to tell us. she s latched on to a fund-raising device. if she runs she ll get crushed look. right now, if he could stop him, and i m not sure he can, perry helps romney, because he makes him look relatively reasonable. 24s a guy that not only talks about secession, and by the way, leaving anytime we want is talking about secession. it s like i m hitting you and i didn t say assault. he s called social security unconstitutional and says the states should take it over, and romney clearly sees florida as his firewall i think this debate will be a rerock em/sock em back and forth between these guys. if perry can win iowa, win south carolina and win florida, he s probably the nominee. rom any will try to stop that in
i can be analytical. you know this, reverend, earp there. democrats fell in love with howard dean, because he had been out there, banging the war, he was the anti-war candidate, and about 30 days out, these democrats all said, okay, what s the question? and they decided the question was who had a chance to beat george w. bush? they just moved to kerry. i mean, one of my close friends who worked for dean said we got all of our 1s, our sure voteers to the caucuses. i went to a caucus and watch half of our 1s walk across the room and vote for john kerry. i think it s about a seven-point, six-point difference between how they run, the two of them, perry and romney, against obama, as significant enough to let them override their suspicions of romney and attraction to perry. don t forget in some states you have independenting
so in florida, which is going to be another important swing state, it will be important for the nomination, important for the general election, i think voters will be looking very carefully not just who can turn the economy around, but who has the experience and the discipline and background to get it done, but who can win. here s your problem, rick. you ve got to get to who s going to run against let me show you some polls. in the gop stand iing perry s a 31, romney is 34. if you look at the poll in terms of tea partiers, perry 55, romney 35. if you go to the poll men/women, more men this was surprising, perfectly 50% of the men and 36% of men, perry to romney. so romney may in some polls beat president obama, but he seemed
dancing around the issue. who might be dancing in the land of make believe? next. joining me now, bob shrum democratic strat jill and professor at new york university, and former congressman rick lads i don t. lads i don t. things have shifted quite a bit. if you look at the numbers, the intensity has gone up. i think this field is beginning to winnow out. it s still a little early, but it looks like there s romney, perry, and in my view, it looks like whether republicans will value that enough to make him the nominee i think is still up for grabs.