gwen: post-new hampshire, pre-south carolina, one candidate tries to seal the deal, the rest try to take him down, and the president jumps into the fray. plus, the supreme court tackles free speech, tonight on "washington week." >> tonight, we're asking the good people of south carolina to join the citizens of new hampshire and make 2012 the year he runs out of time. romney at the top of the heap. two contests under his belt, $19 million in the bank and new endorsements rolling in every day. so now, he has his very own circular firing squad. >> for tens of thousands americans, the suffering began when mitt romney came to town.

>> there is a profound fundamental difference between a massachusetts moderate and a reagan conservative. >> the idea that he's wrapped up the republican nomination because he won by eight votes in iowa and he won his home state is just silly. >> mitt romney and bain capital were involved in what i call vulture capitalism. >> he certainly had a clear-cut victory, but we are nibbling at his heels. gwen: and no one is watching the republican campaign more closely than the democrats. >> so, if you've still got that energy, if you are still fired up, i promise you change will come. gwen: meanwhile, the supreme court dives into an eventful year, beginning with a decision about religious liberty and an argument over tv decency. covering the week, jeanne

cummings of bloomberg news, beth reinhard of "national journal," alexis simendinger of real clear politics, and pete williams of nbc news. >> award winning reporting and analysis covering history as it happens. live from our nation's capitol, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill, produced in association with "national journal. " corporate funding for washington week is provided by >> a line is a powerful thing. it connects the global economy to your living room, cleaner air to stronger markets, factory floors to less crowded roads. today's progress to tomorrow's promise. norfolk southern, one line,

infinite possibilities. >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by prudential financial. additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to pbs stations from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill.

gwen:good evening 6789 after new hampshire and before south carolina, the battle lines are now well drawn in the republican primary race. the candidate who has won over the most voters, raised the most money and earned the most focused attention from the white house, is former massachusetts governor mitt romney. he's focusing his attention on the president, as well. >> i understand the president, last night, was speaking at a fundraiser in chicago. and he said, "i can promise you change is coming." and he's right. and the name of that change is mitt romney. gwen: but not so fast. before romney can take on the president directly, he has to win more than a single caucus and a single primary. and, lest we forget, newt gingrich, rick santorum, ron paul, jon huntsman and rick perry are still in this thing. gingrich, who is within striking distance so far in the palmetto state, appears to be the one running hardest, targeting romney's business background.

>> i'm all for people becoming successful. they're out there creating jobs, engaged in exactly the kind of competitive behavior we want. this is a question of governor romney's character. it's not -- it's not capitalism that's on trial. gwen: indeed, gingrich and the others all hope voters put romney on trial. how is that playing out so far, beth? >> well, it's giving voters a preview of the general election because the argument the are making is similar to the one we've been hearing from the democratic party and allies of obama, that romney is not the job creator he makes himself out to be, but actually, you know, this corporate raider who preys on working people and milks companies for profit at their expense. gwen: is that significant that they are making the same argument republicans are making, and that's romney's point, that

you're consorting with the enemy. >> and you're seeing tremendous backlash. folks who never cared for romney are leaping to his defense because they fear it muddles the vision of the republican party. be clear that the republican party is on the side of business and free enterprise so newt gingrich and rick perry are muddying the water. gwen: but, jeanne, mitt romney is well positioned to fight back, isn't he? >> i should say. he has raised more money than anyone, he's running more ads. he's following obama's playbook from last cycle, although he's not raising that kind of money but he's ahead. he's raised $56 million in 2012 and the one closest to him is ron paul having raised $25 million and you cut that in half and you get around where newt gingrich is because he had that surge in december and they had good fund-raising in that last month. so romney is well prepared.

you add his cash advantage with his outside committee, friendly committee run by his former aide, who also has a lot of money, and they basically have a good cop-bad cop strategy in their advertising. in florida, romney is the first one up, running $1 million worth of ads already in florida, all positive -- restore our future, the committee with $1 million in ads all negative. gwen: when i was in new hampshire and beth, you were there, too, we both watched the tv and there were not that many ads. the ones run by huntsman folks were by his outside friendly pac. >> the new hampshire numbers are fascinating because i heard the same thing, where are the ads? i went and got the data and everybody pulled their guns out. only mitt romney was seriously running up in new hampshire. ron paul had a pretty good

flight and our destiny, jon huntsman's committee, dropped $2 million. so that's one quick way to judge, was that his last stand? you bet it was, because down in south carolina, they aren't even on air yet. gwen: but that's different in south carolina because they may not be on air yet, the huntsman folks because maybe they don't have a lot of money but everything else is bought up. south carolina stakes are higher. >> i think the ad buys in south carolina before the new hampshire primary had even taken place, were exceeded with what new hampshire voters had seen. that's become the battleground, became the battleground before the voters went to the polls in new hampshire because everyone knew that mitt romney was going to win that. so rick perry already went to south carolina before new hampshire voters went to the polls. the race went on to south carolina quickly. >> we didn't hear much about the tea party in new hampshire. will it be a bigger player in south carolina? and if so, how?

>> i would think so, that the tea party would be a bigger player but it is surprising and it's one of the interesting things about mitt romney's candidacy, is, at a time when the tea party has been such a force in american politics, we have a candidate that they don't like and haven't made a secret of that for a long time. >> beth, wouldn't you say the tea partiers in south carolina are having the same problem that the social conservatives have in iowa, and that is too many choices, scattered among the three candidates on the outside and the voice of the tea party coalition in south carolina, nikki haley, the governor, has endorsed romney. >> and jim demint, the senator, hasn't endorsed anybody but is saying friendly things about romney. >> he came to romney's defense this week. >> i was pay attention to what the obama campaign was saying this week. they raised $68 million at the end of 2011 and started talking

about, we're not going to have a billion dollar campaign, this is the wrong impression. and they were candid about how concerned they are with mitt pac, the pror romney ability to gin up these harsh ads and what that might do to president obama looking forward. what do you make about this idea that, no, no, we'll not come close to a billion dollars? >> they're capable of raising $1 billion. that people are not giving -- because they say, you have so much money, you don't need my contribution. so they want to blunt that and gin up fear against romney and against his machine and they know they're in for a hard fight and romney's resources request give them a hard fight, especially when you add in what the republican party will bring to bear. and what's anything, i think, is they are taking that money now -- they're not running many

ads -- but romney has, in new hampshire, a bigger operation than any other republican candidate. think we can understate how much these super pacs, the friendly outside groups, who have no limits to what they can raise for a candidate, and how that has changed. pete, you covered the case in the supreme court and how that changed everything. republicans and democrats differ on the value of the super pacs. a "national journal" political insider's poll shows 94% of democrats saying they disprov, that the nominally independent political groups are negative. 59% of republican insiders say they are positive. still, a healthy 41% also say they are negative. in either case, how are they changing the landscape? >> they are changing the balance of power between the two parties because the democrats -- one of the white house's problems is

the democrats don't want to give to these things. gwen: that's why they say it's negative? >> right. so you have that in balance. in addition, you look at a candidacy like former speaker gingrich's. he basically was on fumes at the end of december and he went to one backer in vegas and basically -- gwen: a casino mogul, i can't say that word enough, mogul. >> he didn't go but his friendly outside committee did, and $5 million was delivered and a campaign revised. however, i must say, i don't know where that $5 million is. they said they would put $3.5 million on tv ads and run a 30-minute attack on romney, that documentary. no 30-minute ads have been bought. gwen: and the documentary has been discredited. >> it had many exaggerations in it. you look at their buying -- because they want to put all their money in it's just not

there so i don't know where the $5 million is being spent. gwen: the documentary is about romney's business background, particularly as head of the venture capital fund. has that been gathering any traction, that attack? >> i think it's still a little early to tell. you saw the attacks starting in new hampshire, then you saw mitt romney win by 39%. so they didn't seem to have an impact on him there. in south carolina, he's also doing very well. so, i don't know that that's an line of attack in the republican primary. in the general election, when he's going to be trying to talk to democrats and independents, i think that's a different story. >> speaking of super pacs, stephen colbert has been on an attack against them and says he wants to run in south carolina although i don't think it's possible to get on the ballot now. there are no write-in votes, are there? what is the point of his satirical attacks on super pacs? >> colbert has made it a point

to try to illustrate how much -- how much the laws regarding campaign fund-raising have become a joke, and so, you know, he talks about these committees are not supposed to coordinate with candidates so then the candidates just get behind a microphone and tell the committee what they wish they would do. they're not coordinating but making an announcement at a press conference. silly things like this, colbert is trying to bring these things to light. gwen: can i ask you, beth, about ron paul. he's said he's going to focus his campaign on states where there is not winner-take-all delegate selections and he has a chance to win more delegates -- caucus states. is he campaigning in south carolina or florida? >> he hasn't gotten to south carolina yet. he seems to be taking a break, which he did after iowa. i wouldn't say he's ruled out florida but he said he would spend limited money there

because unless he can win, he doesn't get any delegates so he wants to play in states where he knows he can come in second or third and walk away with a handful of delegates and keep going. gwen: so far, one third, and one second, and we can expect to see him giving a speech at the convention. the president has not been taking this lightly. as he prepares for the fall campaign, he's been raising big money, announcing plans to shrink government, and replacing senior advisers. william daley had been white house chief of staff for only a year before abruptly announcing this week that he is heading back to chicago. what really happened there, alexis? >> it's an interesting story in that the president is heading into his third chief of staff in one term. not unusual, but in this particular case, the president hired bill daley from the famous daley political democratic family in chicago, to really serve him in a year in which he

envisioned 2011 would be a crossover, centrist, governing from the middle, working with republicans, and from the fall, we had a different president and people disgruntled about bill daley's tenure as chief of staff because the president switched gears and the political operation in the white house was calling the shots and bill daley was feeling less and less in the picture and democrats in the house and the senate were expressing reservation after the death dealing fight in the middle of the summer about how bill daley had been chasing a mirage that there would be a speaker boehner who could bring votes to do a deal with president obama on raising the debt ceiling and also on deficit reduction. gwen: is this the white house getting ducks in order and clearing the decks for an election year? >> absolutely. like a new year's resolution, my

new year's resolution are, i am a populist, i am going to combat congress and cajole voters into i am going to work with them. i want to expand government by doing stimulus spending and promoting my economic agenda and trim the deficit and today we heard the president talking about this initiative he put together to shrink government. which party is it that is most in this idea of shrinking government? gwen: not previously democrat. >> correct. so he's arguing that if congress would give him this super executive power to sort of mold government in -- reorganize it in his own way, he would give a proposal on how to do it and they would vote on it up or down, no amendment. sort of like the base closing idea. and he is arguing today, going into the new year, you can hear

the beginnings of the state-of-the-union address, the new budget and the president's political platform. >> tell us about the new chief of staff and the message that sends. >> the new chief of staff is an old washington hand. he's not that old, old, but has been around a long time and his name is jack lew and those of white house covered president clinton remember him well because he served in the clinton administration. this is his second turn as budget director, he's president obama's budget director so he's moving knowing the government and the money and the bodies buried on the hill, program by program, dollar by dollar, moving into a political year when management has a different definition than what it was that bill daley was asked to do and he has served on the hill beginning with the famous speaker tip o'national league and has been around for a long time. >> jack lew, the new chief of staff, is clearly the kind of

guy who can keep the lights on while the president and the gang run a presidential campaign but i want to get back to the proposal. this seems -- it seems like the president, once again, will put the republicans in a tough place here because the republicans, after his recess appointments to the labor relations board were saying, well, maybe we won't even allow sessions to take place because we're so angry about that, well, they can't not show up, so they will. and now he's put this on the plate. is he starting -- gwen: is this part of the strategy? >> is this part of the strategy? off the ideas that play on the g.o.p. turf and trying to persuade the american electorate that the president would have been doing these things if he had had cooperative partners so what are republicans eager to see? they would like tax cuts so the president proposed payroll tax cuts and argued, why aren't you

with me on this? this would help the american worker. he's now saying, let's shrink government, remodel it, condense six agencies into one. you're absolutely right. gwen: we're going to move on because we have to fit in one more story. an interesting week at the supreme court, involving two mostly unrelated cases. one, an argument over what constitues unacceptable speech on broadcast television. like, say, here. the other, a unanimous decision on whether religious groups are exempt from anti-discrimination laws. not here. the two cases seem quite different, but, at their root, they actually have something in common, don't they, pete? >> the first amendment, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. the religion case was one of the most important in decades because it was unanimous. all nine justices said anyone who works for a church or school and furthers the religious message or mission cannot sue for discrimination of any kind on the job. and what the court said is, that if you can't let the courts get involved. the government cannot get

involved in a church or religious institution, their own will carrybout who the message and the mission. chief justice roberts said in the opinion that escaping that kind of government control is a founding principle of the country. the other decision going from the sacred to the profane had to do with fleeting expletives, naughty words that are blurting out on television in unjimented live shows and brief glimpses of partial nudity in a scripted show. most what have is on television in your house, most of the programs, are not regulated by the government but broadcast television still is, including the public broadcasting service. the f.c.c. can still regulate the content. the government's theory is that there's something about broadcasting television that is uniquely pervasive, uniquely available in the home and especially easily available to children. but what the broadcasters told

the supreme court this week is, well, that may have been true ago but not now when you have all this stuff coming into a pipe in your house. most viewers, as they punch through their remote, they don't know if it's broadcast, internet, and cable and there's no legal justification for making this distinction. >> i was thinking about the ministerial exception, right. how broad or narrow is that if we're trying to sort out who could be covered by that? >> that's a mystery of the decision. it's clearly not just ministers of people who put on robes and stand in front of the congregation and it's clearly not people who go to a religious school and teach math or who are janitors so it's somewhere in the middle. the court seem to say, if you have some training and are involved in imparting the message, you're probably covered but the court said, don't ask us now how broad this is, we'll figure it out later. >> is this expected to fall

along the predictable lines with liberals? >> on the tv side? >> it's tough to say -- was interesting about the ministerial exception is it was a unanimous vote. >> it was unanimous wuon the television -- but on the television side, the tv folks won on the lower court so if it's a tie, their decision stands. i don't think there were enough votes on the court to do what the networks want, to eliminate f.c.c. regulation but there seemed to be interest in getting more clarity from the f.c.c. because the rules are very vague. >> what are the rules? >> the f.c.c. says they're content based, they're contextual. for example, they fined abc for showing brief nudity in "nypd blue" but did not fine the networks for showing

"schindler's list" or "saving private ryan" which included brief nudity and language. gwen: on the church issue, i'm curious about whether, if you are a church worker and you are being sexually harassed, say, by someone, an employer, do you no longer have the right to sue? >> well, sexual harassment -- i mean, in the sort of traditional sex discrimination on the job, no, you probably don't. you can't go and say, they wouldn't make me a priest because i'm a woman. you can't sue for that according to the supreme court. sexual abuse, something that's criminal, that's a different matter and the obama administration, which strongly urged the supreme court against this ruling -- interestingly -- said, if you rule this way, you could make it impossible for someone to sue, for example, if they are the victim of a crime. we don't know the answer to that. gwen: as for the nudity question, we'll never have cameras in the court because you have those statues in there.

i'm saying. thank you, pete. thanks, everybody. the conversation will continue online on our "washington week" webb cast extra. next week, we'll hit the road again for south carolina. we will provide you with the latest on the eve of the palmetto state's g.o.p. primary. shrimp and gritz should be involved. have a lovely weekend and take time on monday to reflect and honor martin luther king on his birthday holiday. we'll see you next week on "washington week." corporate funding for washington

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