christian conservatives, should they be in the race? santorum s out if he doesn t do well, newt gingrich, herman cain have these noncampaign campaigns, they can keep going on fumes. bauchmann and santorum, one of the two has to win. rick perry. i mean for heaven sakes. rick perry listen, rick perry has claimed his supporters that he has money, he has organization in iowa and retail politics will make the difference for him. that, you know, forget how he s done in the debates he won t be able to compete in south carolina if he loses in iowa? no, he can still play there, but i think his supporters start dwindling even faster. let s start with the bottom feeding here, bauchmann and santorum. i think you re right, if they lose there, if they don t win out there, they may try to continue campaigning, but their campaigns will be the walking dead at that point. i think rick perry, if he finishes strong second in iowa and still holding out the hope
working because they want those policies to continue. exactly. i m selling too much here. it is about the future, people do vote on what they want. does he have to be a really successful guy to get reelected? well, look, i think this goes to david s point before about referendum versus choice. and there s a lot of people in america who do want the president to succeed and they do think he had been dealt a bad hand and played it as best as he could. but mitt romney or whoever the republican nominee is going to be is going to argue that, look, he s done a lot of stuff. he s passed health care, passed stimuluses, all those things we re really not better off than we were four years ago, and for a lot of americans sympathetic to the president, they re going to be very persuadable that we ve got to try something else. yeah, i think the toughest line, i m sure they re ready for the president to get slammed. you had your chance, we tried it your way. that s a hard one to come back to e
which is going to be key. steve king s out there. steve king is a congressman who is tougher on immigration than just about anybody, and there s a reason because western iowa is tougher on that issue than most other regions. and david, you mentioned how mitt romney responded. we have that as well as michele bauchmann s response to newt gingrich. take a listen. amnesty is a magnet. when we have had in the past, programs that said people who have come here illegally are going to stay here illegally for the rest of their life, that is going to encourage more people to come here illegally. i don t agree that you make 11 million people here illegally legal. and if i understood correctly, i think the speaker just said that would make 11 million people who are here illegally now legal. that s really the issue that we re dealing with. and also, it would be the dream act,ing the federal dream act would offer taxpayer subsidized
these weapons could find their way into new york city or washington, d.c. and a nuclear weapon could be set off in this city. that s how serious this is. we have to maintain an american presence. you know, dan, we ve been awfully tough on michele bauchmann, but i will tell you, she was very good last night. she was competent, wasn t playing for the cheap applause lines. i mean and you talk about her performance the night before, it s almost like she s finding her sea legs before the final charge in iowa. she clearly is getting invested in the substance here. she knows what she s talking about she should be rewarded for that when you know you re losing, you can actually it s liberating. she can sort of be herself. which is not whichç helps. the pakistan debate was interesting. what he was basically implying
gentleman joining us from washington, associate editor and columnist for theç washington post david ignacious. there are pleasant surprises for me every debate. there have been very depressing debates, but last night, i was really pleased to hear michele bauchmann school rick perry when he engaged in demagoguery on pakistan. i want to play you this clip where i think perry just talked about slashing aid to pakistan. which we all know would be the stupidest thing to do right now despite the fact that they are such bad actors. but michele bauchmann came through with which i think the best answer of the night. they showed us time after time that they can t be trusted. and until pakistan clearly shows that they have america s best interest in mind, i would not send them one penny. with all due respect to the