Free Republic

If the Republican primary is now a Mitt Romney-vs.-Herman Cain contest, Romney has an ace up his sleeve: One of his top advisers has run a winning campaign against Cain before. Not many in politics can make that claim. In his only real previous try for elected office, Cain ran in Georgia's 2004 GOP Senate primary, coming in second to now-Sen. Johnny Isakson. Back then, Romney strategist Stuart Stevens was a consultant to Isakson. Of Cain, Stevens recalls: "He scared the heck out of us." Cain's 2004 candidacy positioned him to the right of an establishment candidate distrusted by the...

Mitt Romney's campaign leapt just now on Rick Perry's restatement of his view that Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" and that promising to maintain it in its current form is a "monstrous lie." "PERRY DOES NOT BELIEVE SOCIAL SECURITY SHOULD EXIST," read the headline of Romney's press release. Romney adviser Stuart Stevens emails: He has lost. No federal candidate has ever won on the Perry program to kill Social Security. Never has. never will.