he will do better than expected. particularly given the fact he didn t play here till late, he s doing better already than and he ran before. he had an organization in place. also remember, independents can go tomorrow to the republican caucus, sign a form, register and declare their support for romney. democrats can re-register, right? absolutely. they can also go for paul, the wild card factor. as a democrat, what are you hoping for here tonight? i assume an obama supporter, what are you hoping for? well, obama have people on the ground. they re organizing tomorrow for the democratic caucus. he has to win the democratic nomination. he s on the post. i m hoping the obama campaign will outorganize republicans to show they re ready to win the state. the democrats who are here, and obama have sent in people to monitor people what s going on, they have their own war room set up, i read that in the times today, what are they looking for, best organization on the ground?
voters who are concerned about that loss you had in 2006 and whether you re viable in a general election? i lost an election in the worst election year for republicans in the history of our state. reporter: a key factor in santorum s loss was his controversial vote to have the courts intervene in the case of terri schiavo, a woman in a vegetative state whose family was over war whether to remove her feeding tube. santorum has no regrets. what i carried about with terri schiavo was to make sure that a judge looked fairly at the case. they did. they made their decision. reporter: santorum outraged gay rights activists when he seemed to compare homosexuality to beastalty in 2006. in every society the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included moment homosexually. who has the best chance to beat obama? rick santorum. reporter: santorum isn t running from those comments. he boasts he s a full spectrum conservative in his new ad. he also has the support of
come on. reporter: santorum s message, it s real, all right. we ve raised more money in the last few days than we have in the last few months. you know, going from zero to 60 in the polls, if you will, will help those resources a lot. reporter: now when gop front-runner mitt romney punches i like speaker gingrich, senator santorum has spent his career in government, in washington. reporter: santorum punches back. we are not looking for a chief executive officer. for this country. we re looking for a commander in chief. is he a fine man and he ll do a fine job for pennsylvania. reporter: but santorum has some convincing to do. republicans remember how he lost his senate seat five years ago by an astounding 18 points. who do you say to those voters who are concerned about that loss you had in 2006 and whether you re viable in a general election? i lost an election in the worst election year for republicans in the history of our state. reporter: a key factor in san
problems will come out. so, the typical nothing s typical this year but the late surge here, the fluidity typically goes to the late surger. but he s really not surging, according to people on the ground anymore. so, it s it s you know, we re still going down to the wire. donna, if you were mitt romney you don t mind santorum surge in iowa. it keeps conservative field divided. that s absolutely right. rick santorum has been here for many, many months, campaigned in all 99 counties. he s probably identified with people who will go to the caucuses tomorrow night, stand up, serve as surrogates. i think there s something real behind this momentum. only because the republicans are still sorting out, looking for an alternative to romney. right now santorum is the flavor of the week. how much does organization matter here in this final 24 hours? getting people to actually go to the caucuses. i was at santorum s headquarters and there were some very young people on the phones and
hillary clinton. he got the nomination but dragged it out. i think we re different. as much as the process is different, we don t know because we ve never had front-loaded proportionality. we re still republicans and we like order. if mitt romney is knocking it out by the time we get to florida, it will be hard for other contenders to justify is it possible it could be essentially over tomorrow if romney has if it s a blowout. if it s a blowout. eric is absolutely right. have you a situation on the republican side where the bulk of the delegates will not be chosele until march, april. it could play itself out. you need an alternative to romney and conservatives have to get behind one candidate. obama and hillary were evenly matched. this is not this is going to sever the men from the boys in the next couple contests. we still have a woman in the race. i said that generic ily. we ll check in with our panel in a little bit. we also have paul and others coming in. we