Pete Spiliakos

So Herman Cain thumped Rick Perry in the Florida straw poll where they both competed.  This has been such a weird early period in the Republican nomination contest.  You’ve had a handful of Republican candidates surging an then falling back.  Cain surged after the first . . . . Continue Reading »

1.  Romney is getting away with murder on his answers distinguishing Obamacare from Romneycare.  Romney’s biggest advantage is that the other candidates don’t really make arguments about Obamacare.  They just strike poses about how much they hate it, how fast . . . . Continue Reading »

1.  I’m not staying up until 11:00 PM.  I’ll watch a recording tomorrow and get back to you. 2.  Comparisons of Rick Perry to Ronald Reagan along the dimension of electability are problematic.  The electoral prudence case against Rick Perry (which doesn’t . . . . Continue Reading »

Bachmann’s support  is collapsing in the latest national poll.  She is well behind not only Romney and Perry but even below Ron Paul.  She is in fact down there with no hopers Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain.  This is great news for Rick Perry.  His nightmare . . . . Continue Reading »

1.  Reihan Salam has some thoughts (and stats) about “”persuadable switchers” (voters who voted Obama in 2008 and Republican in 2010.)  Long story short: these voters think of themselves as to the right of the President, but are strongly for some kind of federal old . . . . Continue Reading »

In order to be environmentally conscious, this post most is mostly recycled from a comment I made over at No Left Turns: I’m not a Romney supporter because I think that even the “modest” kinds of entitlement reforms I favor really do represent big change and enacting even diluted . . . . Continue Reading »

1.  Romney won the argument on Social Security.  He just won it in the wrong major party.  Same thing with Perry on immigration policy. 2.  Perry’s policy on Social Security seems to be that Social Security is an inviolable Ponzi scheme covenant for current recipients and . . . . Continue Reading »

I’m not even sure I’m watching, 1.  Romney and Bachmann are going to be gunning for Perry on Social Security.  Perry might have been executing a rope-a-dope.  If comes back with a plausible answer built around condemning what is broken about the current system and . . . . Continue Reading »

I think you can look at Perry’s performance yesterday as either a floor or a ceiling.  It was his first time out and just about everybody was looking to take him down.  Romney wants Perry’s more competence/electability-focused voters and Bachmann and the rest want . . . . Continue Reading »

more on Sunday (maybe) when I have more time, 1.  A really good night for Romney.  He did about as well as he could have hoped on the jobs thing.  We created more jobs.  Well, we had a 4.7 % unemployment rate.  Mike Dukakis was better than you.  . . . . Continue Reading »