Cain and Gingrich are making the wrong campaign moves, and winning. Why? - Dave Weigel

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/10/cain_and_gingrich_are_doing_well_in_iowa_with_all_the_wrong_move.single.html

Just look at their schedules. On Aug. 13, Herman Cain lost the Ames straw poll handily, coming in fifth place. He left Iowa with polls showing him in low single digits. On Aug. 18, he officially launched his 9-9-9 tax plan. On Sept. 24, Cain won the Florida Republican Party’s quadrennial straw poll. On Oct. 4, he released his memoir and started his book tour. Over the next two weeks, four Iowa polls were released, and Cain led in all four. But Cain himself wasn’t in Iowa. His first post-straw-poll visit to the state came on Sunday. The entire Cain surge happened while he was elsewhere, with only four Iowa staffers and a sloppy local organization. And even before the surge, he’d spent less time in the state than Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann.