work in the republican party. but that isn t the reason john mccain lost the race. john mccain lost the election fundamentally because we lost the middle of the electorate. and at the end of the day, if you look at the president s poll numbers right now in the mid-40s that middle of the elector vat up for grabs and i just think it denies lodgic that newt gingrich would be the person that would be able to appeal into the middle of the electorate, given his record, given his do you need the activists? don t the activists make a big difference? at the end of the day what will drive enthusiasm among those activists is is for a candidate that will defeat president obama and when john mccain stepped out onto the stage at the republican convention, he was greeted with enthusia enthusiastic, loud, robust applause, as will mitt romney if he is the nominee of the party. and i think at the end of the day, what will excite people is the prospect of being able to take back the white house.
out in the enthusiastic position, you know, for there to be the requisite level of enthusiasm to win the election. let me republican presidential politic, familiarity does not breed contempt. it breeds votes. in your lifetime, the republicans have never nominated a first-time presidential candidate. tough go to 1964 to barry goldwater to get the last one. a fire-breathing conservative who lost worse than any republican s ever lost. that scared the republican party about these first-timers. the democrats, the last four nominees were first time they ran for president and two of them won. chris was talking about feeding the hot hand. your hand is hot. never seen you before but go with it. one of the things that the former congressman didn t talk about was who is the candidate and what s the appeal? i mean, you ve got mitt romney, he is one of the wealthiest guys that s ever run for president, if he gets the nomination. and here is the democratic party
campaign with mike huckabee for how any one of these candidates can get the rest of the evangelical voters that are still out there that may be thinking about who to support, how to get them to coalesce? it was the home schoolers, a lot of different folks. his record as governor with transportation issues, a lot of different coalitions. the lesson learned here is you can do this with lots of different coalitions. look, everybody will say it s the evangelical crowd that is going to support rick santorum. he has lots of other supporters just like mike huckabee did four years ago and his challenges as he moves on is what can he make the case in new hampshire, south carolina, and florida that he can beat barack obama and why? it s not just that he is the value voter s choice. he has to make it to all the voters because at the end of the day if you have every single evangelical to vote for you you aren t going to win. you need to get a lot of other voters. it s not just one segment.
precedent, you have a scenario where this becomes a short primary season. but typically these things are never won the easy way. if i m rick santorum tonight and these numbers hold up i call a guy in south carolina named jim demint. yep. i know you don t like obama. and i don t either. and by the way, can you help me counterpunch the governor down there? that phone call will be made and that would be just the candidate that demint would gravitate to. nbc news now characterizing the race in iowa tonight as too close to call. mitt romney, rick santorum, and ron paul all in competition to win but at this point based on entrance polling and on the early results, 13% of the vote counted so far, ron paul, mitt romney, and rick santorum at the top. we are getting our first entrance poll results now on how evangelical caucus goers are voting. we ll get those next and talk with the man who led the victorious mike huckabee iowa campaign in 2008. we also have live pictures of a caucus in
romney folks would say. i think that s important. do you think he has to go after romney s record? most of us weren t aware that the massachusetts health care plan provided funding for aboring services. most people would say they re for abortion rights but not for funding by the government. this does get him into a thicket there as a republican doesn t it? but, chris, that s not new. that claim has been out there and, you know, the flip flop on the life issue, that s been out there and i do think that, you know, the further south we go the governor is going to have to answer some of those questions. but tonight the story to me is not that newt gingrich might come in third or fourth or that rick santorum is the 23 or poll is at 23%. i think that is a real ceiling that romney, that he s dealing with, 23% and 25%. we ve been noticing that. go back four years. two well funded, well organized campaigns, he s not gotten beyond that 23