Pete Spiliakos

I thought this was a good observation by Charlie Cook: Watching politics for 40 years now, I have seen the two major parties tend to leapfrog each other in terms of political sophistication. This state of the political art, when one party is firing on all eight (or, these days, six or even four) . . . . Continue Reading »

Listen, I’m not against some kind of DREAM Act-type law that deals with several kinds of hard cases when it comes to immigration (though I want to see the details.) I would actually be in favor of such a law, but the postelection Republican focus on “comprehensive” immigration . . . . Continue Reading »

Jim Geraghty argues that it wasn’t conservative ideals that took a beating in the election. It was the message of hostility, contempt and general weirdness of some of the center-right’s messengers that was the problem. Geraghty cites Romney’s 47% comment, Rush Limbaugh calling . . . . Continue Reading »

The folks at this AEI panel were big on the importance of conservatives listening to rather than just talking at people who are not already on that side. So in that spirit, I’m going to give an example of a Republican politician listening . . . to conservatives..on health care. That . . . . Continue Reading »

Several of the participants at yesterday’s AEI forum focused on the need for Republicans to first “listen” to constituencies they want to win over. That is true of course, but one of our insightful regular commenters (Pseudoplotinus) pointed to the risks of this approach: I found . . . . Continue Reading »

I take the conservative despair at Obama’s reelection as being mostly a good thing. Last week’s butt kicking was a long time coming and a major policy and rhetorical rethink is in order. The good news is that it happening. I’m not sure that I agree with everything last thing said . . . . Continue Reading »

Bret Stephens wants the GOP to “get a grip” and “tone down the abortion extremism.” So let’s do a hypothetical exercise. Imagine that the 2012 Republican nominee believed in the rape, incest and life of the mother exceptions to abortion restrictions. Now let us further . . . . Continue Reading »

Daniel Larison kindly linked to my post on the Republican (really center-right), communications problem. Larison continues to say “What Spiliakos overlooks is that the GOP won’t benefit from explaining their views more intelligibly so long as those views continue to be associated for . . . . Continue Reading »

A poll of Republican “insiders” reveals that Marco Rubio is the early favorite for 2016. I don’t take it seriously as presidential election speculation, but I take it very seriously as evidence of the climate of opinion among Republican functionaries. It reveals a combination of . . . . Continue Reading »

I guess a lot of you   have seen the video of Karl Rove disputing Fox News’s call of Ohio for Obama. It is interesting how hard the anchors, decision desk, and Michael Barone went at Rove. I also think it shows something of the divided nature of Fox News. A while back I wrote about the . . . . Continue Reading »