supposed to do but will do anything to get out of it. george will writes, republicans crave fun. supporting mitt romney still seems to many like a duty, the responsible thing to do. michael steele, i believe on this program not long ago -- >> oh, no. >> we'll play it to a little. you said this, let's tee it up. >> i don't care how you cut it the brother can't bake the cake. no one is buying it. >> that was in reference to mitt romney. now here we are and there's a lot -- there's mitt mentum as it were. >> where is it? 25% does not momentum make. >> keep calling him the brother throughout the show. >> i guess -- trying to help a brother out. >> there is thinking that conservatives have rally around this guy. >> why can't they make up their

own mind. why do they have to sit and wait for you or me or karl rove to tell them who they should want. we saw in this process, that the base of the party said we'll do this our way and our time. they want to vet these guys. there's a serious discussion undergoing in the rnc in the party right now. this goes back to 2005. it goes back to the second term of the bush administration about the difference between foundational principles versus big government republicanism. and their concern is that mitt romney is just a facade for what will be another generation of big government republicanism. >> doesn't that debate in the fact as politico reports there are secret cabells gathering in texas to coalesce the ante. >> just as there were ka

balances to push the conservatives aside and rally around one person. they are getting themselves organized. as i said on "morning joe", has anybody had a meeting yet? apparently they are going to have a meeting. >> they are not very secret if they are being reported in politico. this is democracy. this is what happens. factions form, coalitions form or don't form. we've had one vote. there's more -- michael and people at the rnc designed a process that was specifically designed to try to avert a nominating process that crowns somebody very early and didn't let a lot of voters across the country to have their voices heard. and you know, they either will rally around mitt romney. >> or they won't. >> we'll see. >> you're taking a sort of absolutist stance in terms of how it should work. let's look at the relative effects of it. when we have volatile races, history shows you usually end up with not that great of a

candidate. we talked about this yesterday. >> barack obama anyone? >> we're talking -- i don't think -- i'll let john field that in a second. 1964 barry goldwater, '88 michael dukakis, this is obviously open for discussion. clinton and obama made obama a much stronger candidate but i'm not sure after the bruising and bloodletting that newt gingrich is going to give mitt romney he ends up necessarily a better candidate. >> did the right person get elected for president? that's the question and i've heard that from a lot of democrats. when you look at the angst the left has about what this president has done, the reality is, that process made him a better candidate but not necessarily the best president. >> but setting obama aside -- folks on my right -- i do want to talk specifically about this process and implications for mitt romney. >> it's strange because you talked about this argument

almost like an idealogical argument, but the strange thing is you haven't seen emerging out of this a strong idealogical or policy based argument. you don't have candidates saying mitt romney has this position, i take this position, let the voters choose. it seems to be partly a personality based dispute, that we don't really trust or get this guy. >> they don't trust him based on the policies that he has implemented or advocated as governor of his state as a presidential candidate before. there is a policy basis underneath all of it. there's a lot of personality involved as well. >> to get to alex's question, i don't think there's actually a pattern. you have races where the tough fight has made the candidate better. you have races where the tough fight ended up with a poor candidate, bill clinton had to deal with jerry brown all the way through the spring of 1992. and bill clinton was a great politician and the fight didn't hurt him. it made him stronger.

barack obama was a really great political performer, it made him stronger. if you are a weak front-runner to begin with, the fight may make you weaker -- but if you grow -- >> i'm not necessarily talking about the fight, i'm talking about the volatility, someone is up and someone is down on a week to week basis which is evidence of a base dissatisfied with the option on hand. >> you always have this problem. you have to choose especially in a moment like now you have a lot of unpleasant choices. they have to decide do i want to cut medicare or raise taxes and make other people unhappy. that's true in both parties but the republicans are hitting it first. when you have those choices, the base has to decide, do they want to be right or do they want to win? this is what you're saying play out. a lot of ways mitt romney is like the john kerry of the right. you had this thing of no one really liked him but he was in the military, you guys love that stuff, right, why don't we nominate him. >> it's still not clear who

should have been the nominee if not john kerry. >> now we're like, he did national health care in massachusetts, you guys love that stuff. you'll vote for him. i'm not sure how it ends up playing out. >> alex, to your point, there's been obviously unprecedented volatility in 2011 but we're about to interface where we might not see volatility and might see what's supposed to generally happen, the field got widowed in iowa and the likelihood is either mitt romney will do as you suggested, put this thing away -- >> bake the cake. >> or there will be a con sense census candidate who is his rival. >> could that be rick santorum? >> may well could be. >> he needs to get his website up and running to handling the donations that purportedly will be coming in. newt and rick versus mitt and

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mitt romney and john mccain's alliance has left some scratching their heads. the man who could not beat obama teamed up with a man who could not even beat mccain. in fairness that was in reference to the notion of mccain as a vp with romney, which is a weird concept, if ever there was one. but it does speak to a point. is john mccain's endorsements a good thing or does it reinforce

stereo types about he is a establishment republican, too much of a moderate, et cetera? >> is anyone going to believe he's not a establishment republican? he enacted a statewide health care in massachusetts. i don't think anyone will think, he will come in and slash my taxes and eliminate the department of education. that's obviously not who he is. i'm not sure how much this could hurt him. it sort of reinforces something that's true. >> the other thing about that endorsement is that the actual endorsement didn't go so well. i'll read you a little bit of tick tok on what happened. this is according to dana milbank. the senator grimaced when he was introduced as romney delivered his own stump speech. mccain pulled up his sleeve and checked his watch and gave his address without mentioning romney's win, by the way we forgot to mention the landslide victory last night. he said laughing, romney ignored

him. john, you were there? >> i was not. >> you told us about things you heard from that event. >> i always try to watch raw footage for all john mccain events because they are so uplifting. >> they are fun. >> it felt a little thrown together and there was a sense that it was not well advanced and that they -- the word leaked out he was going to get this endorsement on the night of the iowa caucuses when it looked like there was a chance santorum would win and they wanted another story to move to. there is no better endorsement in american politics in new hampshire than john mccain. he has dominated that state from the two republican primaries. mitt romney is the establishment candidate, there's no way he needs to make inroads into the base and win the heart of conservatives. but he's got to do it with the core of his support, which is the establishment. i'll roll out big endorsements

states by state. if he does, they are going to be a core part of how he does that because that is his strength. you have to play the cards you're dealt. >> that helps him in new hampshire but not necessarily outside new hampshire so much. i would think romney shouldn't need that kind of help in new hampshire. >> i was just about to make that very point. >> he will take it, i think. >> you're 47, 45% so mccain comes in and gets you 47.1. the point that i think megan's point is exactly it. it's reinforcing the obvious and it's to your point the next step to south carolina and florida, it's not very popular in that part of the country so -- >> michael, you know that nobody doubts john mccain will win new hampshire. >> you mean mitt romney. >> mitt romney. i'm having a flash back right now. mitt romney is going to win new hampshire but that is not the issue. the question is how much does he win by. we judge the wins by

expectations so mitt romney not only needs to win but needs to win bit a big margin and john mccain will add some points. >> he is facing his doubles partner is newt gingrich -- his opponents on the doubles team is newt gingrich and presumably rick santorum. one of my favorite lines was if you take -- no, sorry, that's the wrong one. gingrich has a talent for creating temporary allies and lifelong enemies. his former colleagues have been more likely to denounce him than to endorse him. it sounds like john mccain and mitt romney have no -- they are not exactly best friends. i would see frenemies but his distaste for santorum pushed him over to romney. the fact that rick santorum is mitt romney's greatest threat, the enemy of my enemies is my

friend, something like that. >> it seems counter strategic, right? he should be going after santorum if gingrich wants to regain his position as romney. but instead he has this personal beef with romney. in a weird way he has to make his beef with romney personal because he wanted to fight back against these negative ads in iowa. didn't want to fight back by saying we should ban super packs, didn't want to portray himself up against an unjust system but up against a bad man and that bad man is romney. by defining himself as anti-romney, now in this weird world he has to make common cause with santorum, which isn't strategically necessarily sensible. it's not even ideologually sensible. >> that's presuming he wants to win the presidency and isn't here for brand gingrich, which you also touched on. >> and out here for more debate. at his concession speech, we have to have a grand debate among republicans before we can

have our grand debate with obama. he likes debating. >> he's just in this for the debates. >> but there's truth to that latter point which goes to the point i was making earlier, what's going on inside the gop and has been for well close to seven years now. there's this internal friction between the social conservatives and national security conservatives and small government folks. everyone is trying to figure out where to plant their feet. my argument and chairman was very simply this. can you recognize the one thing we have in common? republican, let's start with that. that's foundational and goes back to 1856 and founding of the party and what we were fighting about, the freedom of individuals to make choices for themselves and then go from there. the rest of it is all filler but the problem is we've got -- seriously the rest you fill in as life evolves, whether it's education, or social policy. the reality is you have to understand foundationally what

we're about. and what we want to argue for and how do we apply that to policies. >> very high minded. >> this is because look what john boehner has done by letting the house work its will. >> i'm trying to give an understanding of the internals underneath what's driving this. >> a lot of touching. >> we're buddies. but i'm focused on the people. we have this visible that has that tennis thing, mitt romney john mccain newt gingrich rick santorum. four of the most unpopular people. they are not ones with a lot of friends. none of them like each other and none of them are well liked by people in their party. it is amazing, rick santorum was unpopular in the u.s. senate. joe klein quoted some senators saying that santorum was latin nor something that relates to

the back side. newt gingrich incredibly ub unpopular. >> angry teddy bear. >> i've stolen that from you. >> and john mccain incredibly unpopular and mitt romney, the most hated man in the field. at least among their colleagues in this group -- >> is that doesn't look like a doubles game i would like to watch. rick perry was out of the race almost 12 hours now he's back in and set his sights on south carolina. what happens in the minds of rick perry? that's next on "now." this is an rc robotic claw. 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.

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this wasn't a hard decision. this was one of those where you take a look and didn't do as well in iowa as you wanted to, but this is a quirky place and quirky process. >> quirky candidate maybe. rick perry gave what most people thought was a prelude to a suspension, he tweeted here we come south carolina. what happened, everyone? did everybody see that tweet? >> the rick perry is the most confusing in the whole campaign. you're in new york and hearing stories about how he campaigned against kay bailey hutchison and was brutal. i thought he would get in the race and shut the club down. i thought it was going to be over. >> he did try to make it rain. >> i was starting to feel sympathy in advance for romney. poor romney, he's about to be defined as a moderate flip-flopper and he comes in and everything is tentative. there's no swag.

it was really surprising to me. >> nen when it looks like he's going to leave he comes back in for reasons unknown. i would like to pontiff kate the reason why. this was published in the dallas news, call halts to this columncy campaign, governor perry, cancel the ego trip to south carolina and get back to the business of governing in this state. why is he still in this race? >> well, certainly it's the case that not only did it seem a prelude to an exit to people in the media but many people inside governor perry's own team. they thought he was leaving also and were confused when they saw the tweets. one possibility is that his donors were pushing pressure on him to stay in because they felt they made the investment because they thought he had mileage.

there's a lot of chatter in the political world today and yesterday about the possibility of a deal with the romney campaign to keep him in. they are the romney campaign has a political interest in keeping rick perry in this race, to fracture the conservative vote. >> which is interesting because that is a change from the beginning formidable opponent. >> rick perry with two broken legs and unable to throw a bunch is a different rick perry from the one they thought might beat him. rick perry taking 10% or 12% is good for mitt romney because it fractures the conservative vote. the question then becomes and again there's a lot of speculation in the political world, was there a deal and what could that deal have been? the romney campaign has in the past done things like paid off tim pawlenty's campaign debt as part of a deal for an endorsement. i have no reporting on it but a know people in politics are asking that question today. >> couldn't it be rick perry does things the rick perry way? that's the way he conducted

himself as governor of texas. he is not an island unto himself but rick perry -- nobody dictates where rick perry is going other than rick perry. >> i think it's more in line with what john just said. i think it's a combination. i think it's that plus the donors, the major texas donors who said let's ride this a little further. those donors are figuring where they are going to go next too if and when perry gets out. they want to saddle up close to the romney team or if they want to saddle up with santorum, they want to feel that out more and want the room to do that. i think it's a combination of the two. the deal plus the pressure from de donors because that turnaround in what he presented to the -- >> the notion he's going to gain traction in south carolina seems -- >> it's sort of like those people at the blackjack table who bust out and then they are like, okay do i have the mortgage payment in here?

but at the same time, he's probably the most plausible conservative candidate in the national. i think if you compare him to say santorum -- >> you think rick perry has more -- more of a plausible candidate nationally than rick santorum. >> i think if he could get there, he's probably -- >> that's a big if megan. >> if we can get in the way back machine. >> unicorn showed up and rode him to the finish line, he would probably be more plausible, that's probably what his donors feel, if we could double down and get our money back. >> what's the answer to this fundamental question. what's wrong with him? >> he can't debate. >> why is he this formidable -- >> events occurred. stuff happens and it happened all over him. >> he couldn't debate in texas. he can't debate here. he's not -- >> he ran incredibly disciplined campaign. >> it's not just debating.

his wheels came off. it wasn't because of his debating style. people -- yeah, we got that. it was immigration and that cut into the base of the party and they went, time out. >> i will end this rick perry block by reading allowed an instant message that was on buzz feed.com as the saddest i am of the season allegedly from a perry staffer. our campaign really is a massive disaster. there was not a frowny face emoticon but i let you imagine one. ♪ [ woman ] i was ready for my trip, but my smile wasn't. [ female announcer ] new crest 3d white intensive professional effects whitestrips. it goes below the enamel surface to whiten as well as a five-hundred dollar professional treatment for a transformation that's hard to believe. ♪

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did you hear sam... ...got promoted to director? so 12 seconds ago. we should get him a present. thanks for the gift basket. you're welcome. you're welcome. did you see hr just sent out new... ...office rules? cause you're currently in violation of 6 of them. oh yeah, baby? ...and 7. did you guys hear that fred is leaving? so 30 seconds ago. [ noisemakers blow ] [ both ] we'll miss you! oh, facecake! there's some leftover cake. [ male announcer ] the new htc vivid. stay a step ahead with at&t 4g lte, with speeds up to 10x faster than 3g. ♪ i'm not going to stand by while a minority in the senate puts party ideology ahead of the people we were elected to serve. that starts with letting richard do his job.

>> it's less than a week into the new year but the president has drawn the battle lines, msnbc military analyst is here. i want to start with the appointment of richard cordray. president obama has decided that he's going to go over senate at republican heads and get his man in there and let richard -- let richard -- robert, cordray be cordray. he has to use every arrow and it's about time. >> he's overstepped his bounds. we're operating under rules put in place by harry reid in the last couple of so years of the bush administration. all of a sudden to sit there and ignore those very rules and technically the senate is in session. and that's been defined by the

justice department. you know, we're working within the rules the democrats set in place and the republicans are saying, wait a minute, you want to change the game again. >> worth noting, john boehner ses it is an extraordinary power grab by president obama that defies centuries of practice and legal advice of his own justice department. also worth noting, recess appointments reagan made 240 of them. obama has made 32. there is a precedent here. >> it's such -- the procedural argument is who cares. it's about politics. this is a totally political thing. >> of course it is. >> you can see the politics how it worked for the white house in one exchange today. mitt romney attacking this appointment and obama campaign saying you would say that you wall street pig. to put romney in the position of having to come down against the appointment of someone who will head the consumer financial protection office is right where they want to put him.

it makes him -- the punch and counterpunch was planned in advance and it's all about defining romney as a creature of wall street. on the substance though, michael, the republicans have been ridiculous in this issue, refusing to vote. if they -- if you don't want this guy, take a vote and vote him down. the republicans don't have the vote to vote him down so we're in this ridiculous -- >> it's not just cordray, but they are holding a judicial nominations -- >> don't sit there and act like this is something new. do you know how many of president bush's were held up by the democrats. >> fair enough. >> this is bifurcated view of history, republicans are in the position to do the same thing the democrats have been doing the last 45 or 50 years because we have the numbers to do it. everyone acts like this is the first time this ever happened. this is pure hard core politics.

just as we saw recently the president outfoxed the republicans on a number of issues at the beginning of this year. this is one where the republicans are pushing back and may get outfoxed again but it's politics. >> there is a substantive argument about regulation and protecting the consumer, that is one where the obama administration believes in the establishment -- >> they can be wrong but it's purely optics and messages thing and way to hit romney as an wall street pig, it undermines the belief that someone needs to start -- >> that's not my point. we're talking about why they did this as a recess appointment, not about whether they believe in the consumer -- >> right. >> if you were being a left wing critic, you would say, if they really believed in those things you said they should have appointed elizabeth warren in the first place. but they backed down because they thought she would get beaten --

>> and yet scott brown running a tight race with elizabeth warren has come out and said i believe cordray is the right person to lead. unfortunately the system is completely -- >> your point is what? >> this is something that is not only good for the country but also good for re-election if you're from the president down to the senate. let's swivel around and talk about defense cuts. the president announced slimmer military strategy this afternoon, speaking with leon panetta. let's play a little sound from that this morning. >> the tide of war is receding but the question is that this strategy answers, what kind of military will we need long after the wars of the last decade are over? and today we're fortunate to be moving forward from a position of strength. >> colonel jack, you're the expert here. what are the implications, we

know this is one round of cuts but there are another 500 billion in cuts looming if the defense triggers go through. defense secretary leon panetta said this is not a good thing. >> we're the only people who have not had a recess appointment here at this table. we should lobby strongly for it right now. what we heard from both the president and leon panetta were not specifics so much the broad strategy that the united states is adopting that is going to underpin all of the changes that are going to be made. he is talking about half a billion dollars in cuts and panetta who was appointed to the position at least partially because he's really good at cutting out waste, wants to avoid is $1.5 trillion worth of cuts which are going to happen automatically, doesn't want that to happen. this is quite frankly the biggest change in american strategic vision that's been

articulated, i would argue at least since the end of war in vietnam and last 65 years. >> it was interesting listen to the president explain, give a sense of what the strategy is going to be and say our military will be leaner, agil, flexible and ready. perhaps it reflects changing positions on the war and ron paul who we'll talk about later in the show, who has an isolationist view in terms of american policy and how far the american public has come in terms of military engagements abroad. >> you have to ask what kind of army -- what kind of military do you want to have? in 1992 when the cold war ended, we decided we wanted to have a military that could simultaneously fight two big wars, one in korea and one in iraq. then we spent the next two decades fighting smaller brush wars. this was an opportunity to undo

that mistake or get a do-over and say, are we actually going to build the military that is for the conflict that's we will face. it's hard to know -- >> then we're also increasing our pacific presence -- >> that's a very big thing. you have the secretary of defense saying specifically that although we really love nato and we like our european partners and we're going to help wherever we can, like in libya, we'll send cruise missiles and intelligence apparatus, we love nato. we're not assuming that the russians are going to invade europe anymore. >> i want to ask you a question to you, colonel jack. before 9/11, you had donald rumsfeld talking about doing a pretty radical redesign of american defense and strategy and tactics and core structure and that went away after 9/11. is there sne similarity to what

rumsfeld wanteded to do? >> i was talking to someone else about that just before the set. >> maybe john. >> i'm old, can't remember what happens. maybe, you're right. that's absolutely the point. what an irony. probably the most -- among the most disliked people in washington in history, certainly in my memory, donald rumsfeld articulated a strategy and it's implementation just like this. and this is -- this is sort of rumsfeld redux. don't send -- forget about iraq -- the whole concept was don't send troops in here, blow them up from some great distance. we don't need the ten divisions the plan says to take and hold iraq. it takes a couple of guys with hand grenades and precision guided munition. >> it is amazing that the phrase rumsfeld redux would come in the same sentence as talking about the obama administration -- we

will be talking more about the defense industry and ron paul of the john hielemann, it has been great. we hear you're going to climbs north in new hampshire where hopefully we'll see you on our monitors. >> heading to the granite state right now. thanks for having me. >> we have to take a break. but is ron paul winning the military vote? we'll talk about that next. >> for years her product was manufactured in china but now she's moved the company to a new multimillion dollar factory in maryland. it reduces shipping and inventory cost and brings much needed jobs to the u.s. for more watch your business at 7:30 on msnbc.

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imagine nor a moment that somewhere in the middle of texas there was a large foreign military base, say chinese or russian. >> that was an ad from a ron paul super pack. paul's isolationist stance may be frightening many members of

his party but i will say the production value was quite good but let's talk about the message which is that nobody belongs in anybody's else's backyard. initially i thought i can't imagine the military is in spoert of that. if you look at the numbers, ron paul is doing better among active and retired service members than anybody in the field and getting more donations than all of them combined. colonel jack, what do you attribute that to? >> surely his isolationist views are partly responsible for it. nobody dislikes war more than people getting shot at. though you want to defend the country and do your mission and so on, most of all you fight for each other and you just as soon do it and come back. what military people don't like it the poor use of the military instrument of power by people who have no military experience. so ron paul resonates with those people but what military people both active and retired really

like about ron paul is his general view that government generally is no good, is overfunded and needs to be cut. take a look at the pentagon. 20 to 25,000 people work every day, the average soldier airman or marine not happy with that. his view about large governments being really bad news really resonates with military. >> what he soft pedaled is the stuff where he cut veterans benefits or shrinks the military and leads to a bunch of staff sergeants getting rifed. he's basically soft pedaling the fact that affects them. it is very appealing to the kind of military ideal. >> he's also -- we're in the strange situation where he's the one talking about a lot of this stuff. ear in this weird situation where it's not always exactly clear how whichever republican person might get the nomination would differ from obama on a question of afghanistan or

pakistan. these issues haven't been super salient during the campaign. if you looked -- if ron paul became the nominee -- >> which is a big if. >> and running against obama, i would think you would find the military donation numbers would be different. >> i agree with you and fringe candidates in the general election have never done well at all. we have to look back just a couple of years and see what happens. i agree with you, i think military support would drop off. >> and the numbers, when you look at the actual -- are we talking about $95,000? >> it's over 100,000 dollars but again, this is, they had to look an isolated bracket. one thing that is being talked about, newt gingrich is using this as a weapon to attack ron paul. he has gotten some blow back in iowa from on the ground people saying his views about israel and isolationist stance is out of sink with the party. i wonder how much is something that gingrich can even keep

talking about in the future as ron paul starts to decline, if that's even relevant. >> you put it the right way. as if when the ron paul star starts to diminish, there's less to talk about and less of a motivation to do it. a lot of this again is a response to what happened in iowa in the bombardment. the commercials were good. they were very effective. and i love the little moment where mitt romney was like, why are you looking at me, his commercials started it. it is almost that kind of childish moment but it was right on. now you're swinging into new hampshire and going to south carolina. partly south carolina, it would be interesting to see how ron paul does with the military argument in south carolina. that welcome a great opportunity again for gingrich and company to draw that very big difference. >> it will be interesting to see ron paul performs and how he holds on to this and what that

means for the broader republican dynamics. after the break, we'll ask, what now does the american dream still exist? that's next. coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports", we're live in new hampshire with five days rest, rick santorum gets a bump in the latest poll while everyone is going after mitt romney. the latest in our daily fix. republican senator john barroso on the controversial recess appointments. coming up in less than 15 minutes. join us.

americans have a tougher time moving on up than people in canada or europe. i don't know if you saw on the front page of the new york times, we're talking about not income equality but mobility. and the idea that the central

part of the american dream that if you -- if you start at the bottom of the ladder, you have a great chance of moving up to the stop. recent studies showing 42% of u.s. men raised at the bottom of the economic ladder stay there and those 62% of americans in the top, 21% stay in the top 40. do we think that -- i guess michael, i would love to ask you this, the income inequality doesn't get a lot of traction with republicans but the idea of mobility is something we heard all of the candidates talk about. >> they are linked in my view and i think the studies coming out now, particularly the ones on poverty should be a call to the country to wake up and recognize we're leaving a lot of people behind. this just isn't based on along the lines of race or gender. we're just talking folks who want to buy into this idea of the american dream. and the numbers are stark and gop i've said it before, we have a fundamental we can make about

economic empowerment and ownership and we just don't make it. >> in an economic like we have now which is rot ten, income inequality is magnified. it can hold on that part of the cycle. there's a lot of money around and it's in the banks, and unless the fed finds a way to cough it up -- >> then you have to talk about things like the criminal justice system and very hard to get a job if you've been in prison for drug offense. you have to talk about who among us wants to let us kids be in the lower -- everyone is favor of mobility in theory but people at the top are not in favor of letting their kids fall. i think it's a hard argument to actually go out -- >> we want a world where no one is in the lowest quinntile. >> speaking of nobody being in

the quintile, he's launching a solutions revolution book tour. the first solutions he's going to be tackling are to energy and sound money. there will be a bus. there is a website cain connections.com. he'll be on the show tomorrow to tell us more about this endeavor. i wonder what the immediate reaction is to herman cain still a figure on the national stage trying to still be part of the national conversation. >> it makes me wonder -- part of what made him relevant for those months or weeks, he was polling so high. you couldn't ignore him. it's silly not to talk about the person polling the highest when he's just one more comment tater, i'm not sure he has the same unless he's drawing huge crowds. >> does he have a message, michael steele, that is more resilient than sarah palin's? >> i don't know if it's more resilience yaens because palin was a package, there's a whole lot more to that.

we'll have to see what herman does. you've got a good get to have him. he's not done a lot of television since he stepped off the national stage. so tomorrow will be your chance to really kind of drill in and get an explanation of what this means and how it looks. i think he has something to offer. his business savvy, coupled with his newly acquired political savviness makes him someone to pay attention to. >> i want to know what kind of bus he's got. >> it has his face on it. we'll be asking the man himself tomorrow. thank you again, to michael, colonel jack, megan and i'll see you tomorrow at noon even and i'll be joined by the one, the only the herman cain. in his first interview since leaving the race. we'll talk about that cain solution revolution as well as a 2012 race and where the rema remaining candidates stand now. and andrea mitchell reports is

next. live in the granite state. >> we'll watch you and herman cain tomorrow. up next, we're live in new hampshire with one of the state's most famous name, zu knew nu nu is with us. plus, vanity fair taking a closer look at the divided conservative theory. live from new hampshire next on msnbc. [ male announcer ] vicks nyquil cold and flu. the nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, best sleep you ever got with a cold...medicine. ♪ 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 into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool.

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right now on "andrea mitch elle reports, no bounce for romney despite a win in iowa. the daily tracking poll shows support for the republican front-runner has dropped two points in new hampshire with five days in the the nation's first primary, romney still holds a demanding lead and the challenges are ganging up on mitt. >> romney's economic plan timid, parts of it virtually identical to obama's failed policy. timid won't create jobs and timid certainly won't