Former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman (left) is chairing a newly-announced political action committee backed by big-name Republicans focused on getting GOP candidates elected to the House next year.

The Super PAC, first reported by Politico's Mike Allen, is called the Congressional Leadership Fund. On its website, it describes itself as "an independent expenditure PAC that will support candidates who promote the values of the center right majority in the Congress. The Fund will counter efforts on the left including the House Majority PAC, unions and the ACORN style groups. This is an independent expenditure fund focused solely and exclusively on maintaining and expanding the Center Right Congressional majority."

On the board will be big name Republican insiders like Tim Reynolds, Vin Weber and Fred Malek, who will personally reach out to donors, Allen reports.

That's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the group's Washington connections. In a release sent to CBS News, the Congressional Leadership Fund says that its November 2 kickoff event will feature House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions and the rest of the House leadership team.

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The office of Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts is blaming a technical error for the fact that comments attributed to Brown posted to his campaign website were lifted verbatim from former Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

The Boston Globe first reported the plagiarism, which the newspaper was directed to by the Democratic Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century.

"I was raised to believe that there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference," Brown was quoted as saying on his site in comments that were removed earlier this week. "From an early age, I was taught that success is measured not in material accumulations, but in service to others. I was encouraged to join causes larger than myself, to pursue positive change through a sense of mission, and to stand up for what I believe."

Dole, the former North Carolina Republican senator, used those exact words in kicking off her campaign in 2002.

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UPDATED 9:04 a.m ET

Businessman Herman Cain saw Mitt Romney's 23 percent support rating in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll and raised him 4 points to take the lead in the latest survey of Republican White House hopefuls.

The former CEO of Godfather's pizza garnered 27 percent support in the telephone poll released Wednesday night, more than five times the 5 percent support he had in August. Romney's 23 percent remained the same.

Cain, a successful motivational speaker, has been gaining traction in recent weeks as an alternative to Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who is unpopular among many factions of the Republican party despite his near-constant frontrunner status.

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KEENE, N.H. -- Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, trying to make a dent in Mitt Romney's sizeable lead in New Hampshire, on Wednesday accused Romney of being disingenuous in attacking career politicians.

"Gov. Romney's been a candidate for 20 years," Huntsman said. "He accuses people of being career politicians where, if he had won his [Massachusetts Senate] campaign in 1994, when he was distancing himself from the Reagan legacy, I guess he'd be exactly what he's criticizing, he'd be a career politician."

Huntsman, who served as U.S. ambassador to China under President Obama, also sought to play up his credentials in dealing with the economic threat posed by China. "I don't want a trade war with China, I want a relationship that works with China," he said.

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Billionaire investor Warren Buffett divulged to a Republican congressman yesterday that he made more than $62 million in 2010 and that just 17.4 percent of his taxable income was taxed.

However, Buffett refused to meet the request of Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Ka., and publicly release his tax return. In a letter sent to Huelskamp Tuesday, Buffett said he's still holding out for other members of the "ultra rich" -- like Rupert Murdoch -- to release their returns along with him.

Some congressional Republicans, including Huelskamp, asked Buffett to release his tax returns since he is the inspiration for President Obama's so-called "Buffett rule," which would ensure that taxpayers who make over $1 million a year are taxed at the same overall rates as middle class Americans. Buffett inspired the rule after remarking that he pays a higher tax rate than his secretary.

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INDIANAPOLIS - Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday previewed a speech he will give Friday on domestic energy production that will call for all-of-the-above approach to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil, including drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a return to 2007 permitting levels in the Gulf of Mexico.

Speaking to a crowd of Hoosier State Republicans, Perry accused the Obama administration of siding with environmental activists at the expense of the economy.

"The next economic boom is right under our feet. Our own oil resources alone are vast enough to meet the next 300 years of energy demand at today's levels," he said. "... And what has been this administration's response to our energy potential? They've thrown up every bureaucratic obstacle possible in order to advance an activist agenda."

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New Hampshire threatened to send voters to the polls in less than two months' time if Nevada does not delay its primary date.

In an usual public plea, New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner says in a three-page memo that the date of the New Hampshire primary will only be set if or when Nevada moves its caucus. Ratcheting up the inter-state calendar jockeying, Gardner warns that unless the Nevada Republican Party moves its caucus from its scheduled January 14, 2012 date, New Hampshire's first in the nation primary will be held, gasp, in 2011.

"Right now, the problem is the date of Nevada," wrote Gardner. "If Nevada does not accept a date of Tuesday, January 17th or later for its caucus, it leaves New Hampshire no choice but to consider December of this year," he added. Gardner said Tuesday, December 13th and Tuesday, December 6th are "realistic options" for the date of the primary and the state could logistically make either day work. "Candidates have been campaigning here, and elsewhere, for months, and it is about time we begin the next stage of the presidential nominating process," he wrote.

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CONCORD, N.H. - GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain said Wednesday that the growing attacks on his signature 9-9-9 tax plan are a sign of his success.

At a traditional candidates' forum hosted by New Hampshire legislators in the first-in-the-nation primary state, Cain said that he was actually glad his economic plan was slammed by his Republican rivals at Tuesday night's candidates' debate at Dartmouth College. "It attracted a lot of attention at the debates last night," he said. "You know you must be doing something right when you get a lot of arrows in your back."

The former chief executive officer of Godfather's Pizza has proposed what he calls a 9-9-9 economic plan, consisting of a 9 percent national sales tax, a 9 percent flat income tax, and a 9 percent corporate tax.

Rival Jon Huntsman said he thought the plan was the price of a pizza at Tuesday's debate.Continue »

Texas Gov. Rick Perry would like to avoid being compared to his gaffe-prone predecessor, former President George W. Bush, but he didn't help himself late Tuesday when he suggested that the American Revolution took place in the 16th century.

Following a Republican presidential candidate debate at Dartmouth College, Perry made a stop at the school's Beta Theta Pi fraternity house a few blocks away, where he spoke briefly with students and answered a few questions. One participant pressed the governor on the issue of states' rights.

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For almost a month now, protesters around the country have gone to the streets to decry excessive corporate profits as wages stagnate and the middle class is shrinking. The movement got its start and at ground zero for the U.S. economy: Wall Street. Americans on all sides of the aisle are angry at Wall Street, the banks and corporate America, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday they have reason to be.

But there seems to be a disconnect between the protestors and the politicians.

"Banks got bailed out, we got sold out," "Wall Street has got to go," "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer," "corporate greed is everywhere, you know we are losing our middle class," were just some of the chants heard from protestors around the country.

The conservative tea party movement got its start, in part, as a reaction to President Bush's $700 Billion bank bailout. And many of the protesters today, from the other side of the spectrum, are upset that wall street has put profits over people - unemployment is high as corporate profits soar and banks are on their way back to financial health that they saw before the market collapse.

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