receiving the money from freddie mac? well, legally, he doesn t have to. but i wod think morally, him having received this money, yeah, i wouldn t i wouldn t have taken their money. you know, just for the fact at i think it was an immoral thing to take money. besides i don t like this idea that you re going to influence somebody that is a pseudo governme agency. and this is my argument over the many years that because they got subsidies and they had a line of credit, and they were guaraeed a bailout it was written all over that this would come about, because it was artificial, there was a line of credit, and the fed was involved, so it was, as far as i m concerned, abouts aclose to the government as you can ge to call that private is not exactly accurate. les come back to the key point in the debate last night. who is the conste conservative? the issue came up about health care, and support for an individual mandate in massausetts, by governor romney. whether he supported it
these are a couple venerable debaters. i think we ve seen it. these are the final two. one-on-one debates, or even three with ron paul, shows that he can give as well as he can take, it s going to be an interesting, long primary campaign if it, indeed, goes long. but i ll tell you, obviously, what we re seeing in the polls, it s instructive that newt gingrich broughtp 1994. that is his key strengthnd it is romney s key issue. what was newt gingrich doing in october of 1994. he was leading a coervative evolution. that s the one big memory. i had a rmney person tell me that every negative they try to throw at newt they realize you can t just use one because he has that pristine memory in the minds of conservatiti voters. well, he did it. what was mitt romney doing in october of 1994? basically saying, i m not really a repcan, massachusetts voters, don t you worry. i m not that conservative. not even sure if i voted for reagan or for bush or who i was for back in the 80s. so it s inter
nationally, as is the case in the president health care legislation. something that gingrich supported, as well, in the early 90s. it was michele bachmann who tk them on as whether they re real conservatives, coining a phrase, newt/romney. listen. you want a difference, michele bachmann is the proven conservative. it s not newt romney. i know newt gingrich, and newt gingrich is a friend of mine. but he and i areot clones. i promise. do you buy that? who is the real conservative out of those two. you have to go through one or both of them to win in iowa. well, i think they come from the me mold. they re about the same. they re both on the defensive. they re both explaining themselves. and i even said that last night. why should we have a nominee that s going to spend most of their time explaining themselves and deciding what position they wereon and when. i think that s too much on the defensive. and i think, if you re
he builds companies. transfmational change in massachusetts. that s the mitt romney i know. this campaign has dinished him by maki him smaller than his great base heal really revea. there ishis attempt at real contrast. what i thought was another major moment and it wasn t the debate last night, was the contst romney painted of himself versus gingrich on thisissue of gingrich saying that the palestinians were an invented peop. watch. i wi exercise sublime care, stability, i m not a bomb thrower. rhetorically or literally. i think sometimes it is helpful for the president with the crage to tll thetruth, such as with rold reagan who went around his entire national securi apparus to call the soviet union an evil empire. the speaker may characterize that as coura but it s also a fact that thas a ver popular thi to say, to all the evangelicalsn wa. so where he say courage, some people see pander. he talks about the
up on the screen. south carolina first, it is ginh, going away. lindsey graham said he d win the electio in south carolina if it were to today. d in frida, it s gingrich, going away. major moment, of course, the polling, the status of the rac and what happened last night in iowa. here was the moment between romney and gingrich. watch. look, the only reason he didn t become a career politician is he lost to teddy ennedy in 1994. now, wait a second. now wait a second. the idea that if i d haveeaten ted knedy i could he been a areer politician. that s probably true. if i wou have been able to get in the nfl,ike i hoped when i was a id, why i d have been football star in my life, too. but i but i i spent my life in the privte sector. losing to tey kennedy was probab the bst thing i uld have do f prepa me for the job i m seeking, because it put me back in the private seor. chuck todd, where are we?