make an appeal to the people at that caucus. then comes the really important part. listen to this, anderson. the caucus-goers get a chance to vote. they can write it down on a piece of paper. they can do it publicly, a show of hands sometimes. they re waffling. representative caucus, you see all those party officials over there. once they get all the results, the representative of the caucus counts all those votes, old-fashioned way. they say one, two, three, four, five. they count the votes and actually get what s called a telephone and call des moines. larry: party headquarters. are they zapping them with a laser? they can make a call and give the results of that caucus. it s pretty cool. if you miss any of this, you can see it later on the daily show with jon stewart when he mocks you. look, there s a little wolf
call our entrance poll. they re telling us not only their backgrounds and a lot of personal information, but also telling us who they re going to vote for going in. you know what? they could change their minds. at these caucuses there are representatives of the six candidates who will be speaking, making pitches and they can always change their minds. you know what we should do, anderson? what s that, wolf? let s look how the caucuses really work and explain to the viewers. if only we had some new high-tech thing that had never been seen on television before? oh, look at this, the weebles. imagine iowa republicans showing up in more than 1700 precincts across the state, about 900 locations. this is going on in schools, church basements, even private homes. you see what s happening right now. take a look at this. this is supposed to be representative of mitt romney. he s going to the front of the room to promote his candidate appeal for their support. representatives from all th
we are nearing 8:00 p.m., the time that the doors at the iowa caucuses are closing. at cedar falls gingrich had just completed speaking. we re very close to where the speaker is. shannon, the doors have not closed there yet, but the speaker is finished with his speech? that s right, anderson. he just got off the stage. he s making his last appeal for votes. let s see if we can get a word with him right now. speaker gingrich some day we ll write a sequel. about how many people do you think you were able to help decide of the undecideds? you have to ask these folks. what do you think your chances are? well, pretty good. we ll see. and what about going negative? do you think you ll have to go negative? no, we ll just tell the truth. and mitt romney and you ll stay with that pledge, speaker? sure. we ll just tell the truth. there you have it, anderson.
now as it stands. these are not entrance poll numbers, these are the official numbers. 48% of the precincts have reported. rick santorum is now 328 votes ahead of mitt romney. they both have 24%. 13,339 for rick santorum, 13,011 for mitt romney, ron paul slightly behind with 22%, 11,972. newt gingrich at 13%, 7,248. he was really hurt by all those negative ads that were pummeled against him over these past several weeks in iowa. rick perry is at 10% if you take a look over there, the bottom three. michele bachmann at 6% and jon huntsman only 1%. big, big night. you know, rick santorum, anderson, you think about it, rick santorum well, we had our cnn/ time magazine poll that came out last that was the first real indication, that was only a week or so ago, that he was doing amazingly well, out
all right. we can make a projection, a projection of sort, not necessarily the kind of projection we normally make, but cnn now projects who will come in third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh. we can t project who comes in first or second, because you saw how close it is between santorum and romney. but we do project here at cnn that ron paul will come in third, newt gingrich will come in fourth, rick perry will come in fifth, michele bachmann will come in sixth, and jon huntsman in iowa will come in seventh. we can t project who wins or who comes in second, because it is about as close as possible with 88% of the precincts reporting. anderson cooper is standing by. anderson, this is a tight race. it certainly is. we didn t think we would go this long. you say, either way, it s not a bad night for romney, ari? i think you have to give mitt romney credit. mitt romney did not run hard in iowa, didn t play in the straw poll. he came in late when he saw the opening.