On this day — the fallout from another poor debate performance continues to spread for Texas Gov. Rick Perry; the Perry campaign’s surprising loss at a (rather meaningless) straw poll; dissatisfaction with Perry has led to another Chris Christie bloomlet that was quickly shot down; the government may be headed towards a shutdown; and President Obama starts a West Coast fundraising tour.
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A Rather Surprising Loss
Ask just about anyone who has covered national politics for a while and they’ll all tell you roughly the same thing — the various straw polls that the candidates take part in really don’t amount to much of anything beyond serving as a fundraiser for whatever group is putting it on. But, that doesn’t mean that reporters and politicos at large aren’t going to pay attention when you badly lose a straw poll (to Herman Cain!) that you were widely expected to win; the Houston Chronicle’s Patricia Kilday Hart and Rick Dunham report:
http://blog.chron.com/rickperry/2011/09/rick-perry-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-weekend/