past week as new revelations about his sexual indiscretions proved to be too much for even the Godfather of pizza and the Federal Reserve to overcome. This was no surprise, given the fact that Cain and Gingrich are very good friends. The only surprising part is that Iowa voters who have abandoned Cain for his adultery and his sexual harrassment charges have forgotten that Gingrich also engaged in the same behavior many years ago and is married today to the woman who helped break up the second of his two earlier marriages. It will be interesting to see if Iowa values voters remember this fact as the caucuses approach. However, that’s only a side show. The main show is that Gingrich (like Romney) is a borrow-and-spend Republican who has no intention of balancing the budget any time soon and will gladly spend and spend until the country’s credit rating is permanently broken.

I fully expect that in these last few weeks before the caucuses, Iowa voters are going to hear more and more about the fact that Gingrich is soft on big government, that he has a long history as a flip-flopper, and that once elected he will forget all those wonderful polls he read that helped him decide what his stance is on the issues during the campaign so that he can take on his REAL stance as president, a stance that will bankrupt America.

Ron Paul has emerged as the only serious candidate. His aggressive proposal to cut $1.2 trillion from the bloated Obama budget in his first year in office and thus balance that budget, combined with his steadfast devotion to Constitutional principles, proves that he is the only real leader in the Republican race. He is also the only candidate who truly supports the Republican platform in its current form. Romney and Gingrich both are at odds with the party’s platform on many counts.

What was once thought to be impossible is now shaping up to be a reality. Not only will Ron Paul do very well in the Iowa caucuses, he is now in the best possible position to build what is generally recognized as the strongest political base into a win in Iowa. When this happens, it will happen despite the best efforts of the media and the party establishment to muzzle him, belittle him, and humiliate him every step of the way. Yet, despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that they have flung against the candidate, Dr. Paul has continued to rise above the fray, and I fully expect that winning approach to carry him to victory in January.