Who Will Challenge Obama in 2012?

The U.S. Republican presidential candidate and businessman Herman Cain, who has suffered from sex scandals, announced on Dec. 3 his withdrawal from the 2012 contest for the presidency of the United States. A new political star who is highly popular in the conservative party, Cain withdrew one month before the start of the Iowa caucuses, rapidly clearing up the Republican primary field and greatly increasing the possibility of a standoff between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich.

When Cain announced his withdrawal, he said he would soon announce his own candidate endorsement. Because of this, Gingrich and tea party favorite Michele Bachmann will sooner or later make overtures to him, hoping to increase their election odds. Analysts believe the greatest beneficiary of Cain’s withdrawal will be Gingrich, whose popularity has recently soared.

Former Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s high-level adviser Michael Dennehy believes that Cain supporters will almost certainly shift toward Gingrich. This will allow Gingrich to have the power of challenging Romney in two early, key state primaries — Iowa and South Carolina.　　

On Dec. 1, the New York Daily News published a surprising public opinion poll showing that former House Speaker Gingrich has already made a comeback from adversity with a public approval rating of 38 percent, placing him at the top of the list of Republican candidates. Compared with Romney’s public approval rating of 17 percent, Gingrich possesses a 21 percent lead. This public approval rating even slightly exceeds President Obama’s.

However, as far as Romney is concerned, is Cain’s withdrawal necessarily bad news? Several analysts believe it might not be.

At roughly 8 percent, Cain’s approval rating in Iowa wasn’t very high, but even if all of his supporters turned to Gingrich, the possibility is very good of Romney advancing to the top two places in this state’s primary. Moreover, according to poll results released before Thanksgiving by the Pew Research Center, the second choice of Cain supporters was evenly split between Romney and Gingrich.

Realistically, the real problem for Romney, the Republican Party bellwether holding the advantage, is that he has not secured the support of the Republican Party, with his approval ratings having stalled these past several months. This is making him blitz through the primary period and concentrate his energies as quickly as possible on his dwindling hopes of launching a campaign against President Obama.