With the Presidential election coming next year, and Barack Obama declaring that
he was an underdog, the race is heating up for the nomination in the Republican
party. The Republicans seem torn between choosing who the best may be and who
the likeliest to win may be.

Here is an in-depth look at the top three candidates for the primary election starting as early as 16 weeks.

Mitt Romney: One of two candidates to have been in the business world before politics, Romney is an interesting candidate. The man has run the Olympics, has taken three businesses to hundred million dollar plus grossing status, and was a governor of Massachusetts for four years before declining to run for re-election.
Both Democrats and Republicans have challenged Romney, saying he is too
liberal or too conservative. Republicans have criticized his health-care system that he created in his state. This “Romney-care” has gone against conservative value in some ways, and not in others. For instance, it is a state mandated health care plan, which is against the argument for government mandated health care, and issue that Republicans have been after Democrats about since Obama proposed “Obama-care”. To those who question whether Romney is for or against government-mandated healthcare, he has responded in one of the GOP debates that “the first thing I’d do in office, would be to get rid of Obama-care”. He has also claimed that his health care is nothing like Obama-care because Romney-care is a state system as opposed to National Legislation. Additionally, he stated it had to do with the fact that there was roughly six to eleven percent of people not receiving full health-care. He proclaimed that this was so everyone could have it, and the state system worked better than what conservatives have claimed is “poorly run healthcare” referring to social healthcare.

Romney is leading in the polls right now, and is gaining some ground over
Texas Governor Rick Perry, who he was trailing recently. Republicans favor
the fact that he is a solid, consistent candidate with great leadership, business, and debating skills.

Rick Perry: The current Governor of Texas, Rick Perry jumped into the race and took a quick lead. The public was initially impressed with the statistic that he was the one to create one-third of the jobs generated since 2008 as Governor of Texas according to Rasmussen Reports. Although Perry has lost momentum by struggling in the debates and with other poor stats coming out about Texas’ record, he still stands as a strong candidate.

Perry has received the support of high-profile Republicans such as Bobby
Jindal and Jim DeMint. He has been popular among these high-up members of legislation ever since he made the transformation from liberal to conservative. In
fact, Perry supported Democratic candidate Al Gore in 2000 and campaigned against
former Texas Governor, George Bush.

Herman Cain: The final potential nominee is the witty, southern businessman Herman Cain. Cain started out as a non-legitimate candidate, being called “this election’s entertainment” by Fox News analyst Charles Krauthammer. Cain is most famous for being the CEO of Godfather’s pizza. He started his business career by gaining control of the northeast region of all Burger Kings, and taking them from least-profitable to most-profitable. He then proceeded to take control of a huge pizza company and make hundreds of millions of dollars. He also was on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve in Kansas City.

Cain attempted a run at office to be a senator in Georgia, but lost the election.
He could not make it past the primary stages. Cain has also overcome cancer in his
liver and colon. In 2008 he announced he was proud to announce that he was
officially cancer-free. Herman Cain has recently swept the public with his 9-9-9 tax plan, calling for a 9 percent income tax, a 9 percent national sales tax, and a 9 percent corporate tax. He also has earned his respect in the debates, and in the video of him debating BillClinton on the topic of healthcare.

Cain won the Florida straw poll by 22 percent over Rick Perry, and has
gained a strong following. In a recent Fox News poll, he falls only five percent
behind leader Mitt Romney at 17 percent.