chilly, but it feels nearly balmy today after yesterday. oh, yeah. the last 48 hours, we ve been generally below freezing. but finally, though, we re going to be into a mild trend here and it s going to last for several morse days into the weekend and perhaps all the way into next week. i m looking off into the distant future, don t see any major cold wave coming our way. but you know it s inevitable. we ll get another one later this winter. certainly not in the next ten days. right now, it s 34 at reagan national with a cloudy sky. we ve got a general wind out of the south-southwest. on the radar, we have a few flurries trying to reach the ground in montgomery, fredry and howard counties in maryland. and in northern virginia from southern loudoun county into western fairfax, stafford getting a few flurries there as well as southeastern culpepper county. they re moving off to the east. temperatures are generally in the upper 30s throughout much of the region. it s milder ou
richard, they were very pleased a tht performance last night. they think that s a good forum for him. the thing that campaign staffers take away from last night is they like the chris christie channel the anger moment with perry and santorum. they see that as an opportunity for romney to show a little bit of his human side, to show backbone, show muscle and push back. they are very pleased with his performance last night. i want to play a little bit of sound here. roe romney s response to questions that he knowingly had illegal imgrant work for him. listen and i will get your response. so we went to the company and said, look, you can t have illegals working on our property. i m running for office, for pete s sake, i can t have illegals. this doesn t sound right. has the campaign, from what you heard, tried to rephrase what you said? well, we went back last night and tried to make clear the time line of how the event played out in 2006. boston globe came to romney and
if you start that kind of fight, you have to finish it. i don t think he finished it. a let s start with the polls then. mark murray is nbc news deputy political director. then we will get to the gop debate performance after this. let s look at how significant it is here, mark, that cain is leading romney in south carolina. what do you think? richard, it is important to know these polls, taken before last night s debate. but south carolina and florida will be pivotal contests for the republican primary season since 1980, the winner of the republican primary and south carolina s gone on to win the gop nomination. as we saw in 2008 cycle, john mccain after winning florida, ended up getting that nomination. that was the pivotal contest there. so with cain in the lead in south carolina and running neck and neck with mitt romney, it is further proof with how herman cain has taken off in these polls. is the tea party states, if you will, what do you think there, mark? the
a let s start with the polls then. mark murray is nbc news deputy political director. then we will get to the gop debate performance after this. let s look at how significant it is here, mark, that cain is leading romney in south carolina. what do you think? richard, it is important to know these polls, taken before last night s debate. but south carolina and florida will be pivotal contests for the republican primary season since 1980, the winner of the republican primary and south carolina s gone on to win the gop nomination. as we saw in 2008 cycle, john mccain after winning florida, ended up getting that nomination. that was the pivotal contest there. so with cain in the lead in south carolina and running neck and neck with mitt romney, it is further proof with how herman cain has taken off in these polls. is the tea party states, if you will, what do you think there, mark? there is a fs nating divide between herman cain supporters and mitt romney supporters in bo