needing a moment here. he can t apparently even drive a policy-oriented message against his chief rival here. in that clip, newt was talking all about process, talking about a debate challenge, tell it to my face. there was nothing in there about romney s tax policy proposals are less than mine and here they are, a, b and c. if newt can t drive that message either in front of audiences here in iowa or in tv appearances, then it s not clear to me how he s going to be able in five days to make up the ground that he s lost. here he is driving a policy point with another opponent, ron paul. here he is going after ron paul who is vulnerable on this because he s so out of the ç mainstream. here he is saying he wouldn t even vote for ron paul should paul somehow win the republican presidential nomination. this is a policy point and a hard one. let s listen. you look at ron paul s total record of systemic avoidance of
today the thing that should scare you the most is the size of the crowds and the enthusiasm he s drawing in eastern iowa today. that is establishment republicans. they are an underrated part of the turnout here in iowa, and if south carolina establishment, as they always have in the past, rallies with the tea party governor behind him, romney, however many candidates are in south carolina, could win that, too, even though it s not been a strong state for him. wow. the establishment has one choice in iowa, one choice nationally. president bush 41 sees that, a lot of members of congress see it and gingrich is not doing anything to win them over. i m not saying romney is a lock, but somebody is going to have to encroach on the establishment vote, both here and in south carolina, or he s going to be very hard to stop early. he could be the nominee by the state of the union. this is so powerful. and santorum is in south carolina after having a strong showing in iowa, then it s going
mitt romney is strutting. the latest from iowa and the big january fights at the top of the show. also, why have we seen a new ç republican front-runner every week with newt falling just as fast as he rose? why can t voters decide on a candidate? could it be because republicans are looking for someone with anti-government simplicity of ron paul, the religious fundamentalism of rick santorum, the war fever mitt/newt? we ll get into that one. plus ben nelson s retirement in nebraska is a hard blow to the democrats chance of holding the u.s. senate. we ll go over the map and crunch the numbers and also the latest republican play for religious conservatives and whether that will affect the women s vote come november. and let me finish tonight with a democratic guide to the way republicans pick their presidential candidates. it s different. we begin with the latest in iowa, and the new numbers that show more reason for gingrich to worry and an explanation for why the old newt is showing
what barack obama has done to the country. we have don t want it to be about personalities. it is getting personal. we saw it in saturday night debate. i expect tomorrow night right here. it will be explosive. it will be rough. very rough. when we get to the general. the biggest weakness that newt have, we don t want general to be about his idiosyncracies whether the new or old newt. there will be endless stories. i like newt. fountain of ideas. but i also think it will be about him. i also don t think he can beat barack obama. i wish mitt romney had a better conservative history, a better record. right now she a better candidate. sean: you are endorsing romney? i m not endorsing romney. sean: your analysis is romney should be the nominee? i think rick santorum is probably the closeest to my views and actually jon huntsman when it comes to the economy has the most conservative economic policy.
embrace it? he has got to embrace it. keep in mind his principle platform is creating jobs. what newt is saying here in fact in many of these corporations he took them apart and cost them jobs. now this has been run against romney before. i think that it s not frankly the strongest attack point but, listen, you talked about the traction for gingrich in iowa. one of the reasons is not because herman cain got out. it is because there is array of like i never seen of independent committees and others out against gingrich. they re spending millions of dollars. most of that generated from washington people who don t like him. if you want to see the key attack point, look at peggy noonan s column in the wall street journal. it mimics every bit of the talking points. hear is the problem. newt is not a good attack guy, if he does attack reminds people of old newt, mean newt. mitt romney doesn t have it in him to be a negative campaigner. you got two guys not very well-suited for this