Iowa poll positions: Romney leads, Cain surges, Palin takes bus tour national

Triple-P polls the GOP field in Iowa and finds Mitt Romney still leading the pack.

Mitt Romney has the lead in PPP’s first Iowa poll since Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump exited the race, but with six different candidates polling in double digits it’s clear this thing is wide open.

Romney polls at 21%. Sarah Palin and Herman Cain are tied for second at 15%. Newt Gingrich is 4th with 12%, Michele Bachmann 5th with 11%, Tim Pawlenty 6th with 10%, Ron Paul 7th with 8%, and Jon Huntsman 8th with 0% (only one respondent to the poll picked him.) 8% said they supported someone else or were undecided.

Cain is still benefiting from his South Carolina debate performance and the near universal positive press he has gotten from his successful campaign kickoff. Romney is still benefiting from being the presumptive front runner. Palin just keeps making all the right moves, the latest being her contretemps with the MSM over the bus tour.

Palin understands two things better than just about everyone else in the field: The role of social media, and her unique relationship with the mainstream media. She uses social media to move her ideas and influence debates better than anyone else, without spending a cent. Should she decide to run, she has an online media machine primed both to carry her message and to raise a pile of money to fuel the campaign. She also understands that picking fights with the MSM, as she has done over the scheduling of her bus tour, is a rolling win for her since her supporters despise the MSM. The attacks she attracts from the MSM galvanize her supporters to her side. The dumber the MSM attacks get — and Martin Bashir’s attack is merely the dumbest lately — the more she ends up benefiting. Palin also has a populist touch that few can match. The question remains whether she can attract independents as a GOP nominee. She is about to put that question to the test, taking her One Nation bus tour national.

She told ABC News about her plans after she leaves the northeast:

“Go back to Alaska – in fact today, Willow [the middle Palin daughter] already had to get back to work so she had to leave – go back to Alaska, come back on the trail again, and take the tour west as the summer progresses.”

Asked if she’ll go all over the country, Palin said, “that is our plan, our tentative plan, anyway.”