already knew it. i learned we celebrate the 70th birthday of the greatest, mohammedally. t ali. >> i didn't have to run around. >> out of control. >> i thought we could have a cultural revolution. what did you learn? >> two investigative reporters have written a book about mitt romney did not seem to have much to say that was deeply critical of him, and i was surprised by that. >> and what did you learn? >> on the show tomorrow, very excited and i learned something so important. republicans are victims. i understand. >> they are. you know what i've learned? that chuck todd is a very basic man. we've over again. chuck, so sorry. >> not even there today. the good news. >> who's there? >> keep talking. >> it's luke. >> oh, it's luke. i just -- i stared at newt and said, listen, we have to figure this out. they will never like you, newt.

they'll never like you. so -- >> please. >> too close. >> is that too close? are we over? are we over? go mike. >> go bill. >> luke -- >> all right. mitt romney takes hitting from all sides at last night's republican debate. rick santorum lay as trap. rick perry press him and newt gingrich a standing ovation. all the highlights this morning, but despite the heat, does romney have the nomination in the bag? new national poll numbers out this morning show he's got a 2-1 lead over his closest competitor. plus, can stephen colbert, who can't get on the south carolina ballot, his latest super pac attack take as different approach. vote for herman cain. it's tuesday, january 17, 2012, this is "the daily rundown." i'm luke russert sitting in for chuck todd this morning.

the first reads of the morning, in a new poll out this a.m., mitt romney has a 2-1 advantage over his closest competition with 35% of the vote. nearly three quarters of republicans believe romney will be the republican nominee. up from 40% a month ago. just five days to go from clenching a win in south carolina and riding a hat trick to be nomination. riding some of the most aggressive confess of the campaign questioning his job creation record, conservatism and his character. one of the night's most heated exchanges, rick santorum challenged the former massachusetts governor on a pro-romney ad that criticizes santorum for supporting voting rights for felons who have already served their time. >> should they be given the right to vote? >> governor romney? >> first of all, as you know, the pacs that run ads on various candidates as we unfortunately know -- >> answer the question first. >> we have plenty of time.

i'll glet. do it in the order i want to do i'm asking you to answer the question. that's how you've got the time. it's actually my time. >> i don't think people committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again. that's my own view. >> interesting you should say that, governor romney, because in the state of mass when you were governor, the law was, not only could violent felons vote after, they exhausted their sentences they could vote while on probation and parole. >> mark murray is nbc news deputy political director and he joins us this morning. mark, it seemed to me from watching mitt romney realized he was sort of far ahead in south carolina. riding momentum of the two early wins. he kind of went to use a football analogy into a defense. line backers up, didn't rush anybody, try not to make a mistake. did that strategy serve him well? >> a strategy he uses time and time. a tough question, turns it back to president obama and criticism

about his flip-flops or record at bain capital and trying to turn back to criticism of the president. in that exchange you can see how mitt romney can be rattled. where rick santorum said, answer the question, when you start to press mitt romney, when you challenge him, you can knock him off ball, a bit as we saw in that exchange. >> on challenging him, rick perry asked him to release his income tax returns, which he has not done. then one of the moderators from the "wall street journal" evans actually pressed, kelly evans. look at that exchange. >> mitt, we need for you to release youri income tax, so th people of this country can see -- >> we cannot fire our nominee in september. we need to know now. >> i sort of feel like we're showing a lot of exposure at this point, and if i become our nominee, and what's happened in history is people have released them about april of the coming year. that's probably what i'd do. >> romney seems a little rattled there. >> he was, and probably what

i'll do -- that was parsing that we used to see from president bill clinton back in the 1990s, luke. he didn't give a definitive statement. in fact, there still needs to be answers on, will he end up releasing those tax returns by april? and what will he actually be releasing? just one year? five years? ten years' worth? an issue that's going to go away. one of the reason why, opponents and also the obama campaign is waiting to see what's in those tax returns, that there is a suggestion that he's not paying the top 35% rate. that a lot have carried interest, and -- >> money offshore? >> alaska paying significantly less than his top rate as warren buffett said a lot of people do with their investment income. >> another interesting exchange happened between juan williams, moderator from fox and newt gingrich ing in, pressing him about kids being able to work in janitorial positions in schools and whether or not they had anything to do with racial

politics especially in a state like south carolina. let's look at that exchange. >> my e-mail account, twitter account, inundated with people, all races, who are asking if your comments are not intended to belittle the poor and racial minorities? we saw some of this reaction during your visit to a black church in south carolina. it sounds as it you're seeking to belittle people. >> well -- first of all, juan, the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by barack obama than any president in american history. >> pretty fired up exchange right there. also, the crowd noise plays a factor, but a lot of the reswrus reviews coming out, that helps obama. did that help newt gingrich? >> i think it did for republican

primary voters, fired up about that and newt also played to what was a very rowdy and feisty crowd, and got the applause. in fact, some people actually later ended up giving him a standing ovation for that remark. take a step back, outside of the republican party electorate, i'm not sure that was an exchange the eventual nominee will like that much. last night's debate occurred on martin luther king day. juan williams booed for asking a question about racial insensitivity. that could present problems for the republican party, but at least the people newt gingrich was trying to talk to, he actually scored some points there. >> a lot of fun to watch here in the close be days. mark murray, nbc news deputy political director. thanks for joining us this morning. >> thanks. >> take care. one debate down. one more to go and just four days left before the primary. this morning the candidates head back out on to the campaign trail. nbc's peter alexander is on the trail for us in florence, south

carolina. good morning, peter. >> reporter: luke, good morning to you. right now we are at what is intended to be a mitt romney rally. they're trying to present an image of inevitability surrounding romney. the only event today. there's just a sparse crowd of folks here. maybe 150 people. the event was supposed to start about 20 minutes earlier than it did. there was scheduled, according to advance people, a grand entrance for governor romney coming in on his bus, pulling into the civic center. instead they chose not to do that, waiting 20 minutes. hoping the loroom would fill up. those in the back rows told advance members of romney's team if they could push forward, create the crowd crush to make it look like a big intense celebrate eade vent here in florence. nonetheless, mitt romney knows he is the front-runner and really doing his best to try to be gap-free throughout receipt maining four days here. he could get tripped up by another debate scheduled for this thursday, luke, but his competitors, the more social

conservative candidates in this race, have several events today. newt gingrich with seven separate stops today. rick santorum with five stops. meanwhile, mitt romney after this event is going to speak to the media to answer some questions we've been trying to pose to him recently, then he let's to new york. playing the field as it were for a big fund-raiser hoping to raise more than $1 million tonight to continue his ad wars, super pac obviously very successful in knocking down some of his opponents and mitt romney has been trying to do the same with some of his ads here in the state as well. >> the image of invincibility. peter alexander on the ground in south carolina. thanks for joining us this morning. to win south carolina, gingrich not only has to beat romney, but also win over social conservatives whose leaders are throwing their weight behind rick santorum. former oklahoma congressman j.c. watts, national co-chair of the ning ri gingrich campaign joins me now. >> happy new year. >> to you as well. i want to play an exchange

between rick santorum and newt gingrich about sort of the idea of electability from the social conservative base. let's take a listen to that. >> any conservative who votes for anyone but me helps elect a moderate as a nominee and therefore -- if every conservative votes for me, we will win on saturday by a huge margin. >> i look at it this way. we've had two contemptscontempt contempts. congressman gingrich is the most electable, why did he finish behind me, if he was so electedable. we run better against anybody, i think, against barack obama than anyone in the field. not a matter of coalescing, behind a conservative that can win. >> a lot of evangelical groups are lining up behind rick santorum. newt gingrich said south carolina is his firewall, but now trails romney by a fair amount. how can he actually move forward in this campaign with splitting

the evangelical or social conservative vote with rick santorum, being so far behind romney this late in the game? >> if you ask him that question you would have to ask the question to santorum and gingrich. i think newt's somewhere -- the polls that i've seen, it's consolidation that you see, it's probably five to six points at this time. we think we have time to close the deal. i take exception to a comment you made earlier in your introductory remarks in saying that social conservatives have thrown their weight behind santorum. i was in the meeting in texas over the weekend with evangelical conservatives, and newt gingrich had strong support going into that race, or into that meeting and he had strong support coming out. i do think south carolina is -- is -- you know, you have candidates that have to make decisions. can they continue on? i think speaker gingrich, i think he feels good about how he's positioned right now going into florida, and so -- but the

real test, the real poll is going to be taken on saturday. >> why not, though, if not having mitt romney as the nominee, as the chief concern amount in the republican party sort of say, rick santorum you won the first two contests. i, newt gingrich, a former speaker of the house, i'm a lifelong republican, going to be a team player. why not get behind rick santorum and try to convince rick perry to do the same? only in it for ego purposes to sell more books? >> you could ask the same thing, luke, to perry and to santorum, with the strong support that the speaker has, with social conservatives, with evangelical conservatives. tim and beverly la hay, endorsing jim garlo, who led the fight for marriage out in california. david lane, another you know, mega ministry pastor out in california. richard lee out of atlanta, georgia. i mean, newt has really, really strong support. i think we could -- i understand

your question, but i think the same question could legitimately be asked to rick santorum and rick perry. i think -- you have to understand this du-ish you've g to get over 1,100 delegates to get the nomination right now governor romney has 4. so the clock started in iowa, but the game isn't anywhere close to being over. i think january will give us good visibility on who has the staying power, and i think some of those decisions will probably be made after south carolina and florida, but i think the speaker can make a strong argument, as could santorum. south carolina isn't necessarily the primary that says, i'm going to weed, you know, the weed and the tears here. >> congressman, south carolina, the win hear gone on to be the republican -- the presidency on the republican side without winning south carolina or garnerrd the nomination.

how is it not the place to decide? they said last night, we pick presidents. >> luke, i, you, none of us, nobody that operates in the political process, would have said in march, april of 2008 that a junior senator from chicago would beat bill and hillary clinton in a primary and be a war hero in the general election to become the leader of the free world. >> so newt gingrich can beat barack obama? >> i think he has as good a chance as any. i don't think it's going to be easy by any stretch to bead president obama. that's a tall order and the case made over the weekend. i believe newt bring as good package. all the thing hess brought as speaker we're talking about doing ton a national level today but hasn't been done since he was speaker. balancing the budget, paying down the debt. creating 11 million jobs and

entitlement reform that's what is on the tongues of american people today. he did that as speaker. he has a good track record and a good record wie the base of the party. >> january 17th, in nor a 50-state campaign? >> january 17th? i thought were you going to say january 17th, 2013 -- >> your inauguration, possibly. >> i do think -- no. i can't speak for the speaker, but, again, i think he feels strongly he's positioned well if we can take south carolina, to continue on very strong -- >> all i want, paul meant oh state. j.c. watts, thank for joining us. appreciate it. they are back. congress returns to work today, and right back to the fight over the payroll tax cut. any chance the month-long winter break consumed tempers? democratic senator bob menendez joins me next. in south carolina, the fight

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this week, house republicans are expected to pick up where they left off last year and reject the president's request to raise the debt ceiling. the start of another long year of political gridlock. with me, new jersey senator robert menendez. thanks for coming on the program. >> good to be with you, luke. >> a new "washington post" abc poll on congress shows disapproval rating, 84% disapprove, only 13% approve. it seems like you guys are

always teetering around the lowest level. what can be done in 2012? every aid i'e i've spoken to, t the business of governing will not occur? >> well, i hope that's not the case. of course, we've had the intransigence of the tea party arrival in congress, particularly in the house, and that has blocked so much positive opportunities. but i hope when we go back we'll gelt the payroll tax cut extension. about $1,500 here in new jersey, for working families. that's good money in their pockets. helping to meet their challenges and at the same time create a ripple effect in the our economy when it is spent. i hope we get a transportation bill. it's already out of the environment of public works committee. we're finishing the transit section in the banking committee and i hope we can get that, because that can put a lot of people back to work. and so i think there's

opportunities here to focus on job one which is getting america continuously back to work. and that's what i hope we'll do. >> on the issue of the payroll tax cut extension, republicans e because this has gone to both the senate and house, a better than, the year-long extension, a better chance to come to fruition than last year and looks positive. however, they say the only way that could not happen is president obama turns it into a hyperpolitical issue like the end of 2011. knowing your knowledge of the democratic leadership, do you see the white house taking the state of the union as an opportunity to be hyperpolitical in the payroll tax cut issue and hammer republicans for possibly being intransigent and not having it go forward quickly enough? >> the only way it becomes hyperpolitical, as it did when republicans wanted to balk at it, remember, republicans had taken the position that the payroll tax cut is not good for america, for its economy. it's not the best way to get people back to work, and the

reality is, every economist has said to us that having the payroll tax cut and an extension of some kind of unemployment insurance are critical to increasing the gross domestic product of our country, increasing the economy opportunities. so that's what made it hyperpartisan. i think the president will simply say in his state of the union, if it's not done by then, that, in fact, hoe wants to see the pay roll tax cut for working families in country anywhere between $1,000 and $1,5 in each state pass for the rest of the year and i don't think calling for that is hyperpolitical. >> you saw the poll we just mentioned. only 13% approve's congress. had you talk to folks out in the country they say there seems to be a lot of partisan in-fighting and you'll hear personal vendettas get in the way of real politics. a lot of criticism labeled at

you from the "wall street journa journal" and "washington post," rollcall described it, "ma nenld ez has been the lone voice against her. the american bar association given her a unanimously well qualified rating and the white house stuck by her. critics said menendez's opposition was payback for his last bid for office linked to jim nobile who led a federal corruption investigation against menendez. is there any truth, that because you were upset that nominee was dating somebody who investigated possible illegal activities you partook in? >> looks pretty outrageous. first, you need to say that i have come to support patty schwartz for the third circuit after another round of interviews and answered substantive questions on the applicant of tlau is critical

for a lifetime commitment to the federal court. secondly, that suggestion why i may not have originally supported her in the first instance is pretty ludicrous considering the fact i have already supported three previous nominees who came from the u.s. attorneys office under former chris christie as the u.s. attorney and all three of them i supported for judgeships including to the circuit court. so pretty ludicrous that i'd already have supported three nominees who came out of the u.s. attorneys office and somehow wouldn't support number four. >> even if you talk to democrats, they say for you to publicly air that grievance with a hold is sort of hurting the whole image of congress. that it looks petty. could that hurt your party or the institution? >> i don't believe, first of all, it got aired by supporters of judge schwartz. i don't believe that making sure that a judge, a nominee, for a

lifetime federal appointment is qualified in using the process of advise and consent to make sure that when i send a nomination to the committee that i am backing that nomination saying it's worthy of being supported is a process that is petty. i think it is the very essence of what the constitution calls for when it says that the senate has the responsibility to advise on the nomination and to consent to it, and you spent a lot of time, but the one thing is, i have, in fact, after a second round of questions with judge schwartz, have sent my blue slip in, in fact am supporting her and look forward to her confirmation, but i don't take the position, regardless, of who the president might be, that it is a rubber stamp of nominees. >> senator menendez, thank you for joining us this morning. appreciate it. >> thank you. we'll get a preview of the day on wall street in the market

rundown next, plus a critical moment today in the effort to recall wisconsin's governor. barely a year into his first term, is walker on the way out? about last night. we got even more of the highlights from the debate. we'll tell you what got ron paul booed, and what earned rick perry applause. but first, today's trivia question -- who was the first woman to run for president? tweet us the answer at@dailyrundown. the first correct answer, the answer and more coming up on "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. ♪

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all five republican candidates are campaigning in the palmetto state today. you're looking at live pictures here of rick santorum. he's holding a town hall on national security at the "uss

yorktown" one of seven events planned all across the state. less than a minute from the opening bell. it's time for the market rundown. cnbc's brian shactman is here. how does the street look after the long weekend? >> pretty good. open in five seconds. up 90, 95 points in dow jones industrial street average. pretty good. china growth better than expected. 8.9%, still at a 2 1/2-year low. maybe a soft landing in china. not a crash in the economy. also want to talk about, going inside baseball, spanish bond options, s&p downgraded spain two notches and did a short-term bond option today that went extremely well boosting confidence about the eurozone and bank earning here in the state. citigroup missed. wells fargo, good numbers. takeaway there, if you're in investment banking you're not doing very well. a straight bank, a chance to

make money in this economy. right now the markets looking to start the week pretty solidly. >> so china and europe holding strong, at least on this tuesday in january. we'll see if that plays out in big election repaercussions wit those kmo economies. "the daily rundown" will be back. do not go anywhere. welcome back to "the daily rundown." i'm luke russert in for chuck todd this morning.

other stories making headlines, reuters report italian rescue workers just found five more bodies in the grounden eneitali cruise ship. meanwhile, italian news outlets report that the ship's captain has a history of disabating orders including one for sailing too close to the shore in another part of italy. wisconsin voters are turning into a petition today to force governor scott walker into a recall election. once the signatures are certified, the republican governor would face a recall vote barely a year into his first term. walker angered many wisconsin voters when he supported a law that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers in the state. a super pac supporting comedian stephen colbert released a new ad in south carolina taking a unique approach to the primary election. let's take a listen. >> a vote for herman cain is a vote for america. he's not a career politician.

he's such a washington outsider, he's not even running for president. >> wow. so a vote for herman cain is a vote for stephen colbert. i'm sure we'll see a lot more of that. to get lawyer technical, you can't have a write-in candidate in south carolina. because herman cain is actually on the bam it, that's how you support stephen colbert. a lot of interesting stuff on the show this week. i know i'll be tuned in. just a day after this nation marked the martin luther king day, renewed talk about some states discriminating against minoritiers. the director of the center's voting technology project. thank you for joining us today, sir. >> thanks for having me, luke. >> attorney general eric holder yesterday in columbia, south carolina at an mlk parade said this, i want to play the tape

and we'll react after. >> nearly half a century ago dr. king correctly observed that although the walls of segregation were crumbling, without equal access to the ballot box, america's mine mor y y minority citizens would have dignity without strength. >> and there's new information that the south carolina voter i.d. law which recently went into effect could possibly disenfranchise 239,333 voters who lack driver's licenses. one thing i hear as i go around the country is, well, you need an i.d. to rplane. why shouldn't you ned an i.d. to vote? >> voting in like buying cigarettes. voting is a constitutional right. voting is featured in 10 of 26 amendments to the constitutions, right up in article 1 and

article 2, central to our democracy and second of all, we're not just talking about i.d. here. there are plenty of states that require or request i.d. before somebody goes and votes. the issue here is requiring i.d. that 11% of americans don't have, and saying if you don't have that i.d., your vote's not going to count, period. >> on that point, how many of these cases when it comes to voter fraud, where someone is using a different i.d. or trying to vote twice, when you look at the tifklook at the tifk s the tifktatistics, when you thi of the number of people that vote, it's a real blip on the radar, if anything. correct? >> it is. a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit the kind of in-person voter fraud that these laws are supposedly meant to protect against, and as i said, 11% of voting aged eligible americans do not have this kind of i.d.

the disparity that we're talking about is massive, and if there's a concern about these one or two incidents that have happened in the haft couppast couple of dec there's lots we could do that doesn't involve disenfranchising millions of americans. >> last night rick perry was asked by one about the decision nikki haley's fight on the voter i.d. law. let's listen. >> i'm saying the state of texas is under assault by federal government. i'm saying, also, that south carolina is at war with this federal government and with this administration. >> and juan's question was obviously about how a state that 45 has had voting ig regularity kniss the past specifically against minority voters, why should there be that federal oversight? all a lot of states taking this

voters' rights argument and making it federal versus state issue in a way to sort of look past the fact it could very much just disenfranchise minorities and hurt democratic turnout? >> that is what a number of states are doing. frankly, that comment was very unfortunate on martin luther king's birthday. martin luther king marched on selma to make sure that all americans had the right to vote, and frankly, it was marching to ensure that the federal government got involved so that states couldn't prevent certain people from voting, and there's no question that these laws are going to prevent potentially millions of americans from voting, and it's disproportionately going to hit the groups that martin luther king was marching more, african-americans. 24% of african-americans don't have the kind of i.d. required in south carolina, and frankly in a lot of texas, minorities, the poor, the elderly, these are the disabled, the groups that

are impacted by these laws. >> is it outright political? is it simply trying to stop democratic voters from getting to the polls? >> you know, i can't speak to the motives of the people that were involved in passing these laws. what i can say, there's no question of their impact and their impact is that they're going to be keeping the kinds of people that i described from voting. >> lawrence norton, thank you so much for being here from nyu's center for justice. appreciate your time. take care. >> thanks, luke. the showdown in the south. continuing the pylile pile-on b running out of time. the political super panel will be here next. first, the house soup of the day. fully loaded. loaded potato. loaded like a freight train to quote a guns n' roses song. i'm sure mike viqueira and shawn thomas will tell us if it's

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she's not nervous. she said a prayer. i think shez wants to look across the table and look him right in the eye. >> daily flashback to this day in 1998 when bill clinton became the first u.s. president ever to testify as a defendant in a civil or criminal lawsuit for six hours clinton sat in the same room as his accuser paula jones, as her lawyer's questioned him under oath. what a time that was in american political history. romney's rivals are doing their best to slow down his role to the nomination with a raucous outians cheering and jeering. they attacked last night in myrtle beach. >> there was a pattern in some companies, a handful of them, of leaving them with enormous debt and then within a year, two or

three having them go broke. >> georgetown, south carolina, one ever those towns a steel mill that bain swept in. they picked that company over and there were a lot of people that lost jobs. >> if i had something in the super pac supporting me that was inaccurate i would go out and say, stop it. >> let's bring in our super tuesday panel, jeff johnson, a contributor to msnbc in the grio.com and correspondent for the financial times and david drucker is reporter from roll call, roaming the hills of capitol hill next to me in those media scrums. good to see you here. >> nice to see you. it's comfortable here. i don't have to stand as much. >> indeed. one thing i want to talk about, seems as culture inability ta come up around mitt romney and on the issue of health care, very tough for him as republican primary voters, interesting poll numbers out today. look at this. in january, only 38% said the massachusetts health care plan was a major reason to oppose

romney. now its numbers at 55%. meaning more say he's okay in that issue. should have stated that more clearly. does this mean mitt romney is running away with it? health care, not nearly as bad as it once was? >> let's wait for saturday and see what he's run ago way with. even if he finished a short second, a lot better than people thought. really well in new hampshire. it always influences voters going forward when they see somebody winning elections. i think if you're mitt romney, you would much rather battle south carolina over your business record, which he is, than over health care. part of the reason we're at this stage with the health care subject is everybody knew all about mitt romney's health care record. it wasn't like you were going to shock voters into explaining to them, oh, my god. did you know that he had an individual mandate in his state

health care plan? something that a lot of people factored in. he's always handled it well saying he wants to repeal the president's health care law. that's why i don't think it's been as big an issue and the only reasons republicans in south carolina are going after bain and the business record is because nothing else work sewed far. >> the "financial times," bain, the only thing sticking. can anyone get traction any other way? >> bain is the only thing sticking and interesting numbers out of the poll, not hurting romney as much as we thought. the latest poll showed he still has a double-digit lead in terms of economy and handling of the economy. romney seems to be pulling ahead regardless and being the inevitable nominee like you say. interesting about health care, the supreme court over the next few moss, the issue rear its head. probably bad for obama as well as bad for romney. we haven't seen the end of this for sure. >> romney unstoppable?

>> unstoppable? i don't know. but nearly. at the end of the day, the one question even that seemed to come out of last night was more about his personal finances than either bain. when was he going to release his taxes? how was he going to -- when was he going to have full discloche jer was he really going to wait until april? a sticking point with opponents as they continued to attack. >> one thing stuck out. romney has been cautious in these debates. especially last night. to use a football analogy, only rushed three guys. everyone was trying to give up the big score. was that exchange about him not showing income tax returns, you think that will cleep bareep ba? essentially he said he's do it in april. will that be an issue until then? >> it gives the otheren at the slate room to attack and pushing him to do it before april.

pushing him to do it in a case that would help him more than hurt him in the long term. those folks going against him at this point are looking for every opportunity they can find. >> he did get asked about the comment he made on the '08 campaign in regards to hunting varmints. look at that exchange last night. >> i'm not going to describe all of my great exploits, but i went to, moose hunting -- not moose hunting. sorry. elk hunting with friend in montana. pheasant hunting. i'm not the great hunter that some on this stage -- rick perry, my guess, you're a serious hunter. i'm not a serious hunter. >> you see he kind of is uncomfortable there. he's not very, part of his own skin. is that sort of the types of bites folks like axelrod and plouffe will look at taking this up of romney of not being very realitiable? >> they will, but they need to do it on the subjects that

matter. i don't think gun control is a big issue in the race. given where we've come on the suggest over the last 10, 15 years. and south carolina people are concern and the economy, jobs. not social or gun issues. clearly, when mitt romney is vulnerable when he falters, it's an issue of cred amount and authenticity and whether or not he is comfortable, and so clearly, that's what the obama campaign will try and do to him, if he's the nominee. that's what his republican opponents are trying to do to him and sort of last gasp effort to try and overcome him as the front-runner. i don't think last night they were able to get him enough on subjects that matter. i thought much more that they would go after him on the issue of conservative authenticity and consistency they hit him on in the nbc debate the sunday before new hampshire. it really could work to devastate -- >> the in-fight with each other, aside from romney. we'll get back to that.

trivia time, who was the first woman to run for president? the answer, victoria claflin woodhull. the candidate for the equal rights party in 1872. that would have been a very tough campaign to be the equal rights party in 1872. we'll be right back. you're watching "daily rundown" only on msnbc. ♪ i am you ♪ we've got to stand up and you are me. we've got to stand up, if we're going to be free. we've got to stand up... ♪ if we're gonna be free ♪ if you want it you got it if you want it... you got it. i believe. ♪ you got to believe i believe. ♪ believe in yourself i believe. i am strong. i finally lost weight. i finally lost weight. ♪ if you want it you got it believe. believe. you just gotta believe. i can overcome anything. i believe. join for free. weight watchers. believe. because it works.

let's bring back our panel. jeff johnson, and david and ana. we have new sound from rick santorum this morning, doubling down. >> i plan to continue on and make sure we have a real alternative to someone who stands behind lies and defends them. we have a candidate who is not willing to stand up and tell the

truth when it comes to some things that his campaign is saying. that to me leads to real serious questions to whether that man can be trusted to tell the truth on a variety of other things. >> gingrich has tried this strategy before, and he's a chameleon, but it really lan stuck. can rick santorum stick this on at the last minute? >> i think he's probably got more chance than gingrich's, because gingrich's own ads have not exactly been truthful as romney has been saying, but santorum is finally coming to the attack ad. he's been on a positive campaign, but this -- it's difficult to say if he can make headwind where gingrich has failed. >> is this a last hail mary? >> i'm not sure of that as more of a strategic option. i agree, i think that gingrich

is too much of a polarizing figure and has his own issues to make this stick, but santorum won because i think he's viewed as the conservative option to romney. two, he does not have the baggage that gingrich has. three, going into south carolina he's got to make his play, not just to win, but to be close enough to keep going as a legitimate front-runner once they come out of south carolina. >> real quick before shameless plugs, i just want to go around the table. we had j.c. watts on, and he said gingrich can keep the fight up for almost a states. >> no. >> but it looks more like the money will dry up, romney, if he wins south carolina, going around the table, being a prognosticator, david, give me a date you think it's over. >> it's not over until after florida and possibly after nevada, but at that point it may well be. >> i have to agree, but the wild card is proportional voting.

we could see this drag on for a while. >> minus 30 on a favorable/unfavorable. i think it's a lot closer to south carolina being over for newt. >> it will be interesting. i think ron paul could be the one candidate that wants to go all the way to the convention. last but not least, tell me what you're working on, or if you want to promote somebody else. jeff? >> meet me at penn state tomorrow, i'll bet in fact at two campuses tomorrow and thursday. >> in happy valley? >> happy valley and erie. >> i'm sure the students will enjoy that. >> read my story in this saturday's "financial times" about the challenges veterans face. >> a paper with a great european circulation. that's what i read when i'm abro abroad. >> one of the super pacs, relies on karney's store in roll call on super pac and the tangle webs they leave. >> is it free on the internet today? >> it's free on internet.

>> because "roll call" likes to charge later in the week. >> everybody has to make money. that's it for this edition. tomorrow chuck will be back live in columbia, south carolina. coming up next on msnbc, chris jansen & company. then at 1:00 p.m., do not miss the indom nat able andrea mitchell. thank you for having me as a guest today. enjoy the rest of our programming on msnbc. [ male announcer ] feeling like a shadow of your former self?

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