and you just watch it and shake your head. it's been kind of painfully revealing to watch, but i think the reason he isn't doing so well is because of those last two debates. don't you think? >> for his part, speaker gingrich equated romney with president obama calling them the two twins of the establishment and accused romney of running a big lie campaign. >> we can't beat the money power romney himself. we can't beat the dishonest of his campaign by ourselves. we need witness who are prepared to go out and prepared to stand for conservatism and prepared to tell the truth and we need to run a big truth campaign that beats the big lie campaign. >> jim acosta is following the romney campaign. let's take a peek and share the video of mitt romney joking with reporters on the campaign flight this morning, throwing bags of chips around, carrying a birthday cake. the images of a confident man. what are his people saying he needs to do as we show the pictures now? can't hear his voice. i don't know if he can carry a tune or not. they're clearly confident. what do they need to accomplish tomorrow, how big a victory? >> reporter: you know, john, i think if they got a double digit victory, they would be able to say back to newt, you got a double digit win in south carolina. now we have one here in florida. i think there is an air of conferred inside the romney campaign right now. mitt romney said at an event he's starting to feel like he may win this state. it was a pretty optimistic tone. no question, this has become a very ugh will i campaign when mitt romney was asked earlier today what do you think about newt gingrich's vow to fight all the way to the convention he said that's what losing candidates say. of course, you heard what newt gingrich had to say earlier today talking about the big lie of the romney campaign. we're getting to the two ls in politics, losers and liars you know it's gotten to an ugly tone. >> in part because of all the negative advertising. governor romney has used pretty tough ads to protect that lead about his career in congress and the ethics violation. if he gets the win tomorrow, will they stick with what's working as you go forward? >> i think stick with what's working. eric was talking to reporters to reporters, senior adviser with the romney campaign. he said no way we're going into cruise control right now. they feel the strategy they've adopted in florida has worked for them. it has been a scorched earth campaign. the advertising has been heavily negative towards newt gingrich due to the kinds of the ads that romney super pack used to run. now the campaign is running those ads. listen to the rhetoric from the candidates out on the campaign trail. mitt romney again going after newt gingrich's ties to freddie mac. they feel like because of gingrich's ties to the mortgage giant in a state where the foreclosure crisis was very difficult for the people here, all of those things together has been a recipe for success, john. >> jim acosta on the final night of campaigning in florida. the latest polls in florida show a wide geep between romney and gingrich. romney ahead 43% to 29%. paul and santorum both trailing at 11%. what you get on election night can be very different things. our chief political analyst gloria borg ser with us. let's look closely at the quinnipiac poll. some polls have romney up , some as much as 16. so he's up. if you look closely here among women, romney 44%, gingrich 28%. so one of the reasons governor romney is winning is a gender gap. >> right, you know, if you talk to people in the romney campaign, they'll say to you it took awhile for sort of the marianne gingrich charges to come into view for women and that by the time he got to florida, they're actually starting to think about it. also, generally newt gingrich has gender gap issues, always has has a politician. he's kind of bellicose. sometimes women don't like that, and romney, by the way, has always been popular with women. but he's also doing well with men in this poll. that's very good news for him. >> we'll see if this holds up tomorrow. we'll see if he keeps his lead and how people vote. among self-described conservatives, a group where romney was thumped in south carolina, in this q poll, romney 40, gingrich 31. if he can win among self-defined conservatives -- >> another question we'll be looking for. is it because they like him because they believe he's electable or shares their ideology? there's a real tug of war going on in the republican party right now. do you want to vote your pure politics or do you want to be a little bit more pragmatic? what we might be seeing in these numbers is a little bit of pragmatism. newt is going around the state calling romney a liberal. >> and dirty word in republican politics. we'll see if it holds up. money matters in politics. this is the biggest state so far. tv and radio money to a lesser degree. romney's campaign and row-romney super pac spending $5.38 million. that's as of this morning. there's more tonight obviously. pro-gingrich is, the pac that supports him, $1.8 million. so more than two to one there. >> right, absolutely more than two to one. some say it will go as high as four to one. there's another number that struck me. one is that mitt romney has so far run about 13,000 television ads compared to 200 for newt gingrich. >> why did gingrich not compete? he came out of south carolina with momentum. you would think you'd make an invent >> well, the super pacs are actually spending all their money but a, it takes time to produce the ads and get on the air. they're spending an awful lot of money on radio also which is a cheaper way of getting out your message. when you look at those numbers, it's a big problem for newt gingrich. >> and not spending quickly out of south carolina would cost him in the state of florida. >> planning, that takes organization and planning. >> be sure to tune in tomorrow night. our coverage will begin this hour, 6:00 eastern with a special edition of john king usa. moving overseas, secretary of state hillary clinton condemned the latest increase in violence against anti-government demonstrators in syria. one group reporting at least 100 deaths today. the demonstrations have spread to damascus. some protesters recently allowed arwa damon in. >> material hidden in a safehouse along with tiny printed leaflets ready to be scattered. demonstrators move in groups of two or three to avoid attracting attention. at the signal, the street erupts into activity. everyone has a duty. the leaflets rain down like confetti. every night they do this. their numbers are small. their determination is not. >> about ten minutes after that started, syrian forces moved in. arwa made it out safely. tyke me back to that demonstration. you're in the middle of. what was that experience like? >> it's very intense because su realize all that is at stake and the fact that these demonstrators and a lot of them are fairly young, 15 to 30 years old risk their lives every time they go out. there is so much planning that goes into those ten minutes they have where they chant their lungs out and then them have to flee. but they say these small acts of defiance are critical because at the end of the day, it has been these types of street demonstrations, this type of relentless pressure by these activists that has been the driving force of this syrian uprising. and they realize just how critical of a role they're playing. >> and arwa, the fighting is now in the damascus suburbs. what does ta say for president assad's grip on power? >> you know, john, we were in the damascus suburbs on friday, and it was quite startling because we drove in there not knowing what to expect. the first checkpoint we came across, about a minute off of the main highway was a free syrian army checkpoint. and back then, on friday, there were a number of neighborhoods in the suburbs that were not under the full control of the syrian authorities. we then saul this massive offensive that took place over the weekend. but some of these clashes, john, were taking place are a 15-minute drive from the heart of the capital itself. so it most certainly seems as if the free syrian army is gaining more ground. the syrian government slowly, ever so slowly beginning to lose control. but now area hearing that the syrian military has moved in and re-establish the its own authority. most certainly this could perhaps begin to sig fal a slight shift in dynamics on the ground. >> fascinating reporting. arwa damon from beirut. thank you. rick santorum says his 3-year-old daughter is recovering now after a rough couple days. he joins us next to talk about her health scare and about his plans for florida and beyond. ? honey nut cheerios. so, how much do we owe you? that'll be... $973.42. you know, your rates and fees aren't exactly competitive. who do you think i am, quicken loans? [ spokesman ] when you refinance your mortgage with quicken loans, you'll find that our rates and fees are extremely competitive. because the last thing you want is to spend too much on your mortgage. one more way quicken loans is engineered to amaze. ismid grade too much on your mortgage. dark roast forest fresh full tank brain freeze cake donettes rolling hot dogs bag of ice anti-freeze wash and dry diesel self-serve fix a flat jumper cables 5% cashback right now, get 5% cashback at gas stations. it pays to discover. my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪ in florida. the one-time republican senator from pennsylvania spent the weekend at the bedside of his 3-year-old daughter bella who was hospitalized are pneumonia. she's doing better and he headed today to missouri which holds the primary a week from now on february 7th. we spoke a little bit ago. thanks for being with us today. let me start by asking you how your daughter is doing. she was in intensive care. she's doing better? >> she's doing much better, thank you so much. if n fact, she had a very tough friday and saturday. i feel very, very blessed. i haven't been home since christmas day and the one day i was home, actually to get my taxes so we could kern those in turned out to be a day i needed to be home. she went through a very, very tough time. yesterday afternoon, she really rallied and she's doing much better. and we feel things are good and that i can get back out on the road and that karen and the kids can now take it from here. i just want to thank you and everybody else for their prayers during this time. it meant the world to us. it helped bella a lot. >> we'll continue to pray for bella. you mentioned you went home to get your taxes. when will we see them? >> i've got four years that we're putting together. i just want to make sure i've got all the right papers in place and i'm not missing something from my return. i want to have someone take a look before i release them. i haven't had a chance to do that yet. i just got out of the hospital with my daughter. give me a little bit of time so you don't say the you didn't release this form, we'll be okay. >> pressing news of the day. violence escalating in syria. the blood shed and killing in syria. would a president santorum on this day do anything different than president obama is doing? >> this is a regime that is a puppet state of iran and is one that has to go in my opinion if we're going to see peace in the middle. so i would have been much more proactive in supporting the insurgency and would be doing all i can again not militarily but behind the scenes in supporting in any way possible the pro democracy movement taking place in syria today. >> it is the final day of campaigning in florida. and yet, you are in missouri. i understand why, governor romney has a big lead. speaker gingrich is behind him. you're trying to save resources. when you look at the calendar, do you say i have to have a victory in the early weeks of february or sometime in the month of february to go on? how do you assess viability? >> well, i look at it this way. this is a long process. this race isn't going to be over anytime soon. we've got good poll numbers in missouri that shows basically a three-way race between governor romney is, speaker gingrich and myself. we're going to go to minnesota. polls show us in a competitive position there. and off to colorado and nevada, the next four states, one on saturday and the other three on tuesday a week from tomorrow. and we're just showing, this is a national campaign. we have resources deployed here. we're going to be spending money in all these states and we're hiring staff and have, in fact, hired staff in some of the other states coming up on super tuesday. this is a race that we believe will come to us at some point. and we'll be able to take advantage of it when it does. >> i want to listen to something you said on a conference call with supporters last night. speaker gingrich is making the case, don't elect a massachusetts moderate. you sound pretty similar in this remark. let's listen. >> that's one of the mistakes that republicans make when they look at independent voters. oh, we have to have someone more moderate. independents may be moderate, but moderates by definition aren't driven by issues. they are driven by other things and vin feet in both camps. >> so you're making the case the republicans should turn conservati conservative. do you believe romney can win a general election? >> i'm hopeful that any of the republicans left can win a general election. i'll support whoever that nominee is and will work tirelessly because we have to defeat president obama. my point is that the idea that we need to elect a moderate in order to get moderate votes is simply a fallacy. john mccain would be president, bob dole would have been president. we need to elect someone who's a principled conservative that can motivate conservatives and republicans. i went on to say that in many cases moderate voters tend to vote for the person they believe has the qualities and characteristics of the leader that can govern this country and bring america together. i think on that score, we score very, very highly. i think even the polls are now suggesting that on that front, we present the best opportunity for us to get those voters. >> senator santorum, thanks for your time tonight. >> thank you very much. appreciate the opportunity. thanks again for the prayers. >> take care. still ahead, a new report says $2 billion are missing from the iraq war. but whose money just might surprise you. [ female announcer ] in the grip of arthritis, back, or back joint pain? aspercreme breaks the grip, with maximum-strength medicine and no embarrassing odor. break the grip of pain with aspercreme. welcome back. here's kate bolduan with the news you need to know right now. >> left me once again, john. fine, i'll wait till you come home. all right. good evening, everyone. let's get you caught up on other news. president obama's just wrapping up a bit of hi-tech campaigning. he's been answering questions in a google plus hangout. kind of a hi-tech chat room where some questions were submitted through youtube and others came via live video. meanwhile, tech crunch reports the obama campaign has adopted another bit of technology called square which allows people to make donations directly to the campaign via and roid devices i phones and ipads. times are changing. a new report says billions of dollars are missing from the iraq war but here's the interesting twist. this time it's money the iraqis gave to the u.s. department of defense to cover reconstruction expenses. the iraqi inspector general's report says the pentagon can't find the correct records. but they are continuing to look. and officials at new york state's highly exclusive vasser college blame what they call a computing error for a mistake that caused 76 applicants to think they had been offered admission to the school when they had not been actually admitted. the website error was corrected in about a half hour and the unlucky 76 got an e-mail apologizing, but they still do not get in, john. i can only imagine what those families were feeling like after getting that apology. >> oh, boy. not happy. and then some. >> and then some. >> family friendly program. we'll leave it right there. kate, we will see you in a few minutes. still ahead, the truthing about newt gingrich's promise to stay in the race till the republican convention. and later, fred thompson who is worried he says about some of mitt romney's campaign tactics. >> we've got members of congress going around to gingrich rallies and causing disruption and stuff. just while stuff. and so, you got to be concerned about the turnout and whether conservatives can come back together again. ... [worker 1:] we need to produce our own energy. [announcer:] and, the architect who says... [worker 2:] we need environmental protection. [announcer:] we say, you're right. find out how natural gas answers both at powerincooperation.com. with my vial and syringe. me, drawing my insulin dose. and me the day i discovered novolog flexpen. flexpen is pre-filled with your mealtime insulin. dial the exact dose, inject by pushing a button. no vials, syringes or coolers to carry. flexpen is insulin delivery my way. novolog is a fast-acting insulin used to control high blood sugar in adults and children with diabetes. do not inject if you do not plan to eat within five to ten minutes after injection to avoid low blood sugar. tell your healthcare provider about all medicines you take and all of your medical conditions, including if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. the most common side effect is low blood sugar. other possible side effects include reactions at the injection site. get medical help right away if you experience serious allergic reactions, body rash, trouble with breathing, fast heartbeat or sweating. with flexpen, vial and syringe are in the past. ask your doctor about novolog flexpen, covered by 90% of insurance plans, including medicare. the truth about newt gingrich's promise to stay in the race till the summer's convention and what it might cost the republican party. former presidential candidate fred thompson is worried about republican unity and blames mitt romney's campaign tactics. he joins us live to explain. plus an update for one of the mississippi's pardons killers. he finally turned up a very long way from home. this week, members of congress might do something to improve their image. the senate just voted overwhelmingly to consider a bill that would prevent members of congress from buying and selling stocks and other securities based on their access to special information. give credit to the program "60 minutes" for breathing new life into a once languishing piece of legislation. dana bash is with us. how is this not illegal already? >> it seems amazing, doesn't it in this is an issue that some lawmakers say is a gray area in the law. it is already the law that insider trading is illegal. but some are looking at it and saying well, it is really hard the way the law is written now for members of congress and aides to actually be prosecuted for it. so what this explicitly says is that lawmakers and their aides cannot use information they get just doing their job representing the people to stuff their personal bank accounts. effectively, they can't use their public position for private gain. and given congress's dismal approval ratings, this is a no-brainer for members to vote for. in fact, there was just a procedural vote a fe