Cain got a shellacking at the outset over his “999 Plan.” Perhaps you could have seen that coming. But by far his worst debate moment was after the debate, when he said he “misspoke” on something he said only three hours before - that he would be willing to negotiate with a terrorist group holding an American soldier, potentially exchanging an American for many or all the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.
This is after some less-than-inspiring remarks on Meet the Press last Sunday, among other foreign policy mishaps.
3. The longer Rick Santorum sticks around, the more nervous Romney, Perry and to some extent Cain, are going to be.
Rick Santorum is re-defining what it means to be playing with house money. He got after Cain right off the bat about “999” not doing anything to help the American family, then he piled on Romney on healthcare:
The final point I would make to Governor Romney, you just don’t have credibility, Mitt, when it comes to repealing Obamacare. You are — you are — your plan was the basis for Obamacare. Your consultants helped Obama craft Obamacare. And to say that you’re going to repeal it, you just — you have no track record on that that — that we can trust you that you’re going to do that.
If there’s a good attack line unearthed by the media, you can bet Santorum is going to take it. Michelle Bachmann and Newt Gingrich criticize the frontrunners; Santorum scorches ‘em.
4. Mitt Romney can have pretty thin skin.
We’ll let Nate Silver of the New York Times’ fivethirtyeight blog spell this out:
