>> gretchen: look at that! now we know today. we're up tomorrow again. we have 5:00 a.m. join us tomorrow for all the iowa caucus results. >> brian: we'll give results from all the others. the final fight in iowa where we're only hours away from the start of the caucus. the first contest in campaign 2012 that will help shape the race for the white house and determine which direction america continues to go. good morning, i'm bill hemmer. life in america's newsroom. martha: yes you are. bill: we're red, white and blue. martha: we didn't plan this but way we ended up. good to see you. i'm martha maccallum. there are almost 1800 caucus sites opening across the state of iowa tonight in what has been turned out to be one of the most volatile races in the gop nomination. we saw all pictures of the candidates. they're making last minute

stops. trying to shake hands and change a few minds up to the very last second. most of them spending time in des moines. newt gingrich and michele bachmann making visits in other parts of the state. bill: we want to start with des moines. that is heart of it. our chief political correspondent, carl cameron leads our coverage. carl, traditionally iowa makes the field smaller who. is in jeopardy tonight? >> reporter: half the field, bill. the traditional word iowa winnows slims down, and it is getting nasty here on the last day. this morning, rick santorum said ron paul is quote, disgusting. newt gingrich said mitt romney is quote a liar. mitt romney responded he will not go into that. and there is plenty of time to sort things out on the campaign trail. the three in jeopardy of not winning those proverbial three tickets out of iowa. they include michele bachmann, newt gingrich and rick perry. michele bachmann won the ames straw poll and is

virtually last in all of the polls. she insists that she will have cultural, social and religious conservatives coming out in droves across the state. she worked very hard the last weeks to organize her caucus campaign. today's final day of campaigning making sure the folks may change their minds minds don't, if they like you and do if they don't. rick perry, the governor of texas has spent more money than anybody else here. he was the front-runner. it was 2 1/2 months ago. he has a lot of ground to catch up. he said he will campaign very hard in south carolina and make that essentially his firewall against mitt romney. that pretty much sums it up for newt gingrich who will make a couple of stops in new hampshire after the iowa caucuses. in fact he will fly there tonight at 2:00 in the morning. when he gets to the granite state. watch newt gingrich abandon i'm all positive campaign and really take on mitt romney. mr. gingrich has been you can talking how he will criticize romney and he will

start it tomorrow morning. bill: his words have been sharper than they have been up to this point, carl. you point out if you get three tickets out, a win, place and a show it could be santorum, ron paul or mitt romney or some sort of that order? is that how it measures up now. >> reporter: it is but you can't really hold onto any presumptions or assumptions in the caucus process. you got to remember this is a republican party event. that there's a small number of people who actually show up. that about a third of them will come willing to change their minds if they're persuaded by the speeches that they will hear tonight. each campaign gets to talk for about five minutes. in some cases the candidates will show up and speak for themselves. most often neighbors talking to neighbors trying to make a pitch that will persuade them to change their minds and vote whoever they support. whether it is ron paul, rick santorum or mitt romney. iowa will send those three with some real momentum into new hampshire where mitt romney has an advantage.

whether ron paul can sustain this beyond new hampshire and south carolina is open to question. whether. bill: iowa will tell us part of the story. john mccain was fourth there, four years ago. look what happened to him in new hampshire. carl cameron, thanks very much. >> reporter: bill, it's important to note that john mccain didn't really campaign very aggressively in iowa when he came in fourth. he was able to dismiss that i didn't compete. mitt romney now has. he has to get at least second where he came in last time. bill: that's all part of the story. carl, great to see you this morning. long day ahead. talk to you soon. here is martha. martha: as carl pointed out some of the people's mission who run the caucus is try to persuade people that come in and pull them over to their side. how will this work? iowans will trek into the church basements and school auditoriums and private homes in their neighborhoods and areas. the republican party require that the caucuses are held in nearly 1800 republican

precincts. all of this gets started at 7:00 p.m. local time in iowa. it lasts no later than 9:00 p.m. any registered republican voter can attend. unregistered voters can attend and they can get in there and sign at the door. for independents as well. bill: carl mentioned that newt gingrich go all but conceding defeat in iowa to predicting rather victory. only days ago the former house speaker told reporters he expected to lose. gingrich telling his supporters his fate in iowa is in their hands. listen here from late last night. >> each of you will go to the caucus and make the best possible argument for nominating an experienced conservative with a national record of achieving things. we may pull off one of the great up sets in the history of the iowa caucus. bill: gingrich now is only one of the candidates we talked to. a bit later this morning you will hear from him later and rick perry will join us later this hour. gingrich, perry a whole line

of them coming up here. martha: look forward to hearing from both of them and what is on their minds this morning. how about mitt romney? increasingly confident as the days wear on in iowa, predicting victory in this. take a look. >> we're going to win this thing with all of our passion and strength and do everything we can to get this campaign on the right track to go across the nation and to pick up other states and to get the ballots i need, the votes i need to become our nominee. that's what we're going to get. martha: if you caught the way he put that at the end of it. the romney campaign has come out. they don't want people to think that the expectations are too high. the statement of winning was meant for the whole nomination, not just for tonight's caucuses. mitt romney was on a little while ago. he basically said he wants to come in the top three. feels pretty confident about that. byron york is here to talk about all this. he is the chief political correspondent for the "washington examiner" and a fox news contributor. byron, good morning. good to see you today. >> good morning, martha. martha: what do you make of that? when you look at this scheme

in iowa how do you think things shape up tonight? >> the message that mitt romney is sends something confidence, confidence, confidence. i went to rick santorum's final rally and then over to mitt romney's final rally. they could not have been more different. rick santorum was in a pizza ranch, a small restaurant in a tiny room. he talked to a mix of supporters and media. it was kind of a emotional i've been through this all. i've come to see you all, i've been all over iowa kind of speech. go to mitt romney's event t was much larger venue, blasting music, big signs. it was a big general election style, big money campaign event. the message is power, power, power. right now the romney campaign is exuding a lot of confidence. even though romney did not play for a long time in iowa he made a big push the last week. martha: it may appear he has the potential to win in iowa. we'll see what happens

tonight because they have put in a full-court press the last couple weeks. you put an interesting piece the way this has all come down for mitt romney, byron. in it you talk about 45% of the ads being run in iowa are run against newt gingrich that has come from romney supporters as has been well-traveled ground here. why do you think nobody else seems to be taking on mitt romney though? >> you know, that's going to turn out i think in the postmortems of all this, is the big question about the whole second-tier candidates because we saw how effective that barrage of negative ads was against newt gingrich, who had a lot of baggage. mitt romney has a lot of baggage too. why didn't anybody take on mitt romney with a barrage of negative attack ads? governor rick perry had the most money, would probably be the person to have done it. i spoke to them. it is clear they were fighting for second place. they said, we're fighting for the conservative vote. that is against bachmann and gingrich and santorum and then they thought, only after, only after winning

the conservative vote essentially would they go against mitt romney but i think what they're going to find out if voters were looking for an alternative to mitt romney they were probably going to look for the person to make the best case against mitt romney and none of them really did that. so what was interesting while gingrich came, became the target of literally half of all the ads here, mitt romney kind of got away unscathed. martha: got away unscathed. we will talk to rick perry about that. i will put that question in a little while. this is fascinating in terms of campaign strategy. byron, thank you very much. we'll see you tonight. >> thank you, martha. bill: he is relying on his ground game to get him a win in iowa. here's santorum. >> i don't know. we don't have any money for polls. we're just out here meeting voters, not looking at polls. bill: check out these numbers. back in november santorum standing among iowa voters was 3.8%. today he is at 16.3% with many voters still on the

fence he still has a shot at this. santorum trying to keep the last minute momentum going from reality show stars, michelle and jim bob duggar, stars of the 1 the kids and counting. there they are. martha: have a lot of weight with the kids. bill: voters with conservative voters have to get behind him. they have 1 the kids. they see a kindred spirit in santorum who has seven kids of his own. martha: he is a slacker. bill: imagine the picture on christmas morning inside that house. martha: i can not. bill: manage that. martha: i have hard time handling three but more power two them. tonight is the big night, folks. if you're waking up remember fox news is your home base for up to the minute news, the first in the nation iowa conduction discusses, the whole ballgame folks, gets underway tonight. this is anybody's ballgame. it will be a fascinating evening. we get started 6:00 p.m. here on the fox news channel. i will look at entrance

polls. we don't do exit polls as we do in the primaries and general elections. we'll do the entrance polls. we get a sense how people are feeling as they head into the door. bill: they predict how much they are feeling about the men and women they have a chance to vote on. tonight, full coverage, nowhere else but here. martha: we've got the billboard going for us tonight. we're looking ahead to that. those are just a few of the many stories we have for you in the hop they are morning. coming up, nearly all the gop hopefuls stumping across the state of iowa. they're making their final pitches hoping to connect with the voters as they cross the state today. newt gingrich, rick perry, both of them live in "america's newsroom" coming up. bill: check this out a murder investigation underway at the estate of the queen in england. what we're learning about this mysterious death. martha: that's a strange one. how about this? democrats launching new attacks against mitt romney. why the dnc is saying he is not fit for the president's

job. >> mitt romney clearly would not be able to be counted on because he seems to care more about barack obama's job than he does about americans jobs. yoo-hoo. hello. it's water from the drinking fountain at the mall. [ male announcer ] great tasting tap water can come from any faucet anywhere. the brita bottle with the filter inside. oh, there's a prize, all right. [ male announcer ] inside every box of cheerios are those great-tting little o's made from carefully selected oats that can help lower cholester. is it a superhero? kinda. ♪

martha: an arrest was made in that string of arsons in los angeles. more than 50 fires since last friday. cars and homes destroyed. $3 million in damage. a 24-year-old man from frankfurt, germany. there he is sort of smirking as he was arrested.

they don't know how long he has been in the united states. officers don't have a motive. they understand his mother has had legal problems. they have no idea if it is connected. a live report from the officer involved in that case shortly. we'll have that coming up. bill: republicans don't yet have a candidate. we know that. that's why they're voting today in iowa. however democrats are going after mitt romney. democratic chairwoman debbie becauser is man schultz says romney would have trouble against president obama. >> mitt romney seems to care more about barack obama's job than he does about american jobs. bill: oh. our next two have great jobs. former democratic campaign chairman bob beckel and andrea tanteros co-hosts of "the five" here on fox. good morning. rupert murdoch tweeted about your show, crying out loud. that is like job security. >> that was a nice one. bill: that was very nice. >> that was very good. bill: andrea, what do you make of this right now?

they're going after romney already. do they have a storyline? >> my sources that are democrat say they have been angling at romney for a very long time. the fact that joe paiden just last we can put out an editorial in "the des moines register" hitting romney tells me bill they are very, very scared. for democrats to play politics in a gop primary in iowa, shows me they do really fear mitt romney. tell you something interesting about the line of attack. they are trying to tie him to wall street. if you look back in the history books, in '94, romney ran against kennedy and they did the exact same thing. they drug out every employee that bain capital had fired and tried to turn him into a fat cat. if you look at the news, just yesterday the dnc was hauling out a guy who had been fired by bain capital. i don't think it is going to work because you have the president on the campaign trail campaigning for his own job, not governing anymore. this is pretty weak argument. bill: let me go back to your original comment. bob, andrea argues that democrats are scared of

mitt romney. >> keeping us up all night long. look, here's the reality of this thing. you say waiting for nominee. they have got a nominee and his name is romney. we know that. that is the reason we're going after him. we'll continue to go after him. but, here is a guy, newt gingrich is right. he is moderate republican trying to fit into a party that moved way to the right. as a result of that he had to move way to the right and was lucky enough not to get challenged on it and secondly not to have a field worthy of anybody to run against him. so i think if he comes in first, second or third tonight, one of those three, it's over. bill: first, second or third it's over? >> over. bill: take the l out of lover. it's over. >> if he gets 30% tonight, that means 70% of the iowa republicans rejected him. keep that in mind. bill: that is the argument that newt gingrich is making. that 70% of the people are going for what he calls a real conservative as opposed to moderate man from massachusetts. >> that's right. bill: in in mitt romney.

listen to another clip from debbie wasikowska wasserman schultz. this is another response. >> there doesn't seem to be very much intensity ore enus enthusiasm for their enfield. the way the field gone through some ups and downs. bill: ups and downs happen all the time in campaigns. >> that's right. bill: does she make an argument that there is a lot of indecision and a lack of enthusiasm and excitability? or is it just now beginning? >> look, i think that she does make a point about you who the gop has not picked a candidate. it has been in two separate camps right. either you're for mitt rom any or you're against mitt romney. so we've seen the other candidates surging. i do i think the enthusiasm is with republicans that is what also frightens democrats. that at end of the day we'll have a candidate that will run against barack obama and enthusiasm will be with the republicans. >> regardless where the temperature is today, it

gets hotter? >> quickly i don't think that mitt romney has run that far right this time around. i think he has not gone that far. why? in 2008, 60% of the iowa voters were evangelicals. this time around itist is not expected. it is expected to have more independents and democrats. >> andrea you say this guy hasn't run to the right. you haven't listened to his position on immigration, pour run aid. listen, only hope romney has. he has gone so far right, his party has gone so far right, these elections are won in the middle. there will be 50 million more people in the polls than 2010. the romney the best hope he has got get this over very early so he has enough time to repair the damage but, conservative base, the turnout for him will be much less than it would be for real conservative. bill: we'll see you guys at 5:00. >> good. >> you got us. bill: steam over that one until. >> we'll fight after we leave. goes on all day long in the hallways. >> you looked great new year's eve. bill: thank you.

we had a good time. thank you, happy new year to both. >> happy new year. martha: rick perry today is going right after rick santorum. >> i don't have a problem at all. martha: calling him a pig? >> in iowa they love pigs. bill: yes they do. martha: we'll explain all that, coming up but some this morning are asking, why hasn't rick perry really gone right after mitt romney in all of this? it's a good question about the perry campaign. the governor need as very good night tonight to stay in this thing. he will come up live in "america's newsroom" on caucus day. bill: look at this picture. a massive chain reaction. 41-car pileup. we'll tell you why this happened. martha: and a car full of children flips over in an icy creek. the rescue, we spoke to one of these folks yesterday, is being called nothing short of miraculous. but now for the very first time we will hear from the family next.

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bill: final arguments now being made in iowa. that's a live look. y. senator johnhuright there onstage outf south dakota the. organizers are worried about protestersater tonight. in last night, some of those protesters showed up at a romney event. one of romney's supporters responds by telling the protesters to go to work instead. >> [shouting] >> mitt!. mitt!.

mitt!. mitt!. >> [shouting] >> go to work!. [cheers and applause] bill: there was the. martha: jab at the end there. later tonight if there are protesters at the caucuses, precinct captains are trained not to treat protesters from anyone else. we'll see if anything happens. or not. martha: or not. a 41-car pileup. in kentucky, it may be tough to believe. look what happened. the visibility they say was discuss a quarter after mile before this massive chain-reaction crash with cars slamming into each other, listen to this, 10 minutes. bill: holy cow. must have been the fog. martha: must have been. thankfully nobody sustained any serious injuries in this whole thing. jennifer grove of fox affiliate wxix was more.

>> reporter: it was horrible. because it was happening so quick. she and her husband were on the way to florida when their plans came to a etch. >>ing halt. >> we sort of came around the truck. somebody hit us and spun us around. next thing i know we're up against the wall. >> reporter: police say whiteout conditions had visibility down to less than a quarter of a mile. what was visible a chaotic scene on i-75. >> i could see him coming toward our car. i was running and screaming. when i turned around i couldn't see my husband. i thought he got run over. >> i'm still shaking. it was scary. >> reporter: gene dennis was cleaning up debris from his camper hours after the crash. it became a target for oncoming traffic. >> one after another was hitting my camper. >> reporter: mike stayed in his car waiting for the all-clear? >> it was 10 minutes before i get out of my truck. everybody was hitting. it was constantly going on, a domino effect. >> reporter: the atkins will stay in a hotel and headings back home to dayton. the car isn't able to make

the florida trip. atkins says she is lucky to be alive. looking at damage you wouldn't believe anyone walked away. >> not if you looked back and seen all the cars and mangled mess they were. i couldn't believe someone didn't die. martha: boy, i can't either. but thankfully that was the case. jennifer grove reporting of fox since gnat at this, bill. bill: -- cincinnati. bill: she crossed river to get into. they had a real storm. martha: lot more winter weather coming. bill: coming our way. the guy said they kept hitting me and hitting me and hitting me. scary scene. there is a major break amid a wave of arson attacks. the story has gone national. there is new surveillance video, watch this of the man who hurled firebombs in southern california we'll get back to that in a moment. martha: the first family coming home from their holiday break. there they are, getting off air force one the president is raring to go according to all reports. he will reach out to iowa voters for the one last time

before the rest of those folks on the other side of the aisle head to the caucuses tonight. bill: heading into tonight many have asked if rick perry's campaign is down for the count or ready for a comeback. the man himself will be here live why he says his campaign has just as much fight as ever. perry on deck. >> listen, we're in it to win it. that is like asking the dallas cowboys if they want to win their next football game. it is like, absolutely.

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protection than lifelock. if you're not convinced after 60 days, simply notify lifelock and you won't pay. and to keep your documents out of the wrong hands, we'll even add this personal shredder-- a $29 value-- absolutely free with your enrollment. don't wait another minute. call now or go to lifelock.com. lifelock service guarantee cannot be offered to residents of new york. bill: the first family took the red-eye home last night. they were on air force one. so it was comfortable but arriving back home to the white house earlier today. president obama wasting little time to get into campaign mode. he is hosting a web chat with supporters in iowa during the caucus later tonight. wendell goler is live on the north lawn to tell us what this is all about. good morning, to you, wendell. >> reporter: good morning, bill. the president has no challenger in the iowa caucus but his campaign sup and running in the state

with eight field offices and 20 paid staffers and hundreds of volunteers who have been using the run-up to the caucus basically to organize and build enthusiasm for the general election. they want to make sure republicans don't get all the attention. as you say the first family got home this morning from a 10-day relatively low-key vacation in hawaii. the president will address caucus-goers in a webcast tonight and likely resume his push to extend the payroll tax cut to the end of the year. republicans in congress only agreed to a two-month extension before the christmas break. he will also talk about that in a speech in cleveland tomorrow. mr. obama hasn't yet begun to campaign against any members of the republican presidential field though some of his aides have taken shots at mitt romney who they think is likely to emerge as the republican nominee. one democratic official says all the republican presidential candidates have embraced what she calls tea

party extremism. the president has been basically campaigning against republicans in congress saying they're more interested in denying him a second term than working for the american people and more interested, he says, in protecting tax breaks for the rich then tax breaks like extension of the payroll tax cut that affect the vast majority of americans. bill? bill: wendell, thank you for that. wendell goler live on the north lawn. interesting how the white house is not conceding entire platform to the republicans in iowa. we'll see how that strategy plays out of the first in iowa and new hampshire as we go forward. martha: let's go forward with rick perry who is pushing for a big surprise tonight in the iowa caucuses. he is a white house hopeful looking to build a last minute surge. joining us live now candidate rick perry. governor of texas. good to see you this morning. >> good morning, martha. happy new year to you. martha: happy new year to you, sir. how do you think it will

finish tonight? >> we have a 14-day bus tour we just completed. 42, 43 cities and towns we hit. great crowds. the existment is just phenomenal. i feel very good about this evening. >> i know you've been joined by some heavy hitters. you say you brought in folks from texas. steve forbes and bobby jindal also out there supporting you right now. you say you think you will do well. could you define what is well? what will you feel good about tomorrow morning? is it third place? is that where you need to be? do you feel you need to at least come in third? on obviously we're here to win the caucus that is our goal. trying to pick win, place or show is not in our vocabulary we're in the race to win. dan moreno, junk marine come to give us support from veterans and military. there are great people who

have come into iowa to campaign and to help tell the story that they know about rick perry. >> you know, it's interesting in recent days seems like you're mostly going after rick santorum. you put out an ad that sort of compares him to, you know, pork barrel politics and all of that i think most of the folks have seen out there. why do you feel like he's the person you need -- you've got a lot of money. the most money in this iowa caucus by some estimates. why are you going after him specifically? >> well, i'm having a little fun with rick. he is running as a fiscal conservative and you look at his record in washington, d.c. for those years that he was there. he is the king of pork barrel politics. you know, i love iowa pork but, washington pork i don't have much use for. martha: some would say you had use about 3.4 billion governor of texas. you were put in the same position of asking for money from the federal government as well for your state? >> listen, that is the process that these people have put in place. we send billions of dollars to washington, d.c. to not

have some of it come back to my state would be irresponsible. but that is the problem. americans are tired of this i will scratch your back. you scratch my back. on the earmarks in particular don't even get the courtesy of appropriation. it is truly trading our children's future so that they can go back and say, hey look, let me show you what i got for us that is not appropriate. rook, std up, listen, i'm proud of all the earmarks that i've got. when i'm president of the united states. if there is bill that comes to my desk that has got earmarks on it, it will be vetoed. martha: a lot of presidents tried to do that none have been too successful so far. i know you would like to have a shot achieving that yourself. it was interesting, i was talking to byron york a little while ago. in his column today, he was asking a really good question. why have so-called second-tier candidates grouping you in with santorum and newt gingrich and ron paul and michele bachmann why are they spending time going after

each other? why haven't any of them, rick perry has the most money, why hasn't he gone after mitt romney and put himself in that tier by doing so? >> i think i went after mitt romney stringently when we were in the debates. whether his hiring of illegal immigrants and being part of the problem we've got, being a magnet for those types of individuals who would come across our borders and looking for work, whether it is his flip-flops on a everything from position on life or whether it is on gay marriage which he supported and and same-sex marriage. martha: sorry to interrupt you, sir. that was in the debates, you're right. we did see some of that in the debate. but 45% of the ads playing in iowa right now are all from this super pac going against newt gingrich. i'm just curious, when you sit around and have your strategy discussions why the decision to go against the guys that are, and women who are seen in your tier so to speak and not to go after the guy everyone seals to think is going to get the

nomination at this moment in time? >> well, martha, the number one reason ishere is no coordination between my campaign and a super pac. so yo even know who does those. the fact is, we're outcome paining and bringing differences. i don't have the tell the people the difference between me and mitt romney. they are legendary. people know that. but these other candidates, hey listen we're conservatives, we're this or we're that, there are 63 years of congressional time between those four candidates and you can't change washington, d.c. by changing out a democrat insider with a republican insider. all of those individuals are insiders. i'm the one fiscal conservative, social conservative that is an outsider that will go to washington, d.c. and overhaul that place. martha: erick erickson's blog, red state, in fact says this morning if you come in third, this is, in the blog, they're going out on a limb, if you come in third you will win the gop

nomination. that is what they are saying this morning. think could be wrong. they're recognizing that is a pretty big statement at this point but do you think that's true? basically they're saying if you can win this second-tier group and they pit you against mitt romney they think you can win. >> martha, i don't have any doubt that if it is just me and mitt romney who the republican primary voter will pick all across this country. they will pick the true, authentic conservative, not a conservative of convenience that mitt romney is. martha: let me ask you this. you talked the past couple days about a "politico" story that said your campaign was very poorly run. if you do okay tonight, if you come in and i know you want to win and you may win, but let's say, worst case scenario you came in third or fourth, would you make any changes in your campaign? do you foresee having to sort of ramp it up if that's the case? >> look, i think our campaign is running fine. the "politico" story is inside the beltway story that i disregard on its face,

partly because they don't have any sources. so that's just one of those insider stories that gets a couple of days and presses on. my campaign is running well. martha: have you figured out who the quote is from? >> i could care less because they won't tell me a name. i consider it inconsequential and frankly the kind of journalism people are really tired of. martha: rick perry, thank you so much for being here. >> you're welcome, martha. godspeed. martha: great to have you here. we'll see how things go tonight. we'll talk to you in the coming days. >> absolutely. martha: thank you, sir. bill: that is rick perry. newt gingrich is next. you will hear from him the next hour on "america's newsroom." tonight is the special night. our special coverage starts 6:00 eastern tile, 5:00 in iowa right here on the fox news channel. and you will do --. martha: entrance polls. bill: we usually call exit polls. in this case it is entrance polls. i will be at the board tonight to let you know how we break it all down throughout the evening. it is always an exciting time to be around here when the results come in.

so that's tonight. then tomorrow, full reaction from us right here on our program. also a developing story out of britain today. breaking news. a murder investigation underway on the queen's estate. what happened here? martha: what an interesting story. he won iowa four years ago as you may remember. mike huckabee's here. on what he expects to happen tonight and what his message is for the candidates who are out there on the final push. >> you know, i wasn't sure that i would ever be able to love a state as much as i love my home state of arkansas but tonight, i love iowa a whole lot. [cheers and applause] are you receiving a payout from a legal settlement or annuity over 10 or even 20 years? call imperial structured settlements. the experts at imperial can convert your long-term payout into a lump sum of cash today.

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martha: sounds like an episode of "masterpiece theatre" but this is real. there is a murder investigation underway on the grounds of queen elizabeth's estate in eastern england a dog walker found a woman's body on sunday. no word who she is or if there have any suspects. the queen's estate is 100 miles from london. they are not commenting saying it is a matter for police at this time. bill: how interesting, huh? about 15 minutes before the hour. what does it take to win in iowa you wonder? here is one man who knows. from four years ago. >> because tonight what we

have seen is a new day in american politics. a new day is needed in american politics just like a new day is needed in american government. and tonight, it starts here in iowa, but it doesn't end here. it goes all the way through the other states and ends at 1600 pennsylvania avenue, one year from now. [cheers and applause] bill: that is mike huckabee, the former governor of arkansas. he is with me now. also host of the show "huckabee", 8:00 here on saturdays on fox news channel. how are you? >> i'm doing great, bill. a lot of memories from four years ago. bill: i bet you have a lot of memories. you know the state so will. you know the people of iowa so well. handicap it for us. >> what i think we'll see one, two, three, of romney, santorum and paul. it may not be in that order. part of it is because time spent in iowa translates into a successful caucus night.

rick santorum has spent a lot of time and it is beginning to bear fruit. people forget that mitt romney, while he has not spent as much time this year, spent an enormous amount of time four years ago and still has relationships with a lot of people who will go out and caucus for him, as does ron paul. what you're seeing is that the three candidates who have the strongest relationships with the people of iowa face-to-face and over a long period of time are the three that are leading going into tonight. it is not really a big surprise. bill: now the republican party is predicting a high turnout. better than 120,000 people. a lot of people at home might think that is not a lot of people but based on history in iowa that would be. does that favor one candidate or the other do you believe? >> well it could in fact show an extraordinary interest. i do think a high turnout could be an indication that there's going to be a surge for not only ron paul and perhaps for rick santorum

but, you know, i think that you might see some of the candidates that aren't being considered very much. whether it is gingrich or bachmann, have a better than expected showing. bill: because of the turnout, i see. >> yes. bill: newt's language today has been a lot tougher against mitt romney than what we have heard recently. we're going to speak to him about that in about 45 minutes. he will say that he was just asked a question about mitt romney and answered it honestly and fairly. what do you make of his, what appears to be a change in course? >> well, it's reality of politics. if you're attacked repeatedly you at some point will have to respond to it. everybody wants to be a nice guy and everybody says they're going to be but when it gets down to it when it is do-or-die you do. that's what newt is facing right now. he has been attacked not just by the romney campaign but by the other campaigns. and by a lot of the independent money and i think one of the worst things that ever happened in american politics is the rise of the independent

expenditure groups that really don't have accountability. you don't know where this money is coming from. you don't know where the accountability is and candidates have no coordination. even though it may be on behalf of the candidate the candidate is not directly involved. i wish that every person who gives any money that mentions any candidate by name would have to put their name on it and be held responsible and accountable for it. and it is killing any sense of civility in politics because the cheap shots that can be made from the trees by snipers you never can identify. it is just the worst part of this process. bill: well, if that is the case, there is some strong comment on your part. that is a storyline we will watch, not just today but as we go increasingly later into this primary season. governor, you're making your way to new york. see you later today. >> see you tonight, bill. bill: also get your analysis as a man who has been there.

martha. martha: today is the day we're getting started. election 2012 is just getting underway and will not stop through the rest of the year until november. coming up the head of the republic kahn national committee will tell us what he thinks his party is looking for in a presidential candidate. bill: a possible break in a string of firebombing. s

bill: police are telling us they are one step closer to the person behind a series of recent arson attacks in new york city. this video showing the suspect hurling a firebomb into a home. that same person is also suspected of attacking three other places including a corner store. store employees believe the suspect is a man to tried to steal the store. police say the same kind of drink bottles from that

store were used in attacks in new york city. martha: we're seeing a lot of tough take these days in iowa. tons of negative advertising on all the airwaves. the candidates are trying to make a final push to win over voters. they have a few hours now to do that especially those undecided. about 41% say they could potentially change their minds. those are the last poll numbers as they head into the final stretch here. so what is the republican party looking for in a nominee? that is it a big question on a lot of peoples minds. joining me republican national committee chairman, reince priebus joining me today. >> good morning, martha. martha: a lot of people talk about it is so spread out. nobody knows what is going to happen tonight. they say that reflect as lack of definition in terms of what the gop candidate should look this time around. >> i suppose that is something that people say i look at it as great for the republican party. i think this horse race and the drama and the intrigue

trying brings all the attention and talk on our side of the aisle. what we're looking for is a clear alternative to a president who obviously made a whole lot of promises and hasn't delivered. that is number one. my night tonight is a little different than the candidates because we're starting off the campaign season, number one, to make sure that we take back iowa in 2012. so this is great for us as an infrastructure and as party to work on that piece. martha: yeah. >> to your question, we just need a clear alternative so when people go into the ballot box in november they know very clearly the differences between these two candidates. martha: it has been quite a ride. gallup says they have not seen this kind of volatility in a race since they started looking at these things, in terms of seven switches, lead candidates and a lot of folks say that that signals there isn't really anybody folks are really fired up about. you look at mitt romney, who

got 25.2% of the vote in iowa in 2008. 25.2%. he has not been able to hit that number in any of the polls we've seen. the highest he has been is 23%. if he comes out tonight weaker than he was last time around, would that be of concern? >> no, i don't think so, martha. we look at it as it is a 50-state primary process. it is a race to about 1200 delegates. this is the beginning of the primary season. i don't look at it like that at all. i happen to be believe that primaries are great for our party. they have, they're very common. and this is not unusual, to have, you know, having a big field like this, to have a person --. martha: speaking ever intensity, i have just a minute left. governor terry branstad who will be on in a few minutes says we'll see big turnout tonight. some folks say that is unlikely. they haven't seen that kind of enthusiasm on the ground in terms of people showing up for these events that would be a number i would

imagine you would be very interested in terms of testing how passionate people are in in terms of any of these candidates? >> we hear there will be a huge turnout. but number two, polling across the country measuring enthusiasm gaps, if anybody has a problem with enthusiasm every pole we've seen it is democrat side of the aisle, hardcore democratic activists aren't exciting about helping barack obama again. whether small dollar donations or large donations. for crying out loud the republican national committee has more cash in the bank on that the democratic national committee. what does that say about enthusiasm. if you're not willing to write a check to the democratic party i don't think it shows too well for the democratic party. martha: president obama will be doing a call, conference kind of call, webcam thing with voters in iowa. that may be something he would like to address tonight as a lot of attention will be on the gop side of the fence this evening. thank you very much. we'll look forward to talking with you.

we'll see what happens in iowa tonight. >> thank you, martha. bill: some candidates on the move, some on the attack. tough talk from mitt romney. we'll talk about gingrich about that later tonight. you did not want to miss that. martha: look at the man in the picture. he has been arrested in a string of arson attacks on people's homes across southern california. we'll hear from the officer who finally got ahold of this guy. >> it has been a relief. i take a lot of pride in the city. i take a lot of pride in the department. i think it is a big relief everyone can kind of go to sleep tonight and still be vigilant and kind of sleep well. [ drew ] what's the latest in eye couture? intense shadowblast from covergirl. the news? it's eye shadow with primer built-in.

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martha: the hard work and shaking of hands has come down to this day, folks. here is a live look, des moines, iowa this morning, pretty chilly out there today, just ten hours away until folks will get into their cars and head to the caucuses, to the basements of school auditoriums and churches and they will start to actually vote in the 2012 presidential election process, it's an even credible moment that has finally arrived. brand-new hour of "america's newsroom." it is good to see everybody, good morning, bill. bill: good morning, martha. good morning to you as well. they are making their final arguments today. this is the last day to attract any of the undecided caucus goers. that will be the group that will be the deciding factor, based on

what we've been told. martha: they sure will. how are the candidates spending their final presentation momen precious moments to connect with voters, steve. >> reporter: they are going to back to high school for a couple of minutes. i here, valley high school in west des moines started having rock the caucus, related to rock the vote. they've carried it on four years later to this year and they've got three presidential candidates, republicans all coming in michelle bachmann, rick santorum and ron paul. the ron paul organization by acclamation has the best ground game and they are busy working making sure they contact their folks that have signed up to support him to make sure that they get to their caucus site, to be sure they are ready to cast their votes for them. three candidates will be spending a little time in high schools today.

mart that. martha: it's very interesting to see how they spend the last final moments, because you do, you have to make sure that everybody who promised to come out for you is going to show up, get in the car, turn on the ignition and go there and vote. what about rick santorum who has had a really nice run of it over the past few weeks and has got even him telephone into tha gotten himself into that tier. >> reporter: you can tell somebody is making a move when someone is talking negatively about you. rick santorum is feeling that this morning. he was over heard saying that ron paul is disgust. he was mad about a robo call that he attributed to the ron paul campaign, robo calls to iowans saying whether or not rick santorum was pro-choice. while the ron paul camp not

acknowledging responsible for it, they say it's his turn to be vetted and examined. the sure sign that you are moving up in the pack is the vetting. bill: all the polls decide the undecided voters are so many. the big mix of undecided voters in iowa can make or break who walks away with a big break tonight. some of the fence-sitters talking at a fox news event for mitt romney. >> i felt like we needed a unifier for the country back then. again i thought he had a great chance to lead, and i don't think he's done a great job of doing -- of leading, which is -- hopefully i think romney can do that. >> i don't think he is genuine on them. i think he is willing to waffle if he feels it's to his advantage. i've just seen too much of that. martha: interesting, right? the undecided voter is the person who ends up making the decisions in most of these

games. we ought to get a better picture of how folks are leaning. tonight my part of the special coverage this evening is to tell us the information we are gleaning from the entrance polls, talking the people as they go into these precincts to caucus. most of them will have made up their mind who to vote for as they walk in the door. we'll find out what is important to them, whether someone is very conservative, somewhat conservative. tea party voters, evangelical voters. some say that those will be a little lower tonight, will that help mitt romney? we'll get a lot of information coming in around 6:00. bill: it will tell us which way we are headed next too. new hampshire is a week away. today mitt romney says he's ready for whatever comes his way in the campaign, including occasional hits from rivals like newt gingrich saying it's just part of the process. >> i know that it's always tempting to lock for someone else tlook for someone else to blame, at some point you've got to stop and say, what things can

i do better? i'm going to keep battling my campaign in the way i think is best and defending my record, and if the speaker decides to come after me that's part of the process. i'll ready for it. my shoulders are why. if i can't handle this type of attack how in the world can i handle the attack that is going to come from press. bill: as for gingrich i talked with him ability earlier today, the house speaker. you will see that interview coming up in about 20 minutes. martha: michelle bachmann is out there campaigning this morning as well. she says she is the only one who has proven herself in the state of iowa. look. >> remember, there's only one been state i've wide race and election and i won that. that was the iowa straw poll. so i've demonstrated i am electable. i've won four very hard races in the last four years. i can do this. we've bought our tickets already for south carolina, we are going, we are moving forward. martha: she's bought her ticket for south carolina, that will be the primary on january 21st.

we basically have one every week over the next few weeks of january. bill: the iowan republican chairman predicts a high turn out with many fence sitters. the advantage goes to those with the advantage ground organization. 1800 precincts is where they will caucus. >> i don't think there is really a good person, a contender somebody who can beat obama. >> sometimes they get a bit heated, we have to quiet them down so other people can enjoy their breakfast. >> in my mind it's hard to find somebody who stands out in that crowd. a lot of them seem to be very similar. bill: those are the kind of people you need to come to your side. tucker carlson ised tore and chief of the daily caller and fox news contributor. how are you doing? good morning to you. you've been out and about, you've talked to folks, what is your sense? >> reporter: good morning, bill. look, vote -rs who ar who are

making the strategic decision of who they think can beat barack obama are going to vote for romney. undecided voters will go for romney. people who are voting for someone they like, that would include libertarians, and evangelicals, they will vote for rick santorum and ron paul. i've been amazed by the intensity of ron paul and the vastness of his ground game. i would not be surprise fed there was a very strong showing byron paul. that would shake the republican party here nationally to its core. a lot of republicans truly despise ron paul. a lot of people voting for him are probably not republicans. we are likely to see a very strong showing byron paul. bill: he has a lot of national support. did you get the sense the ron paul supporters are from iowa or from the outside?

>> reporter: that is exactly the question. clearly a lot of them aren't from here. i interviewed a number of them from minnesota, and illinois, and other mid western states yesterday, but i think there is also evidence that he has support in the state. again, i mean go to a convenience store, i was in one outside des moines yesterday, a random convenience store, ron paul literature and fliers at the check out counter, you see that throughout the state. it's really remarkable. rick santorum too, a different candidate from the guy you saw even two months ago here in iowa. he spent more time here than any other candidate, been to 99 counties. he's become a better candidate, impressive. political scientists 50 years from now will be studying the newt gingrich campaign to figure out exactly what happened, how you can go from the prairie fire that was his campaign a month ago to an after thought today. he will not do well tonight and the question is what exactly happened. again, i don't think it's even really clear. we'll know a couple of years from now why that blew up. bill: we are going to talk to him in about 20 minutes.

we will roll the interview at the bottom of the hour. when the party chairman in iowa says you will get a record turn-out tonight. what does that suggest about the process for the field, for the issues before the american people? >> reporter: well, it suggest has there are -- republicans are almost obsessive in their desire and justified in my view to replace the president. i mean they really don't think obama has been a good steward of the united states and they want to replace him. up against that is this obvious dissatisfaction extepbgd u extending up until today, this is the first day of voting with the field, they are just not settled. that means it's going to be volatile going forward. i would not be surprised if you saw one winner in iowa, one in new hampshire, one in south carolina and this thing just went on and on and on, that could happen. bill: interesting reporting. tucker carlson live in moon.

martha: ten candidates convenient terd the race. jon huntsman is skipping the iowa caucus, he's put all of his eggs in the new hampshire basket hoping he'll do well and get back on the mark. 99 was the number of iowa counties visited by rick santorum and michelle bachmann. they did ever single county in the hawk-eye state in their round. two is the number of candidates named rick. you have mr. rick santorum and governor perry from texas. two from texas governor perry and congressman ron paul. now that we've got you straightened out on all the numbers, bill do you have that down? you're mr. county. bill: mr. sir county to you. martha: sir county. bill: come over here real quick. near lie left shoulder -- actually it's near lie left foot right now, that is the countdown clock. fox news is your home base for the first in the nation iowa

caucuses. there is special coverage of the caucuses that starts at 6:00 eastern time right here on the fox news channel. we'll take you clear into prime-time and deep into the night for all reaction, the candidates, the winners, the losers, the speeches and then the strategy will move very quickly, this time tomorrow we'll be talking about new hampshire. martha: yep. bill: which comes up in a week. martha: so will the candidates, some of whom are hopping on planes tonight to head to new hampshire. it keeps rolling and it's getting very exciting. a family that was trapped in their car in a frigid river in utah, they are now speaking out for the first time about this terrifying ordeal, and why they are calling their survival a miracle. bill: a miracle indeed, right. this is a mystery new details of a swarm of black birds that fell out of the sky dead in a small town. it happened twice in two years. now there is talk of criminal charges. why would that be? martha: and presidential candidate rick santorum talking about his blue collar roots, he

is the grandson of a miner and he's trying to win over undecided voters. will his strategy work tonight? we're going to talk about that. >> people are going to look to who the candidate is that cannot only win this election but that govern the way the people in iowa and across american want, which is returning to our first principles, and faith, and building things from the bottom up instead of the top down. are you receiving a payout from a legal settlement or annuity over 10 or even 20 years? call imperial structured settlements. the experts at imperial can convert your long-term payout into a lump sum of cash today.

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bill: police in arkansats that hundds of dead birds fell out of the sky. police say it happened because some people fired fireworks at the flock, deliberately killing many of them that. area in arkansas is in present. it's home to a large number of migrating black birds. >> you light one fuse and you set everything off. bill: what a shame. no arrests have been made. about a year ago you might remember, thousands of dead black birds fell from the sky in the same town in arkansas. martha: let's get you back to the action in iowa now where rick santorum has been kind of leaning on his blue collar upbringing, as one way to kind of hammer his opponents in this race, and it seems to be resonating with many conservative evangelicals in iowa.

bob vanderplatts, he was a big huckabee supporters. he was on fox & friends this morning. >> he visited all 99 counties, he did all the community meetings. everyone they went people said they liked rick santorum. conservatives were looking for someone to rally around, to be the alternative to romney and beat barack obama. tonight i think you'll see that candidate is senator rick santorum. martha: joined now by larry stab to sabato who is the director of politics. how big is bob vanderplatt's support in all this and how do you think rick santorum is going to fare. >> i think he made a good point. rick santorum has won fo run

for the presidential candidate for iowa. don't have a year to campaign in all 99 counties in every state. i think it's worked to a great degree, and probably rick santorum will be rewarded tonight. he will present this as david versus goliath going forward, because we all know how that turned out. he may find out that mitt romney, though, is more like mcdonald's trampling on a local hamburger stand. we also know how that would workout. martha: interesting. one of the things that i've been thinking about in terms of iowa is how much iowans want to say that they picked the guy who went onto win the nomination. they've had some bump luck where there is concerned in some recent races. do you think that elect built matters more to them this time around than some of the issues that have counted in the past. >> i hear a lot of people discussing it and certainly some people will vote on that basis,

but, martha in the end i salute iowa for picking the person they want, regardless of electability in november, which is difficult to project any way. that's not why we have these contests, we have the contests to pick the best possible next president. it's not really a guessing game about who is going to get the nomination or elected in november. martha: do you want to say who you think will come in one, two and three tonight? >> i think it's a very close contest between rick santorum and mitt romney. obviously ron paul has that invisible army. we'll see. those are the three top people there. rick santorum has the late momentum when. a candidate is hot it matters. the momentum matters, the media matters. most of the coverage has been of rick santorum the last 48 to 72 hours. martha: mitt romney did about 25.2 of the iowa vote, he came in second of course last time

around e. hasn'. he hasn't really rated higher than 23% in iowa. i asked him about this and he said it doesn't matter wofplt that b. would that be significant to you if the win tphe winner in this race had less support than the last time he ran? >> it would be a talking point when we analyze the elections. it's early january and the actual election is in november. an awful lot will change. the republicans, whoever they pick they are going to basically reunify, there will be malcontents who are unhappy with the nominee, there always are. we need to remember this is a long, long process. martha: you are absolutely right about that. we've got a lot of water to go under the bridge between now and november, a lot of world events will come into play. larry sabato thank you so much, always good to see you. always looking forward to your thoughts on how it goes tonight. martha: and perry was in an argument with you just five

minutes ago. bill: the former speaker gingrich is here in "america's newsroom" on a revealing interview, his expectations in iowa, his feelings on mitt romney and why he's stepping up his criticism now. martha: tough day for him, big day for him to be sure. now so many folks are relieved because, look at this fire, they've now got a suspect in these crazy rash of devastating arson fires that have happened in california. now the question to be asked is why. >> it has been a relief. i take a lot of pride in the city, i take a lot of pride in the department, and i think it's just a big relief that everyone can kind of go to sleep tonight and still be vigilant but just kind of sleep well.

martha: a beautiful state capitol in iowa, what a gorgeous building that is. the winter weather there is likely to live up to its name. it's not expected to have too big an impact on the evening's turn out. you've seen that our reporters, everybody out there is a little bit chilly. you saw kharl camero carl cameron with is ear muffs and some states will go into the 40s, that will not be prohibitive to leaving your house and going to some of the caucuses, 1800 of them across the street. court, clear, blue sky, looks exactly how you think iowa would look on day like this. bill: we are awaiting charges for the man they say is behind arson attacks in the los angeles area. nearly all the fires starting in cars and quickly spreading to nearby garages and homes. the prime suspect, 24-year-old harry burkhart has since been

arrested and is now in police custody. william la jeunesse live on this. what do we know about the man accused of starting all these fires. >> reporter: he's a german national who immigrated to southern, california. his mistake with us an angry outburst in immigration court recently where he reportedly made multiple anti-american statements during his mother's deportation hearing. well a state department official remembered the scene and when he saw this surveillance video recognized the 24-year-old burhart as the person of interest. then the official contacted police who released his name, his face, his particulars to patrol cops. yesterday a reserve deputy was praised for recognizing the suspect and making the stop. >> a full time attorney and a part time reserve deputy sheriff, although for the past four days he's been working full time for a dollar a year.

>> give him a raise. >> and i'll give him a raise of another dollar a year. >> reporter: that was sheriff baca talking about this reserve deputy. l.a. county uses reserves to supplement staff. he works as a beverly hills real estate attorney during the day and just qualified to travel solo in a quad car, bill. bill: surveillance video works, it is remarkable. what a story thank you, william. william la jeunesse, we will follow it once we see court later. martha: it's been months an in the campaigning and planning that will all play out tonight. we'll give you a behind the scenes look at how it all works in iowa, that is coming up after this. bill: in a moment here you will see and hear newt gingrich's thoughts on the final day, and his words directed at mitt romney. plus, is he considering a running mate for 2012.

>> governor palin has a lot of taepblt, there are a lot of things she could do, one of those things is energy, and i could imagine her being considered for a number of places. welcome idaho,

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so they're good for my family, and for yours. heart smart idaho potatoes. always look for the grown in idaho seal. martha: a big day in iowa, folks. a short time ago mitt romney finishing up a rally that he held in des moines, iowa. he's calling for change. >> the president says he wants to fundamentally transform america. i don't want to transform america i want to restore the principles that made america. this is the america we love. i am going to make sure we take those principles to the white house and get america working again. thanks you guys, great to you with you, thank you. martha: they are all out there today, all the candidates. we've been talking to a couple of them. that was mitt romney a little while ago. less than ten hours to go. we have nine hours and 29 minutes about before they start caucusing. let's take a look now at point of grace church in wake, iowa

isn't that pretty? caucuses will be held there tonight. shannon bream is live there telling us a little bit of how all of this works for folks who are not from iowa. good morning, shannon. >> reporter: hi, martha. check out this church. isn't it beautiful? it seats more than 900 people. they expect actually about a thousand folks here tonight, martha. martha: tell us a little bit about how it will work, shannon. >> reporter: if you show up here tonight and you want to vote there are two things that you've got to recall tpaoeu with. first of all you have to be 18 on or by the presidential election november 6th. you've got to be a registered republican. here is where it gets a little bit interesting. no matter what you are right now in your home sitting in iowa now you can register tonight as a republican if you have the right precinct and the right i.d. and within minutes you could be voting. it kicks off at 7:00 central time, local time here. if there are sur gates on site for the candidates they can give a quick speech, 3 to 5 minutes

to put in the last plea for votes. you write down the one you want to see as the gop nominee. they are tallied on site and announced to the caucus goers. they are put on a official form, and taken to the gop who make the official, final count. they say there is no other experience like an iowa caucus. >> i think the fact that, you know, they get the opportunity to see and talk with their neighbors, see who they are leaning toward, talk about why, and then hear that closing argument, that is totally dive rent thatotally different than a normal primary experience that someone would had. that makes it unique. this time around it's up for grabs going into the last day. >> reporter: truly there are so many undecideds. we've heard numbers about people not really sure who they are going to go for, at least willing to change their minds when they go to caucuses. i have talked to a lot of people here who are actually making the commitment to go out in the cold, go listen to these

speeches for an hour or so and be a part of the caucus, still they have not decided who they will vote for. it can make all the difference tonight when it comes down to organization, getting the vote out and seeing how well these folks are running their ground game tonight, martha. martha: that does make it interesting, especially if we see that kind of last-minute change in voting preference that we're hearing may happen tonight. shannon thank you very much. some people expect 140,000 will caucus tonight, which would be a record. bill: that would shatter the old record. martha: it sure would. we'll talk to terry branstad the governor about that in a little while. bill: you know it's official, the clock is on the tv. nine hours now, nine and a half hours first votes for 2012, and this presidential nomination will be cast. newt gingrich seeing a decline in the polls. a month ago he was flying high in iowa. gingrich saying he's poised to pull off one of the greatest caucus upsets in history. the difference he says comes down to experience. >> i should win the iowa caucuses because i am the only candidate who can successfully

debate obama in the fall and the only candidate who has a track record twice with reagan and as speaker changing wash washington. everyone else would be an amateur in the obama tradition who would not know what to do or how to do it if they won. bill: this morning i spoke directly with newt gingrich before his first stop of the day. earlier this morning you called mitt romney a liar. what's he lying about? >> well, i look at mitt romney fails to tell the truth at three levels. he won't tell the throughout about his own record. he is at best a massachusetts moderate not a conservative. he has mailed, refused to tell the truth about his super pack which is run by his staff and funded by his millionaire friends and the super pack runs plain lies. we are releasing this morning five examples of specific lies in their ads. i wish he would be honest with the american people and i don't think he's being honest. bill: this is a change in tone

for you, because you said you went to iowa and you were going to run a cos a positive campaign. this is a serious reversal. >> well, bill we have run a very positive campaign. every ad we've put up has been positive. we've gone out and talked begin and again about big ideas, big solutions, creating jobs. the ronald reagan record of job and economic growth which i participated in. we brought in positive people like art laffer and j. c. watts. when you are sitting out here with 3, $4 million in negative advertising in a relatively small state, people out here have been drowning in negativity and dishonesty. i always ask questions about it. i'm not going to personally lie about this. i think we need to have some honesty if we're going to cleanup washington. you can't run -- bill: i know but the vote is later tonight. you're less than 12 hours away. why take this tone now?

>> i was asked a direct question. the fact is every day i've been out here audiences have thanked me for being positive. we have stayed positive. all of my ads remain positive. all the advice we are giving to our people, we have over a thousand folks going to the precincts to be spokespersons for us, all of them are getting positive messages, and we hope to see what happens tonight. we think we'll do surprisingly well with that approach. we have not run a single attack ad. those one super pack that was created by friends of mine has not run a single attack ad. we have consistently stayed positive. i was asked a judgment question on an interview. i'm not going to lie on an interview. i think what is sick in washington is all the people who smile and are phony and pretend and they are crippling the country by not telling the truth and being honest. i've asked romney for three weeks to tell his pack to quit running negative ads. i've pointed out again and again

this is a terrible way to run for office, and so that is why we got to that particular conversation. but i've been out here - campaigning. i can't tell how many people have walked up to me about how sick help are of seven, eight, nine negative ads an hour. robo calls, ten, 12 a day that are knowing tiff, it's a sad comment. that is not iowa's pattern. that is not how iowans have campaigned in the past. bill: you had called your campaign at one point an experiment in a positive campaign. earlier on kr*rbgs b cbs that barack obama will tear him apart. >> i think he will. bill: can mitt romney beat barack obama? >> i think it will be a very hard campaign. i think he can. if he is the nominee i'll support him. i think it's very challenging. obama will have a billion dollars and he will do anything to win re-election. i think it's better if somebody is a very, very good debate eris

the only chance our side will have is to pin barack obama in those debates in october and have the country tune in, and see the truth. i mean, i agree with governor romney who said that his eye tack ads, although i thought it was weird that he compared himself to obama, he said his attack ads were mild against me as to what obama would do. i wouldn't use that comparison and say my campaign is like obama but smaller, but he did. whoever our nominee is had better be very tough and tell the truth more effectively than obama will tell things that are false. bill: you're already laying the groundwork for your own campaign in new hampshire once you get past iowa. >> we are laying out the framework of choice. bill: you categorize mitt romney as a massachusetts conservative, what is your campaign strategy

next. >> i'm going to create jobs in economic growth from the lessons i learned from ronald reagan and the lessons i learned as speaker of the house. i'm going to focus on the need to debate barack obama and defeat barack obama and draw the contrast of a real choice. you can have a conservative who worked with ronald reagan or you can have a moderate who in fact was an independent in the 1980s and dismissed ronald reagan. i don't think that is an inaccurate description. i'm using romney's own description that he was a massachusetts moderate. i'm not making any of this this up. i think that is a fair choice. bill: before we go to there we still have iowa. >> right. bill: tonight is the big night. >> very big. bill: how would you define success after all these months? >> i would say after three and a half to $4 million in negative ads we're going to do well enough to clearly be in the competition, and i think that it's very possible that the top

four will be very, very close by this evening. everywhere i've gone we've had very, very large crowd. we had 18,000 people on a telephone conference call yesterday. we've had 89,000 iowans on conference calls so information. we have one more telephone conference, town hall meeting this afternoon. we feel very good that we are surging. we were hit very hard nor about two weeks with negative ads. we've steady been recovering even since. as we've told the truth people have come back in increasing waves and we've been picking up hundreds of new precinct activists every single day now for a week. bill: we are about to find out if all that hard work pays off. mr. speaker thank you. we'll catch you up down the road. >> good to be with you. bill: newt gingrich in today of von port, iowa this morning. mitt romney was asked about this on fox and friend after that and they went back and forth. look to see that story out of gingrich's campaign tomorrow starting in new hampshire. he just telegraphed it quite clearly that he's going to take

on mitt romney head-to-head. that will be a big deal. martha: as we were talking about earlier really nobody has done that in this campaign. they've been doing against each other, this sort of second tier group has put a lot of energy against each other and nobody has really gone up against mitt romney, certainly not in the way that gingrich has been sustaining in iowa. that is going to be a fascinating development to watch once we get on the other side of this. in the meantime today is the day, so the candidates are there, they are in iowa, they very much want to get one of those three tickets out of iowa as we've talked about. there is a lot of possible outcomes. everybody you ask has a different one, two and three of their order tonight. we'll talk to iowa governor terry branstad and get his feel on the ground for how things look there. he's here next. [ male announcer ] cranberry juice? wake up! ♪

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bill: 16 minutes before the hour right now. prosecutors in cairo, egypt have begun arguing their case against ousted leader hosni mubarak. he's accused of ordering the killing of 800 protestors during last year's uprising. a red eye for the first family, returning home from a ten-day holiday get away in hawaii. winter wonderland, parts of machine sno tennessee, snow stranding hundreds of

motorists. hundreds of schools have shut down. that is a black out not a white out. winter weather moving across the central part of the country. martha: speaking of that, we are just hours away from the first in america caucuses getting underway tonight in iowa. state officials expecting high turn outs, and there are many undecided voters still at this hour. there is the state capitol in beautiful des moines, iowa. the hawk-eye state's republican governor joins me now, terry branstad governor, good morning to you, huge today for iowa. all of the focus on the country is on your state. how do you think it's going to go tonight, governor? >> i think we're going to see a great turn out. i think it's a very close race. we'v seen the lead change hands many times. iowans take this responsibility very seriously. they know we can't afford four more years of obama. he is attacking the entrepreneurs and working people

we node to get the jobs an need to get the economy going again. i think the polls show it will be very close. it all depends on who is most persuasive tonight. martha: i know you have not endorsed any of these candidates. >> right. martha: you said you're going to do that down the road according to what you said on that. some folks are saying 140,000 in the turn out tonight. is that a number you're comfortable with? >> the record turn out is 118,400 four years ago. i think we will exceed that. i think 130, 140,000 could be possible judging from the turn out and the enthusiasm we see at events for the various candidates here in the closing days. martha: you've said that rick santorum has basically sort of taught a lesson to mitt romney in your state. what do you mean by that? >> well, sapbt tore u rick santorum went about it the right way he went to all 99 counties.

he's built a grass roots organization. romney has come on real strong here at end. four years ago he spent a lot of time in iowa. in the last month, he and his wife and campaign, they've opened a headquarters, had a bus tour of the state. they will be here tonight for the caucus. i think rick santorum and romney are goat going t both going to be very strong. ron paul has a strong organization, put a lot of effort in here. gingrich and also governor perry is putting a strong effort here on the end. of course michelle bachmann won the straw poll. they are all formidable candidates. it will be interesting to see who has the ability to really win these caucuses tonight. martha: pull it out. it sure will be. what is different this time around? you looked at last time you had mike huckabee, governor romney of course. fred thompson, john mccain in the mix. we all know how things ended up last time around. what feels different to you about what people in iowa care about this time? >> i think number one is the concern about the national debt. we look what is going on in

europe. we see under obama the healthcare plan that is unaffordable and none sustainable and we see the national debt going up so dramatically. the other concern is jobs, especially the private sector. you don't create jobs by the government spending money, in fact all that has given us is more debt. what we need instead is to decrease the tax and regulatory burden that is strangling the entrepreneurs and businesses that need to take the risk to create the jobs to grow the private sector economy in this country begin. martha: that is the sentiment we have heard from many of the candidates that are canvassing your state in hopes of winning the iowa caucuses tonight. governor terry branstad thank you so much for being with us tonight and sort of being the host of this evening's festivities. we are looking forward to it. thank you, governor. >> thank you. bill: jenna lee is working on a whole lot of stuff. how are you doing. good morning to you. >> reporter: continuing our coverage from iowa today from

all angles. we have joe trippi, pat cadell and herman cain, we want to hear from you as well. what are our questions about iowa and the 2012 race. go to foxnews.com and click on america's asking tab and weigh in. we read what you have to say and talk about it with our guests. the intensifying war of words can iran. the country is threatening one of our aircraft carriers, what is that all about? we'll dig in coming up next hour, bill. bill: what is that all about? thank you, jenna we'll see you then. face-to-face with death. a father and history children stuck inside a car after it plunged into an icy river. the family now speaking for the first time about those scary movements of survival. >> those rescue heros did. they jumped in and made all the difference for our family. this very easily could have been a funeral for four of us.

martha: what a story this is, the utah family strapped in their car own an icy river are now speaking out about this horrific ordeal. roger anderson and history children were driving down a canyon roadway when his car suddenly went off the road and into the icy river below. several passers by one of whom we talked to here yesterday on "america's newsroom" lept into the water and they cut through the window and the seat belts to get him and his children out of the car, and they were very concerned that what they would find were children who were no longer living in that car. one of them was unresponsive when he was pulled out. they were very scared they had lost that child. the family says what happened next was nothing short of a miracle. >> the first thought was, so this is how it ends. as i went off the edge i was really moving pretty slow, and i

kept thinking and hoping, okay we are going to hit this next rock and that is going to be the thing that stops us. >> the gentleman coming out of the river said to me, i can't feel them for a pulse because i can't feel my hands. there was no pulse not even faint. >> i will be forever grateful to have my heros in every sense of the word, really. they are the reason i have my children. martha: another minute and this could have been a really different story. so those people just deserve so much credit. they are truly heros. they went right into the water and the guy who went in first who we spoke to said that suddenly there were other people jumping in the water all around him, and they got those kids out and that man out and saved their lives. that woman was right, heros in every sense stphaoeu loved hearin. bill: i loved hearing from him. he was on our program he showed a lot of guts. my next issue says there is one

issue in this race, and you can sum it up in one word. steve morris is with us. >> great job on the new year's eve. you're the dick clark of the 21 century. you guys do such an awesome guy. bill: you are very kind to say that. happy new year to you. >> you too. bill: what is the word? >> there's three issues in this election cycle, the economy, the economy, and the economy, and there is just no getting around it. barack obama will be reelected if the american people, bill, think the economy is getting better. if they don't i think the republicans have a very good chance of displacing them. as i look at it, bill, there is kind of what i call the kind of the trifecta of economic doom out there right now. and governor branstad mentioned a lot of these. one is obviously theee memory news increase in the national debt of $5 trillion in four years which is a world record. second of all is the mortgage foreclosures, people losing their homes and people worried about losing their homes. and the third one, obviously is

maybe the most important one, which is unemployment. the jobs are just not there, and that is what president obama promised four years ago. bill: a couple of things that are going to be -- these are going to go into the fact mill for the next eleven months. no president reelected with unemployment this high since fdr, this goes back to the 30s. economic approval rating is at 39%. what does that tell you based on history? >> that explains to you, bill, why the president isn't running on his record, because it's not a record that is very defensible and that's why the president has moved more to this kind of class warfare line about us versus them and the 1% versus the 99%. i really believe people go to the polls on november 5th of this year and they feel like things just aren't getting better and we are stalk in the muck of a very chloe growth economy of no jobs, republicans will win this election. that's why you see the focus of

all the candidates in iowa on the economy. the economy in iowa is pretty good. bill: it's not bad. >> when you compare it with states like california and new york and florida. bill: the computer is going to cut us off. my apologies. happy new year. steve moore. martha: great to be with you. can you enjoy vegetables with sauce and still reach your weight loss goals? you can with green giant frozen vegetables. over twenty delicious varieties ha sixty calories oless per serving and are now weight watchers-endorsed. try green giant frozen vegetables with sauce.

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