mitt romney wins iowa by a whopping eight votes. we're breaking it downright now on "morning joe." >> you were working and i am working and we're all working together because of our passion for this country and our concern it's being led by a president who may be a nice guy but is just as over his head. has made it harder for businesses to grow and to hire and put people back to work. he said three years ago after being inaugurated he was on the "today" show. . he said, look, if i can't get this economy turned around in

three years, i'll be looking at a one-term proposition, and we are here to collect. let me tell you. >> people have asked me how i've done this sitting back at the polls and not getting a whole lot of attention paid to us. how did you keep going out to iowa in 99 counties and 381 town hall meetings and speeches? well, every morning when i was getting up in the morning to take on that challenge, i've required a strength of another particular friendship, one that is sacred. i've survived the challenges so far by the daily grace that comes from god. for giving him his grace every day, for loving me warts and all, i offer a public thanks to god. >> i've decided to return to texas, assess the results of tonight's caucus determine

whether there is a path forward for myself in this race. and with a little prayer and reflection, i'm going to decide the best path forward. but i want to tell you, there has been no greater joy in my life than to be able to share with the people of iowa and this country that there is a model to take this country forward. and it is in the great state of texas. god bless you. thank you all for being with us tonight. >> well, all the polling over the last week pointed to a close race, but no one could've imagined just eight votes would separate the top two contenders in iowa's republican caucuses. in the nail-biting count that lasted into the early hours of the morning, today mitt romney can claim victory at least by the numbers in the first big test of the 2012 presidential election. the win may be his, but all signs point to a tough fight to

come with a late surging rick santorum suddenly at the top of the pack. romney and santorum each getting, joe, 25% of the vote. >> unbelievable. unbelievable. >> good morning, everyone, it's wednesday, january 4th, we're live from java joes in des moines. and with us onset, msnbc senior political analyst mark haleprin. we have national affairs editor for "new york" magazine john heilemann, as well. but first, joe, are you surprised? and what do you think happened? >> well, we're here in java joes to find the eight people that put romney over the top. we've identified him in the first couple of rows. but, you know, this is -- really easy to look at the landscape last night and pick the winners and the losers. there's no doubt mitt romney won. mitt romney won because he really didn't come here till the very end. you're going to have a lot of detractors saying that he got the same amount of votes and the

same percentage after campaigning here four years in a row. you know what? a win is a win is a win. >> eight votes? >> and iowa was devastating to mitt romney four years ago. so if i'm mitt romney, i'm excited this morning. they stole iowa. rick santorum, a big winner last night. i'll tell you what, santorum may be a bigger winner headed toward new hampshire because of who lost. rick perry, chances are very good he's going to be out of this race in the next 24 to 48 hours, those conservative votes go somewhere. i suspect they're most likely going to go toward rick santorum who looked very good last night in this speech. and of course, the other loser newt gingrich who gave an speech to less than 100 people and could not get out of iowa fast enough last night. i think one of the most

remarkable things about newt gingrich and mark haleprin and i were talking about this last night, i learned how to campaign, how to run a grass roots campaign with no money, no name i.d., no support, and in effect over time take out the democratic establishment and the republican establishment thanks to what go pac, newt gingrich, and joe gaylord taught me in 1993. and yet newt gingrich has run one of the most amateurish campaigns i have seen in modern presidential history. the fact that he didn't have one person around him to say go out there, remember that tomorrow's another day, remember you could still win south carolina, you could still win florida, don't be self-pitying, don't be bitter, talk about the issues, make it about something other than you and mitt romney. the fact he had nobody close enough to him that could tell him to do that.

instead he left embittered as quickly as possible. i don't think he went back home. i can't say he left on a midnight train to georgia. he left somewhere before midnight. and the way it ended in iowa, not good at all. >> no. >> and willie geist, a little piece of history for the smithsonian. >> what did you bring home? >> i have one of these. i asked him to sign it a while back and i got a big "x." >> i was out at a caucus site last night watching the process in altoona, about 12 miles from here, and there was a surrogate for the perry campaign handing out these. and i figured -- sensed on some of the returns coming in, the end might be near. so i grabbed a collector's item. >> is the end near for rick perry? >> it would be a rare thing for someone to announce they're canceling their campaign schedule in south carolina when there's not that many days -- it

would be really unlikely for rick perry to come out and say, i've thought about it now, i'm going to still stay in this race. you're right when he said in the next 24 to 48 hours, he will most likely be goep gone. >> he still has $3.5 million he's not spent. all that support, i've got to believe, mark haleprin goes toward santorum. >> i'm not sure all of it does. south carolina, the primary there has been dominated by the establishment candidate. i think rick perry in south carolina was in some ways pitching to that pro-military political establishment part of the party. and i think mitt romney with john mccain's endorsement today and i suspect others in the national security side may pick up some of that perry support. >> campaigns are all about moments. we're going to show a couple of clips right now that last night i think -- not to write your book for you, but game change

two -- >> but he will. >> may look at a couple of moments last night. first of all, a speech that john was talking to me about last night was santorum's moment. and boy, and before we show this clip, let's set it up, john, because so many times you see candidates that get to this moment -- and they just botch it. >> yeah. >> they're too excited, yell into a microphone. and i'm talking about people who win. and they look like they don't belong there. last night -- and it's one of the few times i have seen this in modern political history where an upstart shocks the political world and then he does something you don't expect. he throws -- he does a joe montana 92-yard drive in the super bowl to score a touchdown. santorum last night, wow. >> look, you're walking up there. it is the biggest speech of your political career, biggest, you know, speech of your life. the eyes of the world are on you for the first time for a lot of

republicans and a lot of americans. a speech that will get replayed -- >> you're as charged up as it gets. >> and you're high as a kite. and there's a million ways to screw it up. you could freeze, be too hot, be too cold, it is -- >> and by the way, just to set it up for people who haven't followed politics as long as we do, guys in this position always freeze or are always too hot. i've rarely seen somebody do this. >> and yet here he was in his -- the big question, are you a red light performer or are you not a red light performer? and rick santorum he gave a long speech, but not bad. because it was effective pretty much throughout, talking about his biography in a moving, compelling way. he was all heart. talked about -- hit very hard on blue collar themes, themes on the economic side of his message rather than stressing the cultural conservative, social conservative side, stuff that could set him up as a strong

candidate in new hampshire and drew really stark contrast with mitt romney on those cultural blue collar values. >> right. >> literally rick santorum coming from behind in iowa and rising to the top and in this moment that we're about to show you, he draws on his history as to what makes him a strong winner last night. take a listen. >> this journey started officially just a few months ago in june when i stood on the steps of the steps of the courthouse in pennsylvania. i decided to go there, not the typical place someone announces for president. it's not where i was born, it's not where i ever lived. it's where my grandfather came back in 1925. so he made a sacrifice, he left to the coal fields of southwestern pennsylvania. he worked in the mine at a company town, got paid with

coupons he used to call them. lived in a shack. >> the grandson of a coal miner in southwestern pennsylvania. it was such a moving speech, mika. and it was so from the heart. and we saw this -- and as john said, rick santorum, say what you will about him, he is a guy in an age of pre-packaged political candidates and pre-packaged messages, he is a guy that is all heart. as he gave this speech, shudders had to be going through the romney camp because they had teleprompters up, they were ready to deliver the speech, and as was reported last night -- >> take a look at this. >> as he did -- after the speech was made by santorum, look at the teleprompters -- taken down,

decided we don't need these anymore, and then, mark, mitt romney came out and gave his standard stump speech. >> there's irony here. he said at the top of the speech, i actually have some notes with me today. to speak from the heart he had to have notes because one of the ways he's failed as a candidate with a lot of success to do so well here, he's not been a disciplined speaker. he has great stories to tell, but on the stump he basically talks about -- >> he goes on for a long time. >> yes. he brought -- by having some discipline and having some notes, he was able to tell that very personal story. romney just the opposite, they wanted to get him away from the teleprompter. >> it was -- willie, though, this was a big win for mitt romney. despite what we're hearing on tv and the blogosphere, comparing this year to four years ago.

the fact of the matter is, yes, he seems to have a ceiling here of 25%. but he won, and this is something nobody would've predicted two months ago. >> no question about it. and where i was last night in altoona, we talked to a lot of people leaving, there was a single-minded obsession with defeating president obama. and most of them feel that mitt romney is the best guy to do that. >> that's what everybody was telling -- we've got to win. >> they have reservations about mitt romney, they like rick santorum, but they're not sure he can win. at least the people i talked to. and this was coming from surrogates from other campaigns saying i hope you vote for rick perry, but if you don't, let's choose the guy who has the best chance to defeat president obama. they had the countdown. it was all about barack obama. >> there's a bunch of people who support mitt romney. john mccain, george herbert walker bush, santorum needs romney to make mistakes.

he needs some endorsers. people who are nationally known who go to him. maybe some talk show hosts who say this guy can beat mitt romney, this guy can beat barack obama. he needs that because he's so new to people he needs validation from well-known people. >> everybody's going to be watching jim demint now, sarah palin who has spoken of him approvingly in recent days. the problem for romney is what he wanted was all four of these conservatives, perry, bachmann, santorum, gingrich. he wanted all of them to emerge so he could do in south carolina what he did in iowa. with perry out and with bachmann now effectively reduced to an irrelevance, she may get out too in the next few days. we are now starting -- we have two conservative alternatives and we're down to two. iowa has served its function. whittle the field down to two. and that's a problem -- not a problem he can't overcome, but makes it more difficult in south carolina. you have newt gingrich

determined, apparently, to try to destroy romney and santorum riding a wave of publicity now. it creates some challenges for romney. his campaign is going to be tested now. >> romney's organized, santorum is not. >> you didn't mention ron paul who came in third place with 21%. >> well, i think -- >> new hampshire -- >> mark and i have been saying for a while. could he get -- we knew he had a high floor, a low ceiling, and the question was, could he start to attract mainstream republican voters in sufficient numbers to look like a plausible nominee? he ended up getting 21% of the vote. improvement on his 2008 performance, but i think that pretty much effectively -- this is the state where he is best suited to compete. having been here for this period of time, being able to get crossover votes, not a lot of states like that. a lot of independent votes, liberal votes yesterday. he's pretty much, i think, 21%, we now know is pretty much his ceiling. hard for him to be the nominee with 21%.

>> it's pretty darn good. we were hearing four years ago that 10% was his ceiling. now he's at 20% in iowa. >> i'll say two things about that. one, i'd be stunned if the other candidates don't try to figure out which pieces of ron paul's message can they talk about to try to attract some of his supporters? and the other thing is, you know, there's a part of the republican party that is against the wars, american involvement overseas, they want more radical series of spending cuts, and they want some of the other elements of the paul agenda that are really antiestablishment, anti-washington, that is part of the republican party. and what you're going to see now increasingly is republicans saying, look, we have to make peace with ron paul personally and the paul wing of the party because that is now a fifth of the party. >> and really want to keep him from running as a third-party candidate in the fall. whoever the nominee is doesn't want to alienate paul.

>> when i saw rand paul introduce his father, i turned to mika -- you know when we were all in that crowded place and i said he's not going to run as a third party candidate. he's got a son who is a senator that this is a pretty darn good set-up for who is in the republican party. >> good point. >> we had a conversation as the results were coming in last night around the table. and we were talking and i explained -- because the question's always asked, why is it that republicans are supporting this quirky guy who is in his mid-70s? and i gave a very impassioned explanation as to why. and i would ask that none of you repeat that publicly because it was late and i was tired. >> well, no, it was a good argument. >> but there is an ongoing frustration among those of us who consider ourselves small government conservatives with eight years of george w. bush, which was catastrophic.

for small government conservatives and every -- every single measurement, and then you have john mccain four years ago running. and now you've got the belief that mitt romney could win or rick santorum now as we were at the top here. there are conservatives, you say 1/5 of the party, i say even more. i say if a different candidate with his message ran, i think they'd be winning right now. but i want to read what erick erickson has released just this morning. and this is what i think a lot of small government conservatives are going to say. and by the way, erick does not support ron paul in any way. his headline is "republicans -- i'm sorry "the republican party surrenders to big government conservatism." as you wake up this morning, the tea party has failed because it has surrendered itself into the hands of romney, santorum, or

gingrich. all of whom would use government to suit ends which is not conservative in and of itself. and willie, erick goes on to call gingrich, romney, and santorum big government conservatives three times. that's what we had with bush. and that's what a lot of people think we had with john mccain four years ago. and that's why there is this rebellion and why ron paul at least domestically is so attractive to so many conservatives who felt so betrayed by this party like i have for so long. >> this is the dilemma and has been for republicans as you pointed out for months on this show. who is that vessel who combines what you want with small government conservatism with electability? >> it's surprising. >> doesn't appear that person exists at this point. and you talk about domestic. i heard a lot of fears about ron paul. they say i like the guy, like small government, but kept

hearing about his foreign policy. very concerned about pulling back, closing bases, and particularly his talk about iran. i heard that from more than ten people. >> i've got to say the same thing. i love the domestic message, even if sometimes he goes a little bit too far out there because it is a great anecdote to everything that's wrong with washington, but john heilemann, that foreign policy message where he sounds like he's apologizing for ahmadinejad is probably not going to win him a lot of votes in south carolina. >> it's a huge -- the foreign policy thing is a huge problem for him and i think more broadly, you know, the history with the newsletters, the racism, the anti-semitism, the fact that he gave the keynote address at the john birk society -- he is not a mainstream candidate. and someone who had his spending program and a conventional republican foreign policy, even one that was a little bit more

less expansionist, someone more in the mainstream would be comp compelling. >> where would people have gone if he's not in the race? he's taken a lot of votes. >> a lot of them wouldn't have voted. a lot of independents going in. i think as we go to new hampshire, i think it's going to be fascinating. mark could rick santorum shock the political world in new hampshire talking about his blue collar roots? he is talking -- santorum geographically and i think demographically fits new hampshire better than any candidate. again, demographically, mitt's from massachusetts. >> a lot of catholics in manchester and the bigger places, and his campaign manager learned politics in new hampshire with pat buchanan's presidential campaign. >> here they come. all right. coming up live from java joes,

we'll talk to mitt romney. also jon huntsman, congressman aaron shock of illinois. he is supporting mitt romney. up next, we have the political playbook with mike allen. here he is. but first, let's go to bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> good morning to you, mika. and all that cold air you had in iowa yesterday has made it to the east coast. the coldest morning by far for everyone as you walk out the door and your kids head to school. windchills in the negative numbers through much of new england. big cities hovering to zero. new york at 5, d.c. at 7, you get the idea, it's the gloves, the scarf, the long johns, you need them. temperatures will jump up possibly maybe into the mid-20s. that's it for areas. as far as d.c. goes, we'll call it 35. the other thing we're watching, how cold was florida going to get with the possibility of a freeze? so far, so good. right now that freeze line is north of orlando. miami, you look like you're on

the cold side, you're not going to see a freeze. as far as the forecast goes, very simple, grab the sunglasses and the winter coat today across the country. you're watching "morning joe." we're brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] is zero worth nothing? ♪ imagine zero pollutants in our environment. or zero dependency on foreign oil. ♪ this is why we at nissan built a car inspired by zero. because zero is worth everything. the zero gas, 100% electric nissan leaf. innovation for the planet. innovation for all.

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i want to take just a minute and congratulate a good friend of ours. somebody who we admire and the family we admire. that's rick santorum. i admire the discipline, the way he focused and how positive he was. i wish i could say that for all the candidates. one other great debate, and that is whether this party wants a reagan conservative who helped change washington in the 1980s with ronald reagan and helped

change in 1990s as speaker of the house. somebody who is changing washington, or we want a massachusetts moderate who, in fact, will be pretty good at managing the decay but has given no evidence in his years in massachusetts of any ability to change the culture or change the political structure or change the government. let me be clear, i think it's important given all the things that were done in this state over the last few weeks. we are not going to go out and run nasty ads. we're not going to go out and run 30-second gotcha. but i do reserve the right to tell the truth. and if the truth seems negative, that may be more a comment on his record than it is on politics. >> welcome back to java joes in

des moines. newt gingrich, i don't know i'd call that gracious. >> that's not sportsman like. that's not. >> joining us now, mr. mike allen with a look at the morning playbook. mike, gingrich also has an ad in the new hampshire union leader already in the paper this morning calling romney a timid massachusetts moderate. the ad says only a bold reagan conservative can defeat president obama. his print campaign backed up by a bunch of tv ads in the state comparing the two candidates' records. what role does gingrich now play in this race? is he a sniper for rick santorum? >> it's a great way to put it. and there's going to be a couple of snipers going at mitt romney. he's been very fortunate. he has not been taking much flak. the under card all going after each other. that's changing right now. jonathan martin is up right now with a look at santorum's strategy. he's going straight at mitt romney. he's going to say that not only do you need to be a true conservative in this race, but this republican and you're going

to like this, the republican in this race needs to be able to talk to americans who are not so well off is the way he's going to put it. he's going to make a populist argument against mitt romney. also saying you don't have to compromise your conservative principles to beat obama. santorum's going to be out there arguing that mitt romney has no foreign policy experience and saying there's not enough contrast with obama when you look at issues like the bailout. >> willie, think about this. mitt's not been touched over the past several months. conservatives have been hitting conservatives. now he's got santorum, he's got gingrich that's going to level it against him. and a new front opens up, jon huntsman who is going to be going after mitt, as well. >> with perry looking like he's going to drop out, those are the voters that could go to santorum in south carolina. >> jon huntsman has been pretty much living in new hampshire like santorum has been taking on iowa. there could be a new dimension no doubt there. >> what about huntsman?

we haven't talked about the guy for a month. he set up shop in new hampshire. what does he have to do next week? what's the threshold for him to be viable? >> he needs to show that he can be someone who can appeal to republicans. he has ran as a moderate for a long time, then ran as a conservative. he hasn't made good use of his time. nobody knows what the huntsman brand is. there's no sign of him breaking through there. and it's going to be hard for him now because everybody's going to be focused on santorum. huntsman's not going to be the story. >> there's only one way for him to have a path forward, and that's romney's going to have to lose new hampshire. and some real blow dealt to romney that causes people, establishment republicans to say, man, mitt romney is a -- >> let me ask you this, john. let's say we have newt going after mitt really hard. it's going to hit him hard. you're going to have huntsman

attacking mitt, you're going to have santorum attacking mitt. he's going to get it from three or four sides now for the first time. there are a lot of people that said and we're going to ask him when he comes, what would've happened to mitt romney if he actually had been attacked? he wasn't attacked, he got the same number he got four years ago. do we not know yet whether he has a glass jaw? >> we don't. there's that question. if you talk to establishment republicans, that's the question lurking in their minds. two big questions, one, can he breakthrough the low 20s ceiling he's had nationally? and the second is, if he gets hit once or twice hard on the jaw, is the whole thing going to crumble? and we've not tested. it's an untested proposition at this point. we're about to test it. >> this weekend, two debates, ten hours -- one of them msnbc "meet the press," facebook. >> and the other one's abc?

>> right. >> can we buy stock in abc. buy stock in abc. i will tell you what, anybody that cares about politics is going to be locked in on "meet the press" and then that prime time debate. that's going to be a game-changer. >> and if you thought newt gingrich had civilized himself over the last month or so, going out the window. >> the last stand. >> and the other side of it, you talk about romney getting attacked from both sides, rick santorum will be looked at more seriously by the press in a way he hasn't been before. you call it kind of a reality check for santorum. >> that's right. people know nothing about his senate record. he's been campaigning around the 99 counties. nobody knows what he's been saying. turns out he has a great personal story, but extremely conservative views, including social issues. >> you want a conservative, you're going to get it. >> here's the thing, he's conservative on social issues. there's no doubt. >> extremely. >> but everybody knows that. they've already factored that

in. but you look at his record as a pennsylvania senator, this guy did not represent idaho. he did not represent utah. he represented a swing state, and willie, you have a lot of people who have painted rick as a caricature this right wing looney that could never win elections. i was around him in '99 and 2000 events. people would whisper dead man walking. there was no way that a guy that won in '94 as a right-winger could get reelected in pennsylvania in a swing state six years later. rick santorum did it. of course he lost in '06, but a lot of republicans in '06. >> they lost by 18 points in '06. one of the worst senate losses in the history -- >> and in 2006, after six years of iraq. listen, i am not -- i am not making a case for rick santorum's electability. all i'm saying is a lot of great republican candidates have tried to get reelected in pennsylvania and they have failed.

i don't think you're going to find a lot of dirt in santorum's record because he represented a swing state like pennsylvania. >> and there are no signs of social issues are going to be decisive this time. >> he's extremely vocal about them and i think it is troubling. >> it wasn't last night, though, was it? >> his biggest problem with conservatives when people start to look at the spending record. that's what perry was hitting him on here. the earmarks, the pork, erick erickson's point. is that santorum has on spending and domestic policy, not social policy, but spending and economics has a very big government conservative record he will get hit on. >> and a terrible answer on the earmarks. >> and willie, at the end of the day, that's a great irony. you've got the mainstream media looking at santorum -- you talk to conservatives, their criticism is the same as the criticism of mitt romney. he's not a real small government conservative. he's a guy that bragged about

bringing the bacon home to pennsylvania. that's not what they want to hear in 2012. >> given all that as you sit here january the 4th, do you see rick santorum in a general election that could defeat president obama? >> no doubt about it. i think he could beat the president in a general election. no doubt about it. i don't know he's going to get there, though. there are a lot of people in manhattan. you haven't heard me say that about a lot of republican candidates this year. in fact, i got scalded by the right for saying palin couldn't win, for saying that cain couldn't win, for saying that per rip couldn't win. just for saying bachmann couldn't win. and i usually said it on the day they announced. and for saying that huntsman could. rick santorum is one of these guys that people in manhattan and washington look at and go, oh, the guy creeps me out. and he -- and he's a guy that people in middle -- like my dad, i don't know much about him, but he seems like a good guy, a regular guy.

again, if you win in pennsylvania as a republican twice, i think you've got a shot nationwide. he doesn't have the organization. at the end, it always comes down to blocking and tackling and santorum. i guess my point is if he got to the general election, he'd have a better shot than most. he's got no organization going forward. >> he's got a bunch of money coming his way today. >> yes, sir. >> mike allen, we'll see you in manchester. >> thank you, mike. >> mike allen, everybody. the hardest working man in show business. >> jon stewart and the daily show return to compare the republican field to a box of chocolates. keep it on "morning joe" live from java joes in des moines. ♪ there's a place i dream about ♪

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all right. let's do a little sports. a big bowl game last night in the bcs. again, overtime, imagine if all of these thrillers actually meant something and something like say a playoff. 13th ranked michigan, virginia tech, sugar bowl, pick it up in

the second quarter, 6-0, the great quarterback robinson scrambles to his right, heaves it off his back foot, splits the safety in the corner. hemingway comes down with it for a 45-yard touchdown. a virginia tech fumble and the ensuing kickoff and then it's time for a fake field goal. it's deflected, look at this, and bounces into the arms of center, the big fella comes down with it. that led to a michigan field goal, gave him a 10-6 lead at halftime. fourth quarter, virginia tech, going for a two-point conversion to tie the game. logan thomas, tied at 17. teams tacked on field goals, going to overtime, tied at 20. 20-yard pass to the end zone, what looks to be an amazing catch. this is in overtime. the replay showing you the spectacular grabby the senior initially ruled a touchdown, but

overturned on review. they say no touchdown. his shoulder hit the sideline, didn't have control as he came down. still an incredible effort. they will try for the field goal to take the lead, but he misses the 37-yarder, pushed it right, opens the door for michigan on the next drive. brendon gibbons going for the win. the left-footed kicker stutters a bit, but gets it through. michigan wins 23-20 despite putting up half the yards of virginia tech. brady doing an incredible job in his first season, 11-2, michigan it's fair to say is back. >> harold ford very happy. >> he was at the game with his michigan hat on. he said the players thought he was derek jeter. true story, jeter's a michigan guy, he said he got a lot of hugs on the sideline. david brody joins us next for our must-read opinion pages.

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all happened for rick santorum, mika. yesterday we had lunch with a couple of people who helped run the santorum campaign. he said, hey, i remember eating here, we came here after we were at 2%. can you believe that? then the campaign manager came to him and said, yeah, i ate here last year when we were at 4%. last night, 25%. oh, the great wall of chocolate, seriously. >> salt and sugar. >> just stop it. >> all right. >> i'm trying to make an important point here. >> i'm sorry. >> the surge that rick santorum experienced over the past week, stunning, maybe he takes that to new hampshire. >> how does he do that? >> i think some of it's transferable. i think ultimately this is going to be about south carolina. we all know this. we all know it's coming and we also know that perry gets out of the race and bachmann gets out of the race, where are those folks going? it's going to go to santorum

potentially. i think he has an electability argument to make, and i think that's a major sticking point for him and we'll go from there. >> so you obviously working for the christian broadcasting network, you're hooked in we van jell caevangelicals in iowa. did anybody see this coming in? >> yes and no. i don't think santorum saw it too much here, as well. but there were a lot of undecideds. what they got to think was perry had his oops moments, and a lot of oops moments. and people looked at bachmann and said i don't know if i see a president in bachmann. and there was santorum standing in the end, and where was the oops moment for santorum? there weren't any. >> and he did it house by house, which makes a big difference. we spoke to one of the campaign folks for santorum two nights before we said, we said how's it going?

and they said, i don't know, we can't afford polling. >> another thing with santorum too is, let's just say it. because everybody that's followed him around has said it. it's not that he ran a great campaign. it's just -- and i'm sure they probably don't have woody allen quotes up in santorum's headquarters, but mark haleprin, i think about the woody allen quote, 99% is just showing up. and that's what he did in iowa. day in and day out and he fought hard for the win. >> i'll tell you another place he showed up. after every debate i do report cards on the candidates and i went back yesterday and looked at the ones, i'd written about santorum. he talked about how the debates were a big part of this campaign. he did well in the debates. >> yes, he did. >> and the last debate that took place here, the last two debates that took place in iowa early in december, he did very well in both of those and made an impression. yes, last man standing and you've got to still be standing

and he was. >> he also benefitted from the fact he was so low in the polls until so recently. you think about the two debates, the des moines register debate the sioux city debate, people weren't going after him. the two guys at the top, neither of whom faced negative campaigning against them through the iowa campaign. no one took on mitt romney and no one thought santorum was worth taking on. they were able to skate through unscathed and ended up on top. >> also right now what santorum needs to do is define the narrative. he's the guy that has to define the narrative. and i think for him the narrative may be he'll have to go around and say, look, i'm the authentic conservative candidate. versus the inauthentic candidate. i think if that takes hold, that's something that could not only be damaging to romney, but beneficial to santorum. >> here's what you write about rick santorum. simply put, this is a remarkable story. this man was left for dead politically throughout much of

his 2012 campaign until the very end. heck, he was left for dead politically after his 2006 senate loss to bob casey, and now here he is, the mike huckabee of 2012. everybody makes a big deal of how santorum spent tons of time in iowa, that's true, but don't forget, he's spent a great deal of time in new hampshire and south carolina. do not underestimate that. and one thing we learned tuesday night in iowa is not to underestimate santorum. >> yeah. and i think he'll be a force to be reckoned with. i think honestly, one of the concerns that going forward for santorum, something we really haven't talked too much about really anywhere is this side of him. he's prickly, he likes to get on the media's case. that scrutiny is coming, and when it does, how is he going to handle himself? >> i see mark and john both saying yes, yes, tell me about it. >> one of the vulnerabilities

mitt romney has is the press has not been rooting for him as the way it was for bush in '99, mccain later on in that campaign. there's been no one in the race the press has rooted for to take over for mitt romney. i'm talking about the press across the board. santorum has that potential right now, but he is prickly, particularly with reporters. it's a reality of the process. you've got to have people in the media cheering for you. santorum can do that -- >> that's why this class thing is important because the press -- if he can play up his gritty blue collar roots, not because the press is blue collar, but because that's an appealing story. even pat buchanan back in 1996 had parts of the liberal media rooting for him because he seemed like an outsider, a genuine blue collar guy, that can work for him in new hampshire if he doesn't get thin skinned, scratchy, and resentful. >> david brody, thank you so

much. >> by the way, heilemann, sounds like you took those off of my campaign buttons. thin skinned, scratchy, resentful. >> did you charge $4 for those? >> i did not. i also never finished fourth in a campaign, maybe that's why. >> we'll be right back with willie's news you can't use live from des moines.

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santorum, really? republicans are going to try every chocolate in the box? you tried all of them, all of them except this one. this is the one you never tried because you know it sucks. this one? that's santorum. the one you're trying to pawn off on one of your cousins. look at this, look, you see it? oh, my god. oh, my god, my chocolate was alive and now it's bleeding. so this is the one you're getting. you're getting romney in the end, the little messenger boy. there he is right there. look at that, he's got some santorum on him.

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my grandfather came. back in 1925. so he made a sacrifice, he left to the coal fields of southwestern pennsylvania. he worked in the mine at a company town.

he ended up continuing to work in those mines until he was 72 years old. digging coal. i'll never forget the first time i saw someone who had died. it was my grandfather. and i knelt next to his coffin and all i could do at eye level is look at his hands. they were enormous hands. and all i could think was those hands dug freedom for me. >> wow. >> welcome back to "morning joe." >> what a strong message. >> we're live at java joe's in des moines, iowa. caucus day has come and gone. joining us now to talk about what happened last night, mike barnicle. msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele, mark haleprin with us, as well. so we are looking at an

interesting end. we talked about this potentially three names emerging out of iowa if not two. >> possibly three names emerging. but of course after all the polling over the last week and all of the things that we've been hearing about from this month, let's very quickly talk about what happened last night and discuss what it means. >> we talked about the potential of a close race, but no one could've imagined it came down literally to eight votes. eight votes that would separate the two top contenders in iowa's republican caucuses. it was a nail-biting count that lasted into the early hours of the morning. and today, mitt romney can claim victory, at least by the numbers in the first big test of the 2012 presidential election. here's a look at the winners here. the win may be romney's, but all signs point to a tough fight to come with a late-surging rick santorum suddenly at the top of the pack, he came from the bottom and went to the top. ron paul in third place, the

caucuses followed by newt gingrich and after a disappointing fifth place finish, rick perry told supporters last night that he is going back home to texas, "to reassess his campaign." and joe, you know what that means. >> no doubt about it. what we want to do is we'll be showing -- i want to show rick perry and also newt gingrich. but before we do that, mike, let's talk about rick santorum. >> yeah. >> the emergence, i believe, of a significant national figure, not just because of what he did last night in the caucuses across this state, but because of the message he delivered last night. here is a conservative that sounded like one of the 99% instead of the 1% that so many people are trying to paint mitt romney. that message about his grandfather being a coal miner, being the first person he ever saw who had died standing at his

coffin and looking at those hands, those huge weathered hands that it hit him even as a young boy that those worn hands had spent the entire life digging and working and sweating to give rick santorum and his family a better shot at the american dream. that's a message that resinates not only in new hampshire but across america. for anybody. >> joe, there are a lot of elements of rick santorum's candidacy that will no doubt prove troublesome for him. there's no doubt about that. but there's no doubt about the clip that you just alluded to that we just saw. he is the only candidate in that field who has a narrative, an american story that connects with people who know what it's like to come from families who work, who lose jobs. >> who struggle. >> who have grandparents who help provide them -- >> he's a western pennsylvania

guy? >> yes. >> by the way, mike, we talk about this constantly on this show. he comes from a region specific region that has seen since the mid 1970s the decline of wages, the loss of jobs, the shuttering of factories, the obliteration of industries. rick santorum, whether he is a candidate of the 99% or not, rick santorum is from ground zero of the gutting of the american industrial machine of western pennsylvania. >> again, he's the only one in that field who has a valid, a very legitimate narrative to tell that connects. the only one. one interesting component if i can just -- one other thing that i think is going to happen very quickly and i don't know whether you're going to agree with me on this, mark. the manchester union leader, by sunday night, there is a real possibility that within new

hampshire you will have internal warfare in the republican party fueled by the union leader that will give you basically the tea party/conservative movement in the republican party against mitt romney. >> and what could happen for rick santorum is all out warfare, which we're going to have between newt gingrich and mitt romney in new hampshire with rick santorum basically walking -- walking through the fire. so let's talk about winners and losers. mitt romney obviously a big winner here along with rick santorum. we've talked about rick santorum. let's talk, michael steele, about mitt romney. mitt romney staggered out of this state four years ago badly wounded. >> right. >> and the wrap on him was he couldn't win iowa evangelical voters and because of that, he couldn't win the nomination. last night according to the entrance polls, mitt romney was second among evangelical voters,

did better with evangelicals than michele bachmann or rick perry. i think they laid waste to that tired narrative that mitt romney can't win conservative christian voters. >> i'd agree with you, but i think he staggered out of iowa. this is where i disagree with you. i don't think he won big last night. i think what you saw last night was the grass roots of the party saying as they have said from the very beginning and you and i have gone back and forth on this point. they're going to be the ones who ultimately decide who is going to be the nominee, not how we pick them on this set, not our they pick them out of washington or how the press picks them. they're going to be the ones who -- lay hands on them from their pulpit and decide who is going to be the best representative. rick santorum to your very point has throughout this process under the radar connected with the folks in this state in a very personal way.

he shared his narrative, they saw themselves reflected in that narrative, and it came out last night -- and certainly over the last few days to the point where, you know, he was fighting tooth and nail. i kind of tweeted last night, you know, newt gingrich may be lucy, but charlie brown was definitely mitt romney. and guess who has the football? that's rick santorum. and that's a very, very interesting situation for both -- all three of those gentlemen. mitt romney cannot seem to break that 25% -- >> let's ask about that, because by the way, there'll be the question as to whether or not rick santorum has the money and organization and the upcoming states to keep this momentum going. mark haleprin, mitt romney, if you were mitt romney supporter in new hampshire and south carolina right now watching this or an undecided, what are you thinking about him winning by eight points? he's now run -- this is his fifth year campaigning in these states. and he closes the deal by eight

votes? >> remember, the premise of the romney campaign was they could lose iowa and south carolina and still be the nominee. they've now won iowa by a narrow margin. but they thought they could win this without a win here. >> so? >> well, mitt romney's pretty well defined. the advertising out there, he's a pretty familiar figure, at least in the republican electorate. it's the battle to define rick santorum where the fight's going to be. he's got his biography we'll talk about in terms of his background. he's got a lot of other compelling things in terms of senate career, fighting for principle, achieving things. one of the original compassionate conservatives working with bono. and if you talk to the romney supporters, they're going to be defining him in a much different way. that's the battle for me. can he control his message, control his narrative? or will the romney people -- >> there's good news and bad news for mitt romney. you could look at a lot of these facts that michael talked about. look at how much he spent per

vote, considerably more than the other candidates, but what i look at is just how smart his campaign team was. where they said we're going to stay away from iowa. we got caught there last time and it blew up in our face. about a month and a half ago, made a gutsy decision, a gutsy decision. at the time a lot of us questioned it. they said we're going to go to iowa. we think we can do well in iowa, maybe even finish second. he didn't spend time here, he didn't spend money here until the very end. and then he poured it in and poured it in strong. and he won. i don't care if he won by one vote. the fact is, he didn't campaign here and went away with a "w." that's big news. and i understand what you're saying, i understand that completely. but you've got to look at his campaign staff. and as inept they were four years ago in many respects, they called this one right. >> they've been technically proficient. and they haven't had that establishment candidate problem

of spending too much money, not being nimble. they've been very nimble. they came in here and made a smart decision. they leave with the win. interesting thing about -- i think about romney's decision to come here and win is he -- he had pretty good momentum. he would've lost this -- the caucuses if he hadn't also had the second best level of momentum at the end. bigger crowds and all that. mitt romney wanted to win this, and he did and that -- you can't take that away from him. >> no doubt about it. >> barely. >> we talk about the two winners. >> yes. >> let's talk about the two losers and they are clearly defined. >> oh, it's over for rick perry. i mean, he says it in a very couched way right now. he's going home to reassess. take a listen. >> i've decided to return to texas, assess the results of tonight's caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race. and with a little prayer and

reflection, i'm going to decide the best path forward. but i want to tell you, there has been no greater joy in my life than to be able to share with the people of iowa and of this country that there is a model to take this country forward, and it is in the great state of texas. god bless you and thank you all for being with us. >> the numbers when you look at how he did in terms of the money he spent, j rick perry. >> very painful. this has been one slow train wreck for rick perry from the very beginning. look at the numbers, the cost per vote in iowa. he spent so much money, and ended up paying about $500 per vote. >> you don't move on after that. >> shades of john connolly, he is the 2012 equivalent of john connolly, and it seems to me, michael steele, he is going back to texas, trying to regroup,

and, you know, he's not an old guy. >> no. >> he may have a future. he does not want to end up in fifth place. >> yeah. >> in new hampshire. and then limp into south carolina and end up in fifth place in south carolina because he's deemed a loser. >> all right. >> he's got to get out, right? >> he's got to get out. for the long haul. and i think one of the things you evaluate, can i be a player in the game or outside the game? and for him right now, he can be a player outside the game. >> yep. >> do we have newt gingrich, alex? >> yeah, let's talk about the other person that had a brutal few weeks in iowa. that, of course, is newt gingrich. >> i don't think his response was very sportsman like. >> i don't think it was very sportsman like either, but i don't think the incoming he endured over the past several weeks was sportsman like either. >> what? >> he was absolutely savaged. and i think most mortals would've left this state just as

bitter as newt did last night. >> was there any ad that wasn't true? all right. here's newt. >> i want to take just a minute and congratulate a good friend of ours, somebody who we admire and family we admire and that's rick santorum. i admire the courage, the discipline, the way he focused and i admire how positive he was. i wish i could say that for all of the candidates. we'll have one other great debate. and that is whether this party wants a reagan conservative who helped change washington in the 1980s with ronald reagan and helped change washington in the '90s as speaker of the house, somebody who is changing washington. all we want a massachusetts moderate who, in fact, will be pretty good at managing the decay but has given no evidence in his years in massachusetts of any ability to change the culture or the political structure or the government. let me be clear because i think it's important given all the

things that were done in this state over the last few weeks, we are not going to go out and run nasty ads. we're not going to go out and run 30-second gotcha. but, i do reserve the right to tell the truth. and if the truth seems negative, that may be more a comment on his record than it is on politics. >> all right. to underscore gingrich's point, he has a full-page ad in the "new hampshire union leader" today calling romney a timid massachusetts moderate. the ad says only a bold reagan conservative can defeat president obama. gingrich's print campaign will be backed up by a series of television ads in the state comparing the two candidates' records. >> mike barnicle? >> he's a little bruised up from

that. >> mike barnicle, you're smiling, and you're smiling because you know war is -- >> yeah, he's coming back. >> war is coming and you like it as a reporter. >> the only people up in new hampshire all night was joe mcquade and the staff of the "manchester union leader." it'll be an assault on mitt romney for the next week. there's no doubt about that. the odd thing is, if you follow american politics as we all do and have for quite some time, newt gingrich really has very little complaint coming his way. because more than anyone in the current field of candidates, he is the guy most responsible for starting the demonization within american politics. it wasn't enough to defeat an opponent, you had to demonize the opponent. he did it from the time he first arrived in the house of representatives. he has very little complaint coming. >> which is why he shouldn't be

sore at what happened in iowa. >> does he have to score well in new hampshire? >> i think the debates will be extraordinarily important and intense. we'll probably have rick perry off the stage, we may have michele bachmann off the stage. introduce jon huntsman back. we haven't talked much about him. >> he's going to be on. >> i think newt gingrich in both the saturday night debate and then the debate on "meet the press" on sunday is going to have an opportunity to make that case in that higher profile way than in a newspaper ad, and in presidential politics, television ads matter, but you don't need much money if you're driving a debate. >> i've got to say, it's chris christie. >> you can't say it until he writes you back. >> he just said, chris christie sent me a text and told me not to read it. >> fine. >> he told me to stop whining, but i'm not going to tell you what he told me to stop whining

about. >> we're going to talk to mitt romney. chris christie's candidate, and up next, the candidate putting it all on the line in new hampshire, jon huntsman joins the conversation. >> all right. >> that's next. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement available only with liberty mutual auto insurance, if your car's totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. to learn more, visit us today. responsibility. what's your policy?

we are off to new hampshire. because the message i shared with you tonight is not an iowa message or an iowa and south carolina message. it is a message that will resinate across this land, it will resinate, i know, in new hampshire, because you think i've been in iowa a lot. i've been to new hampshire 30 times and i've been more times

and done more events than anybody but jon huntsman and he cheats, he lives there. >> welcome back, "morning joe" with us is moderator of "meet the press." david, this story is coming together. it's getting fascinating. you have newt going to new hampshire. and boy, he's going to drop the hammer on mitt romney. you've got rick santorum, looking strong here, talking about his blue collar roots, going to new hampshire. you've got jon huntsman who santorum talked about in new hampshire. i'll tell you, a lot of things coming together. and you've got a debate on "meet the press" that is going to be must-see tv. what do you want to get out of these candidates? >> well, look, i think what's remarkable about this stage of the race is the voters are starting to say something and they're not ready to anoint a front-runner yet. i think that's the take away of last night. if rick santorum went all over iowa and said vote with your heart and not with your head, a lot of folks listened. even if the economy was the big issue, that favors mitt romney,

40% of his supporters have reservations about him. we still have this narrative of romney not being able to get above 25%. but listening to romney this morning, what did he talk about? he said, look, santorum did great, i've got a national campaign that i'm building. you know, i've got representatives in all the states. it's that -- the scale of his campaign that he's arguing is what makes him inevitable, but still got to make the hard sell. >> well, he made the hard sell in iowa. a lot of people didn't expect him to win here just a month or two ago. doesn't this build his narrative? that he is inevitable? >> well, i think that as big as the story was for santorum, and you can't deny it, mitt romney edges out a victory, does do better than he thought he would, that a lot of people thought he would. and if he goes on to win new hampshire, no republican's done that. you can't deny that. so for all we talk about the alternative to romney, there is still a march here toward the

nomination that gets difficult to deny if he can keep it going. but as you just outlined in your first question, new hampshire's going to be quite the fight now. you know. he's going to get the mccain endorsement, that could help, that could also reenforce he's more of a moderate candidate. he's going to face the moderate credentials of jon huntsman. i think new hampshire will be pretty interesting. >> no doubt about it, thank you. we know you've got to head on to new hampshire. we thank you for sticking around with us. and we cannot wait to see the debate on sunday on "meet the press." let's go to new hampshire where that debate will be taking place. former governor of utah, our friend jon huntsman. thank you so much for being here. obviously you've been focused on new hampshire like a laser. but i've got to ask you, what was your take on last night's surprising election? >> joe and mika, what an honor and privilege it is to be from

new hampshire. forgive me if i have a new hampshire accent, i have spent too much time here. it was unbelievably ambiguous. to think that governor romney with his team on the ground for what? six years now? basically did no better than he did last time, you've got three people sharing a tie. and a whole lot of people are looking for an alternative. and now the marketplace, joe, is going to turn to new hampshire. and nobody here really cares about what happened in iowa. they've done their own diligence. they've looked at the candidates. they're sorting through what it is they stand for. they want new leadership. they want a new generation of leadership. they don't want to be told for whom to vote in the state. and i like our position. we've put in the grass roots work. last night in peterboro, we celebrated event number 150. the 150th public event for the huntsman campaign, and i can feel a surge of energy on the ground. and i think we're in great shape here. >> so you've been taking an

approach much like rick santorum in iowa in new hampshire going door-to-door and holding the town hall meetings, something that may pay off for you, but we do sort of have this three-way tie or at least definitely a two-way tie with eight votes separating rick santorum and mitt romney. what is it about these candidates headed your way that make them flawed and you the person to look at? >> well, here in new hampshire, again, this is a state that does not want to be told for whom to vote. you can have the entire washington establishment jump behind somebody as you're seeing playing out here. that doesn't matter a bit to the people here in new hampshire. they want reform, they want someone who is going to stand up to congress and say in order to regain trust in this country of ours because we have a serious trust deficit. we've got to reform congress. we've got to call for term limits, have a president out there who is going to lead the charge. if you've got the entire establishment behind you, you're not going to be able to do that. we need a president who is going to be able to call for the closing of the revolving door on

capitol hill. we need to have a president able to take on the banks on wall street because we've got a bunch of banks too big to

i've been to all of the ten counties in this great state. and all i can tell you is this nation is ready for a manufacturing renaissance. . and we need a president as governor took the state to the number one position as job creator. as the best state in america for business. we need a president who has lived overseas and has some sense of the opening that we have to launch a manufacturing renaissance. i've watched china go from 8%, 9%, 10% economic growth for 30 years running and now they're going to be putting in 4%, 5%, 6% growth rates for the years to come. and that investment dollar is going to be looking for an alternati alternative. i want to be the president that launches a manufacturing

renaissance in this country. i've talked about it with the people in new hampshire, they get it. the shop floors want to get back to work in this state. and we're only going to be able to get there if we have a president who has done it as governor, created that environment that is conducive to growth and conducive to a manufacturing renaissance, and a president who understands the world in which we live. i've lived overseas four times, i have seen what our competition is doing to prepare for the rest of the 21st century. i want to get this country back in the game. i don't want to have to be the person who said we saw the end of the american century by the end of 2050. >> all right. governor jon huntsman, i think new hampshire could be pretty interesting. >> going to be fascinating. >> we will see you there. thanks for being on the show. >> we'll look forward to it. thank you all so much. >> thank you so much. with us now is the republican presidential candidate and former governor of

massachusetts. he's wearing the belt, he's wearing the champion's belt. it was a split decision, but by eight votes. mitt romney -- >> bruised and bloodied, but he's emerging as the winner. >> there are lots of questions i could ask you about, how long you were here and comparing your vote total this time to last time, there are a lot of people carping, but i want to ask you on a personal level, what's it feel like now to be leaving a state as the winner? a state that four years ago you and your team left under much less positive circumstances? how do you feel this morning? >> joe, we feel very, very good. as you can imagine, you've been in our spot before, and you know how huge it is to be able to have a win. look, just a few weeks ago, we were way behind. and to be able to come from behind and to edge out the other contestants, i think both ron paul and rick santorum had very positive nights. i'm obviously very excited about the results from last night.

>> let's talk about when you made the decision. can you remember when you made the decision to go for it in iowa? there were a lot of people that suggested you needed to stay away that this was a state that had bitterly disappointed you before? we heard mitt romney's a mormon, he can't win evangelical iowa. and yet you did it. what was the decision making process that tipped the balance for you to say you know what? i think i can go to iowa, i think i can win iowa. >> well, actually, you know, we knew it was a stretch. and yet we planned from the beginning to watch very carefully to build our momentum in iowa and to put the ads on the air, to put the time in at the final few weeks and to try to get iowa in our column and to be successful is obviously an enormous break for us and a big boost for me. i can't tell you that there was no one time when we said, hey, let's really go for it. we decided that put in the

effort, particularly as we got close to election day. and clearly with the results of last night, we're pretty pleased we had that kind of effort. >> looks like perry's going to step out, but you have newt gingrich who in his -- what would you call that? >> i don't know what you'd call that. >> fair well speech to iowa. >> his fair well to iowa last night just blasting you and getting ready to do it again. he's coming guns blazing to new hampshire and south carolina. and then rick santorum, eight votes, i mean, were you sweating last night when you were watching the returns come in? >> well, we knew it was going to be a virtual tie later in the evening, of course. but the final tally made us happy, four of my boys were in the bedroom with anne and me and we were in the bedroom to see what the final numbers would be. and i've got a big target on me now, the democratic national committee, the president, the white house, the other

contenders for the race are going to come after me in a big way. they've been going after me the last several months, but that's the nature of the process. i've got broad shoulders, i'm willing to handle it, and this is a time that's critical for the nation. and i think people want someone who has spent their life outside of washington and understands how our economy works. i've been in the real economy for 25 years, i want to bring that experience to the country and feel that we're making progress towards getting there. >> all right. michael steele. go for it. >> good morning to you and congratulations. it's a very strong victory for you. quick question, though. you talk about all the targets and where they're coming from. you also have a lot of conservatives that had a lot to say about this election yesterday. first time they got to vote. how do you coming out of iowa tied with rick santorum virtually still struggling with that 25% number, what's your message to conservatives as you begin to roll, not just in new hampshire, but particularly as

you get ready for south carolina and florida that says to them, look, i'm your guy. this is going to be our team effort to go and tackle the big target, which is really barack obama in november. how do you now position yourself to communicate more effectively better with those conservatives? >> well, i think conservatives in iowa here supporting me, conservatives in new hampshire are supporting me. i'm getting support from conservative leaders as well as conservative voters. my message is straightforward, i know how to get this country working again by restoring the principles of the constitution, by restoring america as a merit society, an opportunity society, keeping us away from the european-style welfare state that president obama represents. that's a message which i laid out in my book several years ago. and people are also taking a look at my record as governor of massachusetts. i balanced the budget all four years, put in place a rainy day

fund of over $2 billion, made sure that we had our state police enforce immigration laws, we have english emersion in our schools. i'm sure we're going to get a chance to talk about records, but my vision for the country is one which is connecting with the people who are conservative as well as americans broadly. we'll have to make sure we have a 50.1% or better vote come november of 2012. >> mark haleprin? >> governor, congratulations on your win. i want to not ask you to be negative, but comparative. so far when you've talked about senator santorum, you've talked about your record and his record. i know you p want the campaign to be about issues. what are two issue positions that you would contrast for voters between you and senator santorum? >> you know, mark, that's a very good question. and we really haven't had much of an opportunity to get to know rick santorum on the issues. and so as time goes on here, we'll get a better chance to see

where we agree and where we disagree. maybe these upcoming debates will give us a better sense of that. but frankly over the past several months, our effort has been focused on contrasting and comparing with speaker gingrich, with rick perry, with herman cain. these are the guys who have led in the polls. and now that rick santorum has gotten a big boost coming out of iowa, i'm sure people are going to take a look at our respective positions, but i frankly don't know where he is, for instance, on our tax reform program, on international trade. those are things we're going to get a better chance to look at. >> all right. hey, your neighbor's here, mike barnicle. >> governor, first of all, congratulations on winning last night. >> thank you, mike. >> what's your response going to be later in the week when inevitably the "manchester union leader" will have a front-page editorial and a picture within the front page editorial of you and ted kennedy signing the

massachusetts health care bill. what's your response going to be? >> you know, i understand it's going to be coming from all different directions. and i'm very proud of the fact that what i did for my state i think was right for my state. and people in that state agree. one thing i want to make very clear, i'm going to repeal obama care. i understand health care pretty well, and what obama care does for the nation is absolutely wrong. people don't want it. if i'm president of the united states, i'm going to stop it in its tracks on day one. i understand people are going to try to tear me in various directions. but don't forget, i ran four years ago and mike huckabee and i were the conservative alternatives in the race. i'm a conservative republican, i'm proud of those roots and i'll be getting ready for a campaign i know will be spirited. >> that it will be. could be a lot of stories, as well, mike barnicle about how mitt romney was able to reach across the aisle and work with the other side. >> he had to. >> he had to.

some have issues with that. mitt romney thanks very much. we will see you in new hampshire. >> thanks so much. and congratulations. >> thank you, guys. >> we will be right back on "morning joe." daddy, come in the water! somebody didn't book with travelocity, with 24/7 customer support to help move them to the pool daddy promised! look at me, i'm swimming! somebody, get her a pony! [ female announcer ] the travelocity guarantee. from the price to the room to the trip you'll never roam alone.

welcome back to "morning joe." live again this morning from java joe's here in des moines. while mike barnicle was at home in his jammys watching the sugar bowl last night, some of us were out covering the caucuses. we took a crew to altoona, iowa, suburb of about 15,000 people, 15 minutes or so so outside of des moines to see how this worked. precincts one and two said in separate parts of the gym -- one in the gym, one in the cafeteria, a sign says we use manners. >> we need one of those on our set. >> yes, we do. the crowd listened to pitches from the candidates before casting their ballots. the votes were tabulated by hand out in the hallway and the winners were announced back inside the jim and the cafeteria. precinct one went for ron paul,

precinct two went for rick santorum, he got 42 votes followed by paul with 33 and romney with 27. i talked with some of the voters as they left the gym, many of them talking about their highest priority, defeating president obama. >> who did you caucus for tonight? >> mitt romney. >> who did you caucus for tonight? >> mitt romney. >> i voted for mitt romney. >> tonight my choice was rick santorum. >> rick santorum. >> probably the biggest thing is the electability. because i was between santorum and mitt romney, and i chose romney at the very end. >> what do you like about romney? >> i like thing electability? >> governor romney can raise $1 million and i think he can match obama dollar for dollar and he is a candidate who can defeat president obama. >> what is it about mitt romney that attracted you? >> i think i like his family values. i feel like maybe he could be the one to beat obama. >> he might be the best to get along in washington. >> and he's the guy who can win, that seems to be the overarching argument tonight, right?

>> right. >> if santorum comes out to be the nominee, do you think he can beat barack obama in a general election? >> i think so. >> and is that a nominee you could live with? >> i could live with rick santorum. >> do you believe rick santorum can defeat president obama? >> i hope he can, yes. yeah, i do, he is one of america's choices in his ideals and his beliefs. >> and is rick santorum a candidate you're happy with? somebody you can live with to take on president obama? >> yes, mm-hmm, i can. >> what is it you like about him? >> he's got christian conservative values. and that's important to me and standing against abortion is important to me, but i think he can take on the economic issues. >> so as i said, joe, santorum won one of the precincts, rob paul won the other. but everyone coming out of there, almost everyone saying we could live with mitt romney for the simple reason we think he

could beat president obama. they also thought their guy, santorum could win, but they said if it comes down to it, we'll go for romney because the thing that kept coming up is we have to get president obama out of office. >> help us out for those americans that have never been to a caucus but were in their snuggies like mike barnicle watching football games last night. >> with feet. >> give us a little color about what those caucuses are like. >> it's cool. the caucuses have been derided by people lately who don't live here. but you go in, and it is democracy at work. it wasn't big flashy campaign surrogates getting up there. members of the community, people who live in that neighborhood who would get up because they liked michele bachmann or liked ron paul. and you get two to five minutes, five is the max, to make your sales pitch. here's why i think he's best not just for the country, but for our community. here's why they represent the beliefs. so you hear all the arguments from the different people and then they just hand out a little slip of paper. you write the name down in

pencil, pass it in the middle, go out in the hallway, count them up. they go back in, they announce a winner, everybody applauds, it's a neat process. >> that is democracy in action. >> it sure was. >> exciting. >> and always remembering that manners count. >> yes. >> no one yells out at the caucus. >> no. >> they don't need a seven-second delay there. >> no. >> well, okay. what's your point? >> i'm just saying, manners count. willie, what do we have coming up? >> we're going to talk to illinois congressman aaron schock, also chuck todd from new hampshire. "morning joe" back in a moment live at java joe's. oh it's clearance time!

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welcome back to java joe's here in des moines, iowa. >> you love this place. >> it's been a great week, hasn't it? >> it's been an awesome week, we love java joe's. but there's been a spirit hovering over this whole place. it's just a guy who may not have gotten a lot of votes last night but everywhere you went, it was almost like he was just on the lips of every caucus goer. >> i think i know who you're talking about. buddy romer. >> goldman fricking sachs. >> but he can't get the votes or get into a debate. so last night he did all he could do and that was tweet.

here are a couple of them. spoiler alert. i'm not going to win iowa. don't tell the 49 people who caucused for me, #the 49 coolest iowans. another one, we're drinking every time buddy gets a delegate. we're stone sober. but the next round is on me. buddy then said breaking news, nobody in iowa knows that i expect and then finally breaking news, somebody who died in 1987 is beating me in iowa. #invisible man let buddy debate. >> i absolutely loved it. >> you know what, he's a serious guy with a serious message. >> when he was on our show i thought he was fantastic. >> he was great. >> i actually do think he has got one of the most compelling

messages. just looking at the message for 2012, i think it's custom made for this year in every year. >> should he be on that stage, mark halperin? should he have been on the stage? >> a tough decision. i'd like to see debates that are more inclusive and some that are smaller and have him in some of the more inclusive ones. >> on tomorrow's show, peggy noonan will be with us and actor/director ed burns. >> "morning joe" will be back here in des moines right after this. ♪ ♪ let's go ♪ ♪ cruise like a norwegian ♪

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people have asked me, well, why do you think you can win, because we've been told by so many people that there's another candidate in this race who is running a rather close race with me tonight. that is a better person to choose because he can win. let me tell you, what wins -- what did you say? oh, romney care, okay. i just didn't hear you. what wins? what wins in america are bold ideas, sharp contrasts and a plan that includes everyone. i ran in a tough election year when george bush sr. was losing the election by a landslide in my district and i got 60% of the vote, because i shared the values of the working people in

that district. if we have someone who can go out to western pennsylvania and ohio and michigan and indiana and wisconsin and iowa and missouri and appeal to the voters that have been left behind by a democratic party that wants to make them dependent instead of valuing their work, we will win this election. those are the same people that president obama talked about who cling to their guns and their bibles. thank god they do. >> welcome back to "morning joe" live at java joe's in des moines. michael steele is still with us and joining us from manchester, new hampshire, chief white house correspondent and political director and host of "the daily rundown" chuck todd. why don't we get through the headlines and go right to chuck. >> sounds great. >> all the polling over the past week pointed to a very close race but perhaps no one could

have imagined just how close it would have been. eight votes separating the top two contenders in iowa's republican caucuses in a nail-biting count that lasted into the early hours of the morning. to rney can claim victory, at least by the numbers, in the first big test of the 2012 presidential election. the win may be his, but all signs point to a tough fight to come with a late-surging rick santorum suddenly at the top of the pack. ron paul came in third place in the caucuses followed by newt gingrich. after a disappointing fifth place finish, rick perry told supporters last night that he's going home to, quote, reassess his campaign. we know what that means. >> we certainly think we know what that means. let's go to chuck todd in new hampshire. chuck, what was your takeaway of, i think, pretty remarkable results from last night's election? >> it is. just think about it. you know, mitt romney has been at 25% for five years.

rick santorum got there in two weeks. had these caucuses happened two or three days later, santorum might have won by five, six, seven points. so it is another one of these amazing pieces of volatility. that said, you do get the sense mitt romney is probably going to become the first republican in modern history to win both iowa and new hampshire. you know, he's heavily favored here. obviously the margin will matter a little bit on how he wins, how much he wins, who's in second and all that stuff. but until he wins a contest with conservative support, he's not the nominee. >> so tell me, what do you think as you see mitt romney going toward new hampshire? what's your takeaway with rick perry possibly getting out of the race, rick santorum now gaining a lot of steam, newt gingrich leaving here embittered talking about how he's going to

take down mitt romney. the manchester union leader obviously going to be focusing their guns on mitt romney. what do you expect to see over the next five, six days? >> it's fascinating because if you're rick santorum you've got to be loving the fact that you've got newt gingrich on the right ready to just openly attack romney at any point in time, i think. we'll find out later today just how much so. and then you've got jon huntsman who's going to try to do his best to suck independent votes away from romney basically from his left. this is a do-or-die moment for huntsman. you would assume that he's not just going to tiptoe around romney this time, that he's going to spend the week going after him. so both of those things happen, you're rick santorum, that's a beautiful scenario for you. maybe you're able to use the surge, connect with sort of the blue collar part of new hampshire that pat buchanan was able to tap into and win the primary. i'm not saying santorum can win it, but what kind of bump can he

get. can he get to 20, 25%. he wasn't even polling at a number that would have qualified him for the debates in new hampshire just a week ago. so this is an ideal scenario if you're santorum in that you need some time to raise money, put together a national infrastructure, see if you can get the movement conservatives to actually get on board and make the case. this is the last conservative train leaving the station if you want to stop romney, so get on board. you know, he might get -- he might be able to buy time thanks to gingrich and huntsman going after romney for him. >> hey, chuck, it's willie. my first question to you is did you teleport to new hampshire? because i saw you here about five hours ago. >> you know, it's the beauty of airplanes. there is one nonstop from des moines to manchester every four years and somehow i find my way on it. >> amazing, amazing. you're everywhere, chuck. rick santorum, a big night for

him obviously last night. when we look back on last night, though, say six months from now the way we look back on mike huckabee's win, which was a remarkable win for him but he was never really a serious challenger to the eventually nominee. is santorum different from huckabee that way? >> well, he's got an ability, i think, to be a little more mainstream than huckabee was. huckabee was rooted in more of the religious conservative part of the republican party. i think santorum would like to think he's going to be able to be broader than that. obviously he speaks pretty adeptly on foreign policy. he's got this plan that he wants to push on manufacturing that you haven't heard other republicans talk about so i think he thinks he can be different, plus he's won in a blue state. that's something mike huckabee can never say that he did. this is not about rick santorum, it's still about mitt romney. he's still got a conservative problem. and oh, by the way, on the day after the iowa caucuses that

once again prove you have a conservative problem, is it really the best day to roll out your john mccain endorsement? is that going -- it's going to play well here in new hampshire, but is that going to actually poke conservatives who maybe aren't enamored with rick santorum and are concerned he can't win and say we're going to do everything we're going to stop romney now, he's got mccain, i'm jumping on board santorum. >> chuck, that begs the question and i'm begging you for an answer to the question. doesn't that set up a classic tea party/conservative campaign against mitt romney? thus calling for internal warfare within the republican party during the rest of the primaries? >> well, i think it's possible. look, i think we know what's going to happen here. romney will win by some margin in new hampshire, probably between 8 points and 15 points. and then it's going to be an all-out bruising battle in south carolina. and if romney loses, if santorum

wins that, then we go and have this bruising battle in florida. and if romney wins it, he'll be the de facto nominee. if somehow he doesn't, then we're in for a very long slog going all the way through. so in order for santorum to get to south carolina, he's got to show that he can actually make up real ground here in new hampshire in the next six days. >> and, chuck, speaking of a log slog, newt gingrich left iowa very quickly but he left one clear message, one objective, and that is to attack romney at every corner with his fourth place finish in the caucuses. the former house speaker says he will hold nothing back when it comes to the next phase in the race. take a listen. >> i want to take just a minute and congratulate a good friend of ours, somebody who we admire and whose family we admire and that's rick santorum. i admire the courage, the discipline, the way he focused

and i also admire how positive it was. i wish i could say that for all the candidates. we have one other great debate and that is whether this party wants a reagan conservative who helped change washington in the 1980s with ronald reagan and helped change washington in the 1990s as speaker of the house, somebody who is into changing washington, or we want a massachusetts moderate who will be pretty good at managing the decay but has given no years in massachusetts of any ability to change the culture or change the political structure or change the government. let me gee clear because i think it's important given all the things that were done in this state over the last few weeks. we are not going to go out and run nasty ads. we're not going to run 30-second gotchas. but, i do reserve the right to tell the truth.

and if the truth seems negative, that may more a comment on his record than it is on politics. >> all right. to underscore that point, gingrich has a full-page ad in the new hampshire union leader today calling romney a timid, massachusetts moderate. the ad says only a bold reagan conservative can defeat president obama. gingrich's print campaign will be backed up by a series of tv ads in the state comparing the two candidates' records. so here we go. >> so here we go. so tell me, chuck, does newt gingrich have a shot at seriously damaging the campaign of mitt romney in new hampshire? >> well, he could. one thing we have not seen in this campaign is a sustained media campaign, attack campaign on romney. you know, it's always been remarkable. look at all the money rick perry spent. how much of it was spent

targeting mitt romney? not much. look at all the money ron paul spent. how much was used to attack mitt romney? not much. so i think we're all curious to see, you know, to see how romney handles it. does he have a glass jar or not. what happens when he is under sustained attack from the right about his record? newt claims he's going to start it in new hampshire. you know it's going to come in south carolina. you know the way that state practices politics. how does he come out of this combination of new hampshire and south carolina? what does he look like politically on january 22nd? at that point in time we'll find out whether this is going to be a short nomination process or a very long one. >> yeah. so after all the money he spent in iowa, rick perry came in fifth. he addressed his supporters last night about that. >> i've decided to return to texas, assess the results of

tonight's caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race. with a little prayer and reflection, i'm going to decide the best path forward. but i want to tell you, there has been no greater joy in my life than to be able to share with the people of iowa and of this country that there is a model to take this country forward and it is in the great state of texas. god bless you and thank you all for being with us tonight. >> you know, michael steele, rick perry still has $3.5 million in the bank, but money can't buy him love. certainly didn't do it here in iowa. he spent almost $500 per vote. he's going to probably get out of the race. what does that mean to the rest of the field? >> well, i think it opens it up again for santorum. to chuck's point, that that gap that's being left behind by perry is going to get filled with some dollars from

supporters on the ground, maybe even perry's campaign in some way. and certainly in terms of the whole setup to go after romney, it will be interesting to see if perry decides he's going to endorse or get behind someone like a santorum. and it goes back to the point i asked bachmann who was in this chair on monday. have you guys had a meeting yet? maybe last night was the beginning of that meeting where the conservatives in this race decide maybe now it's time to coalesce with bachmann and perry looking to move on. >> obviously the idea for mitt romney is to divide and conquer. if it can be mitt romney on one side and the five or six conservatives killing each other on the other side, that's a winning formula for him. now with rick perry getting out, michele bachmann being deemed almost irrelevant by last night's -- she really needed to win here. she was born here. a lot of people thought she could win here. you've got two less conservative

candidates crowding the bandwidth. what does that mean moving forward to mitt romney, rick santorum, newt gingrich and ron paul? >> this is a conservative political party. this is not a moderate -- you know, it is more conservative than it is moderate. and if mitt romney can't figure out how to win over conservative voters, it's going to be hard for him to get across this finish line. it's like within reach but not quite. and it only seems to get in within reach for him when other candidates fade away. and that's the danger here. if somebody there's a coa lessing around one conservative candidate in this political party at this point in time, being a conservative candidate is a lot easier to get the nomination than being the moderate candidate. and when you look at the primaries after the month of january, it doesn't get easier to be the less conservative candidate going forward.

>> chuck, i'm going to switch you back for a minute to chief white house correspondent mode. we haven't talked much about what the white house thinks about what happened last night. what do you think they're doing in chicago? what are they doing at 1600 pennsylvania avenue this morning as they watch the results from last night? >> well, i've actually been talking to them about this over the last few days, talking to folks around the campaign. they're not that happy. they're glad to see that mitt romney still hasn't fixed his base problem. they're glad to see mitt romney is still struggling to get the nomination. but they were hoping that it was rick perry or newt gingrich that would come out as the chief alternative and not rick santorum, because it's their belief santorum doesn't have the infrastructure to make romney go long. they wanted to see this primary campaign go very long so mitt romney didn't have time to move back to the center, that he has to continue to spend months figuring out how to win over conservatives and they think that as he does that, it can turn off independents in the middle.

so they're happy to see that romney still has these problems. they're not so thrilled that it's santorum, because they just don't believe he's got legs. >> chuck, with regard to the white house, why do the -- first of all, before we get to the white house, were you at all intrigued by mitt romney's response to mark halperin's question about rick santorum, in that he was asked what are you going to say about santorum's record, what are the differences between you and santorum and he said we don't really know much at all about rick santorum. i think we found that pretty interesting here. what about you? >> well, it's sort of twofold. on one hand he doesn't seem to be anxious to attack santorum. he's taken passes at every moment in time. when you think about it, that's a different way of handling it, for instance, than when perry rose up to challenge romney and when newt rose up, right? he immediately had his talking points to beat both of those guys down. not so much with santorum.

i think he -- first of all, i think the romney folks think the press are the ones that are going to start going after santorum more so than what he needs to do. but again, they don't think he's got the infrastructure to do this. and so they're just glad it's not -- you know, the romney campaign is oddly happy about their victory simply because -- not just because they actually won, but simply because it is not newt or perry that's their . you teleported yourself, as willie indicated, back to manchester. do you have any sense on the ground there about the role that the union leader is getting ready to play with regard to gingrich and the assault that's bound to come on mitt romney? >> well, i'll be curious to see if they do that. the romney campaign has actually been pleasantly surprised. they expected a month-long assault from the union leader editorial page and it really hasn't happened.

it didn't happen in the way -- remember at the beginning we said the history of the union leader is when they endorse, they don't endorse once, they endorse every day and they certainly endorse against -- help you out with your opponents. we haven't seen all that so i'll be curious to see what the next six days are like. i expect this to be a pretty nasty six days. for huntsman it's do or die and for newt it's do or die. so even though the result may not be in doubt, how mitt romney comes out of here after new hampshire will be fascinating. >> we will be joining you there, chuck. >> believe it or not, six days, countdown, six days or maybe five to the national championship game. >> unbelievable. >> alabama/lsu. >> two debates between now and then which should be interesting as well. >> joe, my favorite tweet of the last night is auburn has decided to drop out and endorse lsu in the championship. >> cute. >> that will happen. all right, chuck, thank you so much for being with us from

manchester. we will see you soon. we've got a lot more straight ahead from java joe's n a few minutes we'll talk to illinois congressman and romney supporter aaron schock. also rich galen will be with us and he's going to talk about what newt did last night and what he expects over the next week in a brutal new hampshire campaign. first here's bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> good morning, joe and mika. great stuff out there from iowa. forecastwise, all the cold wear that was in iowa has now headed east and we're feeling it this morning. florida is even cold. ft. myers, florida, at 34 degrees. windchills are in the 20s. miami, you're not too bad, you only dropped to 43. the citrus crops are doing okay, they made it through the night. also very cold in new england. talk about new hampshire, right now windchills there in the negative numbers as we go throughout the day but even new hampshire this weekend will warm up into the 40s so really no signs of big storms on the way so that's good news for everyone

traveling to new hampshire for all the politics coming up shortly. temperatures for the most part very chilly in new england and the big cities of the east. the rest of the country, you were cold and now you're warming up. we're looking at 49 in kansas city today, denver near 60, l.a. is going to be in the 80s. look at tomorrow, kansas city at 60 degrees. same for you in st. louis. so it almost feels like spring break in the midwest. you're watching "morning joe." of course we're brewed by starbucks. [ engine revving ] [ male announcer ] you won't find the toughness of a ram 1500 combined with the legendary power of a hemi v8 in any other truck. it's a beautiful thing.

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iowa is a state in the midwest that manufactures pigs, corn and old people. on election year, the presidential candidates come to iowa to spread as many flu germs as possible. this year's candidates include mitt romney, mitt perry, mitt santorum, some real estate lady from santa barbara and walter, the jeff dunham puppet. >> tonight is the biggest political story of the century, the ohio -- no, i'm sorry, that is the iowa, the iowa caucuses. the caucusii? check on that one. any way, it is the super bowl of old midwestern people in a high school gym sitting in folding chairs. >> welcome back. java joe's. joining us former press secretary to former house

speaker newt gingrich, rich galen. rich, newt last night, he didn't -- i don't know, didn't seem very sportsman like is the word i've been using. >> that was the unhappy newt. >> that was not happy. he's angry. >> the angry newt we've known for the last 25 years has not served him well. i'm hoping he gets over it overnight. >> i don't know. he really felt like a victim. he felt like he was victimized here in iowa. was newt gingrich victimized by the state of iowa? >> they did gang up on him. and the romney campaign, i think everybody will agree, did everything to support santorum short of buying actual advertising for him. >> why is that a good strategy for romney? >> because there's no path for santorum forward. >> and why is that? >> no money, no organization. santorum won here because he's been here for seven or eight months. 99 counties, 300, whatever, town hall meetings because he had the time, because he was the first one. >> is he a huckabee?

>> likely to be. the difference -- i think he likely is -- i think this thing will end at the end of january. >> rich, we were showing last night -- we were showing the clips from newt from last night and i talked earlier, and it's one of the things that those of us that have known newt for a long time were surprised by. i was explaining how i learned how to run my first campaign by going to a campaign school that newt put on in december of 1993. i still -- everything i needed to know about campaigning, i learned in that week from joe gaylord. >> flying upside down? >> yeah, flying upside down. it was remarkable. and i was talking last night to somebody else that new newt very well through the years and it's one of the great mysteries that a man that could teach everybody else how to run disciplined campaigns and win a majority

when nobody believed republicans could win majorities, flying upside down, that this man continues to crash his plane. >> those who can, do. those who can't, teach, right? >> is that not so incredibly ironic. if newt had followed the advice he gave all of us. >> why can't he do it? >> because newt is like a solid state rocket. once it lights off, there's no off switch. he just keeps going until he runs out of fuel. >> i've got a feeling, mike barnacle, rich has thought through that one before. >> i practiced on him. >> the thing that strikes you as a viewer in the clip we've shown a couple of times today from last night, newt gingrich speaking last night, is that the viewer, no matter where you are in the ideological spectrum, you can see the guy just seething beneath the surface. >> yes, he seethes. >> i think he does feel beset. i think he feels -- i mean he understood -- to your point,

joe, he understood the dynamics of the campaign. he understood that the only person that romney was afraid of politically was gingrich and they had to do everything -- >> romney had to kill gingrich. that said, though, newt always talks about ronald reagan. i guarantee you, newt gingrich was not hurting more last night than ronald reagan was hurting in 1976 when gerald ford won the republican nomination by saying, by saying that ronald reagan, president ronald reagan could start world war iii and yet reagan rose above it in the '76 convention. he got up there and smiled and he won the moment, he won the day and he won the nomination four years later starting that night. >> i'm not sure he did it the night that ford said it. >> but this happens. explain how politicians who get kicked, treated badly, still if they have the discipline to fly upside down, using newt's terminology, they get up there

and smile and make americans think that they won. >> that's exactly the point. you have to be -- if you're going to be successful in politics, i think you have to be an optimist because you have to believe you're going to figure out a way to win the campaign, win the day. >> but to joe's point about, you know, having no one that joe has ever met teaching him more about how to run, how to campaign and how to win, that's what newt gingrich did with a certain class of republican congressmen, now he's running for president of the united states. and that entails, obviously, a great many things, being president of the united states. so how is it, you know the guy, you worked for the guy, how is it that a guy that we see seething on tv has such utter lack of self control that he can't control himself? >> i don't know. that's a question for a psychologist and i suspect it goes back to being -- you know, being a kid in a military family and never really feeling comfortable about himself, but i don't know that.

it is a continuing astonishment to me. he should have seen it coming. i think he did see it coming. there was no way for him to stop it because he didn't have any money. he said he was going to run a positive campaign for the simple reason he didn't have enough money to run negative ads so he was kind of stuck with it. >> he spent the last week of his campaign in iowa, his closing argument was about process, they're being mean to me, making it about mitt romney instead of making it about voters in iowa. it was a classic mistake. >> i also thought he sounded last night like a guy who had lost instead of a guy who still has a chance to win in south carolina. he sounded like he was aligning himself with rick santorum saying together we can take down mitt romney. he sounded like a guy at the end of the campaign not like a guy who is moving on. >> the reality is together they can't. if everybody else got out, santorum would win south carolina.

remember newt the other day said he wanted to debate romney one on one. >> right. but if you were advising him, let's say, you would have someone named newt gingrich, would you advise him to call mitt romney a liar? would you advise him to call anyone a liar? >> no, i would have put it a little better. he may be mistaken. but that is classic newt. you saw it in the debates. when anybody challenged him, his first words were that is untrue. what you just told these people is not true. it turns out more often than not it was true. it's just the way newt parses the world works in his favor. >> you said there's no path for rick santorum and this could be over by the end of january. what could happen between now and the end of january to change that and what happens to all these conservative republicans who say they can't go for mitt romney? >> well, they may not -- mitt romney may not be their first choice, but barack obama is their last choice. and when it comes down to it,

they'll get behind romney. >> you know, i think one of the surprising things for me over the last week is newt gingrich, touching on what you said before, willie, newt gingrich has a good chance, had a good chance a week ago of winning south carolina, of winning florida. forget -- i mean forget iowa. if he had been disciplined enough to keep looking forward instead of getting bogged down in the bitterness, i think he'd be in a lot better shape this morning than he is. >> it's like a cross reference bridge. i'm going to give up this card. >> but he's not going away. >> no, that's fine. i think it's good for romney to have the competition. >> i think it might be. >> and to have somebody get ugly against him. remember where barack obama is from, chicago. >> can newt gingrich still win the nomination? can he win south carolina? >> he can win south carolina, but i don't think he can win the nomination. again, because he's got to do it

serially. the only guy that can operate in parallel is mitt romney. >> all right, rich galen, thank you very much. coming up, we have illinois congressman and mitt romney supporter aaron schock joining us here at java joe's. keep it right here on "morning joe" live from des moines, iowa. ♪ ♪ let's go ♪ ♪ cruise like a norwegian ♪ my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars

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body but you don't sink in and it is firm. proprietary tempur material suppresses motion transfer. means that when you get in or out of bed, youon't disturb yourartner. that's amazing. that's amazing. tempur-pedic, the most highly recommended bed in america. call the number on your screen. i want to ask you on a personal level what's it feel like now to be leaving the state as a winner? a state that four years ago you and your team left under much less positive circumstances? how do you feel this morning?

>> joe, we feel very, very good, as you can imagine. you've been in our spot before and you know how huge it is to be able to have a win. look, just a few weeks ago, we were way behind and to be able to come from behind and to edge out the other contestants, i think both ron paul and rick santorum had very positive nights. i'm obviously very excited about the results from last night. >> coming out of iowa, it was unbelievably ambiguous. to think that governor romney with his team on the ground for, what, six years now, basically did no better than he did last time, you've got three people basically sharing a tie. and a whole lot of people who are looking for an alternative. now the marketplace, joe, will turn to new hampshire. nobody here really cares about what happened in iowa. >> i'm so tired, i've -- >> that is jon huntsman and also

mitt romney talking about their battles. mika has her own battle with bad food. that's why i have become a champion of health causes and good eating and good diets. >> this is kelly's special here at java joe's. she made it with skim milk. >> it doesn't really matter. it doesn't really matter. it's disappointing to me that you don't take better care of yourself. >> i'm tired. >> let's go right now to a congressman from illinois who does take good care of himself. >> look how fit he is. >> i have seen the pictures that have proven it. aaron schock is here and he's also supporting the romney campaign. >> good morning, guys. good to be with you. >> you've got to be shocked by this garbage mika is drinking. >> i'm not doing that. i'm putting it away. michael steele is here and he wants to start with the questions. >> i do. you're supporting romney and you're conservative. you're part of that new wave of leadership in the house.

how come this guy is not connecting with average conservatives out there? he's sitting at 25%, he's not peaking. last night you compare and contrast the two speeches, you have santorum, who gives a passionate narrative about himself and how he connects to people. he's got the hole in the shoe, you know, for walking the same walk as average americans. romney gets up and starts talking technocratically. conservatives are going there you go. how do you move kwloubeyond tha? how does someone like you convince someone like me when he gets to the white house he'll do the right thing. >> the two days i was with him last week on the bus i thought he did a great job of connecting emotionally. he had his wife ann out there and stocking about her struggles with ms, talking about their boys and their belief in america. and i think they struck a chord with iowa and they're starting to get it. i'm not suggesting last night's

speech was his best, but i think the reason he's done so well in iowa is because he's starting to get his groove on. the media has even picked up on the fact -- >> wait, i don't think he did so well in iowa. >> he won. >> he won by eight votes. >> he is a -- this is how we did so well. there would be a much larger gap. >> he wasn't even expected to be in the top three a couple of months ago. >> look, joe, you're right, he wasn't expected to be in the top three, three months ago. but when you come in -- >> five years later. >> with the bravado of i'm the guy now that's going to take charge, this just didn't happen in the last six months. he's been running for the last six years. so after six years you're still getting maybe seven, ailt votes than you get six years afoe. >> mitt romney has got a plan to become our nominee. that plan has never included winning iowa. the fact that he did win iowa means that he's exceeded expectations, he's further on

the path to be the nominee, and i think he feels very good where he is today. as a supporter of mitt romney, i'm confident new hampshire will play very well for mitt romney. i think more and more conservatives like myself are going to say, wait a minute, we've been told this guy is not conservative enough. he's not the most conservative guy out there, but listen, he's balanced the budget all four years he was governor, he cut taxes 19 times, he created $2 billion rainy day fund in a state like massachusetts and he did it with an 85% democratic house. >> he did work with the other side. >> you know what we need in washington, d.c.? we don't need more great ideas and great plans. there's plenty of congressmen and senators with great ideas. what we need is somebody to get it done. >> so eric erickson this morning, he got up very early this morning to go after mitt romney, and he basically said -- the headline this morning is that the tea party has failed. for all of this talk about small government conservatism, they

have selected big government conservatives. what would you say to eric erickson, what would you say to small government conservatives in new hampshire, in south carolina and florida to say that's not the case, he's one of us. >> look, i come from illinois, all right. you give me a governor that cut taxes 19 times and balances the budget -- >> hold on a second. if you're from illinois, just say give me a governor that doesn't get indicted, that's a little bit better, right? >> hey, now. >> go ahead. i interrupted you. you've got to say the bar is set pretty low in illinois but go ahead. >> but you give me a governor who balances the budget all four years, who cuts taxes and creates a rainy day fund. what's not conservative about that? what is the tea party's major issue? reducing the size of government. what is mitt romney's track record? in business, making companies profitable. in the olympics, turning around a dysfunctional olympics and making it profitable. in government as governor, turning around a dysfunctional

state like massachusetts in the worst of times. to me that's conservative and somebody who's not only conservative but who can deliver on those principles and that's what we need. >> as a small government conservative, how do you defend as now a supporter and surrogate for mitt romney, how do you defend what he did with health care in the state of massachusetts. if you believe small government is better, how do you defend that? >> i think he says it best. he did what was best for massachusetts. his health care law is still favored three to one in that state. what his principles are, look, we believe in the federalist principles, we believe in state rights. what he's saying is we don't believe in doing for one state what we should be doing for the entire nation. and so that's why he believes in repealing obama care and saying each state should be able to try out and test and do what they think is best for their state. being in illinois, i can assure you what we do in health care is going to be much gift thdiffere what south carolina or florida does and that's what a conservative believes is in states' rights. >> do you think he's convinced

other conservatives, though? is that argument winning the day? are other conservatives convinced of that? >> i think so. i would argue we have one of the most conservative houses in probably the last five, six, if not the last decade and he has more conservative republicans in the house endorsing mitt romney than any other candidates in the race. >> but what about here in iowa, i mean congressman king. why wouldn't he just endorse mitt romney. >> well, he did endorse him last time. i think congressman king just stayed out of it so that the rest of the constituents could have the opportunity to meet the candidates one on one. iowa is a tough place to win. this is not a -- i don't remember the last candidate who ran away with iowa. so the fact that he was able to win, the fact that he was able to do well and exceed expectations i think is a win on his board and kudos to his team. >> i certainly agree with you on that part. let me ask you really quickly about congress. you guys are going to go back into session. you look at last year's session

and look at the fact that the deficit went up another trillion dollars under, yes, the president's leadership and the senate's leadership, but also under what was supposed to be a very conservative house. you and i both know if you read the constitution, all spending bills start in the house of representatives. if the house doesn't approve it, it doesn't get spent. and yet another trillion dollar deficit this past year. what can you, what can john boehner, what can eric cantor, what can the republican congress do to make sure we don't have another trillion dollars added to our national debt at the end of this year. >> well, i think we need your help in holding the senate accountable. look, when i go back to my district and remind voters it's been over two years since the united states senate passed a budget, they kind of step back and say you're kidding me. yes, it's been over two years since the united states senate passed a budget. how can we in the house negotiate with ourselves? we passed a budget. >> i would agree with that,

except for one thing. and i do agree with that. i think the senate democrats have been shapeful and their refusal to put a budget on the floor because they know they'd get killed for doing it. but you have the checkbook. and i will tell you how i control the checkbook. when my kids come and ask me for money, i take the checkbook -- >> and you say here's the credit card, joey. >> stop it. i put the checkbook back in my pocket. you guys can stop this spending, can't you? >> sure. we can shut the government down. >> now you're talking. >> i'm just really tired. >> why don't we agree, we'll end on a point of agreement there. i am suddenly very optimistic about the new year. congressman, thank you. >> it's great to be in the midwest. >> we'll be right back. this is an rc robotic claw.

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welcome back to "morning joe." it's time to talk about what we learned today and let's bring in the owners of java joe's. thank you so much for having us. can we come back this summer? >> absolutely. >> all right. >> even though we trashed the place. >> we do kind of trash the place when you let guys like this