November is Newt Awareness Month.

The Republican presidential race is being shaken up again, with Mitt Romney retaking the lead, Newt Gingrich surging into second place, and Herman Cain dropping to third place, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll released Friday.

The poll signaled that Romney retains his steady if uncommanding position and that, in the quest by most Republicans for an alternative, they’ve cooled on Cain and are starting to turn to Gingrich. It is the first national survey since the allegations of sexual harassment against Cain erupted into a full political firestorm this week.

“Clearly this race has taken yet another dramatic turn. The top tier has gotten more crowded,” said Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College, which conducted the poll, in New York.

“Romney is still where he’s been. It’s fair to say this is a battle for the anybody-but-Romney candidate. Gingrich has now begun his 15 days of fame. Whether he is able to maintain that, as others have fallen, is the question. He may be the only one standing when this is all said and done.”

What’s so unusual is that the frontrunner has such a small lead this close to the primaries. It remains a horse race with no single candidate possessing anything near an insurmountable lead. So strong is the general Republican opposition to a Romney nomination that many voters are willing to give anyone a chance to shine.

Here’s the question: Can Newt maintain and build his support? If any of the not-Romney candidates can, it may be him. Nothing surprising in his personal life could come out. Everyone knows about his, shall we say, difficult time as a husband in the 1990s. And he knows how to pummel the media (and other liberals, especially Obama) to the delight of conservatives. If he has anything at all, it’s political instinct — something Team Cain and Team Perry seem to lack.