if you re not at peace with it, if you think that george w. bush stole florida in 2000 and stole the presidency, it s clear in hindsight and at the time that florida could not have been stolen had the voting result in florida not been so close. i don t say that to relitigate the last 12 years of american politics but rather to underscore how close it was. that one really important number. the number votes between these two guys 537 votes. when florida republicans took over in 2010, they changed florida law to make it much more difficult to vote in florida and much more difficult to register to vote there. last week the group rocked the vote launched the register young people to vote all over the country. rock the vote is very mainstream, very nonpartisan. a number of republicans went to a rock the vote event to turn out to vote. this year the rock the vote voter registration efforts will
is there a point in which that s too much or are all these ads cumulative effective? well, i think we don t know exactly what the effect of an advertisement is but we probably know it s not negative. and these campaigns are, as your reporter said, are throwing everything they have at it. and advertising can matter at the margin. and florida is certainly a place where we know about marginal reports. 537 votes for al gore in 2,000. these candidates are trying to throw every single thing they have and leaving nothing on the table. you don t want to save any money because they got to win in florida. all right. let s show you a couple ads and get your take on them. this is a new attack ad by a pro-romney super pac slamming gingrich for connecting himself to ronald reagan. i worked with president ronald reagan. ronald reagan. president reagan. reagan. gingrich exaggerating dropping reagans name 50 times. but in his diaries reagan mentioned gingrich only once. ry again criticized gi
on the issue of taxes, on the issue of bain capital. so, it takes out of the debate a candidate who in the past 72 hours or so has been dead on hitting the front-runner, suzanne. and john, are you rejiggering any of your questions now as you move forward and look at what you ve got tonight? those perry questions are going into the shredder, suzanne. that s just, you know. we re going to have to look, we want this to be about the issues. this is the candidates debate, it s not mine or cnn s debate. but sure, you sort of plan your questions and your issues and follow the debate on the campaign trail and say how do we get an interesting conversation going? and now you have to go back and look and say, there will be four gentlemen up there tonight, not five, and so you make some adjustments. and our own dana bash is reporting that his supporters going to go to newt gingrich, and they re going to help out in texas with the texas delegates. gloria, how helpful is that to h
it s already 2012 in some parts of the world. this is sidney, australia where a million people watched a massive fireworks display. in new zealand revelers turned out in auckland but heavy rain forced other cities to cancel outdoor celebrations. in syria, huge crowds are turning out across the country again today, an activist network based in syria says at least nine protesters died today killed in clashing with security forces. two opposition groups there reached a deal a few hours ago making a plan that charts a course for democracy in case syria s president steps down. back in this country, customer complaints pushed verizon to drop its plan to start charging that $2 fee to pay bills. the nation s largest wireless company wanted to charge the extra couple bucks for one time payments online or by phone, but customers raised a stink and it didn t take long for verizon to listen up and drop the idea. we re going to be following the republican contenders, live in iowa to
virtual tie for the lead. what happened to newt gingrich nice guy? he vowed not to go negative in response to the other candidates attack ads, but that didn t stop gingrich from blasting ron paul. in an interview with cnn s wolf blitzer he said he wouldn t vote for paul. gingrich pointed to incendiary newsletters distributed under paul s name in the 80s and 90s. you look at his newsletters and then you look at his ads, his ads are about as accurate as his newsletters. now if he were to get the republican nomination. he won t. let s say he were. could you vote for him? no. amateur video out of syria is said to show defectors trying to ambush security forces in daraa. cnn cannot independently confirm this claim. observers from the arab league are now in the country for a second day to determine if the government has kept its promise to stop the bloody crackdown on its citizens. a league official tells cnn they have postponed trips to three cities today due to l