he's from occupy fenway movement. anyway, thank you for having us. >> the news, what did you learn, mika? >> michele bachmann is having a press conference and is cancelling her plans to south carolina, so iowa may have weeded out a candidate or two. >> what did you learn, mike? >> i learned that it costs nothing to be nice in iowa. >> there you go. what did you learn, michael? >> there's a lot more fight in this game and conservatives raised up their voices last night. >> willie. >> i learned that java joe's is now as much a part of the iowa caucuses as the candidates, the snow and the nights. java joe's is the place to be. >> and i learned once again, there's no place like iowa! thank you for being with us. willie, if it's way too early, what time is it? >> it is morning joe from the iowa caucuses. we'll see you back in new york tomorrow. stick around, chuck todd is live at the next stop on this tour, manchester, new hampshire. one down and here we go.

photo finish. just eight votes separate iowa caucus winner mitt romney from rick santorum. romney looks towards new hampshire with a little wind at his back but nagging questions remain. despite a record turnout romney won with the lowest percentage in republican history. he's still got a conservative problem, and this is the day he rolls out the mccain endorsement? game on. santorum is taking his remarkable finish to new hampshire, but can his underfunded campaign keep the momentum going? south carolina feels like a long way away. and game off? rick perry says he's going home to reassess his campaign and michele bachmann, she's called a press conference for 11:00 this morning. plus, no more iowa nice. newt gingrich arrives in new hampshire with sights aimed squarely at mitt romney. he makes it clear he'll hold nothing back. we'll talk to the former speaker live about his fighting words from last night. that will be in just a few minutes. it's wednesday, january 4th,

2012. this is a special edition of "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd coming to you from the next front in the race to 2012, new hampshire. this is our home here for the next six days. let's get right to my first reads of the morning. in the closest iowa presidential contest in history, mitt romney narrowly beat rick santorum last night winning by just eight votes, as santorum made a remarkable surge from single digits a few weeks ago to a near upset. romney and santorum each pulled in just about 25% of the vote with some rounding, although romney's iowa percentage was almost exactly what he got four years ago, a divided republican electorate helped him to win this time. ron paul came in third, picking up 21%. gingrich placed fourth with 14% followed by rick perry with 10 and michele bachmann at 5. the poll of nearly 1800 caucus voters show how the top two built their winning coalition.

romney performed best among the third of caucus goers most concerned their candidate can defeat the president. nearly half of that group, 48%, voted for romney. he also did well among wealthier voters, voters who said experience working in the business sector was better than working in government and caucus goers who called themselves moderate or liberal of the santorum put together a conservative coalition performing best among voters who said abortion was the issue that mattered most to them, who valued strong moral character, voters who identified themselves as very conservative and white evangelicals. so you see the divide, it's right there and it's clear. mitt romney still has not been able to win over the conservative part of the republican party. the question is he can't get this nomination until he does it somewhere, until conservatives put him over the top. that's not going to be a test here in new hampshire. that test may come in south carolina or florida. now, the next phase of the campaign starts this morning in

new hampshire. rick santorum made it clear last night he plans to take on romney aggressively. >> 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 -- >> romney care. >> what wins -- what did you say? oh, romney care. okay. i just didn't hear you. >> santorum also teed up the populist message he hopes will resonate beyond his social conservative base. >> 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. >> as for team romney, they can't be disappointed by the cover of this morning's "des moines register." but last night romney didn't come out to sound tie um fant. instead he sort of declared a joint victory. >> congratulations to rick santorum. this has been a great victory for him. we also feel it's been a great victory for us here. for ron paul as well. ron paul has had a great night. this is a campaign night where america wins. we're going to change the white house and get america back on track. >> now, romney made a last-minute decision to can the prepared text. he skipped a teleprompter that had been set up and simply slipped into his stump speech from the last week on the trail in iowa. today he picks up the endorsement of his 2008 rival john mccain right here in

manchester, new hampshire. ron paul, who romney eagerly acknowledged last night as well, said his third place finish was still a win. >> this movement is going to continue and we are going to keep scoring, just as we have tonight. there's nothing to be ashamed of. everything to be satisfied and be ready and raring to move on to the next stop, which is new hampshire. >> ron paul, that was his best chance to win, that third place finish has got to be very disappointing to them. finally, will last night's results enter the field? rick perry all but indicated he's on his way out. >> with the voters' decision tonight in iowa, i decided to return to texas, assess the results of tonight's caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race. >> now, michele bachmann denied she was dropping out last night.

>> just be prepared, the pundits and the press will again try and pick the nominee based on tonight's results, but there are many more chapters to be written on the path to our party's nomination. >> but she has now cancelled her trip today to south carolina and she is set to hold a press conference in des moines this morning in less than two hours. newt gingrich, oernln the other hand, signalled he plans to bring his attack to mitt romney here to new hampshire and beyond. >> we are not going to go out and run nasty ads. 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. >> also last night a pro-gingrich super pac said it would step up efforts to define mitt romney, and newt gingrich joins me now and he's in concord, new hampshire. mr. speaker, when i hear

concord, i'm thinking lexington, i'm thinking shots. it seemed last night you indicated you're going to fire some shots in these next six days. >> i don't know if it's firing shots if you have an honest discussion about two different tracks. i am a reagan conservative. i helped cut taxes in the 1980s that helped create lots of jobs. i helped cuts lots of tauxz in the 1990s that created 11 million jobs. governor romney raised taxes, created romney care, appointed liberal judges, those are facts. it seems to me you can have an honest fact-based campaign that draws a contrast between a reagan conservative and a massachusetts moderate. that's not an attack per se unless you regard somebody's record, the statement of the record as being an indictment which is a comment on the record, it's not a comment on the process. >> now, you're choosing to do this starting last night and today and moving forward. do you regret not doing this

three weeks ago? >> no. look, we were stunned by the volume of negative ads and the dishonesty of negative ads and the unwillingness of governor romney to take responsibility for it or to be honest about it. and i think it took us a couple of weeks to sort it out because as you know by running a totally positive campaign, developing proposals for jobs and economic growth, developing proposals for balancing the budget, developing proposals for modernizing the government, i had gotten to a point just on the debates with no advertising of being the front runner nationally. so we were really on a path to have a real policy debate, which i thought was the right way to set up barack obama for ultimate defeat, and then we got diverted by romney and his negative campaign and to a lesser extent by ron paul's negative campaign. now we have to go back and figure out how to run in an environment where you have two guys that are saying thangz aren't honest or accurate and

will spend millions of dollars doing so. >> yesterday prompted by an interviewer you said you agreed with the idea that mitt romney was lying. i guess my question is what's he been lying about? >> well, it's pretty clear. he's not truthful about his record in massachusetts and his background. he's not truthful about his pac, which has his staff running it and his millionaire friends donating to it, although in secret. and the pac itself is not truthful in its ads. one of the ads have four pinnochios. imagine if we did a commercial in which somebody's nose kept growing and growing and growing. four pinnochio's is a lot from the "washington post" so i think that's a fairly accurate summary. just take the question of track records. i really helped change washington twice, once with reagan in the early '80s, once as speaker of the houseworking in a bipartisan way with bill clinton. both of them very large changes.

governor romney largely explains what he couldn't get done in massachusetts because it was a democratic state dominated by liberals so he had to accommodate them. that's his language, not mine. he explains his liberal judges because he had to do it. he explains that he had tax-paid abortions in romney care because he had to do it. he doesn't quite explain why he put planned parenthood in romney care, an agency i would defund because it's the largest abortion provider in the united states. but there are these clear differences. yet his pac ran an ad which i thought was frankly worthy of "saturday night live" in which he questioned by conservative credentials despite a lifetime going back to goldwater and reagan and my own speakership of consistent conservatism. >> if this new tough campaign that you're going to take to governor romney doesn't end up helping you, do you hope that the next best thing that it does, is that it ends up helping rick santorum? >> i think rick santorum had a great night last night. i think he earned that night.

he worked his heart out crisscrossing the state of iowa. he is a terrific person. we are very fond of rick and karen and their family and i have great respect for him. i think what's really striking about last night is three out of four republicans once again repudiated mitt romney. here is a guy that's spent millions of dollars campaigning in iowa for five years and he has a ceiling of 25%. when people talk about electability, how can you take seriously somebody after that kind of a campaign with that amount of money flattens out at 25%? he'll do better here because this is sort of his home base. new hampshire is one of his three best states. even here i predict you'll see him slide. by the time he gets to south carolina and florida, it will be obvious. this is not a conservative republican. he is not going to win the nomination. and he is not the most electable candidate. he is simply the guy the news media likes to talk about. >> do you think it's important

for movement conservative to coalesce either around yourself or rick santorum in the next week or so? >> no, i think that rick and i between us will draw a clear enough and sharp enough line with romney that we'll go through phase one of making clear to the country that romney is a massachusetts moderate, doesn't have a serious plan. the "wall street journal" said his tax plan was so timid that it could be obama. by contrast they said i had the most aggressive job-creating plan of any candidate. so i think rick and i are going to focus, both of us, i suspect, on selling ourselves. we each have our own approach, slightly different approaches towards how you create jobs, but we're going to be out here trying to say we're the best candidates and in the process i think we'll both be defining romney out of the mainstream of the republican party. >> is it fair to say rick santorum is your second choice if it's not yourself?

you told my colleagues over on cnbc -- you told my colleagues that you could support romney -- >> the way you said that, i had to stop for a second. look, i would support mitt romney over -- i would support mitt romney against barack obama because barack obama is devastatingly destructive for this country in values and approaches. but i clearly like rick santorum a lot and i think rick santorum will tell you he likes me a lot. we are personally very good friends and have known each other for many, many years. in fact it goes back 20 plus years. >> back in april, you had said the citizens united case and the work that david bossi did there is an extraordinarily important case and landmark. obviously you were the victim of one would argue the unintended consequences of citizens united. any second thoughts? >> no. no, i'm not the victim of that. i'm the victim of one personal person, mitt romney, whose staff

decided to run a deliberately negative and dishonest campaign. that's the fact. remember the swift vote model existed in 527s long before citizens united. and in fact this particular approach i think has nothing to do with the citizens united case, it has to do with a bunch of millionaires getting together to run a negative campaign and governor romney refusing to call them off and refusing to be hahn bes it. >> all right. >> so i think this is a matter of political responsibility. >> speaker newt gingrich, thanks for coming on this morning in concord, new hampshire. stay safe on the campaign trail. >> take care. all right, the candidates are on the move today. >> on to new hampshire, let's get that job done. >> we are off to new hampshire. >> that's right, it is all about new hampshire. now, will santorum be able to hang on as the mitt romney alternative? can gingrich bounce back?

what about the other wild card that's been living in this state, jon huntsman? the view from the granite state is next, plus we'll tell you what dark horse presidential candidate buddy roemer was doing. first, a look ahead at the president's schedule. while the republicans are in new hampshire, guess what swing state he's going to. it's round on the end and high in the middle. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. [ 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.

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thank you so much, iowa. you have taken the first step of taking back this country. >> let us restore the greatness of america and keep this land the hope of the earth. thank you so much for all your help. on to new hampshire, on to new hampshire. let's get that job done. >> one contest down, dozens more to go, beginning with new hampshire's primary just six days away. dante teaches and david epstein from the des moines register and is the director of the paul simon public policy institute at southern illinois university. gentlemen, thank you both. david, i'm going to start with you because i want to break down iowa here. let's start with turnout. small jump, but a jump, a record. were you surprised it wasn't more or were you surprised that they were able to top it?

>> i thought it would have been a much bigger turnout for all the hoopla and time that was spent here. so okay turnout for the republicans, i guess. >> obviously what was happening inside the electorate was fascinating. when we saw what mattered more, beliefs, experience, values, electability. and this time, for instance, david, electability was 31% of caucus goers went into the caucuses thinking about electability first. that was huge for mitt romney. that was just 7% four years ago but it was the same big thing for mitt romney. yet he didn't seem to increase his overall standing in the caucuses. >> yeah, that's a problem for mitt romney going forward into new hampshire there. he's going to have to picking up some conservative votes. i think as this race gets handed off from iowa to new hampshire, it's going to be interesting to see how the conservatives that backed michele bachmann and rick perry, who do they do now?

how does rick santorum rally them in another state? clearly iowa has played the traditional roles, chuck, of number one, it's winnowed the field, fewer people to worry about in new hampshire and has elevated a whole new figure in american politics in rick santorum. >> okay, ten years ago -- 20 years ago it was thought of new hampshire had this conservative electorate about it and then john mccain sort of changed the conventional wisdom here and made the primary seem like a place where moderates were rewarded. is there a path to victory at all for a conservative anymore in the state of new hampshire in a primary? >> you know, if there's a weak moderate in the race, but that weak moderate is not mitt romney. it's not someone who's been here really for half a dozen years campaigning for the new hampshire primary. someone like that is almost going to be guaranteed to get 30, 40% of the vote. so for a conservative to win, let's say a rick santorum, you

need a pat buchanan style victory, 26, 27% wins new hampshire in a three-way battle. that's the kind of scenario rick santorum would need. >> i want to talk about santorum. you brought up pat buchanan because this feels like '96. as david remembers, this is the lowest percentage for any iowa caucus winner. it broke the record in 1996 of bob dole when he got 26%. the surprise in iowa that might was a guy named pat buchanan. he took it and he surprised here in new hampshire. how much of buchanan do you see in santorum. >> you know, a good bit. working class roots, social conservative, roman catholic. all of those elements line up between santorum and pat buchanan. you know, key difference is mitt romney looks like a much stronger candidate. and there's no lamar alexander in this race. back in '96, that was the three-way battle and jon huntsman doesn't look to have the strength just yet. we'll see over the next six days, as lamar alexander. >> huntsman would be that guy if

he somehow got the strength. david, i want to go back to you and the iowa entrance poll here. it was interesting, among people that said the most important thing to them is that somebody -- that their candidate is a true conservative, santorum got 36% of those voters. mitt romney got 1%. ouch. >> yeah. i mean that's mitt romney's appeal. he also runs well on the electability front. a lot of conservatives are having to swallow hard in order to accept mitt romney. some of them who want to win are willing to do that. others who have some heartburn over some of romney's past and his positions, they couldn't make that leap. so i think it's going to be a challenge for mitt romney going forward. >> david, in your experience did mitt romney make a mistake waiting too long to take iowa seriously? or was he doomed from the beginning, that no matter what happened with -- there was always going to be this split inside the party in iowa? >> i think he did wait a little bit late. eight votes.

you know, to me it highlights the importance of organization. we tend to dismiss that, but retail clearly worked, it clearly counted for something here. had he had a little more time, he might have been able to ramp up a little bit more impressive margin. >> dante, rick santorum likes to say, hey, don't discount me in new hampshire. i've been here the second most behind jon huntsman. what is his organization? >> i mean it's not great, it's nowhere near mitt romney's organization. but his campaign manager, national manager is a new hampshire guy. they're going to make the most out of the momentum that they have. third place is wide open in new hampshire, maybe even second place. >> i was just going to say if third place is open, who's in second? it's interesting. dante, david, thank you both. all right, stocks start off 2012 with a bang. the market rundown is next. but first, today's trivia question. since 1972, how many nonincumbent republican candidates have won the iowa caucuses and gone on to win the presidency?

tweet me the answer @chucktodd and @dailyrundown. the answer is coming up on "the daily rundown" live here in manchester. whee wheeeeeeeeeeeee! wheeeeeeeeeeee! whee whee wheeeeeeeeeeee-he-he-heeeeee! whee whee wheeeeeeeeeeee! pure adrenaline.

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well, one of the real long shots, republican presidential candidate buddy roemer, is trying to remind everyone he's still out there. during the caucuses last night he took to twitter with a serious dose of self-depp railway kating humor. i almost have enough votes to start a bowling league. maybe i could have waited until after the iowa caucuses to say i would cut all ethanol subsidies. well, okay, that's it, i'm buying a sweater vest. there you go. the opening bell is ripping on wall street so it's time for the rundown. brian shactman is here. >> reporter: we had a great day

yesterday, up 1.5%. the statistic people are talking about when you trade up on the first day of the year, 70% of the time the year is in positive territory. in terms of the open, we'll be slightly negative but we're not going to give nearly what we gained yesterday back so we'll see what happens throughout the day. auto sales are a big thing we're watching today. they're expected to be up 8 to 9% in december. kia is supposed to be quite good. the thing i want to leave you with, what people did between christmas and new year's besides watch football and talk politics, they downloaded apps. 1.2 billion apps were downloaded that week. that's a record. 20 million apple or android phones were activated worldwide. it just shows you, chuck, you and i have got to develop an app, sell it for two bucks, sit back and watch it grow. >> apparently what i've got to do is develop an app that keeps my kids busy because that's what costs me a fortune it seems.

>> me too. >> anyway, brian, thanks very much. caucus confidential. one of iowa's most influential conservative republicans has been keeping his presidential pick to himself. up next, we're going to try to get congressman steve king to reveal who he was rooting for last night and where he seize the race going from here. you're watching "the daily rundown" live from manchester, new hampshire, first in the nation. we'll be right back. ♪ he was a 21st century global nomad ♪ ♪ home was an airport lounge and an ipad ♪ ♪ made sure his credit score did not go bad ♪ ♪ with a free-credit-score-dot-com ♪ ♪ app that he had ♪ downloaded it in the himalayas ♪ ♪ while meditating like a true playa ♪ ♪ now when he's surfing down in chile'a ♪ ♪ he can see when his score is in danger ♪ ♪ if you're a mobile type on the go ♪ ♪ i suggest you take a tip from my bro ♪ ♪ and download the app that lets you know ♪ ♪ at free-credit-score-dot-com now let's go. ♪ vo: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com™.

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caucus last night. you didn't go to your home caucus. you had a personal friend in this race in michele bachmann, but you always kind of backed off in actually endorsing. who were you pulling for last night? >> well, i have to tell you, chuck, that if i wasn't willing to make it an endorsement before the caucus, it wouldn't be an act of political courage to make one now, so i have to defer thoon one. we'll see how things unfold. as i see the results of this, i count more than one personal friend. absolutely michele bachmann a very close personal friend and he's in the process of making a very difficult decision right now. but i would say this to all of the candidates that were in this race and are in this race right now, there are seven people that are in the list of those who might be the next president of the united states. barack obama is one of them and the other six are here. to get down into the final cut where you're seven out of 300 million to be president of the united states is a very elite group and they should all be very proud of what they

accomplished here in iowa. >> congressman, would you be surprised if congresswoman bachmann continued on? >> i think at this point the things that i'm hearing it would surprise me. but it is her decision, of course. she's driven her campaign out of the force of her own will, intellect, personality and conviction so you can never count somebody out like that. she's an extraordinary person who has -- she's broken through a ceiling and really set a lot of standards. >> what went wrong there? it seemed like she had gotten some traction. and i know rick perry announced the day that she won the iowa straw poll really sort of stepped on that victory, but it did seem that she just kept losing support. it was one thing not to maybe build momentum but she seemed to see it go away. what happened in iowa? what turned? >> well, i do think that one of the events that was worse for her was when rick perry came into iowa the day after the straw poll, august 14th, and did an event exactly in the same

building in waterloo, which is her hometown, where she had announced her candidacy some months earlier. i think that really knocked her off the pace. she didn't go on a victory lap around iowa. she said she went to waterloo to be where rick perry was. i think that victory lap would have helped a lot. it's hard to analyze this. even if a person goes out and does all the right things, says all the right things and worked it. she worked it hard. she went to all 99 counties in a blitz like we haven't seen. but there are other intangibles people pick up in their gut and it's no shame if you're in the last seven people. it didn't mean they don't like miche michele, they just aren't convinced she should be the president. >> iowa has one of these odd records that they hold that a lot of women don't like, which is they have never sent a woman to congress, they have -- a woman ran for president on the democratic side, lost iowa. a woman runs for president on

the republican side, lost in iowa. i think they are one of two states that have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of congress. do you think gender played a role? >> we nominate a woman to run for congress and democratic women work against her. so we look at the -- it's about 21% females and the balance males within the legislatures, either here in iowa or in congress. and the numbers really aren't there to push that through. it takes longer. it takes about five times longer than it did with men. it takes a while to get there. i did that's going to happen, but it needs to happen with the right candidate. it isn't just vote for the woman, the right candidate has to be there. somebody invoked the name margaret thatcher and she did pretty well as a woman. >> let's talk about what iowa did. they winnowed the field. it looks like it's maybe a two-person race, but the two

leaders being mitt romney and rick santorum. who are you more comfortable with as your nominee? >> when i look at this, i'm closer to rick santorum on the philosophical side of this. when i look at mitt romney, i see his executive experience and his ability. and it was one of the things that kept me from making an endorsement is that i can work with either one of these candidates. i have. i have worked with them in the past. so that's going to be decided beyond iowa, going on to new hampshire and south carolina and beyond. and by the way, i'd say that ron paul will be in this race for several states at least. he may go the distance, who knows. i'll say newt gingrich is, i think, now putting together a plan to be a significant player in south carolina and in florida. so i wouldn't count him out of this. he's got some life after iowa pretty well. >> what does governor romney have to do to reassure conservatives like yourself that he'll govern -- that he won't just suddenly govern in a way that will upset you? >> well, you know, he's said and

done the right things. i need to say on behalf of governor romney that whatever was the case five to 15 or 20 years ago, the last four to five years he's been, i think, consistent. and he's established himself here in iowa and he has this kind of support that he's won the iowa caucus. so that's a victory for him. yes, rick santorum has a victory too because he closed the gap within eight. but mitt romney has laid this all out. one thing is the individual mandate component of this. he says that he's against it at the national level, that he's for the full 100% repeal of obama care. i'm convinced that he would be a man that would sign my pledge to do so. and i think that's the thing is pound that home that repeal obama care is the number one plank in the platform of the next president of the united states. if we fail to do that, we'll be living with that in perpetuity and i want to hear that from every presidential candidate and i've heard it to my satisfaction

from mitt romney as well as rick santorum. >> congressman steve king from iowa, thanks for coming on this morning. >> thank you, chuck. up next, our political panel joins me here in new hampshire. iowa postgame and new hampshire pregame. a programming note for you, this sunday it's a special edition of nbc's "meet the press." david gregory will moderate the final presidential debate before the new hampshire primary, the nbc news facebook debate will air live on msnbc this sunday at 9:00 a.m. don't miss it. but first, it's the white house soup of the day. here's one we haven't seen in a while, a little carb heavy. broccoli cheddar. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. [ male announcer ] to the 5:00 a.m. scholar. the two trains and a bus rider. the "i'll sleep when it's done" academic. for 80 years, we've been inspired by you.

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mitt romney may have won last night but he hasn't cleared his primary hurdle, winning over conservatives. newt gingrich told me moments ago he plans to make that an issue and hopes to have some backup. >> rick and i between us will draw a clear enough and sharp enough line with romney that we'll go through phase one of making clear to the country that romney is a massachusetts moderate. we're going to be out here trying to say we're the best candidates and in the process, i think, we're both going to be defining romney out of the mainstream of the republican party. >> gayle collins is a columnist for "the new york times," james kindle and my colleague ron mott made the overnight journey with me from iowa. we'll just sort of sleep walk and let gayle and james take over. let me start with you. this alliance that newt gingrich is trying to create, we saw a similar alliance in 2008 to try to stop romney and it was mike

huckabee and john mccain. now newt gingrich and rick santorum are hoping to create a similar alliance. that one worked. will this one? >> i don't know. here's the reality. we have a number of people in my conversations this morning that are moving to santorum, particularly the rick perry folks. they do have a solid organization here. newt gingrich has largely been just buzz, largely a nonfactor other than a lot of excitement in their office. i'm not sure how deep his support is. certainly newt himself as a candidate can drive a lot of conversation and it looks like he's going to be throwing some bombs. >> gayle, i want to play another couple of clips from newt that i just had. he clearly is just really mad at mitt romney. take a listen. >> is it fair to say rick santorum is your second choice if it's not yourself? you told my colleagues over on cnbc -- >> i clearly like rick santorum a lot and i think rick santorum will tell you he likes me a lot. we are personally very good friends and have known each oar for many, many years.

>> and then i wanted to roll one more of what he said about -- i asked him about citizens united, whether he regretted supporting that. he didn't, but here's who he targeted. >> the victim of one particular person, mitt romney, whose staff went out and decided to run a deliberately negative and dishonest campaign. this particular approach has nothing to do with the citizens united case, it has to do way bunch of millionaires getting together to run a negative campaign. >> as james put it, newt will get a lot of attention this week for what he's doing to mitt romney. >> that's exactly what citizens united was about, about people -- what happens if a bunch of millionaires get together and decide to run a negative campaign. he looks like he's come out of apocalypse now or something. i can just see him with a knife in his teeth, you know, crawling out of the swamp ready to do battle. >> are you a writer or something? you're writing a visual here that's fascinating. you know, ron mott, what was interesting in those entrance polls, iowa voters told us the

campaign ads mattered. >> they absolutely mattered. >> so newt is right. >> exactly. will they matter here, that's the question. i think mitt romney is polling so well here, i wonder if the mud starts to sling this week, whether he will actually gain more support, that people may be turned off by what they hear from this new partnership between santorum and newt gingrich. we'll have to see. i think that his support is pretty strong, in the mid-40s. he's climbing toward that magical 50% number. we'll have to see whether folks coalesce around him. >> what does the mccain endorsement mean? i'm thinking on a day that you still clearly have a conservative problem, it's not the day to roll out john mccain. you don't need him to win new hampshire. >> he doesn't need him to win new hampshire. he's pretty set given that he has 20-point. obviously to drive media coverage. there is an affection for him. the mccain camp has really been split between just the establishment republicans who already went with mitt romney

and sort of the jon huntsman crowd. i'm not sure he's really going to bring those folks back to mitt romney. >> and speaking of jon huntsman, he seems to be sort of the third member of the newt-santorum alliance. they're like don't forget us, we'll attack romney too. >> and he's running around trying to do a rick santorum talking about how many places he's been and the goat he saw last night that he saw the last time he was here. i don't think you can do that twice in a campaign. i mean the second time you try to be a one-state guy, you're rudy giuliani all over again. >> ron, before you got to iowa, you were here for a few days. do you feel the same jon -- do you feel any of that mccain buzz that was there in '99 and '04 for jon huntsman? did you feel it? >> no. i wonder how well -- i mean he's in the mid-teens now i suppose

in polling. i get the sense that he's kind of a man out in the woods by himself and he's shouting and very few people are hearing what he's saying. i mean he's put all of his cards down on new hampshire and if it doesn't pan out for him, you wonder whether he's got the energy to go on. i have been interested in seeing how he's kind of ramped uphim, you wonder whether he's got the energy to go on. i have been interested in seeing how he's ramped up his rhetoric. it's sharper in the past few days and it doesn't fit his personality. >> he doesn't wear it well. >> after the break, we'll talk about two candidates who are spending their last hours in this race. trivia time. since 1972, how many

nonincumbent republican candidates won the iowa caulks and gone on to win the presidency? the answer is just one. george w. bush in 200. we'll be back. watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc.

let's bring back our panel, gale, james, ron mott. look like we're going to lose two candidates in the next 48 hours. we may lose michele bachmann in the next 64 minutes.

james, did she or rick perry have any kind of organization here that rick santorum can sort of back him up? >> for michele bachmann, all of her staff left her in late october, as far as my count, she had one big endorsement in the state, a smaller tea party-type leader. but she had a moment there in june where she could take off in the state but she did not make that happen. as far as rick perry, yes, there is a strong organization, of course, for his longtime consultant, dave carney's from the state, and the team put together some impressive names. >> there are people to hire? >> people to get, yes. >> gale, rick perry, there's two ways to go when you lose what you want to do. you can do what newt gingrich is doing, or you can do what rick perry tried to do. you felt as if rick perry was trying to leave with dignity. >> there's no way he's going to do a newt gingrich. he was -- i'm not shooure why h ran for president, except people

told him he could. i think he'd be perfectly happy to go back to texas. >> i think the lesson on rick perry is going to be you got to want it and want it for a very long time. you know, you could tell, he didn't want it. >> got to have it deep in the gut. because this is not easy. you're leaving your family, going out into small towns, shaking hands, you're tired, little sleep, and if it's not deep inside of you, the air will come out of you. when rick perry got into the race he was the anti-romney candidate that a lot of people were ready to put their arms around and his debate performances were not up to snuff and i think he ran out of gas. last night you saw a very defeated politician. >> it's a different guy from the guy undefeated politician that had been through texas politics. apparently we must have something in our gut because we keep going. i don't know why we're doing it. shameless plugs. james? >> well, we have our debate on saturday. >> what, what, what?

i told you you couldn't plug that thing. that's nice. you're doing a little pregame thing for our debate sunday? >> something like that. >> good work. gail? >> i have a book on william henry harrison coming out this month. >> oh. i like that. see, that's political junkie material. and ron? >> i'm going left center field. i don't eat red meat. i had a rib eye the other night. shout out to the rib eye. >> that's it for this edition of the "the daily rundown." see you back here tomorrow from manchester, new hampshire. hopefully some of us wis sleep. next on msnbc, "chris jansing & company." 1:00, "andrea mitchell reports." don't forget, 11:00, we'll have the michele bachmann news conference from des moines. that's it. see you later. buh-bye. e non-op day starts with back pain... and a choice. take advil now and maybe up to four in a day. or choose aleve and two pills for a day free of pain. way to go, coach. ♪

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good morning. i'm chris jansing. when would have predicted this? a month ago, the volatile republican contest marches on. first, mitt romney wins iowa by eight votes, one of the