Pete Spiliakos

One of the purposes of the Republican convention was to give us some insight into the good, faithful, and hard working Mitt Romney. The stories about Romney as a Mormon religious official caring for his fellows were genuinely moving. Romney’s business experience and his experience in the . . . . Continue Reading »

So Romney entered the convention season very slightly behind Obama. Romney got either a modest bounce (in Rasmussen) or a nonexistent bounce (in Gallup) from his convention. Obama got either a modest bounce (in Gallup) or a large bounce (in Rasmussen) from his convention. The result is that, in the . . . . Continue Reading »

1. Very boring. I had trouble focusing. And I like this stuff more than most. 2. When he is talking about domestic policy (especially in the first half of his speech), he sounds like a guy asking for a first term, even when he is looking back on the first term he is still having. 3. He . . . . Continue Reading »

So last night’s Obama speech got mostly mediocre-to-bad reviews.  I’ll try to see for myself tomorrow and the polls that come out next week will give us some idea of what most people saw.  At least as important as the Obama speech was the mediocre-to-bad jobs report.  . . . . Continue Reading »

I haven’t watched the prime time Democratic speeches so far, and I’m not staying up tonight either.  I’ll watch the Clinton and President Obama speeches on Saturday.  Maybe.  But Reihan Salam said something about Clinton’s speech yesterday that struck me not . . . . Continue Reading »

Peter Lawler is of course right about the 2012 Democratic platform’s provision on abortion. It is about as far on the pro-choice end of the policy spectrum as you can get. It also happens that President Obama is , and always has been, very far on the pro-choice end of the spectrum. His . . . . Continue Reading »

The Democratic floor fight had a lot of interesting elements. It had Middle Eastern foreign policy relating to an ally (Israel.) It had culture war politics (whether to include a reference to God in the platform.) It had passion on both sides as the Democratic delegates fought to out scream each . . . . Continue Reading »

So I was watching the coverage of the Republican convention and one of the things that the right-leaning hosts on Fox News and the liberal-leaning hosts on the broadcast networks could agree on was that the ethnic and racial diversity of Republican governors and younger Senators was a good sign for . . . . Continue Reading »

Some examples, 1. Reagan was pretty reticent personally but I think this selection from his 1980 debate with Carter works very well: I don’t know what the differences might be, because I don’t know what Mr. Carter’s policies are. I do know what he has said about mine. And I’m . . . . Continue Reading »

Ross Douthat writes something that strikes me as very right (well, he often does that.) Romney’s speech last night was extremely vague on policy. If you went into the night not knowing what Romney wanted to do, you left the night not having learned much of anything. It was all personality . . . . Continue Reading »