and we are back to our final half hour. so much discussion, speaker gingrich, on facebook, in the course of this debate about jobs. and you can understand why. and we talked about spending. we talked about economic growth. it was governor romney who made the point to a young person who approached him that if he were president, and when this person got out of college, he or she would have a job. if president obama has a second term, he or she will not have a job. isn't that the kind of thing that makes people angry with politicians? easy answers like that? >> well, i don't think that's an easy answer. i think that's a statement of fact.

you know. but let me take -- let me go back to what was said. it's exactly the same question. the long-term answer to $4 heating oil is to open up offshore development of oil and gas, open up federal lines to oil and gas, flood the market as dr. paul said, make supply and demand work for us, not against us. the price will come down. under obama 2011 was the highest price of gasoline in history. it is a direct result of his policies, which kill jobs, raise the price of heating oil and gasoline, weaken the united states, increase our dependence on foreign countries, and weaken our national security in the face of iran trying to close the straits of hormuz. so the right president opening up in a reagan tradition and using massive development of american energy was 3.2% unemployment in north dakota. there's a hint here. you can actually have jobs, lower price heating oil, which by the way means less spending so you get more revenue for federal government from

royalties, less spending on subsidy, lower price, people are happier all the way around. that's what supply side economics was originally all about in the 1970s. >> governor romney, on those economic questions you blame president obama for the jobs crisis, but when you look at the data and the positive trend line, he still only gets the blame and none of the credit. how come? >> actually i don't blame him for the recession and the decline. what i blame him for is having it go on so long and going so deep and having a recovery that's been so tepid. businesses i talk to all over the country that would normally be hiring people are not hiring. and i asked them why. and they say because they look at the policies of this administration and they feel they're under attack. when you have an administration that tries to raise taxes and has on businesses, when it puts in place obama care that's going to raise the cost of health care for businesses, when they stack the national labor relations board with labor stooges, which means that the policies relating to labor are now going to change dramatically in a direction they find uncomfortable, when you have obama care that places more

mandates on them, when you have dodd/frank, which makes it harder for community banks to make loans, all of these things collective will i create a reality of a president who's been anti-investment, anti-jobs, anti-business, and people feel that. and if you want to get this country going again, you have to recognize that the role of government is not just to catch the bad guys, important as that is. it's also to encourage the good guys. >> all right. >> and to return america to a land of opportunity. >> back to john and andy. john, go ahead. >> governor romney, i'm going to stay with you for one moment here, talking about regulations. one of your prime new hampshire supporters, senator kelly ayotte, has said, quote, new hampshire should not be the tailpipe for pollutants from out-of-state power plants. many senate republicans attack an epa rule limiting air pollution that affects downwind states, but she and others,

including scott brown, joined with the president and senate democrats to block a repeal effort. now, is this an example that's cross-state air pollution rule of fair regulation? something that we in the northeast are very concerned about in terms of pollution? or is this overregulation, job killing overregulation? >> well, i'm not familiar with the specific regulation as it applies to new hampshire. but i do believe that we have a responsibility to keep the air clean, and we have to find ways to assure that we don't have the pollution of one state overwhelming the ability of another state to have clean air. i know in my state of massachusetts, we received a lot of air from the rest of the country. obviously given the winds coming from the west of the country to the east, and so the respondent in our state was to get the emissions from our power plants down. that's one of the reasons why we moved to natural gas. and really, by the way, a discussion about energy and security, getting the cost of gasoline down, the big opportunity here is not just a new oil distribution system but it's natural gas. we have massive new natural gas reserves that have been found in pennsylvania, in north dakota,

south dakota, texas, natural gas cheap. a fraction of the cost per btuo oil. if we want to help people in new england have not only homes and businesses that emit less pollutants into the air, and therefore would have cleaner air, and also have lower cost of energy, let's build out this natural gas system so that we can take advantage of that new, enormous source of american economic strength. >> speaker gingrich, what exactly is an environmental solutions agency? i think a lot of people might not know or understand that why you want to expand the epa and set up something that kind of looks like the epa. >> if you look at the epa's record, it is increasingly radical. it's increasingly imperious. it doesn't cooperate, it doesn't collaborate, and it doesn't take into account ek nom igs. they went down to find out what it was being cited for and they told them, frankly, we don't know, we can't find the records that led to this citation and we're not exactly sure the

reference, but it must be bad or we wouldn't have sent it out. in iowa they had a dust regulation under way because they control particulate matter. i do agree on clean air. there are things that they should do that are right. but dust in iowa is an absurdity. and they were worried that the plowing of a cornfield would leave dust to go to another farmer's cornfield. and they were planning to issue a regulation. in arizona they went in on the dust regulation and suggested to them that maybe if they watered down the earth, they wouldn't have the dust storms in the middle of the year, and people said, you know, the reason that it's called a desert is there's no water. now, this is an agency out of touch with reality, which i believe is incorrigible and you need a new agency that is practical, has common sense, uses economic factors, and in case of pollution, actually incentivizes change, doesn't just punish it. >> andy? >> governor perry, your party's last nominee, john mccain, wrote in "the washington post" in the

op-ed about a year ago, his words, i disagree with many of the president's policies, but i believe he is a patriot, sincerely intent on using his time in office to advance our country's cause. i reject accusations that his policies and beliefs make him unworthy to lead america or opposed to its founding ideals. agreed? >> i make a very proud statement and a fact that we have a president that's a socialist. i don't think our founding fathers wanted america to be a socialist country. so i disagree with that premise that somehow or another that president obama reflects our founding fathers. he doesn't. he talks about having a more powerful, more centralized, more consuming and costly federal government. i am a tenth amendment-believing governor. i truly believe that we need a president that respects the tenth amendment, that pushes

back to the states, whether it's how to deliver education, how to deliver health care, how to do our environmental regulations. the states will considerably do a better job than a one-size- fits-all washington, d.c., led by this president. >> can i just jump in, senator santorum. governor perry called the president a socialist. i wonder, senator santorum, when you voted for a new prescription drug benefit that did not have a funding mechanism, were you advancing socialism? >> well, i'd said repeatedly that we should have had a funding mechanism, and it's one of those things that i had a very tough vote, as you know. in that bill, we had health savings accounts. something i'd been fighting for for 15 years to transform the private sector health care system into a more consumer, bottom-up way of doing it. we also had medicare advantage to transform the entire medicare system into -- medicare advantage is basically a premium support-type model. >> so is it socialism though? that's the point.

>> i think i'm just answering your question. maybe we're not communicating well. but i just talked about medical, the health savings account is an anti-socialistic idea to try to build a bottom-up consumer-based economy in health care. the same thing with medicare advantage. and we also structured the medicare part "d" benefit to be a premium support model as a way of trying to transition medicare. so there were a lot of good things in that bill. there was one really bad thing. we didn't pay for it. we should have paid for it, and that was a mistake. >> do you have a follow-up on that? >> no, i'm going to switch to congressman paul, and i'm going to say to many americans, marley democrats, they believe that health care is a right. in your opinion, what services are all americans entitled to expect to get from government? >> entitlements are not rights. rights mean you have a right -- rights mean you have a right to your life. you have a right to your liberty. and you should have a right to keep the fruits of your labor. and this is quite a bit different, but earlier on there

was a little discussion here about gay rights. i, in a way, don't like to use those terms, gay rights, women's rights, minority rights, religious rights. there's only one type of right. it's your right to your liberty. and i think this causes divisiveness when we see people in groups because for too long we punish groups. so the answer then was, let's relieve them by giving them affirmative action. so i think both are wrong. if you think in terms of individuals and protect every single individual, no, they're not entitled. one group isn't entitled to take something from somebody else. and the basic problem here is there's a lot of good intention to help poor people. but guess who gets the entitlements in washington? the big guys get it. the rich people. they run the entitlements. the military industrial complex, the banking system, those are the entitlements we should be dealing with. >> okay. dr. paul, thanks. our remaining moment, back to you, john. >> governor huntsman, andy and i

are about to wrap up our debate and as we do, i'd like to ask you as someone who's been here in new hampshire awhile, what does our state motto, "live free or die" mean to you personally and how would it guide you in the white house? >> it is the fulfillment of a citizenry being able to live out the meaning of our founding documents. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. and everywhere i've gone in this great state -- and we've done 160-plus public events -- i feel it, and i sense it, and people take that very seriously. you know what else they take seriously? they take seriously the idea of real leadership. i've heard a lot of obfuscating up here, the blame game, talking about gays, talking about unions, everybody's got something nasty to say. you know what the people of this country are waiting for and the people? they want a leader who is going to unify, who's going to bring us together, because at the end of the day, that's what leadership is all about. it's not about taking on different groups and vilifying them for whatever reason.

it's about projecting a vision for a more hopeful tomorrow. that's why there is no trust in this country today. and that's why as president i'm going to attack that trust deficit just as aggressively as i attack that economic deficit. because with no trust, i can't think of anything more corrosive longer-term for the people of this nation. >> all right. we're going to -- we're going to leave it there. thank you, john. thank you, andy, both. we're going to take another quick break here. i'll be back with a final round of questions, including your questions from our "meet the press" facebook page. we're back with our final moments in just a moment. [ male announcer ] is zero worth nothing? ♪ imagine zero pollutants in our environment. or zero dependency on foreign oil. ♪ this is why we at nissan built a car inspired by zero. because zero is worth everything. the zero gas, 100% electric nissan leaf.

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who is she? that's flobot. she's this new robot we're trying out, mostly for, like, small stuff. wow! look at her go! she's pretty good. she's pretty good. hey, flobot, great job. oops. [ powers down ] uh-oh, flobot is broken. the "name your price" tool, only from progressive. call or click today. we are back. gentlemen, candidates, we have just a few minutes left. and i'd like to try something, because i do want to get to as much substance and pin you down on views as best i can. i know this can be hard for you, but you are spending a lot of money getting your message out in 30-second increments, based

on what i've been watching in the hotel room here in new hampshire. so i know you know how to do this. let's try having 30-second answers to some of these questions and we might have some questions along the way. senator santorum, i want to ask you about iran. it's been a big issue in the course of this campaign so far. i wonder why it is, if america lives with a nuclear soviet union, we have come to live with a nuclear north korea, why is it that we cannot live with a nuclear iran? and if we can't, are you prepared to take the country to war to disarm that country? >> they're a theocracy. they're a theocracy that has deeply embedded beliefs that the afterlife is better than this life. president ahmadinejad has repeatedly said the principle virtue of the islamic republic of iran is martyrdom. so when your principle virtue is to die for allah, it's not a deterrent to have a nuclear threat if they would use a nuclear weapon.

it is, in fact, an encouragement for them to use a nuclear winnipeg, and that's why there's a difference between the soviet union and china and others versus iran. >> what about pakistan? they have nuclear weapons. are you also prepared as president to say they must disarm or else? >> they are not a theocracy, and we're very hopeful of maintaining a more secular state than is in place today. but there is a serious threat. and this administration has bungled it about as badly as they can in trying to continue those positive relationships. we've had some real serious problems with the pakistani military. obviously with respect to osama bin laden and with respect to north waziristan. but you have -- the reason is we have a president who is very weak in that region of the world, is not respected and therefore he's not been able to have that strong hand in working with pakistan that they're used to. >> speaker gingrich, how about tone of this campaign? i was in iowa, i heard you on the stump.

you complained bitterly about the super pac, the outside groups that were lodging charges against you, bringing up some old issues against you. and now you have a former campaign spokesman who is preparing attacks against governor romney, calling him, quote, a predator for his involvement at the investment company. bane. you agreed with someone who said that governor romney was a liar when he didn't take account for those attacks against you. are you consistent now as you're preparing to launch against governor romney? >> sure. >> how so? >> i'm consistent because i think you ought to have fact-based campaigns. to talk about the records. >> calling him a predator is not over the line? >> well, i think you have to look at the film, which i haven't seen, but if you look at the "new york times" article, i think it was on thursday, you would certainly have to say that bane at times engaged in behavior where they looted a company, leaving behind 1,700 unemployed people. that's "the new york times." that's not me. so i think -- one of the things i've complained about, got four pinocchios in "the washington post."

now to get four pinocchios in a 30-second ad means there's virtually nothing accurate in 30 seconds. >> speaker, you decry the washington establishment and you just talked about "the new york times" and "the washington post." you have agreed with the characterization that governor romney is a liar. look at him now. do you stand by that claim? >> sure. governor, i wish you would calmly and directly state it is your former staff running the pac, its is your millionaire friends giving to the pac, and you know some of the ads aren't true. just say that, straightforward. >> well, of course, it's former staff of mine, and, of course, they're people who support me. they wouldn't be putting money into a pac that supports me if they weren't people who support me. with regards to their ads, i haven't seen them. as you know, under the law, i can't direct their ads. >> speaker -- >> hold on a second. i can't direct their ads. if there's anything in them that's wrong, i hope they take it out. i hope everything that's wrong is taken out. but let me tell you this, the ad i saw said that you've been forced out of the speakership.

that was correct. it said that -- that you sat down with nancy pelosi and argued for a climate change bill. that was correct. it said that you called the -- the ron paul -- paul ryan's plan to provide medicare reform a -- a right wing social engineering plan. it said that -- that as part of an investigation, an ethics investigation, that you had to reimburse some $300,000. those things were all true. if there was something related to abortion that said it was wrong, i hope they pull it out. anything wrong, i'm opposed to. but you know, this ain't -- this ain't the beanbag. we're going to come into a campaign, we're going to describe the differences between us -- >> all right. >> but i do thinki the rhetoric mr. speaker, was a little over the top. >> you think my rhetoric was over the top? but your ads were totally reasonable. >> let me understand -- >> i've taken -- >> mr. speaker, the super pacs that are out there running ads, ron paul's, mine, yours, as you know, that is not my ad.

i don't write that ad, i can't tell them -- >> how about this. would you both agree to take these super pac ads down? >> but, mr. speaker, i wouldn't call some of the things you've called me in public. i think that's just over the top. >> would you both agree to request that these super pac ads be taken down? >> david, wait a second. come on. come on. i'm glad finally on this stage weeks later he has said, gee, if they're wrong, they should take them down. they would, of course -- we sent a letter in south carolina warning the stations to just fact check them before they start running them. but i'm taking his advice. you know, we started to run his commercial from 1994, attacking teddy kennedy for running negative ads. we thought, no, that would be wrong. so instead, i agree with him, takes broad shoulders to run, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. when the 27 1/2-minute movie comes out, i hope it's accurate. i can say publicly, i hope that the super pac runs an accurate movie about bane, it will be based on establishment newspapers, like "the washington post," "the wall street journal," "the new york times." "barron's," "bloomberg news,"

and i hope it's totally accurate and that people can watch the 27 1/2 minutes of his career at bane and decide for themselves. >> let me ask you, senator santorum. we've talked some about the role of government, but the presidency is often called the bully pulpit. i wonder as president how you'd use the bully pulpit to try to shape american caught your and value. >> i haven't written a lot of books. i've written one. it was in response to a book written by hillary christian called "it takes a village." i didn't agree with that. i believe it takes a family. that's what i wrote. i believe there's one thing undermining this country and that's the breakdown of the american family. it's undermining our economy. you see rates of poverty among single-parent families. you see moms doing heroic things, but it's harder. it's five times harder in the single-parent family. we know there's certain things that work in america. brookings institute came out with a study just a couple of years ago that said if you graduate from high school, if you work, if you're a man, if you marry, if you're a woman, if you marry before you have

children, you have a 2% chance of being in poverty in america. and to be above the median income, if you do those three things, 77% chance of being above the median income. why isn't the president of the united states or why aren't the jierksz leaders in the country talking about that and trying to form late -- not necessarily federal government policies, but local policy and state policy and community policy to help people do those things that we know work and we know are good for society. the president doesn't. in fact, he has required programs not to talk about marriage, not to talk about abstinence in order to get federal funds. he's working exactly against the things he knows works because he has a secular ideology that is against the tradition of our country and how it works. >> dr. paul, quickly, how would you use the bully pulpit? >> i would continue to do what i'm doing now, preaching the gospel of liberty. i think that the most important ingredients in this country that made us great was our founders understood what liberty meant. and that is what we need. we have deserted that. we have drifted a lodge way.

it involves our right to our life. right to our liberty. we ought to be able to keep the fruits of our labor. we ought to understand property rights. we ought to understand contract rights. we ought to understand what sound money is all about and understand what national defense means. that means defending this country. that is the bully pulpit we need. we need to defend liberty. >> all right. defend liberty and -- >> and liberty. >> we're going to take another break here. we'll be back with some closing moments right after this. >> good morning, dave. >> good morning, dave. [taps on window] dave. >> both: hey, dave. >> hey. >> hey, dave. >> mr. dave... >> dave? >> 'sup, dave? >> dave? dave? >> dave? >> dave! dave? >> hi, dave. >> oh, dave's looking for you. >> [singing] >> hey, dave. >> [loud] yo, dave! >> announcer: in a small business, it's all you. that's why you have us. at staples, we have low prices on everything your small business needs. staples. that was easy.

i would like to thank the candidates for joining us. i'd also like to thank our debate partners, facebook, the "new hampshire union leader" and our host in concord, the capital center for the arts. thank you for watching and for participating in this debate online. post-debate analysis will continue ton msnbc. be sure to watch complete coverage of the new hampshire primary returns tuesday night on nbc news, msnbc and online at nbcpolitics.com. we'll be back next week from washington. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

>> we've been in it for two hours now. we came all the way out here with it. he's a pulitzer prize winning columnist for "the washington post." gentlemen, right off the bat, fantastic event this morning. in this debate showed his weaknesses. it showed his stance as the nice guy, politician. it showed his stance as the nice guy, businessman, nonpolitician who's open to question, and it was questioned by everybody else on the stage and very surgically and strategic will i by david gregory and the others. >> we'll show you the tapes in a

second, but, gene. >> my first thought was they landed some blows on romney today. the question is whether it's too late. now, things happened late in new hampshire and it seems like there's an eternity between today, sunday, and tuesday, but is that really realistically the right time? >> here it is the one-two punch of rick santorum and mitt romney, attacking his guys or presentation as a citizen, businessman who occasionally goes into politics. here is the first shot from santorum. i went to massachusetts to make a difference. i didn't go there to begin a political career, running time and time again. i made a difference, i put in place the things i wanted to do, i listed out the accomplishments we wanted to pursue in our administration. there were 100 things we wanted to do. those things i pursued aggressively. some we won, some we didn't. run again? that would be about me. i was trying to help get the state in the best shape as i possibly could. left the world of politics, went

back into business. now i have the opportunity, i believe, to use the experience i have -- you've got a surprised look on your face. wait. it's still my time. >> are you going to tell people you're not going to run for re-election for president if you win? >> rick? rick? >> it's still my time. >> i'm just asking. >> okay. well -- >> go ahead, governor romney. take 30 seconds there. >> what i'm going to tell you is, this, for me, politics is not a career. for me, my career was being in business and starting a business and making it successful. my life's passion has been my family, my faith, and my country. the question was made why did you run -- >> he didn't have an answer. the other people pointed out in the course of the debate, gnut gip grilled cheese calling it pious baloney. >> he's saying he's not a career politician, saying it's baloney

to say that. he's been running since 1994. he never stopped running. here's the point made by newt gingrich. >> i realize the red light doesn't mean anything to you because you're the front-runner. but -- but can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney? the fact is you ran in '94 and lost. that's why you weren't serving the senate with rick santorum. the fact is you had a very bad re-election rating. you dropped out of office. you've been out of state for something like 200 days preparing to run for president. you didn't have the interlude of citizenship while you thought about what to do. you were running for president while you were governor. you were going all over the country. you were out of state consistently. you promptly re-entered politics. you happened to lose to mccain. as you had lost to kennedy. now you're back running. you've been running consistently for years and years and years. so this idea that suddenly citizenship showed up in your mind, just level with the american people. you've been running since at least the 1990s. >> devastating.

>> if he's the nominee against president obama, obama can throw this in his face. you're not the innocent, buddy. >> he likes to portray himself as i'm a businessman, this is not my career. i'm a business guy. i did this to help out for my country. >> here we are sunday morning, howard. why do these guys wait? a couple of things hit me. late in the game. it's sunday, two days as i said before the new hampshire primary. we've had all these months to pull the scab off this guy's innocence. why now? >> well, this is the last clear chance. if mitt romney wins big, he's got momentum going in south carolina, he can wrap up the nomination. new hampshire. >> you have to get to it. also to go to gene's point, things happen here late. i've covered a million of these. the ground moves in new hampshire on the last weekend. >> why do they need a moderator

to open the door for them? i'm not a media critic, but the door was never opened for this kind of assault. i think today david gregory opened the door from the beginning of the debate. >> and they had opportunities before. i thank were all nervous. they didn't know how it would play. they thought, here's the guy who's the front-runner. republicans are not supposed to be like that, go after each other, but you get down to the wire, and they've got to do something. they've got to slow him down. >> okay. let's look at the tv ads. let's look at the tv ads. >> right. >> for months all three of us were in iowa sitting in our hotel rooms watching these devastating super pac ads. late in the debate they had this heated exchange put out by a super pac that clearly backs mitt romney. let's watch this. this is finally the issue we've been talking about. let's listen. >> governor, i wish you would calmly and directly state it is your former staff running the pac, it is your millionaire

friends giving to the pac, and you know some of those things are untrue. just say that, straightforward. >> well, of course, it's former staff of mine, and, of course, they're people who support me. they wouldn't be putting money into a pac that supports me if they weren't people who support me. with regards to their ads, i haven't seen them. as you know, under the law i can't direct their ads. >> speaker -- >> hold on a second. i can't direct their ads. if there's anything in them that's wrong, i hope they take it. i hope everything that's wrong is taken out. but let me tell you this, the ad i saw said that you've been forced out of the speakership. that was correct. it said that -- that you sat down with nancy pelosi and argued for a climate change bill. that was correct. it said that you called the -- the ron paul -- paul ryan's plan to provide medicare reform a -- a right wing social engineering plan. it said that -- that as part of an investigation, an ethics investigation, that you had to reimburse some $300,000. those things were all true. if there was something related to abortion that said it was wrong, i hope they pull it out.

anything wrong i'm opposed to. but, you know, this ain't the beanbag. we're going to come into a campaign, we're going to describe the differences between us -- >> all right. >> but i do think the rhetoric, mr. speaker, was a little over the top. >> you think my rhetoric was over the top? >> here's the question. here he is admitting he knows the content no matter what it said because there were problems in there. >> first he said he hadn't seen them. then he said, i happened to see it. i happened to see it. and then he recited the specifics of the entire ad almost word for word and ends up by saying, like the wrestler who puts the razor blade back in the trunks, hey, this ain't beanbag, so get used to it. >> so the foreign object in this case is a super pac, which he doesn't know anything about and as howard cites he cites point for point. >> what does that mean, of course, he knows. he means, of course, this is a -- of course, it's my ad. it's just that we maintain the

fiction that it's independent. it's my former staff. it's -- it's legal, but it's fictional. >> that conversation, which was the high point of this whole campaign as far as i was concerned in terms of honesty ended with him saying beanbag, you've got to take this stuff. >> there was a question about the abortion language in the ad, but newt comes back. and says, look, i agree, you have to have broad shoulders to be in the cam paper, and, hey, buddy, wait till you get a load of the independent ad about bane capital that's going to be 27 1/2 minutes long, and, you know, it's always going to be based on "the new york times" and "the washington post." >> a spokesman -- a surrogate for governor romney, who is, of course, the former governor of this state, new hampshire, he supports governor romney for president, he was also white house chief of staff for first

president bush. # let me ask you a particular point here. should candidates be responsible for ads put on the air by their former staffers in interest? should they be responsible for the ads? >> look, you guys are reveling and wallowing in ridiculous perception of what's going on. there's a law that defines what can ant can't be in the ads, and all the candidates are following the law. and to suggest that governor romney shouldn't know what's in the ad with all the clippings that have been out describing it, come on. stop being ridiculous and get to the point. >> did he say ridiculous to me? >> when you think there's something bad about tighting your time to serve? if there's anything he understands about giving of time and going back to the normal sector, it's the normal part of the sector. it's new hampshire. stop being ridiculous and talk about the issues, job problems -- >> governor, you used the word

ridiculous. just repeating -- governor, repeating the word "ridiculous" doesn't make it so. i was in a, and i saw your ad s saturated with negativity and then saying he seasonal responsible. >> he's not responsible. do you know what the law is? >> the question is should a candidate be responsible -- should the candidate be responsible for the ad? you say no. >> you guys have an agenda that you want to drive and you have no idea what the rules and regulations are. >> you're the surrogate here, sir. you're obviously here with an agenda. >> come on. >> let me ask you one last time. do you thing la slaw is a good law -- >> no. the law should be changed. everybody. >> thank you. >> every candidate agrees the law should be changed. nobody likes that law, but unfortunately bad legislation put the supreme court in a position where they had to make that decision. >> okay. gene, i've been watching this

campaign. i have yet to hear a call by governor romney for reform in campaign advertising. >> i haven't heard that either, but i'm curious as to why governor romney says -- why did governor romney say he hadn't seen the ads if, in fact, obviously he had? >> what he has, gene, is clips describing what's in the ads? you don't believe he reads news clips? come on, don't be silly. >> don't be silly. so you're attesting to the fact that -- >> can i ask a question? >> i have no idea whether he sees the ads, but i know he reads the news clips. >> okay. i don't know whew you're skirting the issue. why are you dodging the issue of responsibility? >> everything he's talked about has been described in the news clips and you guys aren't smart enough to understand that, you've got a real problem. >> let me ask you a question. we'll lower the temp, we'll notch it back on my end as well. he ran against governor kennedy.

it was a very difficult campaign. he took credit for the fact that governor romney actually forced ted kennedy to actually mortgage his home to pay for campaign ads near the end to protect his incumbency. fair enough. he lost that. he began running for president. ran for governor. his poll numbers were very low. is there any reason to indicate he didn't run for re-election because he wasn't going to get re-elected? what's wrong with admitting he's a career politician? what's wrong with saying it? why keep pretending he's not a politician? >> you've got to decide whether you want to attack him for being a career politician or attack him for all the successes he had as a career private sector guy. how can you be a career both? you guys don't know which way to go and which way to go after him. he's a career private sector guy that understood how to create jobs, took it to massachusetts for a period of time, and went back to the private sector. now he's running for president.

he'd like to take that talent into the oval office and start creating jobs for america and fix the mess that your guy obama has caused. >> fair enough. your guy too. he's your president as well. let me ask you, governor, the why. let me attest to why this is an important part of this debate. there's a lot wrong with this country right now, not just in terms with the economy but the civic sort of more reality. we have too much division in the country. these are clear facts. what the game is right now, in politics, and all the candidates are playing it, let's admit that, is to say they're not responsible. rick perry, everyone's not from washington, everybody's a citizen, a citizen out there. it's not a ridiculous argument we're to have, which we're having. over the clear nature of what a person's profession has been. mitt romney has attempted to live his life in politics and has failed on a number of occasions. that's all that's being said by his opponents. you say that's not fair. >> no. what i say is that you've got to put a context on it. he took a chunk of his life and

went to the olympics. he took a chunk of his life and served in the private sector. he took a chunk of hiss life and served as governor of massachusetts, and now he's willing to take a chunk of his life and be president. there's a hole there, not just one sliver. it's not just a sliver of being a career politician or being a career private sector guy. it's a combination of all those things, and it's the combination that he brings to the table. >> fair enough. i hear your retort. i hear your retort. >> it's not a retort. it's an accurate answer. >> governor, i wanted to ask you about -- to change the subject a bit. governor romney has criticized jon huntsman for serving as ambassador to china for president obama. huntsman today said attitudes like that is why the country is divided. does governor romney stick to that or do you subscribe to

that, having served in the white house yours, that it's not wise to serve the president when he says -- when he asks you to serve? >> i was a republican that agreed with the policies of my president. if huntsman wants to agree with the obama policies, then he should carry the burden of having been part of the obama policies. what's more damning to governor huntsman are the fawning letters he wrote, drooling all over the place about obama's policies and obama as a leader. that's the biggest burden that governor huntsman carries from his service from china. >> let me ask you. harry cabot lodge was successful, was serving as ambassador during vietnam. were the voters of new hampshire wrong to make that decision? >> i think the voters of new hampshire today would not make that decision. i think there's a very different climate in the world, and i

think that if that situation came up, senator lodge had been a former senator from massachusetts, then ambassador, would not do as well. >> well, unfortunately i think you'd have to say that huntsman is right when he said -- to quote him actually, he said this nation is divided, he said to david, because of attitudes like that. and i think what you just reflected is we're living in the country ha that has a bad attitude to the kind we had backes even in the very divisive 1960s. that's a bad comment about the nature of the election, sir. >> people are angered by the policies reflected of this administration and they're not supportive of somebody who supports those policies. that's what the issue is. it's supporting bad policies. >> okay. thank you, governor. it's always good to have you on. >> nice to be on, chris. have a nice day. >> surrogate for mitt romney. thank you for coming on. let's go to david gregory,

moderator of "meet the press" who moderated today's debate. i have to say, let me be the first. it was an electric debate. it was highly charged. and your moderating skills played a major role in activating the candidates to be at their best. i give you that for sunday morning greatness. you've done it again, david. >> thank you, thank you. performance by the candidates? what do you think you learned as a newsman? >> well, i do think the tone was a big role. i think it was clear from the start where i was trying to lead the candidates but where they picked up the ball and ran with it, they were trying to slow romney down. if you were not romney, you had to do something to slow him down. as you referred to the debate for running for politics for quite a long time, being a career politician, that back and forth. i have to say there may have been a little more heat than light. even newt gingrich who said romney was unelectable still has

some bullet points about what he sees as a moderate record, and i don't know that they sort of line up point to point about what the record actually was for governor romney. but it was very clear whether it was just process, just argument, there was an attempt now dom right at him and say, you're not for real. you're not authentic as a guy who's an outsider, who can take us on and pick up the mantle of the republican party and ultimately you're too compromised ultimately to go against president obama. i think that argument was made, and think everybody was ready dom and make that argument today. >> here's howard fineman, david. >> i wondered, david, if there was anything that really surprised you. you were right there within a few feet of them. you were asking very tough questions. they were going after each other. what surprised you about either the dynamics or the content of what they said today? >> well, i think what surprised me a little bit is governor romney, my thought from last night on the other debate was he was trying to be very cool, be above the fray.

i think he was happy to see that paul and santorum were sparring. i think here he understand, a, he was very much a target and there was no getting around it and he had to fight back. and i just saw a lot more fight in him today just as a stylistic piece and getting up close, certainly in the end between romney and gingrich. here's another point. i think this is important substantively. politicians go around and say, let's not be superficial, let's talk in great depth, let's tell the american people what they want to know. and instead of answering questions about what painful cuts they're going to make, there becomes kind of an attack on the commentary. or if it was governor perry, really, that that's the answer, that he's going to surprise republicans by calling for a balanced budget amendment. i don't think that's bucking the orthodoxy of the party. i also don't think we learned a

lot about how these candidates can do what bush and obama were unable to do, and that's change, what washington works to get results. i think they have to bear that in mind. people expect results. they expect things to be accomplished, and that's just not happening in washington. >> in closing i want to congratulate you again on the substance of this. i think you got a lot out of them on the means testing, the wealthy. that's a tough one to hear, but i thought they were all very forth coming in that regard. david, congratulations on a great performance. >> thank you very much, chris. >> i think there's going to be a lot out of this as we study the transcript. thank you, my colleagues of lore and eugene robinson. up next, more from the campaigns, the candidates, and more analysis from us. you're watching msnbc's coverage. what great morning for nbc and msnbc. we're talking about the republican presidential debate just held here in manchester, new hampshire, just two days before the new hampshire primary.

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primary. going do away with.

first of all there were a

lot of people tuning in this morning. i'm sure they're confused after watching this spin--up here. was criticized by governor mitt romney for putting my country first. way tomt remind the people throughout new hampshire and the united states that i think -- he criticized me while he was out raising money for serving my country in china, yes, under a democrat. like my two sons are doing in the united states navy. they're not asking what political affiliation the president is. i want to be very clear with the people here in new hampshire and this country. i will always put my country first, and think that's >> this nation is divided because of attitudes like that. >> i think that's a historic retort. alex wagner is a host of "now" which airs every weekday around noon eastern. you know, you're a young

commentator and analyst. first of all, your reaction? >> i thought it was my favorite moment of the debate. i thought huntsman was incredibly strong. he's been hammered over and over and over again and i thought his response was not only el want but what the new hampshire voters want and to some degree what the country wants. all of a sudden serving the government is bad thing. here's a guy who has incredible foreign policy experience. yes, he served under a democratic experience. the huntsman debate has been a huge head scratcher for me. he spoke truthfully. >> here's a man with a unique experience in china. probably the most important competitor in the world. speaks mandarin. able go over there and do what few others in our history could ever have done, having the

language ability. he's asked to give that unique training and experience to the country in the interest of the country, and he accepts it. >> and i mean i will say huntsman has outdone himself a service in some areas which he has to take off his hat to. i think constantly dropping chinese phrases throughout the debate doesn't serve him well. it's a little bit doory and embarrassing. huntsman's biggest problem in my view, he came out of the gates and he was so gung ho about being a moderate and being outside the traditional mode, wearing a jean jacket, talking about climate change and captain beef heart that he turned everybody off because he served under president obama. >> in a red-hot political environmental where 40% of the country wants to remove this president, wants to deny him a

second term in the worst way, some in the very worst way, there's a lot of hatred out there, what do you think it's going to do to him coming out on the eve or the new hampshire primary. will it give him votes? >> i think it works in new hampshire. the question is if you go in south carolina, it's dirty politics. it ooh going to be nasty down there. can he get his head above water? it remains tbd. >> you're the best. we're in manchester just two days before the new hampshire primary. it's finally gotten hot and we saw it in that debate. they're going after romney, dirty ads and the works. it's finally come to the high noon here in new hampshire.