last two men left standing. you think that is a big story tonight? action of the others, the second tier? absolutely. i mean as megyn said, this is their last opportunity. if you are rick santorum, you have been to all 99 counties and spent two months, well over 100 events. michele bachmann slightly less, but not a lot less. you just haven t been able to break out of single digits. this is your last big opportunity to attract iowa republican voters to say i am the a terntive, the true conservative. not newt or mitt. bret: you had congressman ron paul on your show today. interesting moment to get to a line of attack and finally got there. take a listen. there was one other issue i found annoying that is he is as aggressive as the military as anybody. he supports all the wars in the middle east, 1,000 times more than i would.
bret: i really do need. i really do need your help january 3. i believe the people of iowa are smart enough they can see the difference between somebody is trying to help the country and somebody who simply running a negative campaign. that is a cannon shot to south carolina. very quickly, the field is going to thin out. we think we are going to be exactly where we need to be. the fact is you want to win here, you don t have to. i think we will have a good showing here. i have been saying the same thing for 30 years. all of a sudden there is excitement. bret: there is a lot of excitement. we can tell you that. we have don t often put up countdown clocks. one on the screen all day today. we have a new poll out todayment it s a rasmussen poll here in iowa. it s very interesting. it shows mitt romney at the top of the pack. 23%. newt gingrich at 20%. there you see ron paul about where he has been, about 18%.
jeff, you have been around the state a bunch. what is your take, any surprises that you are seeing? we have been reporting on the ron paul surge and reality on the situation on the ground. what else? ron paul without question is often overlooked by some of us in the stories. his supporters will be there regardless. we don t know what the creeling is yet. it depends if he says anything that could be viewed as offensive, perhaps on foreign policy to conservative, otherwise he has a decent message. rick perry spent more money than any of the opponent. the first radio ad was rick perry, the first tv ad today was rick perry. see if it works. his people hope he is getting some traction. we re not sure about that. bret: for ron paul on foreign policy, steve, it s a little challenging for him to dial back some of the things he says. he believes what he says. but you can t kind of calibrate that easily. you can t. this is this is a blessing and a curse. he believes everything he belie
megyn kelly here. bret: chris stirewalt has been part of the process of the question-building. neil cavuto is on his fbn show currently. thank you for dvring that and watching this. what about newt gingrich and what he faces tonight? you saw the apology there. he is under attack in iowa. ron punish ads, mitt romney ads. what about ron paul s ads and mitt romney ads. what about tonight s debate for gingrich? if i were neil, i d say something intelligent about politics but i m chris so i ll say something cynical. newt gingrich is the target on the stage in a way he hasn t been in the priest abc debate. he wasn t that way now. his numbers are starting to slip. other candidates smell blood. they will come after him hard. can gingrich do what he says he will do and stay positive and not push back? if this debate turns in to two
carolina. may 5. and now we are here in sioux city. it s going to be a heck of a rumble. bret: we have talked about ron paul and the organization on the ground. we talked about his ads. his presence. you think it s real? absolutely real. the other thing is if there is dissatisfaction, ron paul as conservative purist is the best protest vote for a lot of the iowanss who want to register their dissatisfaction with the folks in the league. bret: okay. take a live look inside control room the debate. it s just so exciting to see it. [ laughter ] it a thin looking stage but still exciting. you know it s interesting to watch the candidate candidato once were on the outside move closer and closer to the center as their number goes up. bret: time thoughts before we head in final thoughts before we head in? i want to say, this is not hype. one point that megyn made, we don t want to ask the same questions. we want new questions. megyn has a line of questioning here what has never