The Midday Brief: Nov. 30, 2011

Your afternoon reading:

• "A buoyant and defiant Herman Cain took the stage in a hotel ballroom here this morning to reassure a group of several hundred supporters that he would not be getting out of the race for the Republican nomination, saying, 'The American people are going to raise some Cain in 2012!'" — Cain Pledges to Stay in Race, The New York Times

• "From state Sen. Kel Seliger, a member of the smaller-government Republican Party and an architect of the Legislature's redistricting maps that were nixed by federal judges last week, comes this: Consider expanding the Texas Senate from 31 to 37 members." — Redistricting chief suggests Texas Senate should grow from 31 to perhaps 37 members, Austin American-Statesman

• "The location doesn't seem to matter at this point. Poll after poll — both national and statewide — tells the same story for Rick Perry: long odds and little support. And today, new surveys in Florida and California continue that trend by showing the Texas governor firmly in the second tier of the GOP presidential race." — Perry at 7 percent in Florida, 3 percent in California, Trail Blazers
  

New in The Texas Tribune:

• "Rick Perry sharpened his populist tirade against Wall Street financiers and Washington politicians Wednesday, saying Americans had been 'snookered' by bogus investments and a string of taxpayer-financed bailouts." — Perry Says America "Snookered" by D.C., Wall Street

• "Rick Perry's chief strategist, Dave Carney, clearly doesn't think much of once (and future?) GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney.  In The Right Fights Back, a just-published inside-the-2012-campaign e-book written by Politico's Mike Allen and former Newsweek writer Evan Thomas, Carney lays into the former Massachusetts governor's personality and core values — or lack thereof." — Perry Strategist Slaps Romney in Politico E-book