>> schieffer: today on "face the nation," the republican roller coaster claims another victim. he broke the hearts of the late night comics. >> i've already lost trump. i can't lose you, too. >> schieffer: but jon stewart will just have to get over it. herman cain made it official yesterday. >> i am suspending my presidential campaign. >> schieffer: the one-time frontrunner is out, so who knows what is next in a week when donald trump signed on to moderate an upcoming debate, a new poll shows newt gingrich has surged into the lead in iowa. >> i'm going to be the nominee. >> schieffer: that's just the half of it. ron paul is running ahead of mitt romney, who, for all his problems with his own party, remains the object of most of the criticism from the obama campaign. >> i don't know what they're afraid of. >> schieffer: many republicans seem to be asking the same

question to the point that "time" magazine's cover poses the question: "why don't they like me?" we'll ask the head of the republican party reince preibus the same question, and get the other side from robert gibbs, a key advisor to the obama re-election campaign. then, we'll get analysis from politico's mike allen, and our cbs news political team-- jan crawford, norah o'donnell, nancy cordes, and political director john dickerson. this is "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs from cbs news in washington, "face the nation" with bob schieffer. >> schieffer: and good morning again and welcome to "face the nation." key players from both sides in the campaign with us this morning at the table. reince preibus, who is the republican national committee chairman, and then we will also

be talking to robert gibbs, who is now a top consultant to the president's re-election campaign. mr. chairman, a brand new "des moines register" iowa poll is out. newt gingrich has now jumped into the lead with 25%. congressman ron paul is now running second. he has 18%. mitt romney follows with 16%, and congresswoman michele bachmann and former candidate herman cain got 8%, and the rest of the field is behind them. and that poll, mr. chairman, of course, was before herman cain announced yesterday that he was dropping out. i guess it showed what we all suspected. that is, his campaign was actually imploding. so now, he's gone. were his problems becoming a distraction that took attention away from the other candidates? >> well, i don't know if they took attention away from the other candidates. he had to make a decision for himself which is, look, the polling isn't going in the right direction. >> schieffer: are you glad he did? >> "i can't raise any money." i'm indifferent. i really don't care whether he

stayed in or he got out. it doesn't bother me at all. i think the real issue here facing america is how we're going to get our country back on track, and how we're going to get a president in white house who actually makes a promise and keeps a promise. i think that is what americans in this country are starving for. >> schieffer: let me ask you this. this kind of sums up this whole business. one week it's herman cain. before that it was rick perry. before that it was michele bachmann. and now here's newt gingrich in the lead. isn't that really about what's on the cover of "time" magazine this week? here's a picture of mitt romney, and the question is, "why don't they like me?" >> well, listen. >> schieffer: why do you think they don't like him? >> i don't accept the premise of the question, bob. "time" magazine can type up whatever magazine cover they want. >> schieffer: he's never gotten above 25%. that means the majority of the republican party doesn't care for him. >> this is nothing peculiar. this is not peculiar, as when dukakis was the nominee in '88 or when bill clinton was the nominee in 1992. hey, listen, i think primaries

are pretty tough but primaries work. look at all these republican governors across the midwest-- walker, snyder, christy-- every one of these guys in blue states came through very difficult primaries. guess what. they won. look at the president in the white house. he and hillary clinton nearly gouged each other's eyes out in a primary before june, before their convention, before they had a nominee. guess what? the president won pretty easily. he took a super majority in congress with him. 60 votes in the senate. guess what? we're all living with the policies of that crowd. it's not going so well. >> schieffer: why is it if all those people are so popular-- and i don't-- why didn't one of them run for president? >> they have other things on their mind. you've been in office for a year, some of these guys want to wait a little while before they run for president. you can't have the whole world running for president. i think our field is very strong. and i think what we're going to have is a very intelligent, articulate alternative to a president who woke up this morning and wished that his poll numbers were as good as jimmy carter's.

i mean, he's doing miserably around america and people know it. they're looking for an alternative. >> schieffer: well, why do you think it is that mitt romney seems to generate so little excitement? i'm not talking about the electorate in general. i'm talking about republicans. >> i don't think... again, bob, i don't accept that. i mean, you have a huge field of candidates. he's been polling consistently pretty well. reality is, you know, it's not as the job of the rnc chairman to start picking out candidates and refereeing this debate. my job is to make sure that we have a functional, operational republican national committee, that we're well funded, and that we can get along the way of making sure that we make barack obama one-term president and save this country economically. listen, americans aren't happy with the direction that we're going. that's the issue. the issue is, we have a president in office, who if he was an employee of any business in america, he would have been fired a long time ago.

and that's where americans are at. >> schieffer: why is it, how do you think it is that newt gingrich is now leading in the polls out there in iowa? i just want to quote from you what the "new york times" columnist maureen dowd noted this morning. she said that "newt gingrich swims in a sea of duality" and offered this paragraph. she said: error while impeaching another serial adult error, why do you think newt gingrich winds up leading the polls for your party right now? >> i mean, why is he leading the polls? because people are supporting him. i don't think there's any issue with that. that's maureen dowd's personal opinion. i mean, she's entitled to her opinion. a lot of columnists have different opinions. i happen to believe though at

the end of the day what this race is going to come down to is whether or not barack obama actually fulfilled the simple, very few promises that he made, like cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. didn't do it. get the debt under control. didn't do it. put people back to work. didn't do it. i mean, the reality is the president has to run on a record. he wasn't the great uniter that he promised to be. he's become the great divider of this country. that's the issue. >> schieffer: do you think republicans might actually go into this convention with no nominee, an old-fashioned brokered convention where they wouldn't choose the nominee until they got to the convention? do you see that as a possibility now? >> i mean, i think it's highly, highly doubtful that that happens. i'll tell you this. no matter what happens, we're going to be unified because this president needs to be fired. we need to save this country economically. we need to put someone who is real and authentic back into the white house. >> schieffer: mr. priebus, thank you so much for joining us.

i really appreciate you coming by this morning. we're going to turn to the other side of the table now. there sits robert gibbs who heard all of this. so, how do you respond to that? mr. priebus says we just ought to fire the guy. he hasn't done anything? >> well, look, let me answer the questions that chairman priebus didn't want to answer. i think the reason that mitt romney, people don't like him and why he hasn't caught fire is you hear what he says today, it's likely to change tomorrow. i think there's great skepticism. he's a political gymnast of the highest order. he will say virtually anything to get elected to any office. just last night he was in new york on a mike huckabee show. disavowing climate change and environmental... and the environmental protection agency, despite the fact that just a few years ago, he was bragging in massachusetts about all the steps they were taking to combat climate change. the one thing that is certain in this republican primary-- if you don't like where mitt romney is today, just wait until tomorrow.

it's a little bit like the weather. >> schieffer: let me just ask you this part. the president is often running on campaigning. i think he's had 62 fund-raisers so far. they're talking about somewhere down the line he might raise the record billion dollars. but, mr. gibbs, the question i keep hearing, from both democrats and republicans, is, why does the president continue to sort of hold himself above the battle as far as what's going on with his day job, being president? i mean, how can you just sort of sit there and let this super- committee fail? just fall on its face as it did? >> bob, the super committee was a creation of congress, for congress to do its job. they're the appropriators. but understand what barack obama did for the super-committee. he laid out a plan that would have easily restructured our long-term fiscal picture and gotten our debt under control. he got members of his own party to support that, and he rallied the country around his plan and they supported it. that's what a president has to

do. but, bob, the president can't fix any of the problems that people have in this country or that chairman priebus outlined without a republican party that actually wants to do it. look, we're having a debate in congress right now about whether we're going to extend the payroll tax cut. 160 million americans are looking at a tax increase at the end of this year if republicans and democrats don't work together to extend it. the truth is, the republican party simply doesn't want to extend the tax cut for middle class families. they're far more concerned about protecting the tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, but that's not going to get our economy working. >> schieffer: i keep thinking back to people like lyndon johnson, and to think that lyndon johnson would have been sitting there in oval office just watching this happen and not trying to push these people, not calling them, not doing the direct lobbying. i mean, is the president doing something we don't know about or haven't heard about? >> if barack obama had the republican party that lyndon johnson dealt with, i have no

doubt we would make progress. barack obama sat with john boehner, who is largely, no offense to chairman priebus, the titular head of the republican party. nothing will get passed in congress without getting through john boehner, right? and barack obama put out a plan that would say, "if you make a lot of money in this country, you're going to pay a little bit more. but we're going to get our fiscal house in order." john boehner went back to his house republican caucus and they said, we're not going to do it. regardless of the fact that for time after time day after day they say let's not saddle our children with debt and deficits. the president outlined a way we could do it. and john boehner and the republican party simply walked away from doing that. look, if we could recreate lyndon johnson's republican... the republican opposition, i have no doubt that this president and many other presidents could work with it. we just have something that is fundamentally different, and you have republican presidential candidates that quite frankly are way to the right of even some of the republicans in washington.

>> schieffer: let me ask you this question. who would you like to run against? would you like to see the nomination go to mitt romney, or would you like to see it go to newt gingrich? i notice you're still directing your fire at mitt romney as if you think in the end he'll get it. >> mitt romney provides a lot of material for people like me on any given day because, quite frankly, bob, as i said earlier, if you don't like what he says today, all you have to do is just wait and his policy positions are likely to change. i think each one of these candidates brings very different strengths. i think newt gingrich is, look, somebody who has been a party favorite of the republican party going back to the mid '90s when, you know, when he wanted to do certain things like have medicare wither on the vine and provide tax cuts for the wealthy. i think that what's interesting is, when you boil this down, you have one different... you have a very different political philosophy. you have a philosophy that says

let's let the well=to-do continue not to pay their fair share. and for middle class america, well, we're just going to close the door to greater and greater opportunity. i think that's the defining debate in our country right now. i think the president has a plan for strengthening the security of the middle class. >> schieffer: in the end, you think romney will get the nomination. >> i don't know. i have to say i think a lot of people in... inside the belt way and outside the belt way woke up today to a very different political environment, and one in which newt gingrich is very much for real. i think... again, i think there's great skepticism. >> schieffer: does that make you happy or sad? let me get at it that way. >> i think this is a tremendous process. i disagree with the chairman. barack obama and hillary clinton weren't gouging each other's eyes out. they were having a debate about the future of our party and what we were going to do about this country. so much so that barack obama made hillary clinton his secretary of state. i think it's a tremendous process. and it's a lot of fun.

>> schieffer: thank you very much, robert gibbs, for being with us. when we come back, we're going to bring in whole political team for a round table on what they think about what's happening right now in a minute.

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joining me today political correspondent jan crawford, politico's mike allen, who has just authored the first political book of the campaign, "the right to fight back"; congressional correspondent nancy cordes and on the other side, chief white house correspondent norah o'donnell and our political director john dickerson. i've got to go to you first, jan. you were there yesterday when herman cain hung it up. i mean, did he really hang it up? he said he's suspending the campaign. >> no, it's over. i talked to cain and his wife gloria after the event yesterday. he said he had made the decision on his own before he got back to atlanta friday night, that he couldn't put his family through this, his wife through this anymore. gloria cain told me she would have supported him no matter what he decided. a part of her wanted him to stay in the race because she believes him. but the allegations of the harassment, the affair, it became too much. but you know, bob, the establishment never took cain seriously. but he tapped into something "real" with republican primary

voters who think that america has serious problems. they say cain as the man with solutions who was not a part of washington and who had this inspiring message about america's greatness. out of all the candidates on the trail i've covered, no one could talk about america as the great shining city on the hill like herman cain. >> schieffer: what happens now, mike? what's the immediate fallout. >> it looks like the gingrich wave could turn into a tsunami. we're told by a cain advisor that cain will endorse before iowa before the end of the year. he's most likely to endorse newt gingrich. already looking strong in an interview for this ebook, "play book 2012." gingrich told us that he is trying to test a new model for campaigning. that is depending less on traditional organizations, less on advertising-- of necessity, depending more on the internet, on grass roots and substance. this week we're going to see him giving a big mideast policy speech, and giving a big speech

about inner city poverty and reducing that. he says unlike anybody else in the race, he's going to stay positive. he said everybody else running is his friend and he won't attack them. >> schieffer: nancy cordes you were out with newt gingrich all week and in south carolina. how will this play out? >> he's ahead by 11 points in the most recent poll in south carolina. what he's really planning to do is try to hang in tough in iowa and new hampshire. he has ron paul with a really tight organization in iowa. then you've got mitt romney really owns the ground game in new hampshire. he's hoping if he can just do well in those two states, get to south carolina, where he's more of an even playing field. nobody really has a huge organization there. he feels good because he's from neighboring georgia. he feels like the voters know him. it's a southern state. they feel like they can understand his message. he thinks he's going to win. >> schieffer: to the white house, where norah o'donnell hangs her hat these days as our chief white house correspondent. norah, they still seem to believe that mitt romney winds up with the nomination.

does anybody over there want to run against newt gingrich? >> the obama campaign has made the decision that they believe mitt romney is going to be the nominee. they have trained their fire on mitt romney. they're going to launch a new offensive next week. they believe they were successful painting mitt romney as a flip-flopper last week. they're going to lay out a new attack. this morning already, david axelrod and robert gibbs were given the opportunity to go after newt gingrich and they declined. they don't want that as a story. they want to keep up the offensive on mitt romney, plant the story early. define him as a serial flip- flopper without a core. and define mitt romney before the whole electorate. >> schieffer: this serial flip- flopper.... >> there's a chronic fatigue syndrome about romney in the republican party. i mean, the voters just do not want to move to him. what's extraordinary about the gingrich rise is both that he's come back to live here. but it says something about romney's weakness.

if gingrich is the nominee, and the fact he's ahead he's going head to head with the tea party which doesn't like establishment politicians. that's what gingrich is. social conservatives, another major force in republican politics, used to say the moral character of the candidate was fundamental to their being president. we know gingrich has a past. if he is the nominee, he runs in the face of those two major trends of republican politics. >> but this passes very much in our mind and norah made a great point about how the establishment feels about newt. we're seeing an inside the belt way, outside the belt way split on his chances. everybody here covered him. we can't believe that he's going to take hold. we can't believe that he's being taken seriously. in the country they don't remember that. of course they're about to be reminded. i think one thing we can say is that romney and gingrich are both praying for is american amnesia.

they don't voters to remember what they've said before. >> those two forces are out in the public. when herman cain says he wants a non-establishment figure and his movement won't be like the establishment, is he going to go over and throw his endorsement behind newt gingrich? you can't pretend newt gingrich is not a part of the establishment? >> schieffer: jan, is it your sense also that gingrich is the most likely to get the supporters that cain...? >> a lot of the cain supporters were devastated and not ready to even think about anyone else. people were just shell-shocked yesterday. but i think most of them will go at some point to cain although a couple people i talked to said they were not ruling out romney. they like romney. but what's going to happen now with cain out of the race, with the distraction of the harassment allegations and the affair is the focus will go right on to gingrich. there is money. the other candidates have the money to start those attack ads. >> schieffer: nancy, a republican advisor kind of a wheel in republican politics said to me last night that the real danger for newt gingrich is when he always tends to step in it is when he's running ahead. >> ( laughs ) right. you saw that this week in his comments about poor children.

and i think what is helping him right now is that republican voters are really hungry for a fighter. they don't mind if you make a few mistakes. if it shows that you're willing to just go there and go after the president. he is really being tough on the president right now, being aggressive. and he thinks that that's going to play well with the republican. >> schieffer: i wish we could go on all afternoon but we can't. i'll be back in a minute with some final thoughts. ♪ [ man ] we've been in the business over the course of four centuries. [ woman ] it was a family business back then, and it still feels like a family business now. the only people who knew about us were those in new england, that moment that we got our first web order... ♪ ...we could tell we were on the verge of something magical. all of a sudden it just felt like things were changing. we can use this to advertise to bakers everywhere. [ man ] browns summit, north carolina.

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>> schieffer: finally today, my friend tom friedman passed on a story to me the other day that came to him from an advertising guy who had been at a seminar for ad people and someone had asked the question, why didn't burger king ever really go after mcdonald's? in other words, why didn't they get dirty, go negative, try to take down the industry leader? the answer came back-- first rule of advertising: never destroy the category. it's not worth destroying the hamburger industry just to take down your most successful competitor. the more i thought about that and the sorry state of american politics these days, the more it made me wonder: in their effort to destroy each other, are the republican and democratic parties on the verge of destroying the category, politics, the whole political system? we are not there yet but as i watch our campaigns begin earlier and earlier, and as our government becomes more and more gridlocked, unable to do

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