>> that won't happen, but thank you for the invitation. that's "the ed show," i'm ed schultz, you can listen to me on channel 127 monday through friday, noon to 3:00. follow me on twitter @edshow and "like" "the ed show" on facebook. we must treasure them when they happen. all right, first, of course, he was politically dead, then he came back to life, then politically dead again, but tonight newt is back. two days out from the south carolina republican primary, and look at this. look at this. four new polls out today show newt gingrich now opening up the narrowest of leads over mitt romney in south carolina. the republican-leaning rasmussen poll has two points, the democratic-leaning has gingrich up by six points. another up by one point and

insider advantage has him up by three. newt gingrich has been surfing a wave of momentum in south carolina ever since his debate performance there on monday night. and today, what was already looking to be a very good week for newt gingrich turned into a great week for newt gingrich.

endorse anybody when he dropped out of the race today. most of the early reporting today, in fact, was he was not going to explicitly endorse any of his rivals. and frankly, this is unsolicited advice for the governor, but it probably would have made you more valuable going forward if you withheld your endorsement for awhile, but in the end, newt gingrich won the rick perry sweeps stakes today, mr. gingrich also got a big endorsement today from the other perceived end of the ideological republican spectrum, mike campbell, son of one of the most iconic republican governors endorsed newt gingrich. he had been a major jon huntsman supporter in south carolina and was previously mike huckabee south carolina chairman in 2008, but as of today, he is for newt. shortly after that endorsement, mr. gingrich got word that 100 tea party leaders, what is a tea party leader anyway? 100 tea party leaders, whatever that means, from 25 different states are reportedly about to come forward to also endorse newt gingrich.

the group will reportedly form a coalition called "tea partiers with newt":. all he had to do was google news search the name mitt romney today and he'd feel even better about how his day is going. there are still a few hours left in the day, so his fortunes could turn around, but mitt romney is about to wrap up what has been a horrific day for him in this race. after creating 48 straight hours of news coverage for himself by acknowledging he is one of the really, really rich people in this country that only pays a 15% mini tax rate and suggesting the $375,000 he made in speaking in a year wasn't enough money, after all that, here was the headline that mitt romney woke up to today, "romney's investments in cayman islands raise new questions about gop candidate's fortune." so the uber-rich guy candidate who says he enjoys firing people also, by the way, parks his

money offshore in the cayman islands. abc news first reported last night and the ap reported today that mr. romney has invested part of his millions in the cayman islands. this money appears to be various retirement investments that aren't controlled by mr. romney himself. while the romney campaign admits he does, in fact, have millions of dollars stashed in the cayman islands, the campaign says, quote, aids say he never used the location as a tax haven. see they are parked in the cayman islands not to avoid paying taxes or anything, the thing you need to know about mitt romney's millions is they like to have a nice view. they like warm weather, the millions text him constantly about their respiratory problems, please, mitt, can we go swim with the sting rays, really, is it the view?

come on. well, we are talking about front page headlines though, there was also this front page in florida's "tampa bay times" today. "miami factory: one side of bain." hundreds lost their jobs, mitt romney's company made $242 million. florida's the next stop in the republican presidential race. how's that for a welcome to town mitt romney greeting. the whole interacting with live humans thing has never really been mr. romney's specialty as a candidate. here's what that looked like today in charleston, carolina. >> tomorrow's the anniversary of citizens united. what will you do to repeal citizens united? what will you do to repeal citizens united? marriott just gave your super pac $1 million, what will you do to repeal -- >> no, no, no.

hi, how are you? >> what will you do to support the 99% seeing as how you are part of the 1%? >> let me tell you something, america is a great nation because we're united nation. if you got a better model, if you think china's better, russia's better, cuba's better, north korea's better, i'd be glad to hear all about it. america's right and you're wrong. >> america's right and you're wrong, thank you. thank you. some people are saying that was a great moment for mitt romney on the campaign trail today. others are saying, whoa, you sure you're handling the stress okay, buddy? going straight to north korea, really? the thing about being a presidential candidate is you don't have to do this whole thing on your own, you have a campaign staff and surrogates who are supposed to have your back, defend you, essentially be your voice in the media. even that did not work out for mitt romney today.

mitt romney has been under fire for months now. he says he might release them but not until april. here was the great defense of that position that mitt romney got today from his highest profile campaign surrogate, new jersey governor chris christie. >> i've released my tax returns every year as soon as i file them. i released them historically when i ran for governor. i just say get the stuff out there, so if governor romney would ask my advice, get the stuff out there. if they are interested in your tax returns and running for the president of the united states or governor, release them. >> worst surrogate ever. chris christie then went on fox news to encourage mitt romney to release his tax returns after a day of appearing on this network to do the same thing. there was just one tiny thing, one other teeny, tiny detail he emerged today.

turns out he didn't actually win iowa. iowa officials came out to declare it was actually rick santorum that got more votes in iowa. we are going to have a lot more on that later in the show. all in all, it was a bad day for mitt romney and was newt gingrich's best day in the campaign trail, at least in a very long time. but because the god's of politics have evil senses of humor, a little rain had to fall, and so even as today was newt gingrich's best day yet on the campaign trail, today was also the worst possible day for mr. gingrich. heading into this year's presidential nominating race, the enormous elephant was the fact that he was essentially trying to do the impossible. he was trying to win the nomination of a socially conservative party with early nominating contests in places like iowa and south carolina as a man who is on his third

marriage, a man who tried to impeach the president over an affair while he, himself, was having an affair while he was burning through a hat trick of his own. mr. gingrich's second wife, marianne gingrich, has mostly stayed out of the public eye since her marriage with mr. gingrich ended, but did come forward in 2010, told "esquire" that when mr. gingrich acknowledged his ongoing infidelity to her, quote, he asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused. now two days before the south carolina primary, with newt gingrich surging up in the polls, marianne gingrich has decided to go public again, except this time she's doing it on camera. >> i said to him, newt, we've been married a long time. and he said, yes, but you want me all to yourself. callista doesn't care what i do.

>> what was he saying to you, do you think? >> he was asking to have an open marriage, and i refused. >> he wanted an open marriage? >> yeah, that i accept the fact that he has somebody else in his life. >> and you said? >> no, no. >> yeah, that i accept the fact that he has somebody else in his life. >> and you said? >> no, no. that is not a marriage. >> not only is that interview going to air in its entirety later tonight, but abc saw fit to release that specific part of it where he says that he wanted an open marriage. they saw fit to release that specific part of it before the last republican debate in south carolina before south carolina votes, a debate that, you should know, is partly sponsored by the national organization for marriage. tonight's debate was put on by cnn in the southern republican leadership conference. so put your hands together for the politics gods, ladies and gentlemen, they have outdone

themselves. today nbc's chuck todd tweeted that when the books are finally written about this campaign, there will be whole chapters that are just titled "january 19th." joins us now from charleston, south carolina, pulitzer prize winning columnist for "the washington post" mr. eugene robinson. gene, is this the kind of day we live for, or am i overreacting? >> this is the kind of day we live for, rachel, best place you can possibly be, come down here, unless you want to go with me to like visit mitt's money in the cayman islands, i think that will be fun too. >> we can swim with the sting rays and mitt's millions. let me ask you, gene, because you and i were both together, completely wrong about rick perry. you and i both thought rick perry would be the real threat to mitt romney, he was going to be the real candidate, and today kaput, does that have any effect

on the race at this point? >> it does have an effect on the race, yes, we were completely wrong. we saw he was really going to be a force in this race. look, he doesn't bring many voters with him, right, he's down in the single digits here in south carolina, so it's not as if he's bringing legions into the gingrich camp, but doing it today, it just reenforces this idea, this reality, of gingrich momentum in south carolina and i'll tell you, i've been here all week, and he's gaining. this momentum thing is real. >> when you talk to people in south carolina, obviously, you're from the state, you know the state well. what do you think is behind newt, what is it about newt that is driving people toward him or what is it about romney that's driving people away from him? >> well, you know, it's some of -- some of column a and some of column b, what is it about newt? it's the anger, it's the fact he

is in everybody's face and republican voters here are looking for somebody to be in barack obama's face the way newt gingrich is, and the way mitt romney struggles to be, you know, that little episode today, you know, going straight to north korea. you don't go straight to north korea when you're trying to argue economics with occupy wall street. and so it's part mitt romney. it's all the money stuff is really going to -- going to hurt him or rove from the support. you have to kind of look at all of this, $370,000, not a lot of money, cayman islands, gee, who is this guy, and is he really going to have our interests at heart? >> in terms of the newt surge and people paying renewed interest to mr. gingrich, there is this new thing from his ex-wife talking about his request for what she describes as his request for an open

marriage. obviously, that's something that the gingrich campaign had to know what's coming. not like she's been totally out of the public eye, she has talked about this to a magazine in the past. what kind of an impact do you think it's going to have in south carolina, is it a family-values electorate? >> yes, it's a family-values electorate. i frankly don't see a huge impact on this primary campaign. now, i think it's a kind of thing as a character issue that can erode support for gingrich over time, so if he were to make it to the general election, for example, this plus, you know, other things about gingrich's personal life, i think would cost him support. but there's a sort of knee-jerk reaction against the media, actually, which, of course, gingrich is playing on. so in the first question in the debate tonight was about the alleged open marriage, and gingrich frankly knocked it out of the park by attacking the

media and say how dare you ask me such a question, you silly media person and got a standing ovation. so he knows how to play this, and in the short-term, i frankly don't think it's going to hurt him. >> sounds like -- sounds like you think that newt gingrich either is going to win or will come very close to winning in south carolina. what do you think about rick santorum's traction, obviously, santorum got weird retroactive news that he maybe sort of won iowa today. he's also getting a bunch more endorsements, what do you see for santorum's prospects when you're talking to south carolinians? >> i think the timing for santorum was just bad. social conservatives were late piling on the news that he actually won iowa, comes on a day when all this stuff exploding about gingrich and romney, and it doesn't have the impact that perhaps it might. you don't hear a lot about santorum here, and i think he's got to be disappointed at this

point, because this ought to be a good state for him. i don't think it's going to be a very good state for him. i think gingrich will either come very close to winning or win this primary. >> it's amazing, in the tea party year we get down to the candidates that are mitt romney, newt gingrich, rick santorum, and ron paul. there's the fresh-faced campaign, right? and in the big social conservative family values state, we get rick santorum going nowhere and newt gingrich on the night his ex-wife said he wanted an open marriage on abc news, we get him running off with the south carolina primary. i love this job. >> is this a great country or what? you got to love it, rachel. >> both the country of the united states of america and the country of united states of south carolina. pulitzer-prize winning columnist for "the washington post," msnbc analyst, and man in his element, eugene robinson. thank you so much, my friend. have fun. >> okay, sure will. >> thank you. all right. it says a lot about a day like today in politics that newt

gingrich's ex-wife coming out and giving an interview that she says should destroy his chance at the presidency, that happening, and rick perry dropping out of the race just after he said he'd never, never, never quit says a lot about a day like today in politics, that those two things, the ex-wife and rick perry quitting, those were not actually the big surprises in today's politics news. what was a bigger surprise than those two things is coming up next.

you've probably heard about that anonymous flyer back in the year 2000 when john mccain was running against george w. bush in south carolina that said that john mccain secretly had an african-american child. probably heard about that. did you also know, though, about the fake happy mormon holiday cards that were sent to south carolina voters to freak them out about a certain mormon republican candidate's religion? that's dead ahead.

in some day ways today was a good day to be rick santorum. so up goes his uber-conservative street cred. he picked up the endorsement of the founder of focus on the more than two weeks after coming in second place in the iowa caucuses, today rick santorum won the iowa caucuses, sort of, maybe. the iowa republican caucuses, as we've discussed on this show before are not run by the state of iowa. they are run by the iowa republican party, and so this year, here's what happened late on caucus night.

the guy you're about to see is the chair of the republican party in iowa. >> congratulations to governor mitt romney, winner of the 2012 iowa caucuses. congratulations to senator santorum for a very close second place finish in an excellent race here. >> mitt romney declared the winner of the iowa caucuses by the iowa republican party chairman on caucus night, only those were not the certified results they were using to declare a winner that night. according to the rules we had to wait for the certified results for a couple of weeks, but in the mean time -- >> congratulations to governor mitt romney, winner of the 2012 iowa caucuses. >> so the iowa republican party declares mitt romney the winner, even while they set out to certify the results. now, we were expecting, as the party had announced, we would get certified results two weeks later, see, it says right there, within 14 days.

but within 14 days later, tuesday of this week, they said they were not ready. they said they'd certify the results at the end of this week, that the deadline for precinct results wasn't even until a day after what we thought was 14 days. the following day, wednesday, they said they'll release the certified results the next morning, which would be thursday morning, which would be this morning. so this morning, everybody wants to know who won. is mitt romney still the winner of the iowa caucuses now that the vote is certified? very early this morning "the des moines register" had an answer, sort of. turns out the results from eight precincts were missing, so who won the iowa caucuses, chairman of the iowa republican party told "the des moines register," i can't speculate without documentation from the eight precincts. the iowa republicans are telling

"the des moines register" they decided mitt romney and rick perry tied the iowa caucuses or maybe there's no result. not because the candidates got exactly the same number of votes, but because it's unknown. they just can't figure out who really won. rick santorum didn't see it that way, though. >> i think it's important to understand not only did we win the certified vote, but if you'd add all the other votes, we'd win even more. it's a solid win, it's a much stronger win than what governor romney claimed to have on the day that the uncertified vote that had him up eight. >> the santorum campaign telling "the new york times" mitt romney called santorum to concede iowa, but according to the romney campaign, they said that wasn't a concession call, mr. romney was just calling to congratulate rick santorum on their tie in iowa. meanwhile, the iowa republican party, having previously thrown

up their hands and declared that they couldn't figure out who won, apparently later in the day decided that there was a winner, the chairman of the party called into a radio show to say who won. >> it is indisputable that the certified caucus result had rick santorum winning by 35 votes. i feel i owe them an apology, because i think the fact that he was leading and won the 1766 precincts, i seemed to get lost in the focus over the eight precincts whose forms we weren't able to obtain at party headquarters. >> so are you declaring this, then, a victory for rick santorum? >> yeah, the certified vote results. >> you're declaring this a victory for rick santorum, yeah, yeah, certified vote result. big apology to rick santorum, he totally won, no tie, no split, nothing like that. rick santorum wins, so says the iowa republican party chairman

on the radio until a press conference about an hour later. >> the one thing that we can't say is we do not have the certified -- we can't certify every precinct in the state. >> can we everybody say who the winner is or do we kind of put down an asterisk? >> that's a decision you have to make, and obviously, the campaigns and pundits will make their determinations on that. >> so the candidates and the pundits get to decide who won iowa. so says the iowa republican party, which runs the caucuses. tell me again why these guys in iowa are entrusted with the great honor and privilege, not to mention the monetary win fall that comes with first in the nation status. in 2008, the candidates are estimated to have spent $51 million in iowa. this time around, more than $12 million was spent on ads alone. every presidential election season, iowa gets not just

millions of dollars spent in the state, they also get a year's worth of attention for even their most parochial issues and they get the whole of the national media essentially for a year, all for something they do not take seriously enough to capably pull off. we don't know who won the iowa i want to thank the tea

i want to thank the tea party express and tea party hd for inviting me to speak this evening. >> that was republican congresswoman michele bachmann last year giving the second break away, rogue, republican response to the state of the union address last year. congressman paul ryan gave the official republican response, and then there randomly was this other one, which a republican pr firm in california called the official tea party response. there's nothing official about it, except those of us who work in tv, it felt like an official reminder from the heavens that you have to look in the camera. but despite the confusion caused by the fake official tea party second republican response a year ago, this year they are doing it again, upstaging the official republican party response again, and this year it's not going to be michele

bachmann, it's going to be herman cain who does it. and the fact that will upstage the real republican response to the state of the union would in any normal year be sort of a curse for the republican party. this year, though, it might be a blessing or at least a welcomed distraction. why that is coming up.

back in the republican primary in 2000, arizona senator john mccain ran into trouble in south carolina when somebody started a smear campaign against him. the charge, utterly baseless, but politically potent. it was that senator mccain fathered an african-american child out of wedlock and was now posing her as one of his adopted children. a classic whispering campaign

making his first run for president. somebody decided to stoke evangelical fear of mr. romney's religion in south carolina by mailing out bogus holiday cards that quoted a book of mormon passage about the exceedingly fair and white holy virgin and another endorsing polygamy. it was paid for by the boston massachusetts temple, as in mormon temple. romney campaign said they had not sent these cards and this kind of trickery has no place in american politics, and, of course, it doesn't except every four years in south carolina when it came back. last night someone put these flyers on people's cars at a forum hosted by an anti-abortion group. tim murphy took a picture of the leaflet, it reads, quote, do you know that rick santorum's wife, karen, had a six-year affair with an abortionist? this story is now hitting the news, but you can hear for yourself, then it quotes the

doctor, as saying that rick santorum was, quote, pro-choice and a humanist, which, of course, is a terrible, terrible thing for a republican in south carolina to be accused of. the flyer includes a link to a newspaper story in really long form, like you're going to run home and type that all in, right, yeah, here's a link, click it. oh, it's paper. oh, but it's on hot pink paper so you can tell this matter is urgent, run home and type in this crazy long link right now before the paper explodes. south carolina politics, where dirty pool is an art form, whisper campaigns is how to smallen the field. they brag about this, their politics are a blood sport, where republicans go to get tested. where they go to put hair on their chest, but the funny thing is, blood sport south carolina, where your smear artists -- once your smear artists get done

putting pink flyers on windshields and the primary voting booths open, you guys in south carolina, y'all kind of vote boring. got these really, really scummy political tradition, but once you vote, rough and tumble republicans turns out have a serious jones for pretty boring, mainstream establishment candidates. 1980, south carolina picked ronald reagan, in 1988 they picked george h.w. bush, in 1996 they picked eventual nominee bob dole, bless his heart. 2000, george w. bush, future nominee and president. in 2008, the man they treated so badly returned to south carolina and won, john mccain. so yeah, south carolina republicans, there will be mud. we have seen that already, and then you'll just vote for the establishment guy like everybody else, maybe. this year, maybe not. joining us now for the interview is joel sawyer, joel was most

recently governor jon huntsman's director in south carolina and the former executive director of the south carolina republican party. joel, it is very good to have you with us. thanks for being here. >> thank you, rachel. you're going to make everybody stop coming here with that intro. >> i was wondering how that sounds to you. are you one of the people that hears people talk about the dirty tricks of south carolina and think yeah, that's us, we're bad asses, or does that history trouble you? >> no, the things you refer to are absolutely despicable, but two things kind of get clouded together. one, south carolina has certainly been home to some really unspeakably dirty political tricks, but at the same time what that kind of combines with is by the time you get to south carolina, iowa's done, new hampshire's done, the field has been whittled a bit, so as much as there's been attacks we'd like to forget, the candidates attacks against each

other become more focussed, so it's a lot more confrontational primary environment you have here in south carolina just by nature of where we are in the process versus what you had in new hampshire and even iowa. >> when you see stuff used against john mccain, this flyer against rick santorum's wife, who deserves none of this. what kind of effect do you think it has in the campaign? obviously, it gets picked up and covered. what do you think the effect is? >> sure. you know, ultimately i think it depends on how much money is behind it. what you saw against john mccain in 2000 was a coordinated effort with a lot of time and a lot of money put behind it. you know, here quite candidly what happened to santorum, not taking anything away from its despicable nature, it was flyers on cars in an event in the upstate where the media's coverage on the event has had more impact than the people that

walked up and picked it off the windshield. because of our reputation in south carolina, this particular incident has gotten a lot more coverage. there were flyers put on cars for all kinds of things in iowa too, but it is magnified here because of an unfortunate history. >> joel, i was talking earlier with eugene robinson, who is in south carolina tonight, he was saying even though south carolina republican voters say they are family-values voters that the newt gingrich revelations from his ex-wife tonight, which i know he's already been asked about at the debate, that those things are not going to turn republican south carolina voters against him. that's not going to hurt his chances. i thought about asking about this when i saw jenny sanford said today that newt gingrich could never get her vote. how do you think the gingrich marriage issue is going to resinate in south carolina? >> i don't know that it will. you know, i think that there is

going to be a phenomenon, quite honestly, i think and this is kind of counterintuitive, it may generate sympathy for him, having this kind of dirty laundry aired this close to a primary, people don't like that. the guy's been divorced twice, everyone knows he's had extramarital affairs, hearing details of it is not going to change people's votes at this point. he's talked about being imperfect, talked about forgiveness, so you mention evangelical voters, as important as family values are to them, the idea of grace and forgiveness is important to them also and because he's been candid about having asked for forgiveness and changing his life, i think there might be sympathy for him over that quite honestly. >> i think that there was some very good conversations around the country about your former boss, mark sanford, about that issue of forgiveness when his marital issues were dragged so brightly into the national stage, and the issue, for me, about the newsworthiness of that

was whether or not he campaigned on family values, whether or not he made the sanctity of marriage, whether he made that a political issue. mr. gingrich in this campaign has been signing fidelity pledges, has been talking about the left undermining the sanctity of marriage and posing a danger to traditional marriage. i recognize the redemption thing is real and people do -- they don't mind a person who's flawed, but doesn't it put him in point and laugh at him territory given who he is? >> look, i think any time you have had the history that he has had and then you're saying the things that you are now, you open yourself up to criticism and that's something every voter is going to have to take into account, whether the transformation and redemption is real or whether he's being hypocritical.

that's something every voter is going to have to render their own judgment on. >> let me ask you, it seems mr. gingrich is surging now, if he ends up winning in south carolina or coming in close to mr. romney, how do you think that inflects the campaign moving into florida and moving on, how important do you think it will be? >> i think it will make it really, really interesting. the conventional wisdom was if romney won here it was going to be over. i don't buy that conventional wisdom. in this election, something we've never had before, the existence of super pacs, so once you get into florida, even if a campaign has no momentum and is running on fumes, the super pacs can sustain that candidate's efforts far longer than a candidate on his own. i think even if romney wins here, we're going to have a campaign into florida, possibly beyond. >> joel sawyer, former executive director of the south carolina republican party and somebody who i really enjoy talking with, joel, thank you for being with us tonight. it's really nice to have you

here. >> thank you, rachel, likewise, absolutely. after this show, lawrence o'donnell helps to break down the republican debate fresh and hot, do not miss it. here, the republican chosen to respondent respond to president obama's state in the union address and the mess in his hometown he's dragging into the national spotlight. this seriously is the best day in politics ever. more ahead.

i did not know if we were going to be able to find a best new thing in the world today, because, obviously, the best new thing in the world today is what happened in politics today. but the news gods gave us something i never could have expected. the news gods gave us, newt gingrich, no thief. tylenol:nyquil. what are you doing? nyquil (stuffy): just reading your label. wait! you relieve nasal congestion? tylenol: sure. don't you? tylenol (another bottle): hmmm...no... nyquil (stuffy): dude! anncr vo: tylenol cold multi-symptom nighttime relieves nasal congestion... nyquil cold & flu doesn't.

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president obama will deliver the state of union address next week, and following his speech, the republican party will give its response. it's a big deal to be the person who delivers that response. you're addressing the nation right after the president gives this big, important, constitutionally directed speech. so parties aim to pick rising stars, right? people with the gravitas to do the honors and people who they want to get a lot of attention. today, the republican party announced their pick to deliver this year's republican response to the state of the union. it's indiana governor mitch daniels. and here's why they've done that. here's what the republicans say about what they're communicating to the nation by choosing mitch daniels. they say he has, "compiled a solid record of effective government and fiscal

responsibility, making him well-suited to outline republicans' better solutions to the challenges americans are facing." house speaker john boehner added, "mitch daniels is a fierce advocate for smaller, less costly, and more accountable government and he has the record to prove." "he has the record to prove it." you know to know what mitch daniel's last job was. he was george bush's budget director. remember the budget under george w. bush. this is what happened to the budget while mitch daniels was in charge of the budget. when he started as bush's budget guy, we had a nearly $130 billion budget surplus. by the time he left, we had an almost $380 billion budget deficit. thank you, bush tax cuts. mitch daniels' other responsibility under president bush was estimating the cost of the iraq war, which he said would probably cost $50 billion or $60 billion, or so. this is the actual cost of the iraq war. $800 billion. mitch daniels estimated, and he

refused to provide specifics at the time, that it would cost less than a tenth of that amount. so that's the mitch daniels' record. that's his fiscal record that the republicans want to highlight with their state of the union speaker this year. yes, of course, that is all in the past. that's all mitch daniels' past, that's his resume. what about his time since? what about his time since as indiana governor? yes, what about that? >> we are -- and this is what it was like in indiana during mitch daniels' own state of the state address earlier this month. i don't know if anyone heard him give that address over the hollering and protest hullaboo. those efforts have even lit up a whole new part of the indiana republican party that had not been activist before, or at least had been loyalist before,

but is now pledging to go after any republican who votes to support governor daniels' union-stripping right to work legislation. the group, which is calling themselves lunch pail republicans, has formed a pac. they say they've already raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. today they wrote to indiana republican legislators to tell them not to be intimidated. the lunch pail republicans say they will financially support, they will have the backs of any republican who votes against mitch daniels on stripping union rights in the hoosier state. the super bowl is in indiana in a couple of weeks, indianapolis. and the the nfl players' association has been saying very loudly and repeatedly that they are on the side of the democrats and the lunch pail republicans. they are against mitch daniels' union-stripping bill. the pro-union rights protesters at the statehouse have now started chanting "occupy super bowl," the indiana afl-cio says it's not an idle threat. they said today that the super bowl is an opportunity to

highlight how inhospitable indiana is becoming for working men and women. but before the country turns its eyes to indianapolis and the super bowl, and its protests against the republican governor there, supported by the nfl players' association, before the country turns its eyes to the super bowl, first the country will turn our eyes to the state of the union address, and immediately thereafter to that indiana governor who is dragging his state into this huge, embarrassing, and very unpopular fight. and he's the guy who the republicans want to be seen as their star player right now. ask me. if you think even the best bed can only lie there... ask me what it's like... when my tempur-pedic moves... ...talk to someone who owns an adjustable version of the most highly recommended bed in america... ask me about my tempur advanced ergo. ask me about having all the right moves. these are real tempur-advanced ergo owners! find one for yourself. check out twitter. try your friends on facebook... see what they have to say...unedited. it goes up... ask me what it's like to get a massage

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okay. best new thing in the world. there will never be another campaign image that's as good a this one, face it. this photo of mitt romney in iowa in october of 2007 is obviously the greatest campaign trail photo of modern times. it was taken by a photographer named brian snyder for reuters. there will never be another campaign trail photo as good as that photo.

i mean, look at it! and in 2008, the gettings were so good in terms of campaign trail photos that the famous romney fudge photo even had a close second runner-up, with this one. right? remember this one? i still have no idea what was going on in this picture, but this, too, is a pretty amazing campaign photo. this one was taken by jim bjork, also for reuters. so between our winner and our first runner-up, obviously, 2008 will never be surpassed in terms of genius photos from the presidential campaign trail. that doesn't mean, though, that we're not always looking for contenders in 2012. not that long ago, we thought we had a pretty good possibility with this one, a friendly, slightly overactive baby sticking his fingers in the president's gob. that was a pretty good one, especially because of the oblifousness of dad there, or the bald guy. then i had high hopes from the really animated strange speech that rick perry gave in new

hampshire to that anti-gay group. it was so visually stunning, that speech, i thought for sure there would be an important gesture or facial expression shot at that speech by a still photographer. but there really wasn't. when governor perry, god rest his campaign, when governor perry cuddled the syrup at the end of that speech, it was possible to get a nice video screen grab of that, which you see there, him sort of cressing the syrup. but it's just, it's just not the same as a brilliant still image. and so baby's fingers stuck in the president's mouth, pretty good, rick perry puts the move on some maple syrup, nice in theory, but not quite, nah. we were beginning to give up that the 2011 presidential campaign would produce an unforgettable iconic still image like the last campaign did. we were worried until we checked the wires today. behold, america, we have a contender. this exists.

and this exists on the day that newt gingrich appears to surge into the lead in south carolina south carolina, right before his ex-wife's "he wanted an open marriage" interview airs on the sanctity of marriage debate. what's going on in this picture? i don't know. and meter do you. the photo was taken for the associated press by nathan grey of the anderson independent mail newspaper at mutt's barbecue. the caption unhelpfully explains, republican presidential candidate, former house speaker, newt gingrich, pinches the nose of bonnie ellison, age 78, of easley, south carolina, while shaking hands with supporters. yes, clearly, he is pinching -- yes, he is doing that. but why is he grabbing her nose? i mean, other people were getting their hands shaken at that event, but miss ellison got her nose grabbed. he just reached right out and grabbed her face? again, why? nobody knows. which is part of the wonder and perfection of it.