tonight s special coverage. i m rachel maddow here at the and messam busy mothership with my colleagues joy, read and lawrence o donnell, and gems, aki and all remember. great to have you all. here our friends chris hayes and stephanie ruhle will be joining us later. it is going to be fun. we are less than a week out from the republican presidential caucuses in iowa, last i when public debate is underway tonight with oddly, a sort of random selection of two of the remaining five people for presidential candidates taking part in that debate. if you can, right now, name all five remaining republican presidential candidates off the top of your head without looking anything up, congratulations. also two of them are debating, tonight nikki haley and ron desantis. also tonight, two miles away from that final hour debate, fox news conducted a live town hall with the front running republican candidate who of course has refused to participate in any debates at all of this year, but
santorum and what the difference between romney and santorum. but this was a major surprise, because santorum had been polling in single digits until about a week before caucus day. he searched really in the final five or six days of the caucuses, and just pulled out a surprise victory. the interesting thing, as romney had been favored to win iowa, we have seen all year before the caucus different candidates rick perry for, while newt, cambridge and risen up briefly, taking the lead in polling, only to fall back. we have seen before this, there was an appetite among republicans for a romney alternative. and you just happen to be it, seems rick santorum s turn to try on that roll right as the caucuses arrived. so he rosa, he won the caucuses, he did not do much in new hampshire, than gingrich other, moment santorum had another moment leana primaries. no one was able to win together and obviously not go but there is a candidate who is