BFFs, with Numbers

It's a synergy thing. Super PACs can spend all they want to advance a candidate or cause, with certain limitations and — importantly — without talking to the candidate or the campaign. So here's Make Us Great Again, a new Perry-centric Super PAC where one of the principles is Mike Toomey, the lobbyist, former lawmaker and former chief of staff to Gov. Rick Perry. There's no connection, all sides say. And it's not illegal to know someone well enough to know how to help them without any communication taking place.

That PAC hired Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research to do an Iowa poll and the results were so good they made it into the hands of reporters. Perry, by their reckoning, is doing just fine.

Republican caucus-goers in Iowa give Perry 23 percent of their votes, followed by Michele Bachmann, at 20 percent; Mitt Romney, at 16 percent; Ron Paul, at 9 percent; Herman Cain, 8 percent; and Rick Santorum, 7 percent. No others broke the 4 percent mark, and 12 percent were undecided.

Thirty-eight percent think Perry would be best at "creating jobs and improving the economy," followed by Romney at 27 percent and Bachmann at 18 percent. Perry also led when the voters were asked who had the best chance to beat Obama. Perry got 41 percent to Romney's 24 percent and Bachmann's 13 percent.

According to the survey, self-described "very conservative" voters favor Perry, at 30 percent, over Bachmann, at 23 percent, and Cain, at 10 percent (Romney got 9 percent, as did Santorum). And those who described themselves as "a Tea Party conservative concerned about spending, the federal debt, and protecting the U.S. Constitution" also had Perry on top, with 30 percent, followed by Bachmann, at 22 percent and Paul at 13 percent.

The telephone survey of of 402 "likely caucus goers" was done August 21-22. The margin of error is +/- 4.9 percent.