nbc s ron mott joins me live from des moines. what s happening on the ground in the next 48 hours? reporter: hey there, thomas. happy new year to you. one note. we saw governor romney last night. he had a kick in the step. maybe because he got to kiss the bride. not often you get to do that. very cold in des moines and across iowa. the weather could be a factor heading into tuesday for the caucuses. mitt romney is going to campaign today. newt gingrich campaigning as well today. governor rick perry and michele bachmann actually attended church services around the hawkeye state. ron paul has been reporting through the weekend, went home to texas for the holidays and then of course, jon huntsman abandoned iowa. he s putting all of his cards down in new hampshire. he ll be campaigning in new hampshire today. the big push is to get at the undecided voters. the new poll from the des moines register shows an exciting race. rick santorum is that horse, if we can call him that, showing
they take their role seriously. but they want to make their vote matter and get it right. there s still a sense of uncertainty entering the final 48 hours of this campaign. rick green, sir, nice to have you on this morning. i appreciate your time. thanks a lot, thomas. happy new year. thank you, sir. you too. a new book on mitt romney that his campaign did not endorse. what it has to say about his first steps to the political arena. that s later this hour. you don t want to miss it. a developing story we re keeping our eye on this morning. iran s navy test fired a surface to aramis i will today during the straight of her moes. iran is backing away from closing the passageway. it s proposing to hold talks with u.s. powers about the nuclear program. however, at the same time being iran announced today, it s produced the nation s first nuclear fuel rod. that is a major feat. meantime, president obama this weekend signed a defense pill including sanctions against iran. nbc s alle
the register s poll. it s the bellwether. we re digging deeper with rick green. vice president and editor of the des moines register. good to have you with us this morning. i want to get to it. mitt romney and ron paul are neck and neck. when you look at the four days of polling first, is ron mott mentioned to us, the final two days of polling. santorum moves past paul with 21%. how did that happen? is it just that his ground game is so good in. good morning, thomas. good to be with you. we saw the final numbers yesterday morning. with all due respect to the msnbc family, we called it the wolf blitzer effect. his numbers took off after that. couple things contributed. not only the poll a factor, but a lot of undecided and uncertain iowans started to coalesce around santorum. he was necknd neck for the bottom tier of the campaign.
thomas sm. let s talk about this pivotal announcement. iran making a nuclear fuel record. at the same time, proposing that talks resume on the nuclear program. what are the undercurrents of information about iran s intentions on this? well, this seems to be a carrot and stick policy that iran adopted. they want to threaten shutting down the straits of hormuz. they want to make their own nuclear fuel rods which is advancing. saying we can do this on our own, disrupt the oil supply in the world. on the other hand, they re offering a carrot saying we re willing to talk on the nuclear negotiations. people look at this as a strategy just to delay things and let iran get its own way. it s coming up to the 11th hour to get these things done. iran is trying a carrot and stick policy of its own. threatening to close the straits. but also agreeing to talk if they may come to some headway. ali arouzi in tehran for us.
pennsylvania a second look. that s going to be an interesting part of the campaign for the next 48 hours, thomas. as we point out, iowans aren t discounting the fact that they have this much time left to make a decision. with the two days to go, the poll finds that many iowans could be convinced to support another candidate. how do you explain that? you know, there s an undercurrent here in iowa. not only do iowans take their role incredibly seriously in determining the next president and the kib the tires and look at platforms and understand the visions, but this career in particular, there s an junt current that you have a vulnerable president in the white house. the most vulnerable since jimmy carter in 1980. the republicans we ve talked to and we ve talked to a lot of them in the last year, are taking their time. they look closely at herman cain, they looked at speaker gingrich. they re spending more time on santorum. they want to get it right. they take their role seriously. b