From We Ask America:

• Rick Perry 29%
• Michele Bachmann 17%
• Mitt Romney 15% (13%)
• Ron Paul 8% (5%)
• Sarah Palin 7% (14%)
• Herman Cain 5%
• Newt Gingrich 5% (14%)
• Rick Santorum 4%
• Jon Huntsman 1%
• None of these 9%

Also, in a poll by a wide margin, the potential candidate that people would least like to get the nomination is Sarah Palin.  (Sigh) Awful what the Dems and the MSM have done to her.  Margin of error in this poll is 3.85% with 643 Iowa caucus participants polled.  A prominent GOP powerbroker agrees with Perry’s apparent front-runner status in Iowa.  If Perry is doing this well in Iowa, I have a hard time visualizing Romney beating him as Perry is likely to pull in South Carolina as well and the momentum created by a win in Iowa would make Romney’s fight in New Hampshire potentially much more difficult.  Perry has proven to be a very good speaker who can connect very easily with voters and his agricultural roots and experience could be playing big as Iowans find out more about him.

Thank you Karl Rove and the GOP establishment consultant mafia for differentiating Perry from Bush.  Great piece from Erin McPike at Real Clear Politics:

There’s just one problem: It doesn’t appear as though the GOP establishment has learned much about the Tea Party, an amorphous group of movement conservatives who don’t like being told how to think by the establishment.

Witness this comment on Twitter by Dana Loesch, a high-profile Tea Party activist who often appears on CNN: “I will lose respect for [the] Perry campaign if they walk back the Bernanke remarks one inch.” They didn’t; Perry’s aides said simply that he is passionate about fiscal issues.

What’s more, Tea Partiers have said repeatedly that they were nearly as turned off by President Bush and his administration several years ago as they are by Democrats in charge of Washington today. If “the Bushies” are already attacking Perry, it may help separate the new candidate further from the 43rd president and lend him more credibility with conservatives.

A former strategist for Mitt Romney who is close to Bush’s circle suggested that the Bush crowd is nervous about how the former president’s legacy will be treated publicly with a surging Perry in the race. The strategist said the Bush team ought to relax, agreeing that their criticism will only elevate Perry and win him more attention.

It’s easy to see why the Bush team is concerned. In 2007, Perry said that Bush was never a fiscal conservative, and today, he touts himself as the ultimate fiscal conservative.

If this was a calculated provocation by Perry and his political team with Perry’s remarks about Bernacke, this is one crackerjack political team that Perry has working for him.

Does anyone find it ironic how eerily similar the 2012 election is mirroring the 1980 race?  The GOP establishment tries to nuke a successful conservative governor of a large state because they are so superior in their knowledge of who the best candidate is.  Problem is, this is the same establishment that lost both Houses of Congress in 2006 and got us a Marxist president because they were too gutless to stand on conservative principles.  Instead, they revealed they were nothing but a bunch of squishes willing to dump their constituents to play toward independents and soft Democrats.  Obsession with hanging onto power at whatever cost ultimately loses and it looks like it is happening again, only this time the GOP establishment consultant mafia will be shut out of a Perry administration.