to overhaul the u.s. tax system. that's it for me. thanks for joining the conversation this week on "your $$$." make sure to check out my new book with christine romans called "how to speak money." it's a step-by-step guide to understanding the language of money with aefrg you need to know. head to amazon.com to be the first to get the book. stay wiconnected 24/7 on twitte @cnnyourmoney. have a great weekend. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com hello, everyone, thanks for joining us. i'm fredricka whitfield. we're going to look at the 2012 presidential contenders in this political hour. first an update on today's top stories. it could be a week before the power is back on for parts of the east coast. the freak autumn snowstorm that hit this weekend is blamed for at least five deaths and more than 4 million people from maryland to maine are without

electricity. volunteer crews from other states are helping utility workers clear frozen limbs from power lines. and we have a clearer picture today of that deadly attack in kabul. military officials in afghanistan now say five nato troops were killed yesterday when a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into their armored bus. four of them were american. one a canadian. the taliban claims responsibility. australia's qantas airways says it could be again flying again tomorrow afternoon. all of the flights were grounded yesterday worldwide during a labor dispute. 70,000 passengers were stranded. earlier today a labor board ordered the airline to end its dispute. all right. now to the 2012 contenders. this next hour we focus on them and the race for the white house. the iowa caucus is the first in the nation and we're hearing

from republican voters already there which candidate they like. a new poll from the "des moines register" shows herman cain and mitt romney statistically tied for the lead. the iowa caucuses are set for january 3rd. well, this compares to a cnn poll taken just last week. that poll shows mitt romney in first with herman cain close behind. ron paul coming in third with 12% of those surveyed. ron paul was third in both of the polls we just mentioned, and he came in first yesterday in an iowa straw poll conducted among likely voters. 82% of the iowa conservatives attending the national federation of republican assemblies convention in des moines supported paul. herman cain was second at 15%. despite those straw poll results, the group endorsed rick santorum for president just a few hours later. the nfra calls itself the

nation's oldest and largest republican volunteer group. let's bring in cnn's senior political analyst and "national journal journal's" editorial director. here's another iowa straw poll. this outcome is different from the earlier iowa straw poll where michele bachmann was victorious. how important in the long run with the straw polls? >> reck president alan cranston? which tells you your answer, not very. in 1984 alan cranston had a strategy to energize his campaign by winning a lot of straw polls. straw polls are really a measure more of the depth and breadth of support. you could have a very passionate minority that turns out for these things that can fill the hall. ron paul can fill a hall. he has people deeply committed to him. it says nothing about the full expanse of a candidate's support and usually you can, you know, the ability to win a straw poll is not necessarily reflective of

the ability to win when a larger universe of people have to be convinced. >> interesting. a few different things came out of the straw poll. ron paul may have won the straw poll. the voters apparently there endorsed santorum as, you know, the potential president. so i wonder if all of this kind of underscores the real volat e volatility of the voters, that they're really quick to change their minds. >> no, absolutely. i think there are -- the volatility is really only -- is confined i think largely to one part of the republican party at this time. i wrote a piece this week in our new 2012 blog at "national journal" called the two republican races. >> yeah. >> if you look at the polling that's coming out, in particular, your polling this week, the cnn polling, the cnn "time" polling done in iowa, florida, south carolina, new hampshire, the four early states as well as the "des moines register" poll, they show a similar phenomenon. the republican party is divided

exactly in half between those who consider themselves supporters of the tea party and those who don't. the tea party side is the ideological side and tends to overlap a lot with the evangelical christian side which is half of the republican party. the other side of the party is moderate, more pragmatic, more secular, more focused on the economy. with that non-tea party side of the party, you see mitt romney making steady gains. for example, in your four polls in those early states, he's ahead by double digits in each of the states among voters who don't identify with the tea party. he's ahead by double digits among those who do not consider themselves born again christians in all four states. on the other side of the party, he's facing much more resistance. you're seeing the volatility there. those are voters who moved around from mike huckabee and donald trump early in the year and michele bachmann had a surge among them. rick perry in the late summer was doing very well. the wheel has turned on to herman cain. you see support for gingrich and

san ttorum as well. there's volatility as the portion of the republican party resistant to romney tries to find an alternative to him but have not been able to settle. >> you say there's an internal battle, we're talking about the ideological versus the populist end of the republican party. so far it appears as though the republican party as a whole, it's kind of coalescing its support. you write this around romney. what will be that defining moment? or at what portion of this year out, you know, race, are we going to see that the non-party, non-tea party members and the tea party members kind of come together in the republican party and throw their support, collectively, around one particular candidate? >> see, i'm not sure that's ever really going to happen. >> really? >> yeah. as i said, i think there are really two tracks this race is proceeding down right now. romney, you know, has stumbles. i'm sure we'll talk about them a little later. by in large, if you look at the voters who do not consider themselves part of the tea party

or evangelical christians, his number is moving up. in your state polls, he's running around 30%, 40%, among those voters whether they're not evangelicals or not tea party supporters. that's good in an eight-candidate field. on the other side of the party, he's stuck. in your national polling, he's never been able to get above 18% among people who call themselves tea party supporters. that is probably slightly more than half of the party. you may be in a situation where there is not an affirmative majority of the party that wants to nominate romney at any point, certainly not today. that doesn't mean he can't win. if that majority cannot coalesce behind one single candidate, he in effect could become a plurality nominee because those opposed to him never truly unit behind one alternative. today, santorum gets another endorsement, herman cain is doing very well. there's a lot of sense rick perry may be ready for a second act among some of those voters

as he starts to advertise on tv. romney is in a good side. >> ron brownstein, i know you're going to be hanging out with us throughout the hour. we're going to talk about other points of view of the candidates as it pertains to the economy and potentially doing away with, at least we know one candidate wants to do away with the department of education. we'll check back with you. the 2012 republican contenders are all talking about the economy and how they can fix it. hear it unedited next. yeah, i'm married. does it matter? you'd do that for me? really? yeah, i'd like that.

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welcome back to this special hour of the cnn newsroom. we're taking this time out every

sunday 4:00 eastern hour to let you hear from the 2012 presidential contenders. uninterrupted out on the campaign trail. texas governor rick perry unveiled his plan to boost the economy by using a flat tax. he claims you'll be able to file your federal income taxes on a simple postcard. >> the best representation of my plan is this postcard. this is the size of what we're talks about right here. taxpayers will be able to fill this out and file their taxes on that. [ applause ] and each -- each individual taxpayer will have a choice. you can continue to pay your taxes as well as the accountants and the lawyers, under the current tax system that we got, or you can file your taxes on this postcard. with the deductions on there for

interest on your mortgage, your charitable give, and your state and local taxes. and then deduct those and send it in. under my plan, you're no longer going to have to worry about paying taxes on social security when you retire or your family members. yeah. [ applause ] or, john, your family members paying the death tax when you're gone. i mean, you can save -- i mean, think about that. he's worked hard. he's going to pass this on to his family one of these days. the idea the federal government can take half of that is nonsense. i might add you can wave good-bye to the capital gains tax as well as tax on dividends. we'll increase the standard exemption for individuals and dependents to $12,500.

that means that families in the middle and on the lower end of the economic scale will have the opportunity to get ahead. you know, taxes will be cut across all income groups in america, and the net benefit will be more money in americans' pockets, with greater investment in the private economy instead of the federal government. >> now let's listen to rick santorum talking about his tax plan unedited, uninterrupted. >> i want simplification, i want tax code to be simple. i want the irs to be small. but our focus has been on trying to create a pro growth environment and specifically focus on the manufacturing sector of the economy. i think we to that uniquely in our tax plan because i believe that the big stratification of wealth that we've seen in this country where people of college age, college educated, have done

very well in this economy, even in this time, college educated folks are doing better than the rest of the workforce. we need to create jobs for the folks who are skilled and semi-skilled and those jobs, uncomfort, au unfortunately are going to china and mexico and we need to get the jobs back. the way to get them back is to create a climate for manufacturers to be successful here. the federal government can do something about that. in my plan we do. we cut the corporate tax for manufacturers from 35% to zero%. if you make things in america, you're not going to pay corporate tax. that's number one. number two, we say if you made things overseas and you have profits from those plants, if you reinvest those profits here in america, there's about $1.2 trillion of money out there that manufacturers have made overseas. if you bring that money back and invest in america, instead of

having to pay a 35% excise tax, you can pay 0%. >> ron paul appeared this morning on cnn's "state of the union." candy crowley asked about his plan to eliminate the commerce, education and energy departments, among others to cut $1 trillion from the budget. >> we got into this mess by spending and borrowing and printing money, so we can't get out of it that way. we have to cut spending and this is something nobody else wants to talk about. none of the other candidates are talking about cutting next month -- you know, next year's budget. everybody's talking in washington and the other candidates talk about cuts the baseline increases, five and ten years out. and this is why there's no reassurance gone to the economy. nobody believes it's going to do any good. so i believe, obviously, very sincerely that you can't get out of a debt problem by accumula accumulating more debt. it doesn't work.

>> let's bring in ron brownstein, cnn's journalist and "national journal's" editorial director. what do you think about the candidates wanting to cut education, commerce, energy? dangerous talk or does this draw an important distinction between the candidates? >> it's the other side of the coin. you heard rick perry go through the taxes he'd eliminate or severely roll back. when you look at the whole agenda, the whole field, i argue these republican aren'candidate talking about the most ambitious effort to roll back or trench, whatever word you want to use, the role of the federal government since ronald reagan or barry goldwater in 1976. look at the flat tax proposal rick perry was talking about. in 1996, steve forbes held up the same postcard and made that the centerpiece of his campaign. ultimately it took down his it was perferated by others.

bat buchanan. rick perry tried to respond to the most obvious vulnerabilities of the plan for allowing reductions to remain for mortgage, state and local taxes, and allowing people to stay within the existing system if they want. fredricka, the idea it makes it more simple is belied by the last point. under the perry version, everyone would have to figure out their taxes twice. they'd have to figure them out under the existing system and new system. presumably they'd want to pick the one that would save them the most money. it has the same issue the forbes plan did. the overriding issue. it means big tax cuts for people at the top. would eliminate the state tax, cut the top rate from 35% to 20%. big tax cut for people at the top. that means either you have to raise taxes on the middle class to make it revenue neutral or in perry's case, lose a lot of revenue in order to not raise taxes on the middle class. in fact, his own own staff

estimates, there was an estimate done for him, without assuming faster economic growth, $900 billion a year eventually lost in the income tax under this plan. that is a big reduction, double the cost of extending the bush tax -- >> that brings us to this graphic right here which really kind of shows, you know, the differences between incomes, the upper class, seeing an increase in, you know, 275%. the middle class, up 40%. lower class, just 17%. so any candidate, well, all these candidates may want to talk about doing things in a way other than the washington way. will people believe that? will they buy that? do voters feel like any one candidate can actually change the way the income bracket, tax bracket, the rise of income, how it can really be measured? >> no, i think actually i think right now we're in a period of enormous pessimism on that front, and in fact, i believe

you look across the board at polling right now, what we're seeing is a complete collapse of confidence. in all segments of the public and private decision making class. i mean, congress approval rating in one poll the other day was down to 9% which is pretty much friends and immediate family i think. president obama is looking at the lowest approval ratings of his presidency. not only that. if you look at polling of faith in private sector, big business, wall street banks in particular, you know, it is also scraping the bottom. you have americans who believe i think correctly that they're being directly exposed to much greater financial risk than earlier generations. right now, they feel they're paddling alone. there's really no big institution they can trust, not government, not the private sector. what's interesting, if you think about it, the first political manifestation of this was the tea party movement which directed the anger against government in 2009, in 2010. you're seeing the other shoe dropping with occupy wall street movement and rhetoric of president obama, trying to draw

on that discontent with the private sector that's out there. in fact, there's plenty for both. the pool is big enough for both sides. extraordinary and somewhat ominous moment where there's been this public loss of confidence in all of our public and private decision makers. >> ron brownstein, we're going to check back with you momentarily. we know this winter blast in the northeast has been very uncomfortable. so much so that a lot of folks are deciding that the south is the place to be. several 2012 contenders made the trip south. we're on the trail when we come back right pb we're centurylink... a new kind of broadband company committed to improving lives with honest, personal service, 5-year price lock guarantees and consistently fast speeds. ♪

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all right. we continue to delve into the issues on the presidential campaign every sunday. we're spending this hour of the cnn newsroom to allow you to hear from the contenders as they spell out their future for the united states. while many of the republican contenders are focusing on iowa and new hampshire, the first caucus and primary states, south carolina hosts the second primary next january. and a recent cnn/"time" survey, 25% of south carolina republican voters supported mitt romney. while herman cain came in second with ron paul and rick perry running third and fourth. cnn political producer shana shepard is live in columbia right now. just last week, gingrich and santorum were in south carolina.

they're nowhere near the top of the polls. have voters decided on their candidates there? why would santorum and gingrich spend so much time in south carolina? >> reporter: well, fredricka, even though the cnn poll has newt gingrich and rick santorum in the single digits in the poll, they believe they have a shot in this race. the two candidates are counting on the fact the same poll, over 50% of the voters still have not made a decision on who they'll -- who they'll vote for. while cain was campaigning elsewhere, gingrich and santorum were trying to solidify support here among tea party activists. thanks to strong debate performances, gingrich has a following. in october he raised $8,000, more than the previous three months combined. that's helping him step up operations in south carolina and elsewhere. >> okay. meantime, you know, is this rather strong tea party state willing to back a career

politician though he's seeing that he's getting more support there? i'm talking about newt gingrich? >> reporter: well, while the anti-government sentiment appears to be helping the folks at the top, governor romney and herman cain, newt gingrich is hoping the closer we get to the election that people will focus on the issues and his experience will be his trump card. >> shawna, thanks so much, from columbia. thanks so much. all right. turning now to president obama. he's continuing to travel around the country and talk to supporters. last week, he used his executive powers to ramp up assistance for americans seeking or repaying student loans. >> then in last year's state of the union address, i asked congress to pass a law that tells 1 million students they won't have to pay more than 10% of their income toward student loans. and we won that fight, too. and that law will take effect by

the time -- that law is scheduled to take effect by the time freshmen graduate. but we decided, let's see if we can do a little bit more. so today i'm here to announce that we're going to speed things up. we're going to make -- we're going to make these changes work for students who are in college right now. we're going to put them into effect, not three years from now, not two years from now, we're going to put them into effect next year. because our economy needs it right now and your future could use a boost right now. so, so here's what this is going to mean. because of this change, about 1.6 million americans could see their payments go down by hundreds of dollars a month. and that includes some of the students who are here today.

what we're also going to do, we're going to take steps to consolidate student loans so that instead of paying multimillion payments to multiple lenders every month -- let me tell you, i remember this. i remember writing, like, five different checks to five different loan agencies and if you lost one that month, you couldn't get all the bills together and you missed a payment then suddenly you were paying a penalty. we're going to make it easier for you to have one payment a month at a better interest rate. and this won't cost -- it won't cost taxpayers a dime, but it will save you money and it will save you time. >> republican contenders clearly have different ideas on education. some want to cut out the department of education. that's next in this special political hour of the "cnn newsroom."

welcome back to this special hour of the "cnn newsroom." we're focusing on politics allowing you to hear from the 2012 presidential contenders in their own words. so far this hour you've heard from rick perry, rick santorum and ron paul. jon huntsman is coming up, focusing only these days on the state of new hampshire. >> our town hall meetings are packed these days.

we have a cup of very, very important months ahead in new hampshire. the vibe i'm getting, we're connecting with our message obje about rebuilding our manufacturing muscle in this country and getting people back to work is resonating with the all important people in the first primary state. >> more from him a bit later. first michele bachmann and newt gingrich take on the federal government. one agency in particular doing an education forum in new york. >> this year there will be a 23% increase at the federal department of education and i believe that the department will grow from 4,200 employees to 4,600 employees. so we're seeing a great growth in education bureaucracy. i believe that they'll expand $1.8 billion, but i also believe that those moneys would be better spent in the local classroom and better determined by local parents. we're hurting america's productivity if we don't focus on academic achievement for

every child. >> ideally, learning should imitate the modern world. why do we sit in a row looking straight forward for 50 minutes? that was perfect training to work in a textile pimill. why would you do it now? i'd like the department of education to become a research and information center. >> once again, it's the notion the federal government is just too big. back with us, ron brownstein, editor of "national review" and cnn's senior political analyst. okay. welcome back. so you say the candidates who can convince people that he or she can cut and roll back the government may get the nod from the republican voters. that's going to be the real test, isn't it? who can be the most convincing? >> well, i think there are two important points here. you're seeing the central ideological divide that's going to define the 2012 general election very clearly. the republican candidates are coalescing around an agenda to poll back washington's role since reagan.

they're talking about repealing the dodd/frank wall street reform, several of them, michele bachmann, rick perry talking about ending the environmental protection agency and talking about requiring the federal government to balance spending, balance its budget at 18%, spending equal to 18% of the economy. it hasn't been that low since 1966, which is when medicare started. the ideological divide between the nominee and president obama is going to be substantial. what you're seeing in the republican party as very clearly evidenced by your clipped from michele bachmann and newt gingrich is a backlash against george w. bush as it is against president obama. in the bush era there was a series of movements by republicans to move away from a simple, smaller government being the only message. now you're seeing that snap back very strongly, strong ideological push in the party. anything that deviates from that that was done in that period, for example, jon huntsman supporting a cape and trade program or mitt romney, individual mandate in health care, that's suspect. >> doesn't that seem awfully risky? won't some republicans find that

to be rather disrespectful? >> well, i think that, you know, there has been a change in the party. there's an action reaction that happened. when barack obama came in, he certainly believed he had a man ta mandate to expand the federal government and tackle health care to financial reform to the stimulus. there was a big backlash against that that the tea party reflected. that's had enormous impact in the republican party. there's an overwhelming sense within the party that on whatever the question is, at this point the solution tends to be less government. rolling back the role of government. now, whether you can sell that in a general election is another question. i do not think there is a consistent ideological majority in the country for either side's view about the role of government. that last portion of the country that decides elections are looking for results that are less ideological and more pragmatic and remains to be seen whether they'll view the agenda that's clearly emerging from the republican field as one that's a pragmatic response of the things the country faces.

>> we'll hear more from you. ron brownstein. thanks so much. it's one of the smallest states in country with the white population at nearly 94%. new hampshire is the one place jon huntsman is campaigning. cnn is there with him when we come back. people really love snapshot from progressive, but don't just listen to me. listen to these happy progressive customers.

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see what's on their mind. >> it was lost in the headlines. democratic members of the so-called supercommittee proposed major changes in social security, medicare and medicaid spending. something democrats in general strongly opposed. as part of the effort to revive the failed barack obama/john boehner budget negotiations of earlier this year, the supercommittee democrats put forward a $3 trillion package in deficit reduction over the next ten years. that package included about $1.2 trillion in tax increases. a nonstarter as far as the republicans are concerned. but democrats for their part say that any cuts in social security, medicare or medicaid spending would have to be balanced by at least some tax increases on the rich. the six democratic and six republican members of the committee have until november 23rd to come up with a plan to cut at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years. if that doesn't happen across the board budget cuts would be triggered including on domestic

and pentagon spending. i haven't given up complete hope yet. at least on a deal coming forward by these 12 members of the panel. i must say i am becoming increasingly gloomy. fred, back to you. >> thanks so much, wolf. read more of wolf's blog by going to the situationroom.blogs.cnn.com. back in the "newsroom" in just a few seconds. look, every day we're using more and more energy. the world needs more energy. where's it going to come from? ♪ that's why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. what's it going to do to the planet? natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. we've got to be smart about this. it's a smart way to go. ♪

cnn brings you politics each sunday. during this hour we're bringing you the 2012 presidential contenders in their own words. this week, jon huntsman will unveil his energy policy in new

hampshire where he's already held 80 events in that state. at a town hall meeting today, he explained why he supports a proposed pipeline from canada to the gulf of mexico. >> i believe in steps toward energy independence in this country. i understand there are some complexities associated with the pipeline. maybe on the environmental side that people are not comfortable with. i say it isn't a perfect outcome, but i'll tell you what i hate the worst in that. i hate the idea that this country transfers $300 billion a year to countries that are dangerous and unpredictable because we can't get our own energy independence. and as we take steps toward energy independence, i think we're going to solve some of that problem with canada. they have natural resources in great abundance and i think it's a good neighbor policy. we have to do more with them in

that regard. i think this brings more benefits than it does drawbacks ultimately. >> our political produce e er wt that event, joining us from manchester. why is huntsman spending so much time in new hampshire? is it an issue of money? >> reporter: sure. his campaign has not raised that much money. so he simply can't afford to compete in all of the early states. also huntsman likes his chances in new hampshire. it's a place where independents can vote in the republican primary and he's hoping to sway some of them with his moderate message. i'm assuming you can see some of the snow behind me. huntsman's hosting five events here this weekend. and that's on a weekend when up to two feet of snow blanketed parts of the state. voters here like to see that kind of commitment. >> i wonder because he once worked on the obama administration, is he finding it difficult to kind of separate himself for people to look at him as a full fledged republican candidate or seeing him as

potentially a rather moderate or liberal candidate because he is associated with the obama administration? >> sure. he does get that question sometimes. and it's actually one of his strongest answers i think. he says his family has a tradition of serving and one president asked him to serve, he's not going to be a guy to say no. he as a great interest in the northeast region. since he was ambassador to china, that's another reason he took the job. >> what other candidates are spending time there? >> reporter: so, mitt romney was here last week. he's also going to be here on thursday. this is kind of his backyard, since he was governor of massachusetts and he has a summer home here in the state. also texas governor rick perry was here on friday filing so that his name will be on the ballot. during the primary. also texas congressman ron paul was here campaigning on friday. >> all right.

any real front-runner thus far for new hampshire? >> reporter: well, mitt romney does consistently lead in the polls here. he gets high 30s, maybe 40%. also herman cain does well. though we have not seen him much in this state. and ron paul consistently gets in the teens here. the rest of the candidates kind of fluctuate in the single digits, but the thing to note is the high number of undecided voters or voters who could change their mind before the primary. and that's high and it shows us there's still a lot of fluidity in this race. >> thanks so much. we're going to talk to ron brownstein about that very thing, how voters are changing their minds and will continue to do so until perhaps even election day. rachel, thanks so much. while the public's discontent with congress grows, the president goes on the campaign trail to push his agenda. our candy crowley weighs in next in the "newsroom." ♪

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we continue to delve into the issues in the presidential campaign. every sunday we're spending this hour of the "cnn newsroom" to focus on the future of the united states. let's check with in candy crowley, our chief political correspondent and anchor of cnn's "state of the union." she has our campaign trail mix.

>> hey, fred, you know, texas governor rick perry said this week in no particular order that debates take too much time away from the campaign trail, are designed as food fights rather than substantive discussions and he's no good at them. this weekend, perry committed to four more debates in november. set those dvrs. this week, a "des moines register" poll of republicans show a statistical tie between herman cain and mitt romney in iowa. with the exception of jon huntsman, no two candidates spent their time in iowa, wait for it than herman cain and mitt romney. there's a dinner for the late ronald reagan this week in iowa. guess who's not coming to dinner? bingo. it's like a new political bumper sticker, less is more. while in bumper sticker mode, the president's new catchphrase, we can't wait. he toured the country this week offering up what we can do without congress, tweaking programs to help homeowners,

lower student debt payments and boost hiring prospects for veterans looking for a job in the health care industry. anything might help the economy, but most economists say it's pretty small stuff. >> if you're one of the millions of homeowners can't refinance their homes because the home values have dropped, though they've made the payments every month, it's not a small thing. >> it's a big political message, too. the rough translation of we can't wait is, i'm out here doing something while congress twiddles its thumbs. fred? >> thanks so much, candy. still ahead, the evangelical presence in the gop. is it dividing the party? . jerry, how are you doing? fine, i just got a little fender bender. oh, jerry, i'm so sorry. i would love to help but remember, you dropped us last month. yeah, you know it's funny. it only took 15 minutes to sign up for that new auto insurance company but it's taken a lot longer to hear back. is your car up a pole again? [ crying ] i miss you, jessica! jerry, are you crying? no, i just, i bit my tongue.

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evangelical voters make up a large part of the republican party. john king takes a look at how they view the candidates. >> fredricka, evangelical voters are critical in iowa caucuses and the south carolina primary. our recent polling shows a fascinating breakdown of where the race stands right now. let's two to iowa. last time around, 60% of republican voters in the caucuses described themselves as born again christians.

it's a romney/cain dead heat in iowa. cain has 23% to lead the pack among evangelicals. governor romney is second at 19%, about the level of support he had back in 2008, though. this is a warning sign for rick perry. you'd expect him a strong chr christian conservative to have evangelical support. 60% of the voters last time in the caucuses were evangelicals. if the percentage holds up, he will be a factor in iowa. evangelicals in new hampshire, that's not what you worry about there. evangelicals are important when the republican calendar moves to south carolina. 50% in the 2008 south carolina republican primary described themselves as born again christians or evangelicals. again, this is a romney/cain when you look at the statewide polling among republicans and again among evangelical, look at this, herman cain nearly 30%, at 28%. surprising candidate in the race.

again, governor perry at 16% here doing better in south carolina than he is in iowa. that's a warning shot. look at that. the same exact percentage from mitt romney among evangelicals in iowa and south carolina. that's not so bad. he's holding his own. maybe he has a ceiling among the voters and a problem to deal with. among those who describe themselves as not born again christians, that's why governor romney is strong in the race. he leads by a large margin among those. these voters, evangelicals, they turn out, fred, in iowa, we know they turn out in south carolina. they are among the most committed, especially in the caucuses. it's a quirky processing. herman cain the leader right now. evangelical voters in those two states critical to watch in the weeks ahead. >> let's bring in ron brownstein. the republican party is split. can it come together? let's bring up a recent poll, cnn poll, as we talk about this. see the split between the tea party members of the republican

party and the non-tea party members. you can see that there's a real ideological split between the two. >> absolutely. first of all, fred, i'm editorial director of the "national journal." i don't want rick to think i'm stealing his job at the "national review." there's a divide emerging in the republican party where you see the tea party side of the party and evangelical christian side of the party that overlap. they are lurie of romney. john mentioned he was at 19% among evangelical christians in your polls in iowa, south carolina and florida, almost exactly the 20% he won with them last time in 2008 according to a cumulative exit poll. the other side of the party is more comfortable with him. we stopped in in this hour in iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina. there's been a clear pattern in republican races since 1980. every contested republican

nomination race since 1980 followed the same pattern. one candidate wins iowa, a second candidate wins new hampshi hampshire. one of those two wins south carolina and wins the nomination. things in politics are true but no longer true. florida is up there as a potentially important state as well. that pattern has been very real. see right now the problem for conservatives is evident both in iowa and south carolina. which is that the conservative vote that is skeptical of romney is dividing whereas romney is having more success at unifying that less conservative less religious more pragmatic republican voter. as we said before, there's the possibility he may never have an affirmative majority in the party that says, yeah, he's our guy, but it may not matter if he has the largest piece of what becomes in effect a plurality nomination. >> interesting. one of the things that really may, i guess, break the ice for certain candidates is the debates. their performance in the debates, whether they appear at the debates, et cetera, because it appears as though these debates are becoming a lot more

i guess powerful for these candidates. particularly as it pertains to their fund-raising and pertains to the influence on the polls. >> the way you run for president is changing. candy talked about before the fact mitt romney and herman cain are one, two in the polls in iowa without spending time there. we used to talk about the year before the candidates went to the polls as an invisible primary and the idea is the candidates had to burrow in to iowa and new hampshire going door to door, coffee shop to coffee shop, folding people's laund lry to get them to vote f them. voters everywhere are being exposed to the same media, the debates are enormous, reaching 5 million, 6 million people, when only 20 million, 25 million people will vote in total in the republican primary. they're changing everywhere. they're becoming a form of public financing, allowing candidates not raising a lot of money or not building organizations to stay in the race. in the earlier era where you had

to do the on the ground organizing, newt gingrich ar michele bachmann might be having trouble staying in the race at this point. the debates give them exposure and audience and the candidates get some support, which probably helps romney. it's dividing up the conservative part of the party resistant to him. >> apparently it means a lot of candidates are having to spend less money on advertisement as well because they're getting it through the debates. ron brownstein, thanks so much. >> thank you, fred. iowa stays in the spotlight in the week ahead, rather. a look at the candidates' calendars next in the "newsroom." it's megan. i'm getting new insurance. marjorie, you've had a policy with us for three years. it's been five years. five years. well, progressive gives megan discounts that you guys didn't. paperless, safe driver, and i get great service. meredith, what's shakin', bacon? they'll figure it out. getting you the discounts you deserve. now, that's progressive. call or click today.

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