could senator santorum do what governor huckabee did? here s the question mark. john mccain narrowly won south carolina. why? what matters is not just how santorum does. how many other conservatives stay in the race. fred thompson, 16%, best shows in 2008 in the state of south carolina cost mike huckabee the state. had fred thompson dropped out huckabee probably would have won south carolina and blocked john mccain from being the nominee. so the evangelical voters do matter here, wolf, hugely. also depends on how many candidates you have in the race. as senator santorum just said, he wants to expand from iowa into new hampshire the economic message will become key there. can he take on governor romney, governor huntsman in a state where they have spent a lot of time talking about the economy and national security. we ve re-established contact with senator santorum. senator, i was going to st you about you saw what happened to newt gingrich. his numbers went down, down, down, down w
still persuadable. they might change their minds going into the caucus. this isn t like you go into a booth and just pull a lever and say, okay, fine. you actually listened to people talk about their candidates. the important thing about organization is that rick santorum if he has a good organization, will have people speaking on his behalf at these caucuses. and it could make a difference. another important thing for him is those endorsements of two leading evangelicals. there s no single evangelical candidate but these two people carry a lot of weight in the state. i think, john, he also learned the gingrich lesson that if you re going to be bombarded with negative attacks you better respond. and he surged at the right time. before a real onslaught of negative ads could take him out. caucuses are high intensity, low turnout elections fundamentally. the fact rick santorum has been able to have a boom right now, it really answers one of the open questions. do retail politics sti
liberty will always be ongoing. i think we re going to have a good showing. we already have. we re doing quite well in new hampshire. so i would say that the momentum for the cause of freedom in this country and restoration of the constitution, sensible foreign policy and addressing the federal reserve and our economic crisis and spending, i would say the people are with me on this. and the momentum is going to continue regardless of exactly what happens in what place i am on tuesday night. reporter: ron paul earlier today on state of the union. joining me now tonight, alex castle, ron brownsteen, stalwart fellows. thank you for being here. let me run some scenarios by you. ron paul wins iowa. how big a problem is that? well, i don t think it s ultimately a problem in terms of the nomination for mitt romney or rick santorum. as we talked about before, i think it s striking, it s notable that the romney campaign has spent a lot of time both in
south carolina. here you see the orange here. this is huckabee 2008. a good number, like iowa, about half of the voters in the south carolina primary describe themselves as evangelical, born-again christians. could senator santorum do what governor huckabee did? here s the question mark. john mccain narrowly won south carolina. why? what matters is not just how santorum does. how many other conservatives stay in the race. fred thompson, 16%, best shows in 2008 in the state of south carolina cost mike huckabee the state. had fred thompson dropped out huckabee probably would have won south carolina and blocked john mccain from being the nominee. so the evangelical voters do matter here, wolf, hugely. also depends on how many candidates you have in the race. as senator santorum just said, he wants to expand from iowa into new hampshire the economic message will become key there. can he take on governor romney, governor huntsman in a state where they have spent a lot of time talking about
on south carolina and assume that mitt romney has it wrapped up in new hampshire. well, the bottom line is, if you want to win the republican nomination, that s great. but i want to win the general election. that means we ve got to compete in states like new hampshire. which is a great swing state. we ve got to compete in pennsylvania and ohio and indiana. those are the states that i think i can run well in just like i m running well here in ohio kmexcuse me, in iowa. which is exactly what we need from a nominee in this party sfwl what are you going to do if the attack ads, the negative ads that really hurt if you can hear me. can you hear me okay? can you hear me now, senator? are you there, senator? it s wolf. can you hear me? i think we lost stand by for a moment. we ll try to reconnect with senator santorum. let me walk over to john king. you know, he s a front-runner now. i think you can say. he s about to get what we shall call the newt gingrich experience. the attack ads