are concerned about what is going on with the economy. from what he has said, there are two very important parts to him. that is important part of my decision. >> what is this election all about? >> restoring consumer confidence is cave. there are so many issues, it is hard to say. whether you are an individual or a business owner, i am a commercial lender so i see a lot of my customers feeling the impact of this. not wanting to make those purchases. if they have someone in the office who they contrast, they will go out there and buy the equipment and hire those individuals. we will start to see this whole thing turnaround. >> thank you very much for sticking around. back to your phone calls. oklahoma city. caller: i have a lot to say. thank you very much for c-span.

other individuals who may or may not be veterans to rebuild the infrastructure, serve would service and distinction -- with the service and distinction. bring usa business and make more of our interest. i support leadership. or the vision fails, the people fail. i support a free press. we need to take care of our kids, have a good law and order.

we do not need to pay the price for the bad actors. to defend and protect the constitution of the united states. host: republican line from oklahoma city. a lot of press here. this is your home. why did you decide to have this house party? guest: i have been very passionate about government act -- governor hunt's meant for a while now. i was very excited that he was running for president. i think he is the best person to be going up against president obama. the thing that is feeling the passion is that he is the only candidate that is talking about uniting, rather than further

dividing the country. that appeals to me. as far as the turnout, a little bigger than i expected. we knew we would have a full house. it got pretty crazy. it was a good experience and all part of the new hampshire tradition. >> we have been covering these house parties for many years. we thank you for having c-span have the camera inside. what is this like for new hampshire voters and residence? guest: this means a lot for new hampshire voters and residents. we get the opportunity to meet the candidate early. meet them often and look them in the eye. kind of make our opinions as to whether this is someone we want to collect and to be our next president. we all take it seriously and it means a lot. it is a tradition that will continue. >> governor romney is ahead in the polls by a double-digit

lead. what is your candidate need to do coming out of new hampshire? >> coming out of new hampshire, he needs to continue to do what he has been doing. did his message out. go door-to-door and getting that message. i think is going to work well in south carolina. at the end of the day, i think people will be very surprised about new hampshire. i think we will send a strong message to the country. he is the right one for the job. >> thank you for letting c-span invade your home. we will have a real air of some of the weekend debates and ardent coverage from the course of the day, all available at the website. a full day tomorrow and then our coverage on tuesday evening with a simulcast of the abc affiliate, one of our partners in new hampshire. speeches by the winners and losers. and at new hampshire. all the available on our

website. >> more details on the new hampshire primaries tomorrow morning. we will hear from kentucky senator rand poll about his father's campaign strategy. and judd gregg will share his insights into the mitt romney campaign. that is "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m. on c-span. >> it really want to see the candidate, the road to the white house political coverage takes you on the campaign trail. >> i am pleased with the crowds we are seeing. pretty exciting. >> go to town halls, campaign rallies.

>> thank you for coming, it was enjoyable. >> it was a pleasure to have a listening ear. >> i do have a question. are you planning on taxing some of these big companies that are shipping work overseas? >> i want a tax code that clears out all the loopholes. >> what are new hampshire coverage -- watch our new hampshire coverage. >> the new hampshire primary is two days away. but much of the political focus has moved south to south carolina. this week on "newsmakers," chad

connelly of the south carolina republican party. we're also joined by two political reporters. could the nomination be wrapped up in south carolina? >> we have been the eventual predictor of the republican nominee since 1980. i think this will be decided in south carolina once again. >> given your governor's endorsement of mitt romney and her current approval ratings, what has been the effect of that endorsement? >> mitt romney had the biggest turnout that he has had when governor niki haley went with him. based on the response he has

already, it will be a big thing. >> let's turn the questioning over to jeff of "the new york times." >> the contests in iowa has already happened. the primary in new hampshire will has happened. do you believe the race, once it arrives there, will ratify decision from -- the decision from iowa and new hampshire? >> we are looking forward to having you down to south carolina and we are looking over to seeing you at the motor beach debate. i have been surprised at how people have been slow to tune in. i was with my family and my wife's family and was amazed at how many people are still up in the air. part of it is human nature.

they start turning in a later. now, people are focusing. iowa has sometimes chosen the eventual nominee. sometimes it has been new hampshire. ultimately, south carolina voters will pick the nominee. they will do it by what they see on the ground in the next 11 days or so. >> what has changed in terms of how voters view mitt romney as opposed to four years ago? >> some of it has softened. i think a little bit about what we are seeing is that he is seen as a successful businessman.

mr. obama's policies have been so detrimental to the success of america's businesses with obamacare and the attack on boeing that the obama administration wholeheartedly pushed. folks are looking to someone with business credentials to get the job situation back on track. it is hard to say. people are ready to put somebody in the white house that actually reflects the american values that have made the countries successful. >> go ahead. >> specifically, on governor romney, he met some resistance there. if you talk to people privately, they raised questions about his mormon faith. do you think there is as much resistance to him personally this time? or are questions and concerns of the electability trump

thinks some of those concerns that were an obstacle for him that my years ago? >> it is hard to say. i did a christian radio show this morning. some of that has been overplayed by the national press. from a christian perspective, we do not see people and how they execute their religion and the religion they use as much as we are concerned about the relationship with christ. if someone says, i am a believer, and jesus christ died on the cross for my sense, we believe he has a relationship with the savior. people are becoming aware. this guy says i am a christian and i believe in what you believe in. maybe that is more of a known factor now than it could have been four years ago. i did not hear as much about it on the ground as i did four years ago. >> the next question comes from

the editor and chief at the hot line. >> thanks for being here. i want to go back to the electorate in south carolina. it seems unique. iowa might be dominated by evangelical christians. you have surmised be dominated by fiscal conservatives. it seems that south carolina is an amalgam of both. can you talk about who is going to come out on saturday? >> everybody has their place. i what is about organization. we really do brain -- iowa is about organization. we bring in the third leg of republican party pillars, the military conservatives. there is more overlap among those. the fiscal conservatives will tell you they are social conservatives as well and vice versa.

they do not see a disconnect. they think they are one in the same. we have installed hammocks and we have bolted them in and we tried to take care of everybody and applied to the general welfare clause to so many things that we have taken away the dignity in the family. social conservatives see that connection and fiscal conservatives see that connection that our spending problem is that we have been trying to fix the family as opposed to trying to let the family exist the way it is an have goals that are together and keep the family intact. >> you mentioned goals and organization as being important in iowa. what are you seeing on the ground in terms of who has got that organization? does anyone have organization that is better or is there organization that does not exist?

>> everybody has to have a good organization. it takes real talent and organizational skills to get people to sit in a caucus for hours in the evenings that are really cold. we are going to have 50,000 people turned out here. it is the ability to pull out voters. it is a different kind of setting. there are some camps that have some great ground games. there is no question about it that speaker gingrich has poured time and effort in having a great round game. he has people working with him within the party and in the tea party. senator santorum has been you the most.

in his 26 visits, he has assembled a great ground game. he has got some talented folks, politicos. they are going to be formidable. governor perry has a great set of talented people helping him on the ground. they have been running races for quite some time. i told a story somewhere. ron paul's folks are extremely eager and engaged and excited. somebody in the party was telling me they were driving down interstate 26 that cuts through colombia to charleston. they saw a ron paul supporter hanging a sheet, "ron paul for president." he has a great grassroots ground

game. those are the ones i have seen the most. governor huntsman has a talented political team. the ground game with the tea party is going to be an interesting thing. i have friends in every camp. a lot of them helped me in my campaign last spring. they know what they are doing. they do not leave a stone unturned across the state when they are talking to people. i think it is wide open. there are new polls coming out. we know how those go up and go down. whoever comes here and connect with our voters is going to do the best and they are going to wins south carolina. >> the name you left out as you were going to everybody was governor romney.

he has not had a big presence in the state over the last year or so. is that the truth? >> he has been the latest to ramp up. you were talking about ground teams. he has added some political operatives and some other friends of mine on this team that has helped him run his campaign before. he probably has the smallest that in the state that i know of. he has governor hayley's endorsement. they are connected to the tea party, too, and the activists. i was answering the question regarding the grass-roots organization you asked about specifically. >> if this were a race between mitt romney and newt gingrich or rick santorum, would mitt romney lose our win? >> i am not good at predicting. i tried to stay out of the predicting business. it is wide open. i have watched this thing long enough over the last 25 years

that i have been involved in politics at some level. i am convinced that whoever comes here, crisscrosses our state, shakes the hands of everybody in the diner's and does a good job creating the bus and an -- in the diners and does a good job of creating buzz will get to the nomination. >> as governor romney comes to south carolina, it is clear he is trying to wrap up the establishment support. he brought senator mccain down to campaign for him. what is the difference between the tea party sentiment or the it that business sentiment? -- or the establishment sentiment?

is that something he will confront in the next few days? >> i think some israel. in south carolina, we have seen -- i think some of it is real. they worked hard to get nominated at precinct level. a lot of those folks are party people. i do not know if they are establishment or not. i assume you mean by establishment as, been around a long time. i did not know if there is a real split. in every one of those camps -- governor romney, speaker gingrich, governor huntsman, even congressman paul -- you will see some of those groups that have gotten behind each of those candidates. i do not think that different is as big as it is made up to

be. >> some social conservatives i speak to believe south carolina is the last chance to slow the march to the nomination for governor romney. they believe is the best place candidates can place ads on television before it becomes expensive. do you believe south carolina is the last chance to have a say in this before the race becomes nationwide? >> this is the last place for anybody no matter who you are. we pick the nominee so much that it is assumed. i believe this is one of the reasons we are re called out -- we are a called out state. our in expensive media markets describe exactly what you are talking about. anybody can come here to compete.

i have asked the folks in florida and my buddies in the gop down there. there is an increase of a factor of five or 10 times the money to run media and big tv in florida as there is in south carolina. we are a leveling of the playing field state. anybody can come in and compete. they just have to have a little bit of money. when they leave here, they have to have big money to compete in florida. the rnc understood that we have to have a level playing field and anybody should be able to compete. south carolina is a small enough state that they can run around and meet people in all the nooks and crannies. my media market is not nearly as expensive as those in florida. it does make it were anybody can compete. is it a last stand? i do not know.

if you look at the numbers when governor huckabee won in iowa, he can hear and placed second. senator mccain and governor huckabee raised almost $10 million leaving south carolina going to florida. whoever does well here, they get the lead to move on to other states. if you look at it historically, we pick the nominee and we have done it so much that this is where the battle royale will take place. >> if governor romney does not win the nomination -- does not win south carolina, can he win the nominee? >> whomever wins here will be the nominee. >> we are speaking with chad connelly of the south carolina republican party.

>> mr. connelly, you mentioned the three or four states that get to go before everybody else. we see all of these editorials bashing south carolina and new hampshire. there has been two or 3 decade- long attempt to jump before iowa and south carolina. do you worry about south carolina's place in the process or about our allies in iowa or new hampshire? >> i do not worry about it. we do a good job of vetting out to those candidates. i battled the whole thing in florida. it was not the gop folks. it was the ninth person commission. they compress the calendars so that we all got moved up into early january.

that is an issue the rnc will have to take a look at. i will stay on my narrative. a state like florida forces the issue and it should be more significant in the penalties than the penalties for states like us who our dates to accommodate florida. if south carolina were not a carve out state, we would not see the candidates come here and spending the resources they do. they would jump over us. we have a history of picking the nominee. the history of carve out states is in place. we are a good blend of the republican vote. >> the south carolina primary is still a costly process. it looks like the state party would have to shoulder a lot of that burden.

stephen colbert wrote an op-ed and talked about how you had a conversation with him about getting any rights to the south carolina primary. he met with him in new york. how serious of a process was this? >> stephen colbert called me out of the blue about what he was asking for. it was not a good fit for us. we told him no. there is a supreme court ruling. it is a state and a county process. they will pay the shortfall, whatever it is. it is a settled deal. >> were you seriously considering allowing colbert's superpac to own the naming rights to the south carolina primary? >> we were considering its bank.

there were some things he was asking for that we could not -- we were seriously considering it. there were some things he was asking for that we could not do. >> what would voters in south carolina like to hear from governor romney? >> you will see an onslaught of me ads. i got a letter at the house from governor romney. he is going to get at those questions. we have a high level of expectations by republican primary voters. i was in the low country before christmas. this little old lady came up to me. she was going through the list of who she had met and she had not met. i was thinking, this is amazing. she does expect to meet these candidates and they are running

for president. our voters are pretty savvy. if there is an unanswered question, they will ask it. they are going to pin him down and they will ask. there is going to be ample opportunity for our voters to ask the questions they want answered. >> governor perry made the decision after his disappointing decision in the iowa coppices to go back to austin. he canceled several days of campaigning in south carolina. how detrimental was that to him? when you think governor perry stands right now in terms of appealing to voters? does he have a second chance? >> i was surprised after he said what he did in iowa. i am not surprise he made that decision. this is a place where people want to like him.

i have tried to go to some events for everybody. i have been to a couple of his events and i believe he is well received. the connection of the southern gentleman and the southern governor plays well for him here. if he has a chance anywhere, this will be the place. >> one more thing you mentioned. getting a mailer from mitt romney. the most negative talk comes in the mail. what are you seeing in the mail? what are the attacks play out in south carolina mailboxes that we are not see on television or reading in the newspapers? >> i have been so swamped i have not read any of them. i will look at them this week when i get a break. i have not seen negative attacks in the mail box yet. we may later on. this is something that bothered me early on in my career in politics.

this is part of the back yard brawl that makes the primaries. i remember as a young man watching bush and reagan go at it in the debate. i remember when bush said "voodoo economics." i said, they would never shake hands or look at each other again. but reagan names him as his vice president. this is part of developing the thick skin that it takes to take on president obama, who will be well funded. he has a message out there he is pushing. he is already being can they obama as opposed to being president. it is a back yard brawling and part of the primary process. -- back yard brawl and part of the primary process. >> what have you done to make