republicans, saying i want the best person to vote obama, but they don t have the same passion. for newt it appears he s in free fall. it appears the negative attacks have work. it appears his stumbles in places like virginia are starting to come home to roost, but i wouldn t consider mitt romney home free by any means yesterday. erin, it is true that the caug and turnout, but you re beginning to see there are more firm decisions by some of the iowaen republican caucus-goers than before. look at this poll, december 6th, 55% of those polled said they may change their mind. 27th of december, yet, just 43%. so more and more we see people at least indicate their mind is made up. are you feeling that on the ground there in iowa?
chickens have come home to roost, and they ve got to come home to roost again when we start talking about the super committee and these negotiations over the deficit. karen, bring you in. you and i both worked in a democratic white house and i think you share my impression, this is a kind of astounding failure of just kind of normal blocking and tackling, when it comes on the heels of the whole debt ceiling fiasco. the general impression, the white house got rolled. it leaves the white house looking weak and less than competent at a really critical moment both for the economy and for this presidency? right, matt. the other thing, i literally was trying to think to myself, okay. what was happening in the staff meeting when dates were tossed around? when somebody said tuesday wednesday, and the quiconsequen of wednesday and call the speaker s office and all this. did nobody really really think there was potential boehner would say, no, and that if he said no you either, a, have