mitt's it. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews up in manchester, new hampshire, four days before the first in the country primary. leading off tonight, chasing mitt. we know mitt romney's extremely hard to beat here in new hampshire, but now a new poll shows mitt with a strong lead in south carolina as well. rick santorum hopes to be the guy to stop him, but santorum is learning that that old e.f. hutton motto holds for presidential candidates, too.

when front-runners talk, people listen. and santorum is having a sticky time scoring points after his first-place tie in iowa. newt takes on mitt. in just a few weeks, newt gingrich has gone from undisputed front-runner to also ran. and he has mitt romney and his stealth ad campaign to thank for that. i sat down with newt last night after the program and he did not hold back. >> he ought to take those ads home and show them to his grandsons and said, grandpa did this, what do you think about this kind of trash on television? >> newt vows to be the last man in the fight with mitt. plus, politico called it mitt's weekend from hell. the big debate weekend coming up with everyone looking down -- looking to take down romney. "meet the press" anchor and debate host david gregory looks ahead to what could be a make-or-break battle this sunday. and speaking of republican debates, there was one today, a phony funny or die debate on yahoo!. in fact, sometimes satire is better than the real thing. we're going to check it out later in the show. finally, let me finish tonight with the fight to fight

obama and where it's headed now. we start with chasing mitt romney. howard fineman, msnbc political analyst, and "the huffington post" media group editorial director, and the great joe klein. he's a columnist for "time" magazine. because he is the great, as you are, howard. let's take a look at these poll numbers. basically, the poll numbers out, let's take a look at the latest poll numbers out of both south carolina -- well, south carolina, let's start with that. mitt romney has jumped into a first down there with a dominant lead at 37%. that's up 17 points from early december. rick santorum also got a huge boost. he's in second place now down there with 19, followed very closely by newt gingrich in third. so we have that one. we also have the latest suffolk university tracking poll from up here. it shows romney remains in the lead at 40% in new hampshire. he's followed by ron paul at 17. rick santorum is in double digits at 11, and moving up, but slowly. the latest national gallup tracking poll out today, mitt romney leads nationally at 29, but followed by rick santorum with 21.

so joe klein, it looks like rick santorum is slowly edging up to be the number one challenger to romney. >> the south carolina number is really interesting. i mean, i don't want to break any news here, but this new hampshire primary isn't all that interesting this time. you know, the next really big deal is south carolina. except for the two debates here this weekend, i might add. >> doesn't what happens this weekend set up what happens on tuesday? that sets up what's happens in south carolina. it's dynamic. >> but in the past, you could see the dan milk asserting itself by this point in the week between iowa and new hampshire. i just don't see all that much happening here and you can see that in the polls. >> it seems like such a short chasm between the two. i remember that ronald reagan had like 36 days to make up what he lost in 80 to george herbert walker bush. >> this is one week. one is, as joe says, the debates. everything's kind of stalled, waiting for the weekend -- >> this saturday night --

and sunday morning. >> from the weekend from heck, as mitt romney would call it. the other reason is rick santorum, who should be coming on like gangbusters, should be reaching up toward mitt romney. he's had a difficult day in the past. and even though he raised a lot of money, he's having problems. for example, it turns out that rick santorum can't buy any tv time here in new hampshire. his campaign said that all of the tv time, for every tv station, and i assume that's boston as well as new hampshire, has already been taken. it's a small detail, but it's an important one that shows the difficulties he has catching up with the slow moving, not all that popular, but still juggernaut-like mitt romney campaign. >> and in the free media that he's getting -- >> let's talk about that. let's look at the free media. yesterday rick santorum got into a heated back and forth with a college student about gay marriage. no surprise there, given his very conservative position. let's watch part of the exchange. >> how about the idea that all

men are created equal and, like, the rights to happiness and liberty? >> okay. so are we saying that everyone should have the right to marry? >> yes! >> everyone? >> yes! >> okay. so anyone can marry anybody else. >> yes! >> yeah! >> so anybody can marry anybody else. so anybody can marry several people. >> no! >> stop, no, this is not participatory. we're not going to do this. we're going to have a civil discussion or we're going to move on to another question. okay. thank you. >> well, you might have expected that, howard, every time you get into a younger generation, they're going to have a fight. you can generally expect with rick santorum. he's very much for traditional marriage, as he would put it, against any kind of same-sex. in fact, against the lawrence case decision about sodomy, he's basically for -- he said the it would be fine with him, constitutionally, to outlaw

birth control. obviously, he's going to have a fight with every kid he meets. >> yeah, this is a clash. the thing that rick santorum is most passionate about are these issues. >> family. >> birth control, family, contraception, gay marriage, especially. he walks into a meeting of college kids from all over new england, who are democrats, republicans, and independents, and that is oil and water and the result, you saw. >> and that's not what he wants to talk about. >> that's right. if he talks about that, he's got no shot here. >> i was there yesterday, and it was really remarkable. because he tried to engage these kids in a psucratic dialogue, and during the course of this entire hour he spent with them, he never mentioned his manufacturing plan or his economic policy. >> or his grandfather. >> or his grandfather with the big hands. >> but he invites it, though, because this is -- i've covered a million of his events. this is what he cares most passionately about. and of course, they fed right into it by asking him about it. >> it's almost like frank sinatra. you want to fight a fight. the guy comes in the room, the kids say, do you want to fight

about marriage? good, let's talk about it. as you say, psucratic message and he says, let me put another case. >> he does it at events, asking questions of the crowd. he asks them if they know the answer to questions. >> you say two men, i say not why two women? >> it's like bidding at bridge. >> and some young person who's not going to engage in a one-on-one discussion, they'll challenge him as a candidate. >> here's what a professional politician would do. he would say, look, my position on gay marriage comes from my church, i adhere to it, let's disagree on this. let's talk about manufacturing and how i want to zero out the corporate tax. >> i think joe and i separately concluded that he does remind us of the social studies teacher in high school who really was interesting, wanted to engage the kids, until he sort of went off the deep end into something that was clearly an obsession of his. and that's the way it is with santorum. you know, all those teachers. and him, it's abortion, gay marriage, and birth control.

>> but in all fairness, you can't pick your audience. >> go ahead. >> but these had the final twist on that. he said he was a social studies teacher at a jesuit high school. >> by the way, i don't have -- in college they like to argue. coming up, my interview with newt gingrich. he's taken on mitt romney, and for newt, it's getting personal. and that's ahead. you're watching "hardball" from the manchester, just four days before the new hampshire primary. [ 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. and we've been honored to walk with you to help you get where you want to be. ♪ because your moment is now. let nothing stand in your way. learn more at keller.edu.

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welcome back to "hardball." newt gingrich is campaigning hard in new hampshire, following a dramatic fall in the polls,

due in large part to a barrage of negative ads run by a pro-romney super pac called restore our future. i caught up with the former speaker in meredith, new hampshire, late last night and i got his criticism of his two chief rivals now, mitt romney and rick santorum. here with me to discuss my interview is john heilemann, national affairs editor for "new york" magazine and an msnbc political analyst. we begin, john, with those nasty ads from team romney. and i asked gingrich about the tone of his republican campaign so far. let's listen. >> let me ask you about -- you made some comments about the quality of the campaign. the tone of the campaign, and the tone of the administration that will follow it. you talked about, you compared, i think, what was going on now from the romney campaign with what happened in 2004 with the swift voting of john kerry and how that sort of polluted the water, if you will, keeping the metaphor, for what happened in the second bush term. he couldn't get things done like privatization. >> that's right. one of the reasons i began drifting towards running was a

paper i wrote in the summer of '04, which said that on 53 issues, john kerry was in the minority by an average of 77-17. that he was to the left of ted kennedy. you could run a clean, straight choice campaign of big issues, and they would have won by a margin like nixon did mcgovern or you know, reagan, mondale. they couldn't break lose. for some reason, they were committed to trying to take on kerry personally. when you do this, when you run negative ads that are personal, you may break the other guy, but you also break yourself. >> and divide the country. >> you divide the country. >> let me ask you about this campaign. i know you want to go positive, but the nature of this campaign, and what was done against you in iowa, let's talk about it. we all watched it. you couldn't turn on a tv set without hearing a negative on you, and they were about you personally, and they were written by somebody who did the ad copy, but they were never signed by anybody. >> that's right. >> there was no name on it, that said, i paid for this ad, my name is mitt romney. >> that's right. and i took on mitt romney head-on.

those are all baloney. those were his staff from the last campaign with his millionaire friends paying for it. those were his ads. he just didn't have the guts to admit it. >> he did come out and say, i could have called off the dogs, not using his words, i could have made it less negative, but why should i? this guy doesn't take the heat. he basically backed them up. >> here's my answer. he has grandchildren. he ought to run a campaign worthy of his grandchildren. he ought to take those ads home and show them to his grandson and say, grandpa did this. what do you think about this kind of trash on television? what do you think about somebody being beaten up like this on television? we should run campaigns worthy of our best, not campaigns that demean us to our worst. >> pretty tough. pretty personal there. he's accusing him of basically trashing the other candidate that would be embarrassing to his own family, to his grandkids. sort of below the cut of what a person ought to be to run for president. he said he's swift voting, basically him. he's accusing him of being, in fact, he went after w. to get him. so he nailed "w" and his entire republican campaign in '04 to

trash romney. >> you know, i am always a little bit hesitant, you know, when we do political analysis to talk about, well, it's personal, so-and-so doesn't like -- i mean, those things exist, but usually there's a greater strategic aim. that they're trying to accomplish. in fact, there's something else going on. man, everything newt gingrich is doing right now seems -- >> going after romney. >> seems very personal. and you know, he went from, i think, believing at the beginning of december, he said this, but i think he actually believed it, that he was going to be the republican nominee. and he did. i was in iowa for a lot of december. and it was a carpet bombing that he experienced. and i think he thinks mitt romney is a person without honor. i also think that whenever you see someone saying i will run a relentlessly positive campaign, as gingrich did, it usually means they're broke and they don't have a choice in the manner. >> you're being tough, but that's true. you're saying that he would have run a carpet bombing campaign against the other guy. >> i think he would have fought back and been able to respond in a more effective way than he did if he had some money. he didn't really get the surge of cash until after he had the surge in the polls, and by then, it was too late to convert that into effective strategy.

>> it's like nixon coming in his third or fourth campaign and saying, there's a new nixon. so newt comes in saying i'm not going to be a dirt ball guy this time. this time i'm going to do it clean. we're going completely legit this time. meanwhile the other guy who is mr. pure, goes to church every sunday, mr. nice, perfect family, he's killing him with trash ads all night long. all day long. meanwhile, not getting his fingers dirty. wouldn't you get mad? >> i would. i would be furious. and when i saw romney on "morning joe" saying, well, we can't tell them to stop, because we'd go to jail for that, it was ludicrous. of course -- >> on another occasion he said he could have told them to stop. >> of course it's true you can't coordinate, but there's nothing in the law that -- >> well, as the rumor mill would have said, more of the raw seat of the hurricane. he's going after liberal judges. he's got planned parenthood on his rap sheet. he's hitting him with everything he's got now. so where we going here? >> welcome to new hampshire and south carolina, chris. >> look at the base. i'm prepping him. i'm not saying this is what he's

going to do saturday night and sunday morning. but you've got to believe newt's ready, loaded for bear to go after romney tomorrow night and definitely sunday morning. >> the relentlessly positive campaign is over. to be fair to the romney super pacs, a lot of things they hit newt on, he says i'm just being factual. they hit newt on taking money from freddie mac. and that was a factual claim. they showed pictures of him with nancy pelosi, that was also a factual claim. it's a little hypocritical for him to claim he's doing facts. but there issed to ish for hill. bob sh rum our friend wrote a column the other day suggesting what newt should say to mitt romney. >> i think he's ready. >> look, he had pictures of mitt romney with ted kennedy, signing the massachusetts health care law. pictures of mitt romney with ted kennedy, signing no child left behind. and saying, you, sir, if you're a republican you're a ted kennedy republican. >> so basically, i want to bring this back, when we come back in a minute, is what newt's doing serving up what the republicans can do later in the year, and concerns that they run third party against him, right? >> yes.

>> and the democrats can question whether he's a little too nimble moving around a little too for. john heilemann, stay with us. more newt coming up. in a couple minutes you're going to see what newt's probably going to use over the weekend in these big debates. he's waging a two-front war right now. he's got to get romney. but he's got to get past santorum. you're going to see him hitting in both directions. this is like world war ii, planning a two-front war. ♪ anything? no. ♪ how about now? nope. ♪ [ dog barking ] ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] the chevy silverado. ♪ [ male announcer ] with best-in-class 4x4 available v8 fuel economy. finally! ♪ [ male announcer ] from getting there... to getting away from there. chevy runs deep.

welcome back to "hardball." we're back with john heilemann and more of the interview we did with newt gingrich last night. gingrich's chief rival now for second place is rick santorum, of course, to go up against romney. but before he can go after romney, of course, one on one, he's got to beat that other guy, rick santorum. so let's look at the criticism coming up right now of rick

santorum. it's in the interview. let's watch. you have a lot of common interests now with santorum. in fact, i don't think you dislike him in any way. i don't think there's any personal problem. you call him now your junior partner. okay, well, that's a knock. you have to hit him a little. >> i was speaker -- >> how are you going to be the alternative to romney unless you check him out of the fight? >> i think it will happen by attrition. i think people are going to look and make a judgment over the next few months. maybe i won't be the judgment. my hunch is i will be. we have a national campaign, we're organized to compete in a lot more places. i wasn't trying to knock rick. >> junior partner? >> he's a good guy. i was speaker of the house. he was a senator who wasn't in leadership at that point. he did very significant things. he was the key to passing welfare reform, i scheduled it three times. i'm just saying we can go through these kind of games -- >> you got clinton re-elected. >> well, i created an opportunity for bill clinton to sell out to the left. it was a wonderful moment. >> well, that's the strange part of the whole thing of gingrich. the one good part of his record, i would argue, from a centrist or progressive perspective, is that during the late '90s, he

and clinton really did together as they matched wits, reduced the federal deficit to zero, created a surplus. you can argue what you want, but they did get health care reform through. it worked. that sort of coming together of two great minds, good and bad, whatever you want to call them, it worked. i tried to get him to talk about it. he said, santorum doesn't get a piece of that. he's only my junior partner. >> he didn't quite say that. he said santorum was important in passing welt care reform. it's true. i covered rick santorum's 1994 campaign. he was a freshman senator and newt gingrich was the speaker of the house. i don't think anyone would say that just the fact that santorum has been in the senate made him senior to gingrich. gingrich had been in washington a lot longer. had a lot more power than santorum had. it's a fair comment, also a little bit of a ding, a little bit of a shot, but it's based in reality. he gave santorum a little bit of credit. but the other day, gingrich was saying quite openly that he was ready to make common cause with santorum if he had to. >> but not yet. >> obviously in south carolina. i think the whole key is what happens here in new hampshire. if newt gingrich right now finishes where he is at in the polls, which is in single digits, and rick santorum finishes up over 20, the

question will be at that moment, does gingrich decide to lay down his arms and get behind santorum in south carolina, because the two of them together right now are even with romney, their vote shares in south carolina. >> and if you through in perry, they're ahead. >> they're ahead. >> more of the interview with gingrich. here he was an optimist about his chances with romney in the long run. let's listen to his somewhat optimistic view of things. let's listen to newt. jimmy carter's another one where he ran against four liberals back in 1976 and won the nomination, but was never really the hero of the party. same thing. and romney, look, he's running against a number of conservatives, yourself, santorum, rick perry, different kinds of conservatives. he's splitting the conservative vote. 75% of your party and all the polling says they want a conservative, not mitt romney. but you're dividing that up the same way the liberals -- >> but look as a real practitioner of this game you'll love this. the great irony for romney is this is the year in which you have the longest period of proportional representation. therefore he's never going to

get more than 25% or 30% of the delegates until april. by april, i think it's going to be gingrich versus romney. and at that point, he's going to be down -- he's going to lose. >> so you can deny him majorities up until then? >> i think so. i don't think he'll ever get near a majority. >> none of these primaries? >> no. >> what do you think he'll get up here? >> well, he was at 41 this afternoon? i think he'll be very lucky if he's at 41. >> what is it about your party that solidifies around romney. one more time into the trenches here. why do 75% reject him? >> because he's a massachusetts moderate and he's not even willing to be honest about it. they all know who he is. he just hopes they don't. he goes around saying, i'm really conservative. well, just think -- >> how does the tea party who you're with tonight, how do they accept him when they know he would never come in his life if he lives to be methuselah's age would never go to a tea party meeting. maybe a class difference. there's all kinds of reasons he won't show up. >> that's why he's not going to get their vote. >> you said you're up against an amateur conservative and an

amateur moderate. who are these people? do you want to put the names -- the amateur conservative is -- rick santorum? >> when you're talking about trying to create a national majority. >> he's an amateur. >> nobody is -- >> who are you talking about when you're talking about amateur conservative, rick santorum. and the amateur moderate, just to nail it down is -- >> mitt romney. >> you're going to be the one that makes the last stand against romney? >> i think so. >> let me give you the latest polling, just came up here in manchester. wmur up here in manchester. it's got romney moving up to 44%. getting close to 50 up here, at least, in a very favorable state to him. ron paul in second place at 20%. and santorum and gingrich still stuck in single digits at 8 points each. that's not a good picture for the challengers. >> it's not. and i will say it again, what we were talking about a second ago, this has been the one state that's been the exception for romney, for a lot of different reasons, where he was able to break through that 25% ceiling that we always talking about, but today in the south carolina poll, it has romney at 37. 37 in south carolina is a pretty

good number for mitt romney. and if he starts building that out from state by state, does well in south carolina, florida. i think the ceiling may disappear, or you'll start to see romney rise above it. >> thank you very much, john heilemann, a real pro. that's "hardball" for now. up next, "your business" with j.j. ramberg. ants 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. all your important legal matters in just minutes. now it's quicker and easier for you to start your business... protect your family... and launch your dreams. at legalzoom.com, we put the law on your side.

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