we re back with msnbc s continuing coverage of the iowa caucuses. i m rachel maddow here in new york, and i m joined from des moines, iowa, by chris matthews. chris? i m joined by howard fineman, editorial director of the huffington post. you ve been out here all week, me almost as long. let s go to that question if they don t like romney and doesn t get his usual vote beyond the 25%, what do voters do from here on out? what i ve been struck by here is the general lack of stirring enthusiasm really for any of these candidates, and and in that kind of dreary atmosphere mitt romney has a chance to win what would be sort of a pyrrhic victory because if we finishes first, which is possible, he ll do it in a context where i don t think there s going to be a big turnout. talking to everybody all day about turnout, 140,000 would be
good evening, mike. good evening, rachel. look, one of the biggest stories out of tonight s iowa caucuses the power of the attack ads funded by so-called super pacs. the best example, the pro-romney super pac called restore our future. a figure to keep in mind, 2.8 million. that s how much restore our future spent on tv ads in iowa, and it s actually nearly twice as much as the 1.5 million spent by romney s own presidential campaign, and almost all of that super pac ad money has gone for hash attacks against newt gingrich like these. newt has more baggage than the airlines. he was fined $300,000 for ethics violations and took $1.6 million from freddie mac. i made a big mistake in the spring. haven t we had enough mistakes? restore our future is responsible for the content of this message. how much of an impact did these ads have? look at this. on december 4th gingrich is number one in iowa with 26% in the polls.
he thinks he s okay in new hampshire, at least for now. we ll see, but he s going to go straight to south carolina. he announced to the world the other day that he d become more conservative. that ought to do it. going swear to this? iowa is the bath that has made him more conservative and going to south carolina because if he gets his butt kicked in south carolina, that really means civil war all the way through. back to you, rachel. thanks, howard, thanks, chris. joings joining from ing us headquarters is ben ginsberg for the romney for president campaign. really happy to have you here this evening. good evening. thanks, nice to be with you, rachel. let me ask you if you anticipate that your candidate, mitt romney, will be able to improve on his 25% showing in the iowa caucuses in 2008. it s been a long time, a lot of water under the bridge since then. do you expect a better showing tonight? well, we think the voters of iowa have herd mitt romney he s message and that
but they will be the face of this party. the other thing i thought that was interest, rachel, maybe chris could tell us, is i didn t see when ron was showing us the setup where the voter i.d. booth was. these guys believe in voter i.d., they will let people walk in without state i.d. and caucus tonight. this is amazing. they have change that had a little bit, have they not, rachel? got to show an i.d. in order to register to vote in iowa tonight, but don t have to show voter i.d. in order to vote tonight if you are already a registered voter even though iowa republicans in the legislature tried to make that the rule. clearly a double standard for what you re talking b.what s a good turnout, 120,000, 140,000? 120,000 was in 2008, a record, the highest it s ever been. suppose if they do 110,000, what would that say? that would be a huge number. that would be a huge number, but if romney can bring back his same numbers with 110,000 people voting, he got 30,000 out of
voters. yeah. in iowa, and it s folks who know what they are doing and are willing to spend several hours doing when almost nobody in the state is. do you find in general that they are thinking more strategically about the race, that they are thinking in terms of how it s going to affect further states, or are they voting as if they are voting essentially for the president of iowa? well, the thing is the answer is yes, i ve run into both of those type of republican activists. you re right. there s all sorts of political analysts and pundits, guys that get involved in their local politics so they know and are gaming this out. a lot of iowa republicans don t want to coronate mitt romney tonight. they believe eventually they will be for him and the second choice, for instance, for a lot of newt gingrich and rick perry voters but he has to work harder to woo conservatives, hasn t done enough and not quite sold. iowa s job is winnow the field, not simply end the race, but then there a