we purchase as much as we can on the american express open gold card. so we can accumulate as many points as possible. i pass on these points to my employees to go on trips with their families. when my employees are happy, my customers are happy. vo: earn points for the things you're already buying. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business. there have been two presidential debates this week, right? the moment newt gingrich and his supporters are most excited about is the very start of last night's debate. >> mr. speaker, i want to start with that this evening. as you know, your ex-wife gave an interview to abc news and "the washington post." in it she says you came to her in 1999 at a time when you were having an affair. she says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. would you like to take some time to respond to that? >> no. but i will.

[ applause ] >> i think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office, and i am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that. [ applause ] presidential debates are stressful events quasi high wire acts. for all the candidates, even in the best of times. but on the republican side atcking the underneath the high wire. if you ever don't want to answer the question, step off the high wire and fall, happily and lazily in the safe bouncey net that will always hold you. yelling at the media, blaming the media, never fails before a republican audience. even before anybody was taking his candidacy seriously, even

before his ex-wife said on the day of the debate, sponsored in part by the national organization for marriage, that newt gingrich had asked her for an open marriage while he was already cheating on her, even before all that happened, attacking the media was already newt gingrich's best trick at the debates. >> i'm frankly not interested in your effort to get republicans fighting each other. >> it's sad the news media doesn't report accurately how the economy works. >> i want to raise a report. a point about news media bias. none of it gets covered by the news media. i for one, and i hope all of my friends up here, will repudiate every effort of the news media to get republicans fighting each other. >> having seen him fall into that net and all the previous debates, given the history, the only thing i don't understand about what happened last night in this moment of the newt gingrich people are so excited about, the only part i don't understand is this part. >> would you like to take some time to respond to that?

>> that is the question. would you care to talk about this now?reas mr. gingrich's response sounded so awesome is because, for one thing, yelling at the media is inately satisfying and also it's true there is nothing inherently newsworthy about anybody's sex lives, it's not inherently newsworthy. to not just seem like you're prying to make clear the newsworthiness about someone's private sexual morality you have to say why it's newsworthy and why you're not just prying. how about this, how about was it hypocritical of you to lead the impeachment of president clinton because of his affair for somebody that worked for him while you, too, were having an affair for somebody who worked for you? you have admitted to numerous adulterous affairs including one to the woman to whom you are now married. your ex-wife pointed out while you were cheating on her, you

were also giving political speeches accusing democrats of undermining the institution of marriage. how do you explain that hypocrisy, sir? or you could say, in this campaign you've said you would fight for a federal ban on same sex couples being allowed to get married. how can you justify passing government judgment on other people's marriages when your own marriages are the kind of ethical mess described by your second wife on abc news today. there's a lot. you could go on. the point is you could ask the question a different way, instead of just saying, would you like to take some time to talk about this? nobody's sex life is anybody else's business unless they are a hypocrite or demagoging other people's sex lives to benefit themselves comparing the moral superiority of their own sexual morets. newt gingrich bad husband, who cares? newt gingrich hypocritical family values politician, i care, everybody cares. he's running for president, he's

not asking us to share him with calista, too. even if cnn inexplicably gave him this out and put a target on their own forehead by not explaining that his hypocrisy is the issue here, even without raising his hypocrisy, it is still a little bit weird that newt gingrich believes he should not have to answer this question. because frankly, even people who aren't hypocrites on issues like this, in a presidential campaign, get asked stuff like this. really, really rude pruient personal, provocative questions come up, all the time. >> who is jennifer flowers, you know her? >> yes. >> how do you know her? how would you describe your relationship? she's a legend and is described in some detail in a supermarket tabloid, and a 12-year affair with you. >> in recent days, we have learned that four different women have accused you of inappropriate behaviors.

shareholders are reluctant to hire a ceo character issues, why should the american people hire a president if there are character issues. >> the first question to governor dukakis. you have two minutes to respond. governor, if kitty decaucus were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer? >> what you would say if your daughter was ever in a position where she might need an abortion? >> as president, would you be submissive to your husband? >> in presidential campaigns, questions like get asked, they even sometimes get asked in a competent way. so, listen, maybe cnn face planted on the way they asked the question last night. remember, the specific question put to mr. gingrich was, "would you like to respond to that" the answer was, no. duh!

seriously, that is how you put it to him? someone will ask him the competent about his arch arch moralistic hypocracy. i hope this campaign never ends, it just finds a way to disrupt the space-time con continuum and goes on forever and ever and ever. joining us fresh off the plan from south carolina is gail collins. you want this to go on forever? >> i sort of want this moment in the south carolina contest to go on forever. i feel like somebody were either in hyperspeed or time has stopped, because so much is happening all at once. and each thing feels like it's epic, each thing tells such a major story about these candidates, our politics and where we're at. >> okay, rachel, if you really want it to last forever. >> you disagree, you're ready for it to be over? >> i'm ready for it to move along a little bit. >> really? what do you feel we are stalled on? >> right now we're stalled on the south carolina primary. we're stalled on will we have mitt romney or not, that is the

basic question, but i'm always good for a good sex scandal, you know, that's my point in life, really. >> do you feel like the inevitability of mitt romney is becoming more evitable? >> i sort of actually don't still. i don't. i truly don't. because it's like at the end it's like the idaho caucus will happen, all these things out there that you have to plan for and they are not popular votes, and they will happen and newt gingrich doesn't have a clue. >> i feel like the reason that mr. romney still feels like he's gotten the nomination is his to lose because it does not seem plausible for any of his rivals to actually win. >> true that. >> does that -- if that is the constraining factor on what we can imagine about the future of the primary does that mean we should start thinking outside the box, we should think there will be a third party person,

someone joining late, mitt romney seems like a bad nominee. >> getting worse and worse. i find it sort of touching this vision that the republican wise men are going to get together in somebody's basement or something and bring jeb bush into the race and that will save the day. there's nobody out there. and there's no way -- no, no. >> it's just done. >> i think it's pretty done. but it certainly is hanging on longer than i thought it would be. who would have thought the iowa caucus, that rick santorum run the iowa caucus, that was pretty good. >> at this point, maybe in another two weeks, maybe mitt romney will have won -- the republicans don't know who won. >> no. >> they've decided that it doesn't really to them that they don't know who won. so they said nobody won or it cannot be determined who won. and then the iowa state republican party chairman went on the radio that day and said,

actually, rick santorum won. later that day, he did a press conference and said, no, nobody won. >> then the guys will come back and say in four years, oh no, the iowa caucus must be first even if it's in december we are such a great proving ground for democracy in iowa. that is pretty wonderful. speaker gingrich's ex-wife doing an interview about him cheating on her, lying to her, asking for an open marriage, all the while giving speeches on the sanctity of marriage. that comes out on the day of the debate sponsored by the national organization of marriage. >> irony of irony. >> this turned out to be a good thing for him? >> you would almost think looking at the beginning as if he had hid all those affairs and ruined marriages so that moment could happen, that it was a great cosmic plan on his part, that he wasf his wives, just so that that moment could happen on cnn.

that is my thought. >> gail collins, when the south carolina primary sadly does end, time and gods of politics will have you to thank for it. if they had me it would go on forever. gail, thank you. there was a book how to campaign for president against mitt romney. it was a book written for john mccain in 2008. the man who is the only person to have ever beaten mitt romney in a presidential campaign is the man who ran the john mccain campaign against him. and beat -- john mccain beat mitt romney. the man who beat mitt romney in 2008 will join us for the interview tonight. that's coming up. ♪ the sleep number bed.

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today is friday, tomorrow is saturday, the south carolina republican primary is tomorrow. so even though you may not be accustomed to turning on msnbc at 6:00 p.m. eastern time on a saturday, tomorrow you must. chris matthews will be down south with howard fineman, jean robinson and michael steele. jean robinson will be in charleston, south carolina for us. and here in new york, i'll be anchoring with ed schultz and al sharpton and lawrence o'donnell and steve schmid. lawrence made a point i think overlooked in the 2012 process. the point is this. mitt romney winning new hampshire actually needs an asterisk, because mitt romney winning new hampshire was a foregone conclusion. not because mitt romney is the front-runner, because mitt romney was ahead or mitt romney had a good campaign. mitt romney winning new hampshire was a foregone conclusion because historically speaking, new hampshire couldn't have been won by anybody other than him. because he's the guy from massachusetts.

the guy from massachusetts, whether a republican or democrat, always wins new hampshire. in 2004, john kerry, in 1992, paul songas, 1998 michael dukakis, henry cabot lodge, john f. kennedy. when a massachusetts politician is running for president it's a safe bet they will wine in new hampshire. they will win. there are two exemptions to the rule. two exceptions to the massachusetts guy winning in new hampshire in modern political history. 1980, jimmy carter got a primary challenge from the left from inside the democratic party from ted kennedy, ted kennedy was from massachusetts, he did not beat the incumbent president in that new hampshire primary. that is kind of an exception but it wasn't incumbent president, so not really. the only other exception to the massachusetts guy not winning in new hampshire, the massachusetts guy being surprisingly weak, defying history to lose new hampshire, the only other example? mitt romney. when he lost new hampshire in 2008 to john mccain of arizona.

john mccain cleaned mitt romney's clock in 2008. mccain surged from a horrible fourth place finish in iowa to win in new hampshire, beating even the guy from massachusetts, who always wins new hampshire. then john mccain went to south carolina, not exactly a john mccain state and what happened in south carolina? not only did john mccain win there but his purported big serious establishment challenger, the massachusetts guy, got killed in south carolina. mitt romney came in fourth place in south carolina in 2008. he only got 15% of the vote. not only did john mccain beat him but mike huckabee beat him, too. and fred thompson beat him there. who? yeah, that fred thompson. put aside all of the coronation stuff, put aside all of the mitt romney inevitability storyline. blank slate. say you've been in a heyperbari chamber.

if you took a snapshot, look at the presidential race right now, iowa, first contest appears to have been won by rick santorum. new hampshire won by the massachusetts guy. whatever, paul songas, mitt romney. heading in south carolina, the massachusetts guy has the big campaign, last time south carolina had the chance to vote on him they game him a buck 50. he only got 15%. he lost to who? he lost to fred thompson. it's true that mitt romney is the default nominee. that everybody assumes he has it wrapped up. we opened the show last night by saying yesterday was a disasterous day for mitt romney, and frankly today was worse. today mitt romney actually did something on tape if he is the nominee will haunt him all the way through november. this is one of those issues for him that started small, back in june in the early days of the full-time seven days a week campaign. you may remember the romney campaign making its opening argument, unveiling what they wanted to be the defining message of the romney campaign. they put mr. romney in front of

shuttered factories and depressed economic locations, had him talk about how awful the economy was. >> when he took office the economy was in recession, he made it worse. he made it last longer. >> president obama did not cause the recession, but he made it worse. the trouble that mitt romney got into this -- into over this was two-fold. first problem was some of the places he went to as photo-ops to demonstrate the impact of the economic recession, those places did not want to be characterized that way and they did not appreciate mitt romney talking smack about their towns. that was part of the problem of the campaign launch. the other problem was this. >> when he took office, the economy was in recession. and he made it worse. >> he didn't create the recession, but he made it worse. and longer. he did not cause this recession, but he made it worse. >> how could you say things were worse?

>> i didn't say things were worse. >> that was the other problem with the launch. mitt romney kept saying, it was central to his message the economy was made worse by president obama. of course the economy has not gotten worse under president obama, the economy has been thrown out of a 30-story building and was lying dead on the ground when barack obama started his presidency. the economy has since sort of pulled itself back together and started to sit up. nobody would call this a great economy but compared to how it was, it is definitely not worse. when called out on that, mitt romney weirdly denied that he ever said what he plainly had said over and over and over again. i never said it was worse. except all the times i said it was worse. did i say -- i never said it was worse. the launch did not go smoothly. we knew with the flubs and messing it up that was the basic message. the economy is bad, president obama is bad on the economy and i, mitt romney, will be better. that is the basis of his campaign. that is what it boils down to, that's why he's running. bad economy, president obama, bad on the economy, mitt romney

will be good on the economy. since then, that assertion, that justification for his campaign has been really tested. mitt romney is not campaigning on the basis of his time as massachusetts governor. in fact, he talks about himself as if that time never even happened in his life. >> you have to choose someone who is not been a life-long politician. for me, politics is not a career. for me, my career was being in business and starting a business and making it successful. >> pay no attention to my times as governor and all the other times i ran for office and failed. the basis for mitt romney's central claim that he would be better at dealing with the economy is his private sector experience, his time in business. well, mitt romney's time in business was his time at bain capital. however much the republican establishment wants to protect him on that issue, wants to shield his time at bain capital from any criticism, they want to make it an asset only, nothing bad could ever be said about it. no matter how much they want to do that, the criticism of his time at bain isn't made up, it's

real and it's been around for a long time. and even though the establishment succeeded in shutting down other republican candidates from talking about it, the republican party establishment cannot shut up everybody and the problems with bain are a mainstream journalistic story. it's in the "wall street journal," reuters, "the tampa bay times." there is stuff there to be reported on. since launching his campaign, about how great he will be on the economy because of his business experience, real questions have been raised and whether or not it's an asset, makes people more or less likely to vote for him. mr. romney has been clumsy to the point of pitiful on addressing the inevitable questions about how rich that work at bain made him. questions abouts all of his wealth and what he has done with all of his wealth. >> i like being able to fire people who provide services to me. >> corporations are people, my friend.

>> rick, ten thousand bucks, $10,000 bet? >> i'm not in the betting business. >> oh, okay. back in 1967, your father set a ground breaking standard in american politics. he released his tax returns. he released them for not one year, but for 12 years. when he did that, he said this, "one year could be a fluke, perhaps done for you." when you release yours, will you follow your father's example? >> maybe. you know, i don't know how many years i'll release. i'll look at what our documents are. >> this campaign has been a real test for mitt romney. after all of that, what is the state of mitt romney's core argument? his core argument, why he's running, economy is bad, president barack obama is bad on the economy, mitt romney will be good on the economy. where are we on that central justification for why mitt romney is running for president? >> you've also noted that there are signs of improvement on the horizon in the economy. how do you answer the

president's argument that the economy is getting better in a general election campaign if you yourself are saying it's getting better? >> of course it's getting better. the economy always gets better after a recession, there is always a recovery. >> of course the economy is getting better. this is mitt romney speaking today on the conservative radio host -- radio show hosted by laura ingram. listen to this next part. >> isn't it a hard argument to make if you're saying he inherited this recession, he took a bunch of steps to turn the economy around, now we're see something more jobs but vote against him anyway? isn't that a hard argument to make? is that a stark enough contrast? >> have you got a better one, laura, this happens to be the truth. >> if mitt romney does get to be the republican nominee for president this year, do you want to know what the ads in the general election are going to sound like? >> inherited this recession, took a bunch of steps to turn the economy around and now we're

seeing more jobs, but vote against him anyway, isn't that a hard argument to make? >> have you got a better one, laura, this happens to be the truth. >> this is a ready-made campaign ad. mitt romney agrees president obama is turning the economy around and things are getting better. so vote for mitt romney despite that? what happened to the core justification for why mitt romney is running for president? it and his campaign appear to be collapsing. collapsing is the word that the editor in chief of gallop used today to describe mr. romney's poll numbers. the latest polling out of south carolina hours before voting due to begin. newt gingrich has opened up a six-point lead over mr. romney in the clemson palmetto poll. this is what it looks like on the national level. mitt romney beginning to see poll numbers, what was that word, collapse.

while newt gingrich is on the rise. if you ask me, i think you can't discount the fact newt gingrich spent millions of dollars against mitt romney in south carolina and that matters. but it is also the collapse of the basic justification for mitt romney. newt gingrich is killing mitt romney in the debates. two this week. supposed to be another one in florida on monday. mr. romney today making sounds about potentially not showing up for the monday debate in florida. the romney campaign kicking a whole contingent of press off their campaign plane today. the romney campaign warning supporters they expect to lose tomorrow. in 2008, john mccain kicked mitt romney's butt. this year, none of these other republican candidates is john mccain. but could mitt romney still be beaten the same way he was beaten the last time? on a day like today it feels more possible than ever. joining us next is the man who ran john mccain's 2008 campaign, stay tuned. ♪ what started as a whisper every day, millions of people choose to do the right thing.

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this involvement in washington is my view a perfect example of why we need to send to washington someone who has not lived in washington. but someone who lived in the real streets of america. >> mitt romney living in the real streets of america. joining us now for the interview is the only person to have ever run a successful presidential campaign against mitt romney, msnbc analyst steve schmidt, former strategist for the mccain/palin campaign. do you think this is a flash in the pan thing doesn't matter, in florida it's all over? >> george bush in 2000 was the inevitable republican nominee despite the loss in new

hampshire as a function of his strength as a candidate. in 2012, mitt romney i think is the inevitable nominee of the party but i think it's a function of the weakness of the other candidates and their implausability to take the oath of office. >> so when you think about the strength of mitt romney as a candidate it's purely relative strength? i feel like he is melting down a little bit and not handling the stress very well. do you see it that way? >> i think all campaigns that go on to win survive some degree of near-death experience. and they get tested. new hampshire was a terrible period, obviously, for president bush in 2000. it made him stronger as a candidate. john kerry went through this in 2004. president obama went through this in 2008 during the primaries, so i think these experiences will forge a stronger candidate but there is no doubt this is not the type of week you want to have.

a week ago the consensus conventional wisdom among every political reporter, person that works in republican politics, was that mitt romney was going to win the south carolina primary and the race would be effectively over. and this has entirely changed over the course of the week and it is hard to imagine a scenario where seven days ago you could have pictured having a worse week than the one he's having. >> seven days ago mitt romney won iowa. he had won iowa. he may be one for three at the end of the weekend, we thought he'd be three for three. what was your mccain's campaign main strategy against mitt romney in 2008? what did you see as his biggest strength and how did you try to neutralize it? >> well, his biggest strength was money, was organization, was resources. if you remember the john mccain campaign in the summer of 2007, the campaign had collapsed. he was flying on the middle seat

of southwest airlines from bwi up to new hampshire. the entire campaign for john mccain was based on we have to win new hampshire primary. patience is an under-valued strategic virtue in the campaigns. we took advantage of the fight between mike huckabee and mitt romney in iowa, mike huckabee knocked out mitt romney in iowa. that slowed his momentum in new hampshire. john mccain was able to win in new hampshire, because fred thompson stayed in the race in south carolina, we were able to close out the race. but it's a very different race in 2012. romney still has a hangover of the problems from the 2008 race. in 2008, he entered the race as the conservative candidate. tried to position himself completely and plausibly as the most conservative person in the race. and that gave birth, i think, to the inauthenticity problem he carries forward to today. that was a major part of the architecture of the campaign against governor romney, but at the end of the day, john mccain won that race because the issue of the hour was the withdrawal

debate about taking our troops out of iraq in the middle of the chaos, in the middle of the surge and john mccain, in a move you don't see often in politics staked his campaign and said i believe in this to the degree i would rather lose the election than see this country lose a war in his view. i think that had enormous currency in the republican primary. >> the inauthenticity problem you say carries forward to 2012, i feel like the attacks on mitt romney are partly in that same vein, partly like you saw in 2008, he's a flip-flopper. is there something else that has emerged as a weakness for him or do you think that is still his achilles heal? >> if you analogize this to a football game he's a quarterback this week who has shown a propensity to throw a lot of

interceptions, somewhat inexplicab inexplicably. his strongest argument is the inevitability argument. on the strength of who he is, as opposed to the deficiencies of the other candidates. >> how would you go after the inevitability thing specifically, not just that i would be best but i am the one who is going to wrap this up so get out of the way? >> i think you have to right now you're going to have to absorb potentially a loss in south carolina, florida will become very important, will florida validate a gingrich victory or will florida throw cold water on gingrich momentum? i think it will be an interesting ten days as we move forward to florida. and we essentially have a long break as we get ready for what is essentially a de facto national primary day. i think the erratic nature of

the gingrich campaign, what you saw last night was an acting performance worthy of meryl streep, incredible as you're watching it. but the mellowdrama around this, how will that impact the race over the next 30 days, and i think it's an open question, but for my part, i think the notion of a gingrich nomination is totally implausible in the sense that he's 100% known by the american people. he has a staggering unfavorable to favorable ratio in the wrong direction. >> and can still beat mitt romney in south carolina. >> perhaps. >> amazing. >> steve schmidt, the former senior strategist for mccain/palin. i'm looking forward to being on the v-shaped set with you tomorrow. >> it's going to be an interesting night and i think it will be a long night. i think they will be counting late tomorrow. >> then we get to watch florida fill up with romney bucks. >> it will. it willing an intense ten days in florida. >> just a reminder the coverage of the south carolina primary here on msnbc starts at 6:00 eastern tomorrow night.

speaking of south carolina did you see the crowds in south carolina today? in a week when lots of top tier candidates could not fill a room, this is what the crowd looked like today that turned out to see apparently the most popular pseudo politicians in the state of south carolina. neither of them named mitt or newt or rick or the other rick. that's coming up.

msnbc host rachel maddow has sometimes talked about your presidential campaign as a kind of satire, that it wasn't quite an actual campaign, it was almost more like the image of what a campaign might be. i have to say that in joining together with colbert it feels like you are in fact reinforcing rach's idea that that's what's up. >> first of all, i could care less about rachel maddow about me and my campaign. that simply means she does not know me. all the people that wanted to criticize and make fun of my campaign, in my grandfather's words, i does not care. >> he is the former ceo of a mafia-themed pizza chain.

he is a former presidential front-runner. i really do think he's an art project and he does not care what i think! all very admirable qualities. i would like to get to know you, sir. you would not think the biggest crowds would turn out for herman cain but the biggest crowd in south carolina politics turned out for herman cain. that's coming up. ♪[music plays] ♪[music plays] purina one beyond. food for your cat or dog.

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happy happy birthday citizens united. you are turning 2 years old tomorrow. on january 21, 2010 the supreme court decided that money is the same as speech and therefore cannot be restricted in the political process. now, in this first presidential election since then, we're all waiting to find out what the next ideologically motivated billionaire decides. because that as much as anything decides who gets to be the front-runner for the republican party presidential nomination. so happy freaking birthday, citizens united. the birthday of citizens united was celebrated with an occupy the courts protest across the country. little portland, maine, 26 degrees today, there were one, two, three, i think you can see we figured out, 20 people here, maybe more. i'm starting to think the crowds over citizens united today actually rivaled some of the crowds for the south carolina primary. this, for example is the crowd that turned out to hear newt gingrich today. 25 people. so few the gingrich campaign

cancelled the speech. here is rick santorum packing them in on the "uss yorktown." mitt romney looks like he got a whopper of a crowd, oh my, until you see the picture buzzfeed posted at the same event. camera angle makes a difference. ron paul faced a giant hangar of empty today in south carolina. because we have also seen sizeable crowds in south carolina today. mitt romney drew several hundred people at one stop, so did newt gingrich in orangeburg. we can maybe conclude that the south carolina primary is sort of a late bloomer? but if you wanted to see a big crowd in south carolina today you have to look to a fake campaign. this is the rally today for comedian stephen colbert and the performance artist formerly known as the candidate herman cain. i long maintained herman cain was an art project, i maintain it still even though he denies it. herman cain, if you believe you have been falsely accused of that, if you were trying to

prove you weren't an art project, this event today, not helping your case! joining us from the middle of the circus in south carolina is joel sawyer, you used to direct governor huntsman campaign, he served as mark sanford's spokesman and former director of the south carolina republican party. good to have you with us tonight. >> thank you rachel, very much. >> i am not there, i'm not in south carolina, but what i'm seeing from here is a mix of unexpectedly low turn out for candidates event and also occasionally a giant crowd somewhere. can you give us a sense of the level of enthusiasm, is south carolina late blooming in terms of interest in the primary? >> yeah, and overall i think it's kind of high. one thing i would differentiate. there were a couple crowds this morning, there was a conference being held where organizers told all the campaigns, i know because i was one of them at the time, they were expecting 800 to 1,000 attendees.

all week, 50, 60 people. i don't know that is the best judge. the candidate forums and events they held themselves have been well attended. building a political event is an art form, we know how the media like to talk about it. so i always think it's good to have standing room only. if i think there be 100 people i'll get a room for 80. when you compare how people in the state are turning out to events and how they are feeling about the campaign, just people you know talking about how enthusiastic they are to participate in the campaign and get out there and to vote tomorrow, how would you measure this year versus other years? >> you know, i think you have to go candidate by candidate. i think there is right at this point in time, there's a lot of energy behind gingrich, a considerable amount behind santorum. ron paul has his pocket of very fervent supporters. romney, i think you will struggle to find somebody who is really, really fired up about romney. he's a candidate that talks to your head rather than your heart.

but he's drawing big crowds at his events, too. i think their campaign has done a good job turning people out for the events they've had. >> i know you watched the debate last night, second one this week that was scored heavily in favor of newt gingrich, both of them were this week. >> right. >> today the romney campaign started casting doubt on whether or not they are going to go to the next debate. monday, in florida. you have been a campaign strategist, having seen what happened at the debates, would you be advising your candidate to not go to the next one, what is the risk and benefit there? >> not on a nationally televised debate. i don't see the upside. if it's something other candidates committed to, for a while now, on a nationally televised debate i don't know i would do that. i don't know internally what is going on with the romney campaign, but i have a hard time believing on the first debate in florida something that will be nationally broadcast they would end up turning that down. >> one of the things we talked about last night, south carolina's reputation for dirty tricks, today a new one, e-mails purporting to be from cnn, that

weren't from cnn with a nasty abortion allegation about newt gingrich. do we ever get to find out who is doing this kind of thing? next year in some bar somewhere does some political consultant start bragging about having pulled that one off so they get hired by whoever wants that kind of thing in 2016? do people ever figure this out. >> if that consultant is smart, they won't. that cnn e-mail was filed up by one purported from the gingrich campaign. just about an hour ago, the state attorney general is nounsed he will launch an investigation of this particular e-mail. i think it takes it to a different level because they are purported to be from groups. they misrepresented the identity of the person sending the e-mail. that's something that -- i'm not an attorney but i think that's something that could potentially bring prosecution. >> in terms of what you're expecting tomorrow, joel, the romney campaign is essentially telling people they're expecting to lose now. it sounds like you think that's warranted, that mitt romney will not come in first tomorrow?

>> yeah, you know, in the political consulting game we call that managing expectations. you know, i think it's going to be an exceedingly close race. at this point, my predictions will probably be that gingrich squeaks it out just barely. >> joel sawyer, former executive director of the state republican party, joel, thamps for being with us. nice to have you bank. >> thank you, rachel. appreciate it. it is is a wh unsurpassed torq. incredible towing. legendary cummins engines.

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and at our white sale, stock up and save on our exclusive bedding collection. only at the sleep number store, where queen mattresses start at just $699. so i get claritin clear for strong, non-drowsy relief of all my allergies like dust mold pets and pollen. looks good. thanks. i live claritin clear. but is she eating sugar this week? maybe she wants the all natural, zero calorie stuff. but if you're wrong, you're insinuating she's fat. save yourself. it's only natural. back in 1967 your father set a groundbreaking standard in american politics. he released his tax returns. he released them not for just one year but for 12 years.

when he said that, he said this, one year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show. when you release yours, will you follow your father's example? >> maybe. i don't know how many years i'll release. i'll take a look at what our documents are. >> tomorrow, south carolina voters will vote in the republican primary. tonight, it's friday. has there ever been a more appropriate time for a cocktail moment? in the week that mitt romney showed himself totally unable to handle questions about his millions, about how he made his millions and where his millions currently reside and what kind of view they have from their cayman islands home, i thought it would be appropriate to make a cocktail that's called the millionaire. it's a prohibition-era drink. this particular tweak of the millionaire cocktail comes from

employees only, a bar in new york city that i like very much. it's called speak easy. the millionaire cocktail has one trick in it but it otherwise is pretty straightforward. the first thing i have to tell you, i'm going to do something that i don't normally do. i'm going to make two drinks instead of one. so to make two drinks, we're going to need four ounces of bourban. i'm doing this because of something i'll explain in a minute. one -- i apologize ahead of time, i'm going to make a mess because i have to go fast. two drinks, four ounces of bourbon. okay. also, 1 1/2 ounce of gran marnier. there are a lot of orange liquors. you're supposed to use this one for this one. i don't know why. contra has a clear base. this one is brown. an ounce of grenadine.

it you can't get the good stuff, you can make yourself with pomegranate juice and sugar. it's not very hard. you can google it. it's safe. it's not like rick santorum. you need an ounce of lemon juice. and, again, if you get lemon juice from something other than a piece of fruit that's commonly known as a lemon, i will hide under your bed at night and grab your ankles when you wake up in the morning and terrify you forever. in my other life, i'm a goblin. all right. an ounce of lemon juice. it's not that hard. here's the thing that freaks everybody out. pastes. it's delicious and won't taste the same if you don't do it. even if you don't think you like licorice, you should try it. now, here's the trick. if you think you were freaked

out by the pastis, there's an egg white in it. okay? i know. this is why we have to make two drinks. because it's really hard to make half an egg white. and one egg white is enough for two drinks. so -- did you see that? that was the yoke. what do i do? >> get a spoon. >> get a spoon? i could -- you know what i'm going to have to do? i'm going to have to tell you what to do and not make it because if i shake it up with the yoke in it, i'm going to be making the millionaire flip. you know what that is? that's a millionaire. you think i can get it out with a spoon? >> yes. >> i don't think so. >> do you have the jib cam on me? i'm doing the most difficult thing that's ever been done on television except sneezing.

uh-huh. that's exactly what i meant. i actually quit my job now. you can find me working at the parking lot down the corner. you want to shake without ice first to make sure you get adequately aspirated. whenever you use an egg white. because if you don't do that, you won't have enough froth to make it really frothy, which is the point of the egg white. i can't believe i rescued the egg yolk out of there. if i was a genius, i would have done it over the top of the cocktail strainer so that wouldn't have been a risk. at any case, shake it up with the ice after you have dry shaken it without the ice. a lot. but i think you will see, even though i screwed it up but then rescued it, that you get a nice egg white foam on the top. you garnish it with a little bit of nutmeg and you have a millionaire cocktail on the eve of south carolina's primary, the