well, from new york city, i am chris hayes. this is january 1st, 2012. happy new year to all of you. a new des moines poll shows mitt romney narrowly leading ron paul with rick santorum coming up quickly in third. more than 500 people spent new year's eva tempting to reoccupy the park. the last of them leaving early this morning after the police used force to clear the park. we have the host of "inside city hall," and then christian green,

and a managing editor, and then we have the author of "get opinionated," and joining us to talk about the new iowa numbers, we have nate silver of "the new york times". >> the iowa caucuses happened on tuesday, according to the new poll. mitt romney leads ron paul 24% to 22%, well within the margin of error, but a new telling number is 41% of iowa voters say they can still be persuaded to change their minds. iowa caucuses are the first electoral process in the nominating process. and i was joking with my staff about the press to the santorum mentem, as it is.

the amount of people that caucus in the republican caucus will be around 100,000 people. that 100,000 represents around a quarter of registered republicans in the state of iowa. so rick santorum's people are thrilled, kind of the overriding narratives is santorum's momentum. he is coming in at 15% right now. keep in mind, that means there are 15,000 people in a staft 3 million people that are gung hoe for rick santorum. and it's surprising that each level of the funnel, you get the smaller and smaller numbers, where 15,000 people in national politics nothing. and that doesn't win you an assemblyman race in -- >> well, it does. you are talking about the numbers. and how many people were in the park, you know? how many -- >> that's a fair point. that's a fair point. >> and this is sort of the rough equivalent of that kind of nonelectoral action.

you have to get up and go out and sit through what could be at least on the republican side, what, about an hour worth of speeches, and -- >> if you lose in one round, you have to throw your support to another candidate. there's give and take. so you know, politics is done by a relatively small minority. we blow it up here in the press -- but your point is well taken, though. >> nate, what is your sense of where the race is now? the other thing i want to talk to you about, after you talk about where the race is right now, is the polling of the race and whether we have all been snookerred. >> well, mitt romney is mostly ahead in all the polls. and it's easy to change the

registration at the caucus. and santorum, he had 15% overall, and interviews in the final two days, he was at 21%. so he is zooming up. often times, momentum is something that you should pay a lot of attention to. you do it manic. people are behaving tactically and saying here is a guy that can win so i won't throw my vote away. >> there was a tweet that said new year's resolution for 2016, the first poll i will pay attention to is the poll before the iowa caucuses. and that's in reference to the fact that the polling throughout the race going back to the days in which -- i don't know when donald trump was polling at the end of the field, and we all spent a week writing about donald trump.

and chris matthews had a good graphic that showed the boom and bust from donald trump, and then herman cain and newt gingrich, and each went up and down. i want to ask a deep question about were those polls capturing anything? were they useful bits of data or a waste of time noo i think you have a somewhat flawed frontrunner in that he does not have conservative credentials when you have a conservative republican party. you have a number of deeply flawed -- not slightly flawed, alternative -- >> herman cain deeply flawed? >> well, in herman cain's case, he had scandaled or newt gingrich, his past comes back to haunt him. it's not like they were out lasted. that's the next phase of the campaign.

they had easily exposable flaws. >> and the polls throughout these -- this sort of -- the kind of first act of the campaign, and they actually represented a fluid race, represented a series of rising stars and falling stars based on actual performance. you think it was capturing something. >> i think it captured something. even in iowa now, 40% of the people have not made their mind up. you are like, are you sure, and they are like, no, i might change my mind again. there's a thing that the political scientists call the visionary. >> i think that's the question for all of us recovering or who have been covering the race, we're part of a kind of puppet show, and the folks behind the curtain, who i think have

foreordained mitt romney as the nominee, i think they understand he is the strongest general election candidate. >> there was a short moment when it seemed like rick perry was going to get big republican donors behind him, and that was before he went on to the debates and spoke. >> so he looked like he was doing well in the invisible primary, and that was lining up the big donors and making sure he had the money to run. >> yeah, the trump candidacy, and cain candidacy, there were moments where it seemed like it was plausible. >> i am really trying to -- as we go into the voting, i am trying to think about how you go about covering the prevoting section. the voter's mind is a black box,

right? and that's the only thing that matters. the voters mind will tell them to pull the trigger, and so so much of the reporting will try to find a way to open up the black box. it's a difficult problem to try and figure out what is inside the black box. i am not sure -- >> the voters are groping around with imperfect information, and so are all of these other players. a party leader, you know, in des moines, he's got to figure out, what is the size of the cloudro and who is saying what. we all have a little piece of this stuff. and of course the answer is what is the alternative? how do you get 3 million people in iowa or a small subset of them, 100,000 people to figure out what it is they want? well, hear speeches and eat in the diner, and look at the polls and see what comes out of all of it, and while flawed, i can't

imagine what a better process will be. >> i will ask for a prediction for tuesday. >> we have predictions on the website where right now based on the polls romney has a 60% chance of winning, santorum, maybe a 15% chance and paul a 5% chance. i like santorum a lot at those odds. conservatives like huckabee have done nice in the polls, and there are flawed conservative candidates who are sinking like michele bachmann. if he gets half of her support, he is in first place right now. so my mathematical prediction says romney, and my gut instinct says santorum might close in tight. >> don't you think ron paul could come in --

>> well, that is not straightforward as you would think. we are seeing weakness in his numbers. there's 15% of iowans that would vote for ron paul no matter what. you do have to get into more marginal voters. i think some of the stuff about the news letters, the fact that he is getting more media scrutiny, i think it's tougher for him to win over the marginal folks. >> thank you so much for coming in. happy new year. [ male announce] how'd you learn to do that? when did you start that project? every new year comes with a few stories waiting to be built.

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joining us now, the politics and editor of businessinsider.com. and we are joined from des moines, iowa, and from the most important coffee house in the entire nation. never has a single civilization rested on the slim shoulders of the coffee house like we do in the days of the run up to the iowa caucus. how are you doing? >> good. we were having a break whether rick santorum was bringing the sweater vest back, and can't help but notice you would be rocking the sweater vest yourself. >> well, i think that's un-american. >> you take a strong sand. you have been out there for four

or five days on the trail, going to events, and we just talked a little bit about some of the difficulties of predicting and how the polling sometimes cannot capture late momentum. the late momentum in the last two days of the des moines register poll is picking up momentum. is that what you are seeing in iowa? >> it does. you don't need many voters who dislike rick santorum. i met people at romney events that are uncomfortable with the socially conservative side of the party, and you can estimate the hard core people make up 40% that come to the caucuses. and those that don't feel that strongly, they don't have anything bad to say about him. he is a personal story that got

attention because people were filing on all of these candidates trying to find something to say about him, and people have heard about his personal story and have come to like it. because he was so down for so long, nobody has attacked him. if can you recall an attack on santorum other than perry swinging wildly this week, you have a better memory. >> if you peak in the wrong time -- like gingrich, for example, 47% of the negative ads are against newt gingrich. we were discussing among the staff why is that the case? the only thing we could come up with was he peaked at exactly the time -- he was the frontrunner when most of the ad money got deployed. if you go back to 2004, what you saw was howard dean and

gephardt, they destroyed each other through air wars and ads and mailers, and john kerry was able to rise up and he was late. is that one of the lessons, you don't want to peak early to attract the negative fire? >> that's always true. i have a theory on a couple elections that broke at the last minute. if you start to peak in the last weekend, there's not space in the media to write the "who is this guy" story. and the story has been scott brown rock star. i was talking to a reporter last night, and he was saying if rick perry had not stumbled into the race and knocked over all the furniture, we probably would have had something like this happen after august, and michele

bachmann won the ames straw poll. we probably would have had something like this -- you know, in a more natural pace. we didn't. instead this kind of got twisted and frozen and then santorum has been the beneficiary of sticking around. >> the long straechs between the towns in iowa, when you are driving back and forth, a lot of people listen to the radio, and the ads are much cheaper but can matter a lot for somebody driving for 20 or 30 or 40 minutes. do you have a sense of what is going on with the radio air war? >> a war is an interesting word to use, because you like to compare iowa and new hampshire for obvious reasons. the host who bring on candidates are tough on a couple issues, but generally friendly when they

get their message out. and i have heard conway give santorum a lot of time to introduce himself. i have heard santorum call in or go into the studio and talk about what he believes, and how he grew up, his young disabled daughter, and things of that nature. radio hosts, they went out of their way, one to endorse gingrich, and one to endorse perry, and i don't think those endorsements are doing quite as much, but they put santorum on equal footing as the guys you are paying attention to. one thing that could hurt san to -- santorum, that could be where you have to go somewhere else.

the only thing that i see restricting santorum is if you are a diehard bachmann or perry person, you might not jump over. because if you listen to the radio and read the mail, all of these guys seem like great people. and there is no other person in the race voters tell me they don't like. >> we will take a break and come back and talk about ron paul and more on mitt romney as well after this break. bud i'm stild stubbed up.cel [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't un-stuff your nose. really? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels fights your worst cold symptoms, plus it relieves your stuffy nose. [ deep breath ] thank you! that's the cold truth!

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congressman paul would abandoned the seas to allow other countries to tell us what the rules are for transporting our goods. the problem with congressman paul is the thing that most republicans like about him, is his bold economic plan and cutting the government, are the things that he has proven over a 20-year career he has not been

capable of rallying support to do. he passed one bill in 20 years. >> rick santorum laying out the case against ron paul. at this point i think santorum is up against ron paul for a second slot if romney does not go on to win. >> dave, it's been interesting to watch what happened when paul started to look like he won iowa, which is the very converted effort on both sort of fellow candidates and also knox news and a lot of republican establishment to go after him particularly on his foreign policy views which are highly, highly het troedox among the republican base. >> well, santorum and michele bachmann have been saying these things in debates about paul the entire year. it came as a surprise that voters did not notice this. and they were not prioritizing

the foreign policy issue. they were not thinking about that. they are voting on economics, and paul is the guy in their view who was right when everybody else was wrong about the economy collapsing. so they have had to remind republican voters, and i feel like it's been working. many people really, really like him. and them mentioning that he doesn't support israel enough, it went from five minutes to 30 seconds. i think his little balance ended up to be how long it took people to get nervous. his numbers have not dipped that much, it's just that the angry voter is not going to him quite as much. >> isn't ron paul's foreign

policy in a way attitudally not that -- well, sometimes when they call eyeslationism, and american exceptionalism in reverse. the foreign policy says let's not pay attention to international opinion, and ron paul says let's not pay attention to -- it doesn't -- sometimes i think that i talked to voters, and they will switch between both of those positions pretty easily, because they embody the same attitude. is that what you get when you talk about foreign policy out there in iowa? >> well, a little bit. it's not -- they don't prioritize that, and there's a little -- there's a little bit of, i guess you call it patriotism, and there's a sense america has already taken so many shots, why do we give up

our military supreme see. mitt romney, it's a less talked about part of his program, but he talks about building up the military, and that gets applause. when i was talking about how the voters don't mention foreign policy, they often lead with the fact that paul isn't support israel enough, and that is a concern for the kind of evangelical voters that did not take paul very seriously and now do. i don't think it hurts him with the independents and democrats, and they like that he is further -- i hate to say left right, because that doesn't encompass it, and he is more libertarian than the president. that will not win the caucus for him. the angelicals don't like to hear he won't support israel.

>> i think that's what is interesting about this go around in iowa is the degree to which there was so much press on the evangelical base for so long. it was the dominant story told about the right for the duration of the george w. bush years, because the carl rove strategy, and the fact that george w. bush identified as a evangelical christian and talked about accepting christ relatively late in his life, and then there was a story about the tea party which replaced the story about evangelicals. and there wasn't -- it was not there was a new base of the republican party. it's interesting and unsurprising that somebody like rick santorum is surging because he is a social conservative, and the base of the republican party continues to be what the narrative is.

it contains people that think the culture is headed down the path of gau mora. >> when it comes down what they are listening on the radio or watching on television or talking about over the table, it's culture and religion and social conservative issues. i think the candidates seem similar to your average base voter on economics and to an extent foreign policy, you know. it's going to be who is the hardest to the right on social issues. >> i don't think that's entirely fair. this is the most contracted downturn since the great depression. >> bachmann tried to do that with little success. she had a fascinating moment in the debate where she talks about the fact that the worst part about unemployment and foreclosures, it was taking out the home from the woman, she

said it in the debate, the mothers are there and homes are being taken out from under them. >> is that a reflection on bachmann's own inability to be a convincing candidate. because somebody like ron paul is prolife, but he also has a long track record on conservatism, and rick santorum talk bz upward mobility, and this is a social conservative electorate, but you can't ignore that there's an economic downturn, and they are concerned about the buzz words which are economic. >> they are economic, but more than economic. this is the key thing. politics particularly this early in the stage, right, and we are talking about the 15,000 people, and what,000 people are going to move. it's the stuff that gets your cheeks flush, right. debt and deficit, they mean something symbolicsymbolic, rig? they have a cultural force.

they say something about where america is headed and the depth of that is what is grabbing people. that's my theory, anyway. that message has to resonate on that cultural level. >> debt in a way has become a moral issue among conservatives. you have guys like dave ramsey that talk constantly about getting out of debt, and it's immoral to be in debt personally -- >> it's sinful that we lost our virtue, and the bubble was us losing our virtue, and we have to reclaim it -- >> and rick santorum connects these in a powerful way, talking about family breakdown and hardship. and he has a point. the family union does play an economic role in lives. divorce costs maintaining two households, for the same amount of people, and evangelicals in

states like iowa where there is a higher divorce rate than say, in massachusetts, they talk about it more. >> thank you so much for yoining us this morning. i appreciate you getting up early. >> thank you, chris. >> happy new year. we'll be right back. hey, it's me -- water. i was trying to figure out how i could get rid of 99% of the lead i can pick up traveling through your pipes, and then... [ click ] it just clicked. get it? it clicked... like the thing...click... this is mary... who has a million things to pick up each month on top of her prescriptions. so she was thrilled that her walgreens pharmacist recommended a 3-month supply and would always be there to answer questions about her health. now mary gets 3 refills in one

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all right, we are puzzling our way through the republican coalition, particularly what the early primary race has shown about it. you're managing editor, and david has been a cable news a lot, and he wanted to eject --

>> let's -- >> he wanted to eject some folks in opposition to the iraq war, and he has now found himself in the interesting phase of being on the other side of the purge. he is a conservative self identified on particular economic issues. where do you see the state of the coalition and where its center of gravity is? has it moved from the neo-conservative gravity we saw in the peak years on war on terror with bush -- >> the way i think about this, is what has happened is ae let's are still conyou fused about how to deal in response to the economic crisis, and it's the elites having difficulty of integrating of how to explain the last years of the bush --

what i think is frustrating is the elites and people who, for lack of a better word, who know better about what causes the crisis, and know better about monetary policy, and everybody agrees what causes the crisis but it's something you can't say on other networks. i think that's what has been going on here. it's the elites still trying to figure this out, and that's been the story of the last -- >> i think you bring up something interesting. obviously the driving issue here is economics, right? the problem the conservatives elites face is this, the orthodox view on the crisis, right, on the drown turn s. you just have to let the fires burn. the view is either of you, you need a little more help from the fed, and this is this view where

he said, you know, let it -- >> let it liquidate. >> that's the real problem with ron paul. >> and he aspouses that, right? >> yeah, and on our website we talk about the ron paul news letters and remind our readers about this, but the real problem with ron paul is not the news letters, but it's that there are few people on the right who can say this is the gold standard of what is wrong. once you can explain that, then a lot of the other things sort of flow from that. i think that once you can explain why his economic libertarianism is wrong for the country, then it's easy to discount a lot of his presidency. >> there's the conservative elite, and it also has become more divorced from the base, and maybe always has been, and especially during, you know, the rise of the internet and the kind of decentralization of the media, you see institutes which

aspouses ron paul's views, and they reach out and find an audience that before was totally dis agrigated. and then there are some that have been able to surge back or elbow their way in by grabbing a diffuse audience where before it was a little more brought together. if you are a conservative in the '70s, the only thing you could look forward to on tv was buckley's firing line on cbs. >> and one of the advantages in terms of coalition building is at the basic demographic level, it's a more homogenious group. >> and from the economic history, and his core belief,

that's about insert cases, liquidate, liquidate, lick wau indicate, it's not going to play all that well. >> he's not going to be -- i don't care what anybody says, he will not be all that comfortable talking about the fine distinctions when you bring mormonism into the picture. it doesn't work for him. he wants to talk about family and faith and not ask too many close questions, which, believe me, are being asked right now among evangelicals who plan to go to the caucuses. >> i want to give both of your takes on how much mormonism is going to come into play right after this break.

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good morning and welcome back. we are in the middle of kind of talking about some of the fizzers in the coalition. and we brought up romney's mormonism as the subtax of him having problems. there is something that only liberals worry about. and it's said, look at the polling, and only liberals worry about his mormonism impacting ae van evangelical support. >> i think tim is half right. after proposition 8, when mormons were so instrumental in getting the gay for banned

marriage, and -- >> if the media hates you, if you took the stripes for the cause, then maybe you are part of our coalition. what is interesting, the mormon church seemed to be scared of all the stripes they took and backed off a little bit. i have gotten e-mails from conservatives saying i don't know if i could work for huntsman or romney, because of the command structure of the church, i don't know if i can. and they fear the pope kind of will be telling you what to do if you join the coalition. >> the 1936 republican -- >> 28. ok okay off by 12 years. >> and there are radio host that will say mormonism is a cult, and we can't support this and --

>> aren't they saying, well it's a colt, but politics is still of the world so you can go ahead and support poll numbers? >> i think that's going to be the answer they conclude on. a lot of evangelical leaders wanted to endorse romney in 2008, and then mike huckabee came and blew the doors off the place. >> and this gets us to where the rubber hits the road. let's say rick santorum does -- he's not a viable candidate for the nomination of the republican -- >> he would be viable if he could focus on the other parts of his platform, which he chose not to focus on, which is his economic platform, and that's not how the media thinks of him or sells himself, then he is not a viable candidate. >> he has an interesting

industrial policy disturbance. >> he's one of the few candidates that will ak mg the income for median workers has not increased over the last ten years. >> in the republican party? >> yes, one of the few republican candidates that gets this. if rick santorum were to change his policy in the next 24 hours, he could be a viable candidate. i don't see that happening. >> he likes to talk about foreign policy and social issues. and that's why we don't judge candidates on just a list of issues. we look and see what do they place their emphasis on. that's how people judge them. >> he was the go-to guy when he was on capitol hill, and can you bring conservative issues to him, and the thing is it loses credibility because he's not there anymore, and being a washington insider is not playing well, and three, he lost his election.

>> he wants to talk about how he won in pennsylvania, which is a blue state -- >> well, the first time i visited washington and went into the gallie above the senate, there was rick santorum with somebody holding the gavel, and he was banging arn away on the marriage amendment, and it never got to a vote. >> i also feel noble ineffectiveness is -- there's the fighting gt fightism -- >> isn't that what iowa is all about? it's giving that one go-nowhere candidate the thumbs up and then can you move on. >> that's in the case, where you pointed out the pat robinson won iowa in the past, and if santorum were to win -- >> i have a new job and you

can't get to the field as much. but i have to believe that some portion of what a is going on here will be the reaction to the fact that gay marriage is legal in iowa. maybe there's an aftermath from the fight when folks want to throw up their hands or say let's go back and fight this again. >> they did refight it. and in that fight for judicial elections, rick santorum was very instrumental. this was his whole play. he went out early and helped to raise money and campaigned for the judges that were going to overturn the decision, and he is getting credit for it now. we will get to the pregame shows for the sunday morning political talkers coming up next. ew. hey, mom? what? pay you? for what? for unloading the dishwasher?! kid, you need to pay me for making this delicious -- whoa. hold on there, mom. kitchen counselor. um, mom, i think what she means is "greasy dishes." yeah. in fact, check it out.

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al smith was a democratic candidate in 1928 and he was catholic, and later in life he would turn against the new deal and fdr, and just to clarify. and it's all iowa all the time on the sunday talkers today. some of the big names appearing, michele bachmann and rick santorum and perry and ron paul. and ron paul will be on three shows, and his son will be a another one. >> i want to talk to ron paul and ask him some of the obvious family questions. what's it like to have your dad running? what kind of campaigning are you doing for him? i would ask him also about what it's like to be a tea party senator. i would ask him about some of the strange civil rights things he said when he was a candidate. >> yeah, i would love to use him

as a barometer as has the tea party grown up that -- he's got a lot of influbs because he's a senator. >> i think rick santorum, and i would press him why do you think upward mobility has declined, and what do we need to emyao late and not emyao late. he's the only candidate that talks about this and needs to be given a much bigger platform for it. >> interesting. what would you ask? >> i would press ron paul about those news letters a little harder in a situation where he kn can't run away. i would ask him with it, and he can't leave or do anything about it, and that's his strategy so

far, to act like how dare you ask me this and then stomp off. >> there's a variety of aspects. there's comments on gay men and aids and ugly things about african-americans, particularly relating to the riots, and are there specific things you would feel in the news letter that has not gutten the attention they deserve? >> i think he specifically wrote about he as a doctor has all the insight, and i disagree that he does. it's like it belies his argument that he did not write that, and then why did you say i as a doctor has all the internal knowledge. >> that's a good question. >> i would talk to rick santorum about foreign policy. he talked about russia and what a threat it is, and he made remarks about the recent elections there, and how

difficult is it to intervene in that, maybe if russia had a fair count of the votes, and the winners may be the communist party. >> do you want russia going red? >> exactly. do you -- do you really want to intervene. do you understand how complicated intervening is. >> there's a book i read about the conservativism. i thought it was one of the most provocative things, and fascinating things i read all year. it helped me to structure the way i think about conservatism, and we will speak to that author of that right after this break. if you think all batteries are the same, consider this:

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good morning, and we have our guests with us. so super packs are a new area of campaign spending that did not exist in 2008, and thanks to the supreme court they exist now. they can raisin limited sums of money, and there are all sorts of ways you can petition and fight so the names are disclosed after the iowa caucus actually happens. we're getting a look at what is super campaign will look like. let's look at the positive heart-warming tone in the official mitt romney i approve this ad campaign ad. >> when generations of immigrants looked up and saw the statue of liberty for the first time, one thing they knew beyond any doubt, and that's that they

knew they were coming to a place where anything is possible and in america their children would have a better life. i believe in that america. i am mitt romney. i believe in america. and i'm running for president of the united states. >> i am mitt romney and i approve this message. >> you should do. that's glossy, glossy, tingling ad making there. now compare the tone from the proromney super pack called restore our future. >> you know what makes barack obama happy? newt gingrich's baggage. he has more baggage than the airlines. he supported taxpayer funding of some abortions, and he's the only speaker in history to be recommend remanded. he was fined by ethics violat n violations by a republican congress.

>> he doesn't have to approve that message. this is fascinating and the single most important aspect of this campaign is we are now dealing with the post citizens united world, and dealing with a world where fundamentally i think it's safe to say the old finance architecture has been completely destroyed. you can make a case that it was struck a deathblow in 2008 when barack obama did not take matching funds, so the matching funds of that structure created after watergate was destroyed, and thep in the world of super packs and corporations being able to spend unlimited amounts of money. it's worrisomworrisome. >> yes, it is.

i just travelled last week, and it was notology that 58. look, there's a little bit of early panic that may not be justified. the reality is, the information the media consumer is far more saw fi sophisticated than in the past. the reality is the fine-tuning of a campaign, when do you fire off the local ads. when do you fire off the internet ads. how do you make them all coordinated. >> michael? >> negative ads usually contain more and more accurate information than positive ads. >> nut was fined, and it was republicans that fined him.

>> yeah, the republicans want a myth that their leaders are cleaner than they are, or the political process is cleaner than it is. the only thing about money come into politics, most companies or corporations find it to be a good investment, and it's a good investment for reasons our friend claims, you lobby and it's cheap and suddenly a whole lobby opens up for you. >> it's not going to be cheap any longer. there's going to be an aurmds race and spending money. i kind of think it's funny, this is how we will get the money out of the 1%, i think. >> this money will get into politics anyway, and i think the question is where does that money go? i can only give a maximum of $2,000 to each campaign, and if i was able to give that campaign money directly to mitt romney would that be different?

a lot of campaign finance laws changed the channels of money which would get there any way. the issue is not that there's a lot of money being spent on negative ads, it's that there are incentives to send it to other sources. >> and, and the fact it still remains the case in 2012. the single most powerful tool is the negative television ad. what we had before was a period in which you couldn't run, you know, you couldn't run anything in the last 60 days, and only the campaigns could, and now you have the whole world -- newt gingrich knows it firsthand. 40% of the ads in iowa has been attack ads. he has sunk like the stone.

>> the power of a negative ad, it's cynical and the people who do it or not great players, and the point is to raise the level of disgust with the voters so the other guy's people stay home, not because of what you said, but because they are disgusted by the whole thing. >> but doesn't the fact that these negative ads aren't attached to the campaigns directly -- >> it changes the calculous. it gets rid of a small cost that there used to be that there is no longer there. >> i don't disagree, i just think that this tends to lead to a discussion of how do you get rid of super packs, and the discussion should be how do we empower the parties or campaigns. my view is that you will never get the money out of politics,

so it's how do you make it so that money has to go to mitt romney or -- >> if it didn't go to a super pack running negative ads it would go to a designated hit squad within the republican party, and what's the difference? >> i think there's something different in the fact that this united world, somebody can set up a new corporation and incorporate it and have no disclose krur and dump $10 million into it, and run a bunch of ads against a candidate that voted against regulatory reform, and then it's a rounding error in the balance sheet, and without anybody knowing it's golden sacks running the ads, they can go out and hammer some candidate that tried to regulate their industry. >> and i agree, i think that -- i too think that there's a difference. yes, there's always money in

politics. and now we're seeing the exploding amounts of money being spent in campaigns and it's washing out everything else. >> i like negative ads. i think they rip the mask off of politics like the friendly, super shiny iowa fields business that it really isn't. >> you like when they get down and dirty? >> i do, because that's when the truth kind of comes out. i blame washington in a sense of, if ge finds its business interests in washington, that's washington's fault for opening up the markets and responding to the money in that way. and the idealogicals like to say it's the ges or golden sacks or

major companies. >> and this also applies to labor unions. if you are on the conservative side you can be just as concerned about the fact that any of the labor organizations -- >> sure. but let's say there's an arms race between goldman sachs, and -- i think we know who would win that. capital one's new cash rewards card

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the story we tend to hear about the conservative movement is once upon time there was a good conservative, and this

conservative movement has been hijacked by extremist. but our next guest, in his new book "the reactionary mind," and cory says conservatism provides the most consistent and profound argument as to why the lower orders -- >> what do ed mun burke, what do burke and sarah palin have in common? >> they are reactionaries. they are seeking to ae mans pat the lower orders.

the second thing is that they are both in a way populists. i think this is something important. people think right wing populism is something new, but it's old. when they rose in reaction to the french revolution, it's understood if it's going to beat back the movements from below, it needs to figure out that is appealing to those people below. it has been extraordinary successful over the years. and i see a great continuity. there's a lot of differences, obviously. and the last one, they are both outsiders. >> yes, this is a key point. >> sarah palin, of course, made a big deal about this, but she was hardly the first outsider. burke, you said he was british

and he was actually irish. he was defending an order in britain. this is a very old story. a jew, the great defender -- >> this is something that you identify with. the notion is being a project of maintaining a power of the higher social archy, but always having woven through it, the people in the low orders, we put together -- there was a montage of the various republican candidates talking about their humble up bringings. take a look. >> when i was young, we lived in an apartment above a gas station. >> in a house that didn't have

running water. >> a number of the apartments that i lived in didn't have toilets. >> we didn't have very much. >> and we had little pads on the ground and you know how that works, right? there's a chain behind you with a bucket -- it's a bucket affair. >> my mother would sew my clothes for me. >> rick perry genuinely grew up quite poor. that clip is him of romney is him in his mission years. conservatism doesn't seem like a unified things at moments. and the neocon conservatives,

there's the fiser. >> i think there's a couple things to say. at its height and greatest pote potentcy, it managed to do it because it was reacting against a whole series of, as i said, the social insurgencies from the left. they had a program to beat this back. i think one of the reasons, and all the guests are right about what the problem is with the conservative party today, the republican party, is that there actually is no left, and that actually brings it together.

what is fascinating, it's not that he is just a lone voice. intellectually, they have a tremendous balance. there's a movement pushing for the vote and for labor rights, and david frumm doesn't have that. >> i think that, you know, what our website is a long-term view. in the long-term, the republican party will have to modernize. when we are no longer a majority white country, that's going to be more necessary. there's the threat, even if there is not an immediate threat, where the profiling issue will have to change. that's something on the horizon.

>> you know, back when a newt gingrich candidacy or perry candidacy happened, what happens if that candidate loses in a goldwater style disaster. that would also be terrible. i think they are different. >> and yeah, you talk about individual figures, and it's on the scene of conservatism. this is's the whole voting blocks, and the reagan democrats, and these were the descendants of the great wave of immigration. yes, they would take on a more conservative castive mind. that will happen with the immigrant groups we are seeing today. >> well, i think one of the things interesting about the argument, there's an argument and i pointed to it in the intro, and burke was a good

consub-tive, and there was the famous buckley quote about yelling stop, right. preserve the status quo and keep things. your point, going all the way back to burke, he wanted to end everything. >> burke was a ferocious critic of the status quo. as he began to see the french revolution gain momentum throughout europe, he thought the real problem with the class of europe is that they did not rule, and they were too comfortable in their privileges. this is exactly what he says. and basically, you know, if they are going to take it on, they have to be a little bit more --

we need a party of the right. the point is, you said i believe, we believe, and that's right, you, but you are a very, very small minority. i appreciate the power, the -- i don't say that with any glee, but in fact, there has always been the extraordinary social movements of the left. >> we will weigh in more after this break. what is it about taking a first step that we find so compelling? is it because taking a step represents hope? or triumph? at genworth, we believe in taking small steps every day

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i guess my big problem with the thesis is there are elements in the record which seem to be contradicting. some are modernizing. >> what do you mean? >> conservatives are in tune with the equality and mobility -- >> climate change, also? >> yeah. climate change and class structure. and many grassroots movements of the conservative movement don't like it, but the leadership has seen it's in their best interest and morally right to ask those questions. and bismarck invented social insurance. i feel like you can look at examples in the historical record which shows there's genuine concern for the lower classes, and that it's not all about preservation for that

sake. >> do you think it's just for survival? >> well, i think in the uk case, it's genuine. but you look at the canadian conservative experience. they genuinely wanted to understand. i just see that there are examples that you can point to which say they clearly are thinking differently. >> i think you have to be specific about what it is the right opposed in the movements. it's not like the movements going to make people poor more wealthy. that's not the issue at all. i think you are right to the cases that you point to. it's about movements that are about breaking bonds, real bonds between subordinates and superiors, and the national labor relations board recently issued a ruling saying all employers have to post a notice

in every workplace informing employees of their rights, basic union rights. just information. now, that's not anything about money. but what it is really about is workers being empowered with their rights. in oregon, there was a law saying employers could not have mandatory meetings, where they tell their employees about political issues and informing them about religious questions and anti-union stuff. this law was passed in the legislature. i think sometimes employers, you want more money, that's fine. it's about empowerment. >> if your theory is right about what conservatism is, which is

opposition to the projects, which i think you are a great supporter of, and the question that becomes is it a redeemable doctrine in any way. we were talking about this during the break. is the takeaway that conservatism is a body of doctrine, in which case why do i have conservatives on my show? i am a liberal, right? i am on the network and we have this show, and i have a very liberal center left position and i want to have dialogue with

i don't happen to think the forms of power are legitimate. when you take that away, that does damage to a society.

i think it has been conservatives who have reminded us of that cost. it's not fake but real. >> and as somebody who attacks conservatives generally, i can say, to add to the point, one of the redeemable things about conservatives, they speak to a desire for order in our culture at a very fundamental order. like when you ama ae mans pat people, you are saying go and be free. >> i think when i think wiabout it, there's a certain critique of bureaucracy, and i did a lot of reporting on the army corp of knowledges down in new orleans,

and that's an interesting place, and a coalition effort where there are conservative issues. there are people on the ground who are very liberal and to the left that oppose the army corp as well. >> when you break down the old social bonds, the power of the church, it's replaced with the structure of bureaucracy. and the left should take credit for the poppism of the right. sarah palin is a sign that they have been -- sarah palin is the

left's achievement on the right, i think. >> fascinating. >> and the right is also -- right. the right is also useful and has been useful historically. it was a lot of progressives that saw it as a movement. they are ignored by history now. there are movements that the left in retrospect has not liked. >> if you had we will be right back. ok! who gets occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas or bloating? get ahead of it! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defend against digestive issues

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i am very proud to have worked with the tea party movement -- >> the tea party was started during the last campaign four years ago. >> i am the true tea party candidate in the race. >> one of them called me a tea party guy before the tea party. >> god bless the tea party. >> that's the republican presidential campaigns all claiming part of the tea party legacy. my feeling is the tea party as much is pretty much over. we have seen the end of the tea party, and the analogy, the best analogy is the anti-war movement and the victories in 2006. you saw the anti-war movement marshalled into the congressional victories in 2006, and then there was hard to see an independent war movement as such. now, you see the tea party, i

feel like and the establishment of the republican party are fused insert ways. >> i question whether it was one. there was a moment for about a week when the party seemed to be an urban and connected to twitter, and -- it was -- there was a moment where it looked like ron paul is the tea party candidate, but it was also sarah palin who became the most popular speaker at tea party events. that's a faction led by freedomworks and the washington, d.c. libertarians that want to lead government, or to end government as we know it.

one of the reasons we branded it the tea party is because we were tired of talking about religious voters or angry white men. it's the same of voters. >> except for the fate of most social movements, they go out of business when their goal is achieved. they wanted to take back congress and reorient the conversation in congress, and they succeeded. there's a big part of the tea party that wanted to take another shot at it and get their act together, and they did that in 2010. where are they now? who are they now in 2012? no, there has to be a new rational. >> if president romney gets

elected with a republican house and republican senate, would we not see balanced budget come up again and the paul ryan budget come up again, so the policy issue that they have seen up, that's still gone. there was a substantive policy. the caucus, they were so zealous and extreme and willing to take everything over the edge of the debt ceiling deal, they managed to lock in an astairy agenda is that extensively a ten-year deal. there are hundreds of billions in cuts that they did succeed in getting implemented if that. >> don't you think there are people influenced by the tea party? >> well, partially, yes. i agree, a lot of those blue dog

democrats are in intensive seats in those areas and the debt issue is one where they try to try ang triangleate. >> i thought back in the day -- i think the thing that the conventional wisdom and the once to which i subscribed, romney's harassy, back in the battle, it seemed like that would be disqualifying. there was no way possible the republicans could rally the coalition behind somebody who could implement a policy that was the model, that was the signature model for the signature accomplishment of the president. >> this is a difference between a mid-term electorate and the

real electorate. when you have a presidential year election, you get a bigger electorate. that includes the republican side as well. there are republicans that don't feel it was too extreme. there was a mow nmt 20ment in 2 suggested there were not as many. >> one of the things you said, the affordable health care act is something more than obama and they just don't like him. anything getting him out of office is more important. and the affordable health care act, i don't think things like the individual mandate don't matter that much.

the vietnam war caused lbj not to run again. there was no tea party when george w. bush was passing medicare part d or right at the stimulus, and there was no more anti-war movement after twixs and after obama won. if bush launched the same war in libya that iraq did, there would still be protests out there from the left leaning anti-war movement, but there is not anymore. that robbed us of something good in our politics. >> what you should know for the news week ahead coming up next. what is it about taking a first step that we find so compelling? is it because taking a step represents hope? or triumph? at genworth, we believe in taking small steps every day to keep your promises, protect what matters, and prepare for a secure financial future.

no matter where you want to go, one step at a time is the only way to get there. go to genworth.com/promises.

a quick update i said yesterday. i gave credit to janice joplin on nothing left to lose. our apologies to chris chris

offer stun. sitting in for alex today is thomas roberts. what is coming up? >> good morning and happy new year to you. the fight for iowa, we will talk about that. a new demain register poll shows exactly why any number of candidates could win gop caucuses, and there are surprises in the poll as well. and then the economy in 2012. we will bring you fascinating predictions, including why the trouble in iran could sock you in your wallet. and then ringing in the new year, truly a spectacle of new york city and around the globe for you. that's going to be coming your way, chris n. 15 minutes. back to you. >> happy new year. you should know iowa is not a state that very well represents the nation at large. it's 89% white, while america is only 64% white. those that participate in the

republican caucus typically represent a quarter or less of the state's registered republicans. the caucus goers themselves are a small unrepresented sample of a small unrepresented state. and it's gt people of iowa that gave us this, four years ago. >> on this january night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do. >> you should know while mitt romney's campaign spent $1.1 million on ads, his affiliate super pack has spent twice that runni running brutal ads against his opponents. you should know that if you endorse ron paul, his libertarian fans will buy your

albums. it's the only way to make sense of kelly clarkson's record sells as she endorsed her fellow republican in her tweet. and then orangutangs have been using software called apps for aip. aips. and then this year, there will be more rigs in the gulf designed to drill in its deep water, defined at 2,000 feet or deeper before the spill. and progressive is the most positively viewed label in america, 67% holding a positive view of it, including 55% of republicans. according to the same poll, 49% of young people have a positive

view of socialism, while only 40% having a negative view. you should know there's a capitalist usa. and it has nominated stewart alexus alexander for president in 2012. we will be back right after this. diarrhea, gas or bloating? get ahead of it! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defend against digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. hit me! [ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. yeah, our low prices are even lower. we need to teach her how to walk. she is taking up valuable cart space. aren't you, honey? [ male announcer ] it's our biggest clearance event of the year where our prices are even lower. save money. live better. walmart. of the year where our prices are even lower. at liberty mutual, we know how much you count on your car

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. ♪ ♪ our guests are back to tell us what we should know as the news unfolds this week. what should folks now? apparently, mitt romney stepped out of ambiguity and said if the dream act landed on his desk, he would veto it. it's for young people in particular who have gotten their college education here. this sounds like he's going to -- he's giving a gift in some

ways to the democratic party. independents like the dream act. young people like the dream act. latinos like the dream act. these are key core constituent is for president obama. driving the americans further into the arms of the democratic party. maybe not a smart move. supremely fascinating to watch the electoral u side the gop insists on committing vis-a-vis the gop voters. i think he found delight that he could get to everyone's right flank on and he was happen doi that. >> general in colorado, florida, new mexico being going to be a problem. >> if you will look as the swing it was one of the keys in assembling the obama coalition. what should folks know? >> we learned who social security to be the new voting members on the board. the three hawks are out. three of those are likely to take the place of others. obama nominated two members for the federal reserve board.

maybe that board will be filled before the 2012 election happens. >> hawks and doves in the context of the federal reserve board refers to the governor's views on inflation. hawks tend to be concerned about inflakes and not concerned about employment. doves are concerned about employment and not as concerned about inflation. i think all the data from the bond markets and the projections going forward say that the empirical work being done say we should be worrying about -- the sky is fall on inflation for the duration of the crisis and yet to materialize. a manned da? >> i think i want to remind everybody that as much attention being paid to the iowa caucus, they have traditionally elected a lot of outliers, the primary that should be paying attention to is south carolina. they're the ones who usually back whoever is going to win in the republican primary. the south carolina folks have a good way of voting for

the people who get the nomination. it's clear who has fallen by the wayside by the time you get to south carolina. i guess the end of january is south carolina. michael brendan doherty? >> there's no way into the black box of a voter's mind. most voted for john mccain, the the most pro war candidate. republican party is still a party that anoints its people for president. mitt romney looks like he's on trab and the conservatives are divided between four or five candidates as they are every time. the conservative movement never produced a consensus candidate to challenge the establishment candidate in the republican party. >> barry goldwater. >> right. >> since then. >> never since then. i mean, that was the lesson that the party took from that. >> i think it's interesting. the history of the republican party is that, in the nominating process that's not particularly democratic but tends to be from on high and anointing the next in line.

bob dole is the most sort of acute example of this. i think people thought that maybe the rules, the traditional rules have been upended by the 2008 victory of barack obama and his use of social media and small $ donors and upended by the tea party. the old rules still apply. i want to thank all my guests today. thank you all. thank you for joining us. we'll be back on saturday at 7:00 eastern time and sunday at 8:00. our guests include author thomas frank and tony and grammy winner, lynn manuel miranda with a preview of his next work. that will be a lot of fun. we'll also be live for a special edition of "up" on tuesday night at midnight. join me, melissa harris perry and other uppers for our take on the results out of iowa tuesday at midnight. you can find us on facebook.

here's thomas robert in for alex witt. we'll see you next tuesday and of course next weekend here on "up." this was the gulf's best tourism season in years. all because so many people wanted to visit us... in louisiana. they came to see us in florida... nice try, they came to hang out with us in alabama... once folks heard mississippi had the welcome sign out, they couldn't wait to get here. this year was great but next year's gonna be even better. and anyone who knows the gulf knows that winter is primetime fun time. the sun's out and the water's beautiful. you can go deep sea fishing for amberjack, grouper and mackerel. our golf courses are open. our bed and breakfast have special rates. and migrating waterfowl from all over make this a bird watcher's paradise. so if you missed it earlier this year, come on down. if you've already been here come on back... to mississippi... florida...

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