2012 Decoded

It's about time to start planning for the post-Herman Cain world, and there are gathering signs that Newt Gingrich could be the next anyone-but-Romney contestant in the GOP primary race.

 If the Cain campaign implodes as it seems determined to do, the question would be who replaces him as the alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney - and if there has been anything consistent about the GOP contest, it's been the need among likely GOP voters for an anti-Romney. Could the baton go to the blunt-spoken former speaker of the House?

After struggling to put a couple pennies together, Gingrich announced in New Hampshire on Tuesday that his campaign had raised over $800,000 in the month of October, more  than in the entire third quarter of the year. Gingrich's poll numbers have also been quietly creeping up lately, from the low single digits to 10 percent in the most recent CBS/New York Times survey. The results put him in third place, after Cain, at 25 percent, and Romney, with 21 percent. The man who led Republicans to congressional victories in the mid-1990s is also now enjoying double-digit support among voters who identify with the tea party in the key primary states of Iowa, South Carolina and Florida, according to a CNN/Time poll earlier this week.