and relevant in south carolina. he is knocking on the door for third. can t rule out ron paul giving rick santorum we will headaches for the third and fourth place slots. for rick perry to withdraw and endorse newt gingrich is very, very significant. we are here at what is romney s headquarters in charleston on the sea coast in south carolina. this is not a fired up crowd. the withdrawal of rick perry for them is not good news because of the endorsement of newt gingrich. the idea that gingrich is surging, has pulled in some polls within the margin of error has the romney campaign rattled. they were looking at 2-0 and the possibility of winning south carolina for an historic 3-0. now romney has the new hampshire win, a virtual tie with rick santorum in iowa, and he s looking at the very real possibility of a debate tonight in which he s the center of attention and getting pounded by his rivals. newt gingrich is well-known as a stand out debate performer gaining more momentum going into
here. it didn t resonate. it is unlikely anything that will have a dispositive effect on the outcome here in south carolina other than voters themselves. they have been hungry for this race. the curiosity they show for rick santorum and newt gingrich as a possible come from behind alternative to beat mitt romney is pronounced. it is palpable. you can t escape it. even if romney rallies themselves there are people who are still chomping and thinking about going elsewhere. this is likely to be going right down to the wire. it is true as we head into the weekend romney is a little bit ahead in the polls but gingrich seems to have the momentum and santorum does too. so, it is, could be a very late night on saturday. bill: i see you. one more quick question. perry has money. we knew that coming out of iowa. it appears he still has a bank account based on everything we ve learned so far here. what part of the state would perry tend to do well? would it be in the low
leaders to submit the forms on time but they just weren t able to. martha: mr. stra u.n. thank you. it s quite a situation and it was a cliffhanger of an evening, and that will lead to a lot ofee mowings on both sides of this. and a pwot of sroebgs will band a lot of sroebgs will be talki folks will be talking about it for a longtime. bill: rick santorum folks are coming out with a statement. this latest defeat of governor romney in iowa is gus the beginning. he s continuing to fights the clear consistent conservative in this race. expect to hear that more from rick santorum and more tomorrow. we re waiting for rick perry. should mitt romney release tax returns now instead of waiting until april? with the latest nudge from alexis christoforous taoerbgs from chris christie and what that means. martha: the tennis meltdown that has everybody talking.
this guy is a street fighter. he can do well and get on the ground and wrestle and fight. this is a vendetta. gingrich thought for a period of time six, eight weeks ago he was going to be the president and he thinks that romney took him out by unfair campaign practices and it s a hate match at this point in time. martha: he may have to wrestle. we are still waiting to hear whether or not they are going to air this on abc this interview with one of newt gingrich s former wives. how potentially damaging do you think it would be if it does air? well a lot of the stories have been out already. shy is a very vindictive person, not particularly well liked when he was the speaker, but my sense is she s as vicious as anybody that has before than an ex-wife. but i don t know what she can tell that basically is going to undue the momentum here. people know all the warts and all the scars that are on newt gingrich and they are still basically moving toward towards him. martha: it s always great
the we need to put those in context, there aren t that many rick perry voters. he was about 5% of the polls. there could be a difference if there was a very close race but otherwise know you would think that they would go overwhelmingly to gingrich and santorum not to paul or romney. there is a new poll just out, american research group which actually now shows gingrich in the lead 33% to 32% obviously within the margin of error. if we re talking about a one or two point race, you know, and you get some of those perry supporters going to beginning reufpt could be the difference between victory and defeat for newt gingrich. bill: bret told us that gingrich had been talking to perry s folks for some time might have been in the last 48 hours and the two men talked again and that s perhaps what convinced perry. if that plays out we might learn that in 34 minutes when peer