ROCHESTER, Mich. – If it's too big to fail, it's too big, several Republican presidential candidates said Wednesday, arguing in the latest 2012 debate that housing and tax reforms, as well as an end to government bailouts, are critical to stopping the U.S. economy's slide into mediocrity.

In what was largely a friendly debate -- with most of the candidates' ire directed toward the current administration rather than each other -- the most unforgettable moment of the night came when Texas Gov. Rick Perry stumbled in a moment of forgetfulness. Perry's brain freeze came when he couldn't remember the three agencies that he would pledge to get rid of as president.

"Sorry. Oops," he said, after recalling only the departments of Commerce and Education. He later said he also wanted to abolish the Energy Department.

The first Republican presidential primary may be more than two months away, but some Democrats are convinced that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will be the eventual GOP nominee — and they already are rolling out their general election attack strategy.

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning, White House senior adviser David Plouffe said Mr. Romney “has no core,” an assault on the Republican front-runner’s track record of changing positions on issues. Many conservatives also remain skeptical of Mr. Romney, who is seen as especially vulnerable to charges of flip-flopping but remains at or near the top in most polls.

Businessman Herman Cain is now Mr. Romney’s biggest threat and has overtaken him in Iowa, polls show.

On Sunday, however, Mr. Plouffe all but ignored questions about Mr. Cain and instead directed his fire at Mr.

Herman Cain takes the lead in the Republican presidential nomination contest as GOP voters continue to deny Mitt Romney clear front-runner status.

A Fox News poll released Wednesday shows support for Cain has quadrupled among GOP primary voters since late August. At that time, he stood at 6 percent. After three September debates, he jumped to 17 percent. And now Cain leads the pack at 24 percent.

While it’s the first time Romney has trailed Cain, it’s the second time he’s been ousted from the lead since July. Romney receives 20 percent -- a new low for him but still within the margin of error of 5.5 percent among Republican primary voters. Romney was at 23 percent last month and a high of 26 percent in early August.

Newt Gingrich now comes in third with 12 percent -- edging out Rick Perry. The former speaker -- like Cain -- has seen his support quadruple since late August.

Perry's support has dropped to 10 percent, down from 19 percent in September.

“America must also once and for all face up to entitlement reform. To preserve benefits for current and near-term Social Security beneficiaries, my plan permanently stops politicians from raiding the program's trust fund. Congressional IOUs are no substitute for workers' Social Security payments. We should use the federal Highway Trust Fund as a model for protecting the integrity of a pay-as-you-go system.”

-- Texas Gov.

Rick Perry is proposing letting Americans choose between their existing income tax rate or a new flat tax of 20 percent, part of a tax and spending reform plan that the Republican presidential candidate is dubbing "Cut, Balance and Grow."

"My plan restores American competitiveness in the global marketplace and provides strong incentives for U.S.-based employers to build new factories and create thousands of jobs here at home," Perry says in an opinion article published online in The Wall Street Journal Monday night.

Perry, the governor of Texas, is announcing his plan at an event Tuesday in South Carolina. The plan would "scrap the current tax code, lower and simplify tax rates, cut spending and balanced the federal budget, reform entitlements, and grow jobs and economic opportunity."

Perry's flat tax proposed would preserve key tax exemptions for families earning less than $500,000 a year and would increase the standard deduction to $12,500 for individuals.

WASHINGTON -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry may have had a rough couple weeks on the campaign trail, but that didn't translate to a weakness in fundraising for the newest entrant in the GOP 2012 race.

RickPerry.org raised $17.1 million since August 13, and has $15 million in cash on hand.

Perry's chief rival for the GOP nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, brought in $18 million during his first three-month fundraising period, but was expected to report about $15 million or just under that.

Donations raised for Perry during 49 of the 92 days in the third quarter came from more than 22,000 unique contributors in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam, the campaign said. Fifty-one percent of donors live outside the state of Texas, it added.

"The generous contributions from Americans across the nation prove the overwhelming support for Gov.

DERRY, N.H.

Three September debates have shaken-up the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Herman Cain has jumped into the top tier. Rick Perry’s stumbled. Mitt Romney's holding steady.

And Michele Bachmann is hitting bottom. That’s according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday.

The new poll found Cain’s support has nearly tripled among GOP primary voters to 17 percent.

That’s up from 6 percent before this month’s debates, and puts him in what is essentially a three-way tie with Perry and Romney.

Cain has benefited not only from his debate performances, but also significant media attention after winning the Florida Republican Party’s straw poll on Saturday.

Perry now garners 19 percent, a drop of 10 percentage points from a month ago. That puts Romney back in the top spot with the support of 23 percent. Last month Romney was at 22 percent...

President Obama has been campaigning almost non-stop since Labor Day, but his political fortunes have hardly improved. Obama’s September blitz through swing states, backed up with an aggressive media schedule, has apparently yielded little for the embattled incumbent.

A new Quinnipiac University poll shows Obama dragging a 42 percent job-approval rating in Ohio and already evenly matched by Republican frontrunners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney in the all-important Buckeye State, where Obama has campaigned twice in three weeks.

And so it is across the states where Obama has focused his efforts in this first round of campaigning.

In Ohio and neighboring Pennsylvania, 51 percent of voters said Obama didn’t deserve a second term. In Virginia, the lynchpin to Obama’s 2012 strategy, a Roanoke College poll found the president with a 39 percent rating.

In two key straw polls conducted yesterday in Florida and Michigan, businessmen Herman Cain and Mitt Romney came away the winners — as Rick Perry, the Texas governor, finished second in both surveys of Republicans.

The polling results are the latest blow for the Perry campaign, which many Republican political observers say has taken a hit with three straight poor debate performances and the pro-life advocate enduring aggressive attacks from his pro-life rivals on other political issues. The Perry campaign, if it wants to return the candidate to his frontrunner status he obtained after jumping the race, will have to work overtime to re-establish the traction it once had.

Cain, the pro-life former Godfather’s Pizza CEO swept the Republican Party of Florida’s “Presidency 5? straw poll today in Orlando, capping off his strongest fundraising and grassroots week since the establishment of his campaign in May 2011. Cain took the straw poll with 37.11 percent of the vote.