more mainstream conservatives, they ll rationalize that away. they re not going away. i talked to virginia republicans who at this same convention where cuccinelli was nominated, e.w. jackson, the farther right lieutenant candidate what happened there was a crowded field of lieutenant governor and moderate republicans and establishment republicans at this convention who said, our candidate isn t going to win, we already have to deal with cuccinelli at the top of the ticket, we ll give them e.w. jackson as the nominee and then when this ticket goes down in flames, we ll say i told you so. we re arriving at this i told you so moment. cuccinelli has tried to moderate himself a lot in this race and you don t see him talking as much about the social issues. he tried to distance himself from e.w. jackson. the message coming from the tea party is going to be, like, well, he should have gone out there and really stuck to his guns and, you know. now ken cuccinelli is one of the squishes.
talk about imgraduation but he s out to talk about small government, the american dream and american exceptionalism. i don t think this is about winning hispanics in the southwest. i think this is very specifically about florida. i think they believe that he has the capacity to turn cubans out to energize them and also turn out other hispanics in that key state. i don t think he plays with 80% of the hispanic population mexican, they have a very different immigration story and very different latino story that marco rubio, but i don t think he s out there for them. he s out there for mainstream conservatives. that s a very critical important point. part of where the 38 comes from if the math they are doing is an assessment of conservatives in florida and assume they can get a marco rubio pull on that and some assertion of pro-life which are older people. if you look at the numbers from 2008, young cuban americans in
everybody come out. mainstream conservatives, evangelicals. the key test is what pieces of the coalition turn out in higher numbers and do they coales around one candidate? that was huckabee key four years ago when he coalessed the evangelical voters here. turnout was way up then. they liked huckabee. he was the former preacher. are evangelical voters turning out? that s what the romney campaign is counting on. they want more women, more senior citizens to come out and play. they think the numbers are down, turnout a up, works out for them. it s also which pieces of the coalition turns out. just to remind our viewers, three big ones tonight. three big ones. we talk to rick perry and rick santorum just before the voters
this is decision day in iowa. just four hours from now, republicans will gather in caucuses across the state and cast the first votes in the 2012 campaign. the candidates have spent months of the trial paving the way with millions in campaign cash. much of that money has gone towards a barrage of negative advertising. now, in a final flurry of appearances, the rhetoric has reached a new peak or maybe a new low. you said mitt romney, somebody who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to you when they are president. i have to ask you, are you calling mitt romney a liar? yes. you re calling mitt romney a liar? you seem shocked by it. yes. why are you saying he s a liar? this is a man who s staff created the pack. his millionaire friends fund the pack. he pretends he has nothing to do with the pack. it s balogna. it s like his pretense that he s a conservative. wow. let s go live to our chief political correspondent, candy crowley. she s in des moines. you
look, i said at the beginning of the week on your fellow msnbc show that if we held tough they would have to cave because the american people are on our side. and the american people are with the democrats on a lot of issues, not just this one. so i hope we have to stick with them. and the dissension in the republican party, ed, is for real. my guess is there are a whole lot of mainstream conservatives who will not are not tea party people who are calling boehner and saying you can t follow the tea party over the cliff because it s going to hurt us. we ll have more on the tea party. senator, thanks. happy holidays. good to have you with us. now let s turn to congressman john garamendi of california and congressman keith ellison of minnesota. good to have you with us tonight. keith, i want to ask you first, what is your reaction to boehner s change of heart? what do you think broke him? well, you know, i m glad that good sense finally prevailed over there. you ll know that whe