that's nonsense. >> we are live in the hawk eye state on miracle watch. >> inside night people are going to see a miracle. >> and a very happy new year to you. we begin with just one day left of smiling and glad handing before tuesday night's iowa caucuses. the first contest of the 2012 presidential election season. yes, after months of candidates trending and falling faster than the latest viral video, it is time for iowa republicans to cast their lot, come what may. as mitt romney appears to be slashing hoork he is running neck and neck at ron paul and facing a challenge. the "dein moines register" told the story. mitt romney is tied with ron paul, but what santorum

accelerating past and lumbering gingrich with real momentum as voters go to caucus. that's the straight up poll. here's an interesting twist. look at who voters say they like the least. the weeping speaker himself, newt gingrich is number one for overall unlikability. ron paul coming in next and mr. roboto romney and santorum just 3% like him least. with that mitt romney walks a line between downplaying expectations and setting himself up to go the distance against the president. >> i have seen polls in the past that i know it's difficult to predict who will caucus, but i think i'm getting a strong send off. i don't know phi will come in first, second, or 30, but i will get a good boost out of iowa. >> surrender republicans. resistance is futile.

that's what he would like to say. not so fast. guess who is committed to cauc nigh that could be santorum supporters. more than 3/4 of whom said they will definitely go to caucus, about 18% more than rock me in's folks and 20% more than ron paul's. by the way, 41% of likely caucus goers say they can still change their minds. what on earth are they waiting for? i hate to break it to you, but the good lord himself is not running. with what gallop calls the most volatile race ever, the front-runner changing seven times since last may, this is wide open. ask the man who once declared himself the nominee. newt gingrich. >> i don't think i will win. you look at the numbers and that volume has done enough damage. on the other hand if the "des moines register" was right on the 41% potentially, who knows

what's going to happen. >> who knows what will happen indeed. if anyone does, it's my next guest. joining me now is the political historian movie star and author of "new york times" bestseller, jack kennedy and chris matthews. good afternoon to you. >> thank you. >> you repeatedly described this field of candidates as lacking in charisma. lack luster. isn't this really about the fact that they offered a destructive vision of the future. ron paul wants to destroy the government and rick perry decimates the departments and isn't it the ideas and the lack of a vision that resulted in such a volatile and unpredictable field? >> there is nothing new out here. mitt romney got 25% last time and will get that or less this

time tomorrow night. ron paul has always had his support about 1/5 of the party. i bumped in at a paul rally four young men in their 20s, i guess. two of them had come down from canada and they were antiwar from toronto. the other two were democrats from massachusetts. maybe that's the substance of the ron paul support. clearly it's not new. then you have the evangelicals who are coalescing a third of them around santorum. nothing is new at all. nothing happened in terms of intellectual development. i guess they want to beat obama in the back of their minds, but you have the evangelicals and the libertarians and antiwar and the vague people. they can't really give youa good reason for being for romney.

there is no excitement out here about inside or solutions. i have not heard one solution to the difficult economy that makes any near term sense. no change in foreign policy that makes any kind of cohesive sense. there has been nothing in the campaign to think about. that's what i've seen. >> focusing on mitt romney. he surprised himself at the success of his team, but isn't he playing in a campaign where he is watching the attack ads from the restore our future super back and appearing in public as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. the most civil of all. he is being entirely. >> he is play iing -- i think wt is that guy's name? dr. jekyll and mr. hyde. he plays dr. jekyll and mr. hyde runs the ad campaign.

he quotes verses from america the beautiful as if there is something to talk about. it's his way of connecting with the exceptionalism. his ads are kicking the hell out of newt gingrich. they are unbelievable. they are one after another. you can't turn out on entertainment tonight. the ads are running and paid for by restore our future which is a romney operation. >> he disingenuously repeatedly said i can't control what that super pack does. i would end up in jail if i did something like that. >> they must think the voters are stupid. what i think is going to happen is they are not stupid at all. they are like as smart as anybody out there and maybe smarter because they are used to this game that is going on here. i think that romney's number will not go up, but i believe negative ads work and it's for better or worse for the nation that will be the worst for him.

>> chris, you got into an exchange with newt yourself. over those negative ads running against him. i want to play a bit of what happened when you talked about it. >> part of the question is he is assuming the american people are stupid. i don't think the american people are stupid. i am sure within a few weeks every american will know this is his staff. >> it took from the 30s down to the teens. >> all it did was didn't help romney at all. >> we're chris and newt said earlier he doesn't think he will win in iowa. have these ads by team romney torpedoed his campaign? >> i think he is going to come back and in that interview we had yesterday at that press avail, he will go to new hampshire on saturday night with the abc debate the next morning on sunday morning with david

gregory and he will pound romney for supporting abortion rights. the massachusetts plan provides coverage for abortions. i didn't know that. i followed this closely. under the hyde amendment, you can't spend federal dollars. he has a plan that's in that direction and he puts a planned parent hood person on the board to oversee his plan. if i were newt and think you can engine what it's like to be newt, he will go after him with all these got and go into the south and south carolina which is very pro life. nail the guy. he might be able to do it effectively because i don't think an evangelical can vote for someone who voted to have the government pay for abortions. i don't see how they can bring themselves to make that kind of vote. there a lot of independents who are not left or right and don't believe in funding of abortions by the government even though they believe in a right of a woman to choose.

they don't believe they should be in that business. that's the argument. that's controversial, but politically the center right and the right and a good portion of the independent voter would agree that we shouldn't be funding abortions by government health care plan. >> do you therefore anticipate that this will be a bloody and nasty battle for a lot longer to come? >> but it's going to be a john henry battle with newt gingrich out there winning most of the debates and mitt romney with the enormous resources. wherever romney can go into the state or a common wealth and spend a fortune on negative advertising, he will bring down newt gingrich in that state and that media market. he will not bring himself up. the big message is that 3/4 of the caucus goers will reject a man they know really well and that's mitt romney. how can you build a national

campaign for president among people, 3/4 of whom reject you after they get to know you. that's a problem for mitt romney. he can destroy another candidate and divide up the conservative movement, but he can't win the hearts and minds of republicans. that reminds me of british foreign policy to prevent any one power on the contgent to be the dominant power. the kaiser or napoleon. make sure no one guy controls. >> they rule the waves. >> so what romney is saying, i can't win the hearts and minds of republicans, but i can keep them divide. i can make sure the evangelicals get their say with santorum. the libertarians can get their say with ron paul. i can divide it up that way. they don't really get behind

anybody. that's his game and it's working. it's ruthless and cynical, but it's working. anything but democracy. the power of money. to go into this and citizens united, new dispensation. you are allowed to run ads without identifying the contributors and nailing somebody politically and not have your fingerprints anywhere on it. that's what's going on. the republican voter likes this, i will be surprised. i think the voter when they see what's happening, especially the conservatives and what's being done deceptively of mitt romney, they will turn their backs on the courts and say this is a truly activist court. they said you can do this thing to us and kill our democracy. i believe it's equity against equality and the republican voters when they are voted to count as much as anybody else's. they don't like the attitude

towards the election process. >> chris matthews, we are so grateful. i know you will be anchoring your own show and you normally spend workingpreparing rational, but thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> coming up, i wonder what newt gingrich thinks of citizens united now. here's newt in 2010. >> first of all, the citizens united case and the work they did there was an extraordinarily important case and a historic landmark. when you have tough pain, do you want fast relief? try bayer advanced aspirin. it's not the bayer aspirin you know. it's different. first, it's been re-engineered with micro-particles. second, it enters the bloodstream fast, and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. the best part? it's proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin. test how fast it works for you.

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>> just a small sampling of the borage, millions of dollars worth flooding the airways. 45% of all the political ads running in iowa in december were both negative and targeted at newt gingrich. poor newt. a democratic strategist and a council to the house judiciary. a republican strategist and president of capital strategist. good afternoon to both of you. bearing in mind that newt gingrich described the citizens united supreme court ruling as extraordinarily important and good, do you think he's a classic example now of what happens now that this law

allowed ungetter and unlimited and undisclosed spending through super packs? >> i think newt gingrich and mitt romney and anybody else understands that this is just a small warm up for what they are going to get from the far left and barack obama. >> specifically on citizens united. >> to spend $1 billion for the mom me in. that's what's going to be happening. >> i understand what you are saying about the president and the election campaign. >> you are not letting me say it. >> i want to ask you a specific question. >> you don't talk about the $1 billion. >> what i want to ask you is, is newt gingrich the most dramatic and most recent example of what happens as a consequence of that ruling on citizens united? >> we are going to be seeing it for a while and i don't think it matters. >> is it or isn't it? >> i think what's happening in iowa is not that different than what we saw four years ago when you had a surrogate for barack

obama go on a conference call and say that hillary clinton was unfit to lay the wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier because of her lies about her experience of bosnia and sniper fire and a few months later when he is president makes her secretary of state. we know what this is. it's political theater and hillary clinton spokesperson who said this was character assassination. this is no different from what we see every four years. it will be interesting on see what chris matthews has to say with the one billion at the far left. see if he is just as offended at that. >> i have no doubt that chris matthews would express his opinion in due course, but this seems to be a duplicity approach with the attacks on gingrich, but romney walks around as the most civil and polite politician it's possible to imagine.

>> of the citizens united case said anybody so long as they are not affiliated can spend unlimited money in a campaign to influence it and we are going to see $2 billion spent in the general election and chris matthews was right. this is turning the country from a democracy. as far as mitt romney goes, this is a guy who is like the tin man who couldn't get more than 25% from the republican primary even if you are running against howard stern. that's how much he is disliked by the social conservatives. >> you are paying a disservice to howard stern. >> he might get more. here's the big picture. as bad as the money is and undemocratic it is and chris matthews was right. this is like a celebrity death match in the primaries. the big picture is it's good for democrats. obama had a job approval rating that had a deficit of about 17 points back in august. now and over the holidays it was

close to even and in some polls even in the black. the enthusiasm gap, everyone talked about how little enthusiasm democrats have for obama going into the general election. all of it shows that the democrats have the advantage and again, what's happening is none of the above happening to be the most popular candidate. i think the interesting thing that will happen in iowa coming out will be that almost everybody will get a ticket out of iowa. it doesn't take that much. it takes a couple million to go to the next round. the next round will be south carolina. even folks like michele bachmann who will do very, very bad le in iowa will say and the campaign managers will say the social conservative who is have been promiscuous going from candidate to candidate to candidate, they have been unbelievably

promiscuous. they are so unsettled that they can go to a place like south carolina and grab many of them. >> julian and sherry, i'm sorry. chris matthews at the beginning of the hour went long. i am afraid we have to draw matters to a close. thank you both of you for joining us. stay with us. top lines are coming up. >> she was on fox and friends this morning. she was marvelous. they asked her tough questions and she did what you are supposed to do. she didn't answer them. she talked about what she wanted to talk about. 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 with three strains of good bacteria. hit me! [ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. and more. if you replace 3 tablespoons of sugar a day with splenda®,

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from georgia emerged victorious. we have an nbc political reporter who joins us from the center of the political universe. good afternoon. >> good afternoon, martin. how are you? >> great. in layman's terms, what is a caucus and how does it differ from a primary such as the one that will happen next week? >> the easiest way to think about it is it's a less formal contest. a primary there voting levers and something run by the state. this is run by the party. this happens and it's kind of like neighborhood meetings and people getting to and there will be party business that is att d attended to in 1700 precinct locations and turn in pieces of paper with the candidate and add them up and hand them in. it's a lot different than the democrats and a lot more

complicate and thresholds and gymnasiums. there is none of that and it is a secret ballot, but less formal than a primary. >> i get the process, but given iowa is largely rural and white and small demographic, does having iowa first on the calendar force the candidates to take more ideal originically radical positions? for that particular electorate in iowa, that's what voters want to hear. >> that's the risk in any primary. i do think that is why you see more conservative candidates do well. about one of six registered caucus goers will go to the polls and about 600,000 registered republicans, only about 100,000 or so will go. the most accountive people do vote. i was up in the northwestern corner of the state yesterday.

a lot of enthusiasm for rick santorum. you will see him surge in the polls. >> a final question and a one-word answer. who is going to win? >> you know we never try to get involved in the -- >> come on. >> there has been a lot of santorum momentum. he looks like if there is one person who will catch on, it could be him. if you see romney and paul, it will be very close. you could say santorum got the momentum. >> thanks so much for joining us. when we come back, monday's top lines. >> i don't think i'm going to win. you look at the numbers and that volume of negativity has done enough damage. [ female announcer ] this is not a prescription. this is mary... who has a million things to pick up each month on top of her prescriptions.

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kim kardashian apparently

used kris humphries and now mitt romney is using her. reality bites in today's top lines. >> i think i'm getting a strong send off. i think i will get a good boost out of iowa. >> gingrich supported taxpayer funning of some abortions. newt is the only speaker in history to be reprimanded. >> i don't know if they have a million in negative ads. >> speaker gingrich announced he raised $10 million this quarter. he ought to be proud of that. >> i get teary eyed when i send christmas cards. excuse me. ♪ later on we'll conspire as we dream by the fire ♪ >> newt is like freddie krueger. he keeps coming back. >> i will look at clips of president obama and then candidate obama. the gap between his promises and

his performance. that's the largest i have seen since the kardashian wedding and the promise of till death do we part. >> he was hiring lobbyists for america. >> it's the perfect state to have the debate over romney care and the debate about tax-paid abortions. >> i was elected 12 times when people got to know me. >> this is the chance to speak out. >> tuesday night people will see a miracle. >> engaged in theories and the 9/11 attacks. >> wait, wait, wait. don't go any further. that's nonsense. >> that's not true. >> yeah. no. >> let's get right to it on this first monday of the new year. joining me from atlanta, goldie taylor from the goldie taylor project. the founder of the tea party nation and a happy new year to both of and you thank you for

joining us. i want to start with you. we are 24 hours away from the caucuses and the candidate that everyone is talking about is rick santorum who made quite a surge as of late. what are we to make of the latest rise. could this late momentum do you think be enough to carry him through iowa tomorrow? >> i'm the strong believer that he or she that gets to the finish line tends to win the race. i'm also a big fan of doing the small thins to make it all work. while others were out performing in debates and outperforming in other ways, he was going door-to-door, block by block, person to person in all 99 count is in iowa. going at it on a person to person basis that's adding up and going with the same message he held for his career. that's resonating unlike somebody like romney who i think will say what you want to hear. >> goldie, even as you describe

rick santorum, we are watching pictures of him right now in iowa where he is meeting again with what looks like a small crowd of people appealing to them just as you said and i want to move to johnson. your favorite candidate, newt. what happened? i still have my bed in the back of my mind, but newt was riding high and now he has fallen. if newt was not the candidate, can the tea party rally behind mitt romney? >> well, the tea party will never rally behind mitt romney. >> really? never? >> never. i think i told you this before, we have done surveys where it shows one third to one half of the members will not vote for mitt romney if he is the nominee. that's probably going to encourage team obama to send out people to vote for romney in the

primaries. iowa is the first step in the process. a week from now we will be talking about new hampshire and two weeks from south carolina and weeks from now we will talk about florida. in all the national polls, newt gingrich is at the top. he does well and of course the other good news that will be coming out of this is at least one candidate will dropout. since the conservative vote is so goingmented, whoever drops out, presumably bachmann, her supporters will go somewhere. i think it will be newt. they will help one of the conservative candidates. >> michele bachmann said she bought her ticket to new hampshire. goldie, back to you. ron paul had momentum, but we have seen slippage there. he had a racially charged line with the riots. order was only restored when it came time for blacks to pick up

their welfare checks. what kind of candidate allows his organization even if he didn't use the words himself to hub english such a thing? >> ron paul tends to be the gift that keeps on giving. there is a new revelation or something that went out under his signature and whether he wrote it or not, it was out under his signature and his newsletter. he wears responsibility for it. that's tough stuff for a candidate like that. 100,000 or so will go out and ron paul will have the same people behind him last week and will be behind him tomorrow and they will show up to vote. will that spell victory for him? probably not. santorum has the leg up in terms of gaining momentum and having the trust of conservative voters.

it's evangelical and they want to come out for the candidate. i don't think he will come out to this and ron paul will come out of this ahead. maybe that's the top three. romney, paul, santorum. not necessarily in that order. stay with us, if you will. when we come back, michele bachmann. was less more? >> here we are. on january 1st, 2012 and we are ready and anticipating a great new beginning in the war. don't you love new beginnings? ♪ [ telephone rings ] [ laughs ] [ mayhem ] please continue to hold. the next available claims representative will be with you in 97 minutes. [ laughs ] ♪ and if you've got cut rate insurance, there's nothing you can do about this. so get allstate. the only insurance company

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i am very proud to have worked with the tea party movement. >> the tea party was started four years ago with our campaign. i am the true tea party

candidate in the race. >> they called me the tea party guy before there was a tea party. >> got bless the tea party. >> we are back with the panel with goldie taylor and johnson phillips in nashville. johnson, i wanted to start with you. michele bachmann is supposed to be the tea party candidate. she runs the tea party caucus in the beginning. she wants less government and has all the christian credentials that fit with the iowa electorate and yet she is now in single digits. she is praying for a miracle tomorrow. if lazarus was raised from the dead, miss bachmann is hoping her candidacy can be revived. >> michele bachmann who i think the world of is not dt party candidate. there is no tea party candidate. the tea party is a great mass movement that operates very independently and does not -- it has not endorsed a candidate.

some of us like myself have endorsed candidates, but she lines up very well with the movement. why she is in single digits is a good question. i'm not sure i have a good answer. >> maybe she doesn't have ideas or policies that have persuaded the electorate? maybe they have seen through her? >> no, i don't think it's that. >> you almost said perhaps, johnson. >> actually what i started to say is -- no, what i said was two things at once. i said perhaps it's just a degree of how people view her electability in the fall. >> indeed. >> that's a big issue for me and a lot of people. from the conservative side, we want someone who will not only win the primaries, but you have to beat barack obama in the fall or we wasted our time. >> chris matthews broadcast the impact of the ruling on how mitt romney particularly has been able to allow super packs to

attack newt gingrich with vast amounts of money. he was saying that this was a mediocre republican race. it's not about the quality of inside. there not any new ideas. it's about the quantity of cash and how much money you have got. that proves effective in the race. would you agree? >> i think it's cash and ideas. johnson is right. there is no tea party candidate in the race, but the tea party has a lot to do with the messaging coming out of this race. on the other side of this thing, let's say romney comes out for a second or third. if that happens, you will see conservatives and coalesce around a candidate because they don't want a repeat to happen in this year in a mitt romney who many view as a liberal say what you want to hear kind of republican. that is just not going to cut it for this conservative base.

i don't think it will cut it come the fall against barack obama. if you look at the rest of the field, whether it's bachman or newt gingrich or rick santorum or the others really, if you are honest with yourself and think that any one of them has a real pathway to victory today, unless one of them touches the hymn of somebody's garment, there was no pathway for any of them today. a lot could change. we could see a lot for you today. >> you sort of agree with that. >> part of it i agree with. there is going to be coalescing around a conservative a lot of us have taken in to calling mitt the cowardry liberal. we don't want him. >> 35% of the electorate don't want him. >> you are reading my mind. 75 percent per of conservatives do not want mitt romney. as we go into some of these

other primaries and the folks start dropping out. we will see this coalescing and it will be around newt gingrich. it will happen. eventually it will send mitt romney to the showers. >> as ever, thank you very much for joining us. when we come back -- >> huh tu and happy new year. >> mitt romney, job creator? the next guest would big to differ. >> i am ready for president. remember the name mitt romney. [ male announcer ] this is coach parker... whose non-stop day starts with back pain... and a choice. take advil now and maybe up to four in a day. or choose aleve and two pills for a day free of pain. way to go, coach. ♪

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mitt romney is the embodiment of american free enterprise or the essence of wall street that left a trail of unemployment and misery behind him. it depends on your view of his leadership of bain capital.

a subject that gop rivals are using against him. >> he made millions buying companies and laying off workers. >> romney's allies will point to the successful investments in businesses like staples or domino's pizza. in that guilty pleasures like dunkin donuts and we should note that nbc universal and capital along with the black stone group are coowners of the weather channel. our next guest said there is real human cost associated with how capital operates. one he felt firsthand. joining us now is randy johnson. good afternoon, sir. >> glad to be here. >> let's go back about two decades. bain buys american pad and paper company. that company performed your factory in indiana and two years later. what happened next? >> what they did, they performed the plant in an asset sale. they turned around and fired

everybody and literally brought in guards and walked us out. they said if you want to work for us, you have to fill out an application. they did200 out of 258 people back. when they did, it was at reduced wages and benefits. no longer had a pension plan. we paid more for our health care. it was pretty devastating for the families at that time. >> but many people looking at that kind of an investment in that kind of a company would say that's fairly average and normal for many businesses. that's what happens. companies take over businesses that may be in some jeopardy, they do invest, they reduce the overheads, and the company has some chance of survival. some win, some don't win. >> and i would agree with that, but i don't think that was the actual case here. because if you look at the facts, in 1982, when they bought amped, it was distressed. we were the only thing making money for smith corona in the

1994. we were actually a value. we had some good core value for the company. smith corona needed cash, so they sold us to amped. >> so are you suggesting then that mr. romney's whole business strategy was basically getting hold of businesses, using them to raise equity, and then basically allowing them to fold? is that what you're arguing? >> oh, yes. i mean, if you look even beyond by plant in '96 -- >> if that's what you're arguing, sir, how do you explain staples? how do you explain the pizza company? how do you explain the investment in the child care centers? >> let's take a look at what kind of jobs were created at staples, at dominos. you know, i don't want to put jobs down, but these were low-wage, part-time, no-benefit jobs for the most part, unless you were in management of these stores. we had industrial type jobs that

paid decent that you could raise a family on. there's a big difference right there in what kind of jobs. they also with bain capital made over $100 million before they let them go bankrupt. in eight short years they made that kind of money. and it wasn't streamlining, it was about getting the most equity. and they also borrowed heavily. they left institutions out there to hold the bag. >> randy johnson, thank you for joining us this afternoon. >> glad to be here. >> the bain capital criticism worked once for the liberal line of massachusetts, but will it work again? this time if mitt romney were to challenge president obama in the general election. joining us now is nbc news deputy political director, mark murray. >> hey, martin. >> we can point to randy johnson's in indiana and another one in south carolina and a few more stories about bain closing firms and killing jobs. and yet romney is still the presumptive gop nominee.

so is swift voting romney on his perceived strength, business and leadership, do you think that's a workable strategy? >> i'm glad you mentioned the swift voting. this actually does remind me of how republicans went after john kerry in 2004 when he became the nominee, in a way. john kerry's a very big strength going into that general election had to do with his military experience and service. and what republicans did in that swift vote campaign, and a lot of it people said was incredibly unfair, but it actually went to the heart of that, to undercut that military experience. so if mitt romney becomes the republican nominee, the one card he would like to show is the economy, his business experience. but if democrats can poke holes into that, that can actually end up serving the way the swift vote ads did. >> but you know that the salvation of the motor industry in this country also involved job losses, small subsidiaries being closed down, in order for

the business to survive. is that not true? >> it's absolutely true. and there's always a lot of nuance in any of tease types of situations, martin, but we're talking about what might be on a tv ad in a general election campaign could have a devastating affect, as you mentioned, that 1994 campaign when ted kennedy ran bain capital ads to much success in 1994. >> mark murray, as ever, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back to clear the air. an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement, if your car is totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. liberty mutual auto insurance. what ?

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it's time now to clear the air. and at the beginning of a new year, many of us are trying to imagine a new future for ourselves. and that's what new year resolutions are all about. so whether it's losing weight, learning a foreign language, or certainly being a better partner to those we love, we try to take

the opportunity of a new year to envisage a new future for ourselves. and for those candidates in iowa in the final hours of campaigning, it's hard to imagine a more ambitious new year's resolution than wanting to be president of the united states. you know, there's a fascinating proverb in the old testament that says this, "where there is no vision, the people perish." it's all about having a vision. that's why psychologists talk about being specific when it comes to our aims and objectives. now, we know that this has been one of the most volatile gop primary races in the last 50 years. almost every two weeks, yet another candidate has surged, only to be brought low by the careful examination that follows when any individual rises in the polls. some have said that these candidates are just lackluster, lacking in charisma. and that's why none of them have captured the voters' imagination. even poor mitt romney can't move beyond 25%, no matter how much money he spends. but i think it's much more

serious than that. the reason why enthusiasm has been so lacking is actually because of the vision that they've been proposing for this country. if you listen to them carefully, there's been a narrative of nonstop destruction. michele bachmann repeatedly says that she wants to destroy health care reform. ron paul wants to obliterate almost every government department. while newt gingrich would love to do away with those oh, so oppressive child labor laws. rick perry wants to take a hammer to large parts of the government, and he'll let us know which parts as soon as he can remember. it's all about destruction. and that's why this has been such a volatile field. because at a time of such great personal anxiety about the future, this field of candidates repeatedly tell us what they would like to destroy. it is a far cry from that vision of a shining city on a hill,