we asked you one last time in 2011 what you're doing up at this hour. seriously, why are you awake? john, what you got? >> i've got a bob in jasper, georgia, says i was sleeping soundly then i heard my wife say in a low voice, go see willie, i thought she said willie, but she was taking her dog millie outside. >> we haven't had that one before. someone mistaking me for their dog, so they got up and turned on the show. i love it. one more for you, a tweet, i woke up at 5:17 a.m. to watch you, then realized i need to rethink my life. thank you so much. i'm flattered, and a perfect way to end with one of the great insults we had. why are we awake? the truth is, because you watch. we're grateful to have you here

in 2011. all of us at "way too early." what we got? five people working on the show nowadays? we must have brought in extras because usually we have two people. thank you on behalf of all of us at "way too early," a huge 2012 coming up, the presidential election around the corner. we'll see you in iowa, but before that, we'll see you right now on "morning joe."ç >> when generations of immigrants looked up and saw the statue of liberty for the first time, one thing they knew beyond any doubt, they were coming to a place where anything was possible that in america their children would have a better life. i believe in that america. the spirit of enterprise, pioneering, and can do propelled our standard of living across that of any other nation on earth. and in the campaign to come, the american ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear and unapologetic defense,

and i intend to make it because i have lived it. we stand for freedom and opportunity and hope. the principles that made this nation a great and powerful leader of the world have not lost their meaning, they never will. i'm mitt romney, i believe in america, and i'm running for president of the united states. >> mitt romney a new 60-second ad airing in iowa. welcome to "morning joe," it is friday, december 30th, our last show of 2011. with us onset,=pññi the directo the earth institute of columbia university dr. jeffrey sachs. editorial writer for the "washington post," msnbc contributor jonathan capehart. and down in washington, senior contributor at the daily caller, matt lewis. mark haleprin, let me start with

you since you woke up the earliest of any of us. you watched that 60-second ad forç mitt romney, we were talkg to our reporter here at nbc who said the crowds around mitt romney just over the last week have really swollen to huge numbers. what's happening out there? >> crowds are growing, although to be fair, they're growing for most of the candidates now. mitt romney is running a low-risk campaign, he is doing some interviews, but his stump speech i saw yesterday both in mason city and in ames is about the olympics. he recites lyrics from patriotic songs, talks about the president and the economy, but otherwise, we're not talking about policy, he's not playing for the tea party crowd or the social conservative crowd in any way. he's running a very safe, generic campaign right now. and i think it's put him in a commanding position, and the other candidates seem to be more interested in fighting with each other than they do taking on mitt romney. >> what kind of patriotic songs are we talking about? any specifics for us?

>> i do have some specifics. i wish it were lee greenwood, "america the beautiful." >> that's a good one. >> yeah. and a little -- he's doing a version that is spoken. i told him yesterday as he was getting on his bus in mason city, he's going to have to break into song. he can't just recite the lyrics. he's doing a rex harrison thing rather than singing them. >> it loses something in the spoken word poetry of it all. matt lewis, i have a bone to pick with you because you've exposed us here. you've written a piece for "the daily caller." a confession, we can't predict who will win iowa. you talked about ron predicting games on espn and saying that a

and anybody who didn't listen to the radio show on espn should and every friday he has a segment where the great former eagles quarterback, great analyst who watches hours and hours of game film and looks through, calls through these statistics goes on the radio and predicts who's going to win on sunday and then they have reginald the monkey down at the d.c. zoo who predicts who is going to win. and the monkey is vastly outperforming ron jaworski, and my point is that experts on the ground, folks who go through and watch the debates and blog and tweet, we all think we know what's going to happen. we all think that either mitt romney or ron paul might win iowa, but you know what? i think newt gingrich or rick perry, it's not -- i'm not betting it's going to happen. but, look, using -- to overextend the football

metaphor. if you ask me who's going to win the super bowl, i'll probably tell you the green bay packers, but guess what? tim tebow and the denver broncos could potentially do it. >> we just got out a new nbc marist poll in the state of iowa that shows mitt romney, ron paul reflecting some other polls lately, neck and neck at the front of the pack, followed by rick santorum at 15%, and perry's name right there by santorum. gingrich has fallen 15 points since december 4th, downç to 1. what do you make of the numbers? >> sort of like the other poll earlier this week where mitt romney's on top, ron paul is second, santorum is third. but if you look at the margin of error and plus or minus 4.7, i think that says, they're all bunched up. this actually goes to the point that matt lewis is making which is we can't predict what's going to happen. i think we might be very surprised on january 3rd by who actually comes in first, who

actually comes in second, and who actually comes in third. and i haven't seen all of the numbers, but i'd be curious to see just how strongly held are the feelings for each of those candidates and how likely is it that these people will change their minds. >> that's a good point because mitt romney's support is incredibly soft. and anything could happen between now and then. he's running as mark said a very safe campaign, a very boring vanilla campaign. i think his support is sort of an inch deep and a mile wide or whatever that express is. it's soft, things could still change. and i think there's a lot, maybe not quite 50%, but a lot of people still undecided. so the truth here is that we don't know. >> i'll ask you a painful question, i know you're not a terrible fan of any of these candidates. is there one among them whose economic plan would better than the rest anyway help us get out from the hole we're in? or let's say better than the

president? >> you know, they've just been chasing each other to the right. so i think any of them if they're going to have any real shot at winning the presidency is going to have to be scrambling from the positions that they've come to in this primary race. because the republican primaries,ç of course, lead everybody to the extreme right. they're competing with each other how many federal departments they're going to close down. are we going to have a department of education? no way, department of labor, environmental regulations -- but the moderates are going to determine the election next november. and all of these candidates, any of them would have to scramble back to the center from where they are today. >> can they even get to the center, though? have they swung so far to the right that even if they do try to get to the center, they're still firmly wedged to the far right of the political -- in the political spectrum? >> you would think so in a way, of course, any of them can change positions and all of them have pretty frequently.

but it's -- it's amazing actually. i thought romney was being very careful to maintain a centrist position in his policies, but if you actually read his campaign documents at this point, he's really positioned himself quite far to the right in order to be competitive in these early races and on the republican side. it would be a long distance to travel just like you say back to the center. >> i didn't hear an endorsement. >> there's no endorsements there. >> no endorsements there. the nbc poll also finds 40% of likely voters saying ron paul would be an unacceptable republican nominee. 41%. 31% say the same of former house speaker newt gingrich. among tea party voters in iowa, rick santorum has a narrow lead over mitt romney and ron paul. he's got 20% support. newt gingrich down there at 16%, michele bachmann at 10%.

numbers, side thk mark haleprin in des moines, i've got to say for mitt romney to be essentially tied for the lead among tea party supporters has to look good for him. >> well, look, he's doing a lot of things simultaneously, a lot of things they're not bragging about that are very smart. one thing is, they are doing well with the tea party, romney's main message is about fiscal discipline and about the economy. that's the tea party's main message, but he has in his back pocket, the establishment. four years ago, four establishment candidates, romney, rudy giuliani, john mccain, fred thompson, those voters are all regular caucus attendees. not new people. romney has a virtual monopoly on that group right now. and those establishment voters coupled with as you suggested holding his own with the tea party, makes him formidable. no one is going after him. they're going after santorum, going after ron paul, going after gingrich.

there's very little negative tv, negative campaign rhetoric going after romney. i think they all assume if they can emerge as the alternative to romney, that gives them a chance. they may -- >> i think we lost haleprin there. we'll go back to him in a second there, jonathan. >> i was going to ask mark haleprin whether he thought mitt romney was perhaps being overconfident. he's changed his whole schedule. remember, he wasn't going to spend a whole lot of time in iowa. now he's on a bus tour, going to spend new year's eve in iowa. he's going to be there in the state on caucus night. he's going to be the next day doing media interviews. this is -- it could be a tricky thing he's doing.ç what if he doesn't win? >> i don't know he's overconfident, matt lewis, but he's probably looking at the polls, looking at internal numbers, at the way perhaps some of those tea party candidates could be fractured and split the vote among them. now he's going full bore into

iowa. >> it's a calculated risk, but if mitt romney wins iowa and new hampshire, it is a juggernaut. and then looks like he runs the table kind of thing. and frankly, i think if romney were to win iowa, then what you have to do if you're newt gingrich or rick perry -- by the way, the two guys i think still could potentially arrest nomination from mitt romney is you go to south carolina and make that the last stand, make that the fire wall. if romney were to roll through there, it's game over. >> matt, jeff sachs here. you said that romney's support was pretty thin. it seems that he's been quite consistent at roughly this 20% to 25% support. so he's had his base, he's kept it, and what seems to be the real determinant of this race is how divided all the rest of the field is. >> yeah.

absolutely. i mean, i think depending on how you look at this race, you could either praise or condemn romney. on one hand, he is winning. on the other hand, the -- if you look at it as sort of romney versus the anti-romneys, there are a lot more anti-romneys, and that's why this race is so hard to predict. let's say if a couple of people were ready to drop out afterç iowa, if it could be a mano e mano race, you can imagine they could coalesce around one of those guys. but mark haleprin's right, this is a turf battle. and michele bachmann hates rick perry more than mitt romney right now. so of you got this struggle to be the conservative. the other thing i would point out that i find interesting is mark was talking about the establishment. if you look at -- this is almost becoming a bush versus reagan thing here. no one's talking about it. but mitt romney has the backing

of george h.w. bush and dan quayle and the former chief of staff -- while newt gingrich has michael reagan and art laffer who was the architect of the reagan economic plan. that's what conservatives are starting to notice, as well. >> jeff sachs has the curve framed over his bed. >> the original. >> it's one of his favorites. also in the nbc poll, voters were asked who they think is the "true conservative" in the race. this is inside iowa. rick santorum and ron paul topped the list there. michele bachmann at 16%, rick perry at 11%, mitt romney getting only 7% support. newt gingrich at 6%. mark haleprin, before we lost your shot, front page of the "wall street journal" talks about iowa's evangelical rift is splitting some of the candidates we looked at there. and the "wall street journal" concludes that helps mitt romney. do you agree with that?

>> i do. you know, it helps him here, it also could help him in south carolina. the muddle;hpsjjtáu the conservatives -- rick perry still has support, michele bachmann does, gingrich does. the best thing for romney coming out of here is a win. the second best thing is a muddle among social conservatives so they all go to south carolina and that could allow him to win south carolina, win the first three and really put a lock on the nomination. the thing about romney spending more time in iowa, it's a couple things. one is he's going for the kill. if he wins here, he likely wins new hampshire, he effective lip ends it. the other thing, in both public and private polling, he's so far ahead in new hampshire that he doesn't need to be there. and there's nowhere else really for him to go. he's not going to leapfrog all the way to south carolina. he's doing what most candidates would do is spending most of his time here and he's well past the point where he can say he's not competing in iowa. if he finishes first, that's the best result for him. if he's in the top three with santorum and paul, the romney

people don't believe they can lose the nomination to either of those two guys and it'll embolden everyone to go on. it'll help him in florida if the candidates stay in. the more who stay in, the better it is, the lower percentage he needs to win a state. >> that's the question i was just about to ask you, mark. whether you thought it was beneficial to mitt romney to be in a crowdedau through south carolina when he has to, you know, deal with super conservatives, evangelicals in south carolina, and maybe even in florida. >> i don't see a result where the field just collapses and everybody gets out before south carolina because you've got too many candidates like newt gingrich who has talked about south carolina in the last few days,ç santorum spent a lot of time in south carolina. i think they'll all want to go to south carolina. and that's good for romney. as i say, the more of the candidates are in, the more they divide the vote that's not available to him. the nbc poll showing him not

being considered a conservative, that's still a problem for him now. as we move to -- if he consolidates support, the establishment may not want the most conservative. they may want the most electable, and that's someone more center right than far right. >> quickly around the table, our last show of 2011, let's make predictions for 2012, who comes out of iowa despite what matt lewis says the old william goldman line -- nobody knows nothing. we'll start with you, jonathan. who comes out? >> i know nothing, but maybe mitt romney does pull it out. it'd make for a great story. >> that's a bold prediction. >> romney's going to get the nomination whether he gets next week, we'll see. but he's going to get the nomination. >> matt lewis? >> i would not bet $10,000 on it, but you've got to go with the green bay packers and that's mitt romney in this instance. >> the american people. >> boo.

coming up -- >> if you're going to bet, bet on romney, but he could also finish fourth. >> you guys are the worst. >> exactly. coming up on "morning joe," we continue our look back at the best interviews of the year, our sit-down interview with former president bill clinton, also mitt romney and jimmy fallon. up next, the top stories in the political playbook. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> i'm the only one bold enough to make a prediction. >> who do you like? >> i likeç nice new year's eve forecast. >> oh, you're talking the election stuff, i'm that weather guy. i have no clue. we have mild temperatures finally yesterday morning, remember it was cold and very chilly out there? >> well, that has changed. now we're going into a warm weekend once again. that's nice. 40 degrees already in time square. little bit of snow activity in southern portions of minnesota, also madison to green bay. as far as friday's forecast, the southern half of the country looks just ideal.

70s from florida all the way through the gulf, south texas, the only problem spot if you're traveling pacific northwest, new year's eve, maybe a little bit of light rain to start your morning, but by the time we ring in the new year, anyone with late evening plans, much of the country looks fantastic. and new year's day as we go into sunday, the arctic air is arriving. the first shot of cold air will head for minneapolis and that should be over the northeastern section into southeast by the time we get to the beginning of january. i'll tell you what, this has been a fantastic winter so far if you don't like cold air and snow. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. let 's go to vegas. alright, let's do it. let's do it, let's go to vegas. vegas baby! maybe we should head back to the dealership first?

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welcome back to "morning joe." let's take a look at the morning papers. "wall street journal" wireless

giant verizon facing backlash after announcing a new $2 convenience fee for paying bills online. what's the convenience exactly? the move apparently aimed at reducing the number of late payments while saving the company on transaction costs associated with the one-time charge. the $2 fee takes effect on january 15th. "new york times," the obama administration has agreed to a $30 billion wes deal wiapons de saudi arabia. the obama white house also plans to go ahead with an $11 billion arms deal with iraq despite political tensions there. "new york times" also making the most ambitious move ever into space exploration, china announcing it has established a five-year program that hopes to rival nasa. the charlotte observer, basketball legend michael jordan is getting married. a spokeswoman for the six-time

nba champion says he's engaged to his long time girlfriend. the couple has homes in miami, north carolina, and wherever else they want them, jordan the majority owner of the charlotte bobcats. mr. mike allen has a look at the politico playbook. good morning. >> happy final friday of 2011. >> there it is, one more time in 2011. i couldn't get any bold predictions from this crew in the last segment, but i know you've got some for us in 2012. start us off with mitt romney. what are you looking at? >> yeah, you know, if you think how quickly things change, a year ago today nancy pelosi was speaker of the house, robert gibbs was the white house press secretary, so we're going to have a lot of changes coming up. one of the first big stories in 2012, one of the most talked about is going to be assuming mitt romney becomes the republican nominee, however long it takes, who will be his vice presidential pick?

a lot of people are looking at marco rubio in florida. he's definitely on the list. but i think the most likely to be chosen at the top of mitt romney's list is senator rob portman, republican of ohio, brings that important state, put it with michigan where mitt romney can be strong and you would really haveç president obama sweating there in the industrial midwest. >> what does portman -- what does he give him over marco rubio? >> it's a twofor, in addition to ohio, if he doesn't have florida, he's in trouble. ohio would be a tougher call. so rob portman might be more helpful there. also, it's a governing pick. he has experience on the hill, both in the house and the senate, in the white house as the budget director. and he would bring a lot of gravitas experience to this administration. couple others on the short list, the virginia governor, bob mcdonnell, he would be someone

if mitt romney's having trouble with the base, he definitely would please conservatives. someone else on the list, senator john cornyn of texas also would be sort of governing pick. someone with no negative information out there about it. >> mark haleprin, do you have any thoughts who he might pick? we've also heard the name of the governor suzansanna martinez. >> mitt romney is going to make a governing pick. he knows from history the first, second, and third obligation politically and substantively pick somebody ready for president, i think rob portman is head and shoulders among most other people. the press and public would look at him and say, yeah, that's responsible, somebody ready to be president. i think chris christie will also be considered. but i think this -- on this one, somebody's going to have to make a compelling case for me someone beside portman. it's not headed in that direction or should be headed in that directionç assuming he's e

nominee. coming up next, mitt romney's top political agenda. >> very quickly, president obama's going to signal if he's reelected, 2013, job one for him will be a grand bargain to reduce the deficit. something along the lines of the simpson/bowles recommendation further than president obama has gone in the past and republicans will tell you that if the president does this, he will be a heavy favorite that will take away one of their best issues will make the republican job much harder. >> dr. sachs, do you see the president going after something big in 2012 despite the fact it's an election year? >> well, he's been doing it all along, saying he'll be tough on entitlement, on cutting spending as long as there's some taxes in it. and he's been saying that not for the actual negotiations, but for the political positioning. so he's going to say it again. i don't think that is really making new ground.

it's basically the point that he wants to be one step toward the center of the republican candidate. the republican candidates have positioned themselves far to the right and he's going to be one step toward the center and he's going to carry a lot of ground. and so the real debate in my view will be if he has to defend his record, it's tougher. if he's looking forward, president obama's going to capture a lot more of where the american people really are in terms of the balance of policies versus the republican side which is quite far to the right. >> do i have time? what do you think of the idea of bob portman being a vice presidential pick forç romney given his experience as white house budget director? >> well, i think the -- i don't have a strong view of it except to say that the battleground will be in the midwest. and is the midwest surviving and starting to recover? or is this the high unemployment region that hasn't really seen relief? that's going to be the real battle for 2012.

>> mike allen with that look at the politico playbook. thanks so much, mike, happy new year, we'll see you in iowa. >> happy 2012. coming up, they rake in billions for their schools, so why aren't student athletes getting paid? joe nosera has a new take on big sports. part of our commitment with starbucks on education, here's a veteran art teacher at chicago's high school using art to expand her students' understanding of the world. >> i think it's important to engage the students and provide new opportunities for them that they aren't getting anywhere else in their lives. i do believe that art relates to your other aspects of your life that it helps with your problem solving, it helps you think through what the next steps might be.ozc

i try very hard to get them out to see real artwork and to go to the museum because they haven't been to an art museum before. i have no budget, and so that's difficult. if you're doing music or you're doing art, there doesn't seem to be the funding or the big push to do wellç to get those score up because i don't affect scores on that level. i hope that my students will take away an appreciation for art. i hope they begin to see art as something that's important that really is part of every day life.

12 of 14, 118 yards passing, in trouble here and -- doesn't go down! griffin inside the ten heisman touchdown! wow, robert griffin iii. >> that was heisman trophy winner robert griffin iii where his team put up 65 points in a win. here now columnist from the "new york times," contributor the "new york times" magazine joe nocera. his idea to bring more fairness to college sports.

he writes the new breed of reformers whose perspective i share believes the only way the major sports schools can achieve any integrity is to recognize that college football and men's basketball are big businesses. openly acknowledge their commercialization and pay the workforce. this is by now a moral imperative. joe, it's good to see you. >> nice to be here. >> not every time we lead in with a clip from a football ç game. >> although it is still at bottom a business story. the nfl -- excuse me, college football, and men's basketball make more money combined than the nba. >> that's right. and there's been a big movement, especially this year because taylor branch -- >> that's right. >> really just a takedown of college athletics and the hypocrisy you talk about. is it moving that way toward paying college athletes? >> in some ways it is, although the ncaa will resist this until their dying breath. but there is litigation going on and an increasing sense that all these stupid scandals that are

taking place -- i'm not talking about penn state and syracuse, which is a different class. i'm talking about the merchandising scandal at ohio state, paying players under the table at miami. there's a million scandals like that. until you start to pay the players, you will never get rid of it. the minute you start to pay the players, you'll end it. >> what is the case for paying players? we always hear about the purity of amateur athletics. and why turn it into the nfl that takes the love and joy out of the game. what is the truth? >> it is not pure. it is already completely commercialized. the players' scholarships that are supposed to be so valuable don't even cover the cost of attending college. and furthermore, the education they get for that scholarship is minimal, idiotic. players get cast aside the minute their athletic eligibility ends. the education is poor, the players feel completely ripped off, they go in the bookstore, they see jerseys with their names being sold on the back,

and they see the 100,000 people in the stadium. they know their job is to make money for the athletic department. that's their job. if they get injured just likeç pro, they can get cut. there's no four-year scholarship, it's a one year scholarship renewable at the discretion of the coach. >> the schools would tell you, at least in terms of quality of education they're getting, they get special treatment from tutors. >> they get special treatment from tutors. the tutors make sure they get a "d" plus to stay on the team. >> that's not the case with every college athlete -- >> but the case with way, way too many. one of my proposals is a six-year scholarship instead of a one-year scholarship so that after your athletic eligibility runs out you have time to graduate from college. >> how does the payment system work? because i think even a lot of people would agree, okay, once you open that pandora's box, where does it go? do you go out to recruits and say we can offer you more money?

>> yes, you do. >> so it comes to professional sport at that time. >> students get paid all the time, the kid in the photo lab gets paid. he loves photography, it's deeply meaningful, but he still gets paid. yes, my idea is that you would have a salary cap, $3 million salary cap of football, just take football. you reduce the number of scholarships from 85, which is absurd, to 60, which is more or less what the nfl does and basically say you have a minimum salary, which in my view is $25,000, which is not making anybody rich and then you say the star half back, one school thinks he's worth $40,000 and another thinks he's $60,000. and if you hire an adviser, you're considered a pro by the ncaa, it'sç an absurd system where nobody advocates for the players, nobody helps the players. the players are at the mercy of the system. >> does a 15-year-old running back in the state of florida, a

guy who is going to be a big star, a high school player, does he get an agent who starts shopping him around to different colleges and saying we want this? do they make demands? >> no, you have a salary cap. it's all about -- they have a salary cap. what would wind up happening is a star quarterback would make $70,000 or $80,000, you have a $3 million cap for 60 players. it's not like you're going to make them $1 million or anything like that. but they are -- you are acknowledging that they are on campus to make money for the athletic department in the school. you're acknowledging that openly and you're sort of saying we're not going to -- we're going to stop paying you money under the table, which happens, you know, all the time, and we're going to be honest about what the situation is. florida state thinks you're worth $50,000, miami thinks you're worth $60,000, but maybe you like the coach better, maybe you like the facilities better, maybe you'll take a little bit less money. but money becomes a factor in your decision. >> and another big question is,

where does the money come from? state schools, where they getting that money? >> not every school will be able to do this. and you will wind up with a system where a school that's struggling athletically has to make a hard decision. can i afford $3 million for my football players or not? if i can't, then i drop out of big-time college football. you'd probably wind up with 72 teams, six conferences of big-time schools and everybody else, football will go back to being what it ought to be, what it should be on a campus, which >> east ivy league, football, what do i know? but you know, it does seem that these two issues. one is if you put a cap on, you're still going to have all the under the table pressures and all the rest because a small cap but a very big market like you say means that there's still big business in there to exploit. so that's one thing i worry about is where this -- what --

whether that's going to solve things, where the money's going to come from, and -- >> what about -- >> matt brown makes $6 million a year, you can pay the entire salary cap by having a $3 million coach instead of a $6 million coach. they would find the money if they had to. baseball found the money. >> there are only a handful of schools that can afford that money. it feels like it's going this way. it's a fascinatie ining piece i times. a miracle cure for college sports. >> thanks for having me. >> that appears in the "new york times" sunday magazine, by the way. joe and mika sit down with bill clinton who offer ideas on how to put america back to work. more "morning joe" when we come back. this new at&t 4g lte is fast.

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in october, just a couple of months ago, former president bill clinton gave us his insight on how to use the government to build a strong economy. here's the 42nd president in our "morning joe" rewind. >> you've written a book which is what america's been talking about for the past several years and they wonder why more washington politicians aren't talking about how to get america back to work. how do we do it? >> well, first of all, i think it is the issue. and the argument of the book is that what happened to usç with the financial and mortgage meltdown typically takes between five and ten years to get over. so we can't expect a silver bullet, but we can beat the odds. if we, number one, have an immediate boost, i personally like the payroll tax cut for employers and employees. and i think they have a higher return. then the most important thing we can do if you want to get back

to full employment economy is get corporations to invest more money here and unleash bank lending again, that requires fixing the home mortgage crisis and reforming the corporate tax laws. >> are the banks too big? >> i don't know. >> too big to fail has gotten bigger since -- >> i don't know, but one of the things that bothers me is that they're not making small business loans the way they used to, even -- a conservative republican place did a survey that said 40% of small businesses would hire more people if they could get bank loans. and the problem is, with interest rates so low, by the time a bank does the due diligence on a loan and then you have to make the loan at a low interest rate, they kind of -- apparently a lot of people think they're better off sitting on the money. >> how would you characterize not only occupy wall street, but the people taking their money out of big banks and putting

them into small banks because they don't -- >> that's a good thing, i think. >> i think it is too. >> i think when people put their money in banks that promise to loan it back to them to start businesses, in the economy, that's a good thing. >> now republicans are blaming barack obama for the bad economy.ç over bush's eight years, everything that went wrong was bush's fault. you had your eight years. you can go all the way back. but there are long-term trends that you understand. 1973, jeffrey sachs was here and showed a chart that said the average median wage for men in america has been dropping since 1973. 1978, china goes global, that changes everything. we've got the problem of productivity, the problem of productivity that we're actually more productive today than we were before the recession started, and yet we've got 14 million less jobs. unions continue to shrink in the

private sector, how do we rebuild this middle class? >> well, first of all, there are long-term trends. if we had never passed a single trade agreement, other countries looked at us and said, hey, if we educate people, if we train people, if we put capital together and invest it in manufacturing and agriculture, we'll be able to do this. so basically starting in the mid '70s, other countries began to rise in their competitiveness, then we built a global financial system before we had really a global economic system, much less any kind of plans in place everywhere in the world for what to do with the displaced. and so what we have to recognize is that we're in an atmosphere of constant change. nobody can change it. nobody can change the fact we're subject to more competition. so we have to set up a system that keeps pushing us in the future, pushing us in the ç future. the increased productivity is

good. but what it means is if you keep the same manufacturing output in any country, you're going to lose the odds every year. it's the single most productive aspect of the economy. that is, every year fewer people can produce what more people produced the year before. you have to ask yourself what can we do this year? what can we do next year? and the argument i make in the book is that i think that i get why conflict's good politics. i enjoy a good argument as much as the next person. but what is working in america and around the world are cooperative arrangements between the private sector and government. that's what makes silicon valley work, that's what makes the human genome center in san diego work. that's what makes all of those simulation companies in orlando work. it's all this cooperation. and we need to just kind of recalibrate how we're going to think about this. >> so one of the arguments the

republicans are beginning to make as we're a year out now from the election is that president obama got what he wanted. everything he wanted almost and here's where it got us. and mitch mcconnell has said it a few times and yet you've been quoted as saying obama has done a better job than he's credited with. >> absolutely. much better. >> what's being misconstrued or misunderstood? >> well, first of all, he didn't necessarily get everything he wanted. secondly, when he passed the stimulus bill, he was acting on the basis of the government data then available.ç a year after the stimulus bill passed, the final figures came out on the depths of the recession, which were the recession actually bottomed out six months after he became president. and it turns out that the gdp of america sluhrunk not 4.3% but

7.8%. i say the stimulus bill helped the recession, put a floor under the recession but couldn't lift us out of it. $800 billion stimulus can't get you out of a $7 trillion hole. i think that also we've all suffered -- i mean, i had to go back and study all this when it happened. i was trying to get a handle on it. we've all suffered from the experience of america through the last three or four recessions that we got over it in a year, six months, whatever. if you look at historically, you can go back hundreds of years, these financial collapses take five to ten years to get over. and if there's a housing collapse with the financial collapse puts it toward ten years. the japanese were in their slow down period ten years. now they could weather it because they had a 20% personal savings rate and the government spent that money modernizing

infrastructure. but they couldn't get out of it until they flushed their real estate debt, which is why i argue in the book, we should put the pedal to the metal and push through the housing debt. >> so we talked a couple of years ago and i asked you a question at the endç about whether guys like you should be able to run again. because i will guarantee you, we will get back to the office and we'll be flooded we mails and responses on twitter, people will say, why can't this guy run for president in 2012? and, of course, you can't because republicans didn't want there to be another fdr back in the 1940s. shouldn't it, though, shouldn't a president be able to serve two terms, take some time off, and then run again? shouldn't americans have that choice? >> yes, i do. i believe that should be the rule. and i think the -- as a practical matter, you couldn't

apply it to anyone who has already served. but if going forward, i personally believe that should be the rule. because look at president reagan. he was 70 years old when he became president, john mccain was older than that when he ran for president and clearly had all his capacity. people are living longer, they're developing greater capacity. so i've always thought that should be the rule, not to affect me orb anyone who served, but going forward. >> former president bill clinton on "morning joe" a couple of months ago. on monday, "morning joe" heads to iowa to cover the republican caucuses there. we'll be live from java joes in des moines, way too early and "morning joe" monday, tuesday, and wednesday of next year, next week i should say, and next year. capital one's new cash rewards card gives you a 50 percent annual bonus. so you earn 50 percent more cash. if you're not satisfied with 50% more cash, send it back! i'll be right here, waiting for it.

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is it hard running for the president? >> thank you. and that's a darn good question. and the answer is yes and no. sounds like a politician, i apologize. the answer is it's -- it's hard in terms of getting up early in the morning, sleeping in a strange bed almost every night, one hotel after the other. we were in the hampton inn last night, i don't know where we are tonight. i better not tell you or i'll be there getting signatures.

>> yes and no, he says. don't flip-flop on whether or not it's hard to run for president. joe klein joins us, just back from iowa. we'll get his take on the republican race. more "morning joe" when we come back. [ child ] it's so cool! you can put a force field on him and be invisible! [ child 2 ] i call first player. no. i already called it. [ dad ] nobody's playing anything until after we get our homework done. thank you. hello? test drive's not over yet. [ male announcer ] it's practically yours. [ louder ] hello? but we still need your signature. right now during sign then drive, it's never been easier to get the all-new passat, the 2012 motor trend car of the year, for practically just your signature. that's the power of german engineering. visit vwdealer.com. that's the power of german engineering. what is it about taking a first step that we find so compelling? is it because taking a step represents hope? or triumph? at genworth, we believe in taking small steps every day to keep your promises, protect what matters, and prepare for a secure financial future.

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this is not an election just to change presidents, it's an election to save the soul of america. i spent my life in the private sector, i spent my life in business. i've only spent four years in government. i didn't inhale.

i'm still a business guy. i'm a business guy, and a father and a husband and a grandfather first. i love america. i know what it takes to get us strong again. i watched the president, he says, well, it could have been worse. that goes down there with let them eat cake. üsrát romney in iowa %já yesterday. it's 7:00 in the morning here in new york city. i'm willie geist. joe and mika, one more day off before we dig in and meet you in iowa on monday. jonathan capehart, and matt lewis still here, joining us in new york, "time" magazine's joe klein. >> hey, willie. >> you've done an awful lot of these. you don't have to say how many. >> i will say how many. i've done ten of these. >> ten iowas. >> yeah. someone shoot me. there are no 12-step programs for political junkiejunkies.

>> i was fascinated to hear you say this is weird. >> well, there have been other weird ones, the first one in '76 was really weird because none of the above won. >> right. and i interviewed a none of the above supporter who said this year we're going all the way. and jimmy carter because he finished second claimed victory. and you know, this is kind of like 1988 because we're going into the last three days now and almost anybody can win. they had this hilarious poll yesterday, insider advantage had the top three. romney, paul, gingrich at 17%, and the bottom three, four or five points below. so who knows? >> well, even if you look -- we've got an nbc poll that came out about an hour ago, nbc marist poll showing mitt romney, ron paul bunched at the top there, but then you've got the santorum, perry, and gingrich

falling 15 points off a couple of weeks ago.ç but to your point, there are five people sitting there who we could wake up on wednesday morning and see won the caucuses. >> and now it's become, the real interest here is it's become a race for third place. because you kind of figure that, you know, paul may be undervalued a bit in these polls because he's bringing new people into -- into the caucuses the way obama did four years ago. romney is going to be up there and romney's going to continue on and looks like he'll win new hampshire, at least he's way ahead there. so those two guys will be in it. you know, down the road. the question is, how many of the others are going to stay in? who's going to finish third? you know, is it going to be the end of newt gingrich if he finishes fifth? you figure that michele bachmann has to leave the stage because she's got a day job. she's got to start running for congress again since she's obviously not going to win this. rick perry has a day job being governor of texas, kind of a job although not much -- >> come on.

>> it's a weak governorship, they don't do all that much, it's mostly the legislature, which doesn't show up either, which is why they have the highest rate of children in the country who don't have health insurance. by the way, i heard perry who is hilarious, say that was the health care delivery system they chose in texas not to insure children. he also -- he's the master of -- he was talking about our sacrificial young people in iraq and afghanistan in the military. >> yeah. >> i mean -- >> that's beyond maliproppism at that point. we were talking habit this poll showing ron paul would be an unacceptable republican nominee, 41% of likely voters say he's unacceptable, 35% say the same about newt gingrich, 21% about mitt romney. what do you read intohose numbers, matt? >> well, i mean a couple of

things. first of all, it's really weird that in iowa, the conservatives who are performing best are the conservatives who really couldn't potentially rest the nomination from mitt romney. and so it's a perfect storm for romney. i mean, look, if rick santorum or ron paul win iowa, that's like -- they become the washington generals to mitt romney's harlem globe trotter. he wants rick santorum as a foil, a foe, or ron paul -- with ron paul stating the obvious. he does have passion and supporters, but his foreign policy views are far outside the mainstream of the modern conservative movement. the notion that you would allow iran to go nuclear, and that it might actually be a good thing, i think strikes most conservatives as absurd. and i think frankly once voters know more about -- republicans know more about ron paul and rick santorum they would do bad. the problem is, that they're surging late and so republicans don't know as much bad stuff

about santorum and ron paul as they do about newt and perry. >> you know, i'm actually -- that was the one poll stat that actually made me very happy because i've been writing a lot about how unacceptable ron paul is just in american politics given the newsletters and how unacceptable newt gingrich is given some of the things he's said about the president, ç anti-kenyan, anti-colonialist view, the line of argument against the president. so this gives me -- this gives me hope for the gop field and hope for the republican party because i wanted to ask you if i could, being in iowa, what's been the reaction to ron paul? especially after this -- these newsletter -- the newsletter story broke? >> there's been no discernible reaction to the news letters. the crowds are as big as they were. and the interesting thing about ron paul is that he doesn't shy away from his controversial stance. the guy's actually developed a

stump speech. he starts off with a long section about foreign policy, about the things that republicans are least likely to support in his platform. and then he does another long section about civil liberties, you know, about the patriot act which he opposes. and so you've got to give the guy credit for the courage of his convictions. and by the way, you know, i don't -- the reality is that we're probably not going to be able to stop iran from getting a bomb the way, you know, if that's what they choose to do. and the way we're going to rackreact to it is the same way we react to the soviet union. the iranians took 1 million casualties in the war with iraq in the 1980s. i've spent time there. and that is one of the most -- the foremost facts of life in iran. those guys don't want to go to war again. if they got a bomb, it would just be to deter israel and pakistan. >> jeffrey sachs, we heard rick

santorum on this show and asked him what he would do as presidentç with these threats. he was very clear, we can't let iran get a nuclear we. now, what that means exactly, how far he would go to stop it is unclear. but clearly -- >> unclear to everybody. and unclear to santorum. >> right. >> what he would do exactly, or say if israel went and pulled off a strike against israeli and nuclear sites. what this president or a republican president might do. >> i don't think anyone can say right now and anyone would say. but i wanted to back to joe and these news letters, the ron paul newsletters. did it have any reaction at all? did it play? it is a little bit shocking, and a little bit revealing about the history and the roots of this particular political direction. >> well, here's one of the reasons why this is -- this situation is so weird. because the republicans live in a sealed alternate universe.

and when we in the mainstream media come up with facts like the newsletters or facts like, you know, herman cain's affairs or his lack of knowledge about foreign policy, that almost works to the advantage of the candidate being accused. oícrowds. >> yeah, rush limbaugh has been making a living off of this all year. >> as a conservative, i would strongly disagree with that. i think in the case of the newsletter, it's had the opposite. those are not anywhere close to mainstream conservative positions, and i think that it has hurt him. the problem is, that in iowa, a lot of folks, frankly, i think don't know about the newsletters yet. but thatç is not something tha conservatives would in any way rally to ron paul's defense over. i think he may not have known about them. he might have been guilty of incompetence, but they are certainly not helping him in a

backlash against the media. >> i would disagree with that. when you go out to iowa, you see that the people who go to these meetings and the people who vote in these caucuses are even more damaged political junkies than i am. they watch this stuff very, very closely. i would be shocked if -- >> joe, you honestly believe that mainstream conservatives in iowa think it's a good thing that he wrote -- or as o wrote things in a newsletter? >> no, i'm saying there's probably 75% of the public who opposes ron paul for a variety of reasons, but to the 20% or 25% supporting him, which is quite a lot in a field like this, they don't care. >> i think a lot of them like his position on foreign policy even though it's not a mainstream conservative position. the fact that he opposes, you

know, foreign intervention, foreign wars, i think that has actually been helpful for the debate. i like having ron paul on these debates. >> we're going to move off iowa for a second. dr. sachs, you flagged something on the front page of "new york times." the debate over tax reform goes on and continues to frame this national conversation over debt reduction. not even the times could lend fuel to the argument that an overhaul of the tax codeç is needed badly. the "times" is reporting that the corporations that gave stock options are now benefitting in the form of major tax savings as the stock market rebounds. an obscure provision in the tax law allows companies to claim a tax deduction in future years that is much larger than the value of the stock options when they were granted. this tax break takes away tens of billions of dollars in revenue from the federal government over the next decade and is an example of how they

pay less than the rest of the tax rate. >> i think it's fascinating, front page of the times is the windfall for the ceos. they're going to get tens of millions of dollars of salaries, compensation again out of these stock options. and then on the front page of the business section is that a factory wages are in decline. this is this 1% 99% phenomenon we've heard so much about and people are so unhappy about in the united states. we have the ceos earning unbelievable amounts 500 times, 1,000 times what their workers are earning, unlike in any other part of the world. and we have a law which says that companies normally can't deduct out of their costs compensation of more than $1 million. and that was because our system doesn't control ceo salaries. the ceos pick the committees

that give them the compensation. that's how the game is rigged. so we have a rule that says you can't pay more than $1 million, except if you do it through some kind ofç performance pay, and that's what led to this stock options boom. which is itself a massive gimmick, and it's been the way that the ceos have been paying themselves because they appoint the committees that grant them the compensation $10 million, $20 million, $30 million a year often, again, unlike any other part of the world. and what the story today in the "new york times" is saying is that the tax code is essentially underwriting this because it lets the companies deduct fully, not just the $1 million ceiling, but anything that is paid under these stock option rules. even though these stock options are not really performance-related pay. the point of the story is that they got the options at the depths of the stock market crash

in the financial crisis, millions and millions of shares of stock options and now they're reaping these huge windfalls as ceos. and the irs will let the companies deduct fully the total amount of compensation. on the other side, we have wages in decline because of international competition, because factory workers don't get any of those breaks because the whole tax system is rigged for the top this is this unbelievable gap we've created in this country of inequality. we need tax reform, but the kind of tax reform our political system is likely to produce is more gimmickry rather than less, and that's why the whole occupy movement took place in the united states this past year really because of whatç "the times" is reporting today. massive increases at the top and pay compression at the bottom. >> how prevalent is this theme

when you go out and travel as much as you do across the country? this idea of income inequality? is this on the top of people's minds? >> no, it's not. people are very concerned about their own futures -- >> right. >> but they don't begrudge the wealthy their wealth. and i don't think it's -- historically it has not with very few exceptions that the not been a profitable line of argument for liberals. you know, i think there is -- tax reform is coming down the pike and it is going to be, you know, it's going to be fewer loopholes, fewer -- and lower, flatter rates, although still progressive rates. i think that the president is in favor of that. i think that most republicans are in favor of that. of course, because of the politics of the moment, they're not going to say that or agree on it, but i think it's coming in that way. the one place where there's real controversy is the area of

taxing capital gains and investment money and interest and things like that. there are two distinct point of views about this. and, you know, jeff's point is the warren buffett point. you know when he talks about paying a lower rate of tax than his secretary does. but on the other side, republicans can argue that lower capital gains taxes do provide a boost to the economy and in the past have for the first year, at least, çincreased revenues. >> but, joe, i think the american people quite overwhe overwhelmingly want higher taxes on the rich. >> yeah, they do. >> and that's an important point and a political point and it's fueled by the kind of things we're seeing here. >> and we'll see if we have a system capable of changing that. >> whether politics delivers. a look back at some of our most memorable interviews of 2011. the "morning joe" rewind with mitt romney and also sit-down

with late night host jimmy fallon. up next, though, chuck todd joins us with the final push to tuesday's caucuses. hey, bill. >> hey, good morning, willie. we're wrapping up this year like we've been all this winter, warm and wet. we've got rain this morning in chicago, rain moved through indianapolis heading for northern indiana and ohio, also rain around the quad cities. we've also got a very large storm bringing a lot of wet weather to the pacific northwest. if you're traveling today, not going to see too much ice and snow, temperatures very warm, 50s as far north as new york city. denver, 56 degrees, looks like as we ring in the new year, dry conditions out there, mild temperatures. the first surge of arctic air comes down on new year's day northern plains. and this is a typical cold surge. going to feel very cold. it's been so warm this winter. and that will head for the entire eastern u.s. as we go through monday, tuesday, and wednesday. only going to be around for

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simple question, which candidate gives us the best chance of defeating barack obama? the answer, rick santorum. rick santorum has more foreign policy credentials than any of the candidates. >> all right. do you want to disagree with him on that last point?ç >> well, i'd have to draw the spirit of pat buchanan in saying this, wolf, but i'm not sure the time spent in an international house of pancakes necessarily qualifies for foreign policy experience. >> joe klein, i've heard that line before. pat buchanan, patrick j. buchanan. with us now from des moines, iowa, political director, host of the "daily rundown" on msnbc,

chuck todd, live this morning at java joes. chuck, you've got those polls hot off the presses. >> i do. >> let's -- i'm going to walk you through and you can guide us a little bit. >> okay. >> likely iowa voters, the field, the snapshot at this moment, mitt romney and ron paul tied for the lead, what do you see? >> reporter: well, look, let's just highlight santorum and gingrich here. there's a chance that we could be catching these numbers sort of where you're watching them move, they're still moving and santorum could still be moving up and gingrich could still be moving down. when you look at how dramatic both movements are, you see and there are other numbers to back this up on santorum versus gingrich. it is easy to picture how gingrich could end up in single digits come tuesday night and how santorum could be

for first or second come tuesday night. that's the type of trajectory the two of them are on right now. with sort of we know where romney and paul is, perry's the unknown factor. he's got a more solid level of support than he gets credit for. the question is, how much can he grow? you'd certainly rather have santorum's trajectory right çn, but he doesn't have the organization, for instance, that perry does. >> joe klein, are we talking enough about perry? he's spending an awful lot of money in iowa. >> there are two interesting things about perry. that he is coming up a little bit because he is spending an awful lot of money. you cannot listen to the radio as you drive through the corn fields as i do and chuck does without hearing perry adds all the time. and they're pretty good. the other thing is that perry's strength limits santorum's ceiling. and it limits the possibility of the harmonic convergence of evangelicals everybody's waiting

for. there are gingrich voters that are moving toward santorum. there are bachmann voters moving toward santorum. i think for santorum to really pull a surprise here you'd have to have some of the perry voters moving toward him, as well. >> that's right. >> you flagged one of the polls we were looking at, the unacceptable numbers. really high for ron paul, 41%, who would be unacceptable as the republican nominee for president, ron paul with 41%, gingrich 35%, mitt romney down at 21%. >> i think that tells you everything. look, paul's number has always been that way in this. he has a ceiling, i think it's a ceiling that's hardening, and when you talk to the other candidates. it's interesting on the attacks on ron paul. you're hearing all of these foreign policy attacks on paul by the other candidates and you think, why are you doing it? because the people with paul, the number one thing they mentioned to me yesterday, i was with them yesterday at a couple of events, is his ç

noninterventionist foreign policy positions. that's what they like about him. your not going to peel anybody away from paul, but the other candidates were worried about paul growing as the change candidate the movement candidate the guy that would somehow get some of that vote that herman cain was getting. the one that was going to rock up and shake up washington. and i think they've successfully done that. i think the other candidates have successfully capped ron paul at this point. but it's the gingrich number. look at that. i look at where gingrich is going, again, and it would be an unbelievable fall. you know, it's been an believable rise and fall less than a month period. but it wouldn't shock me if gingrich ends up in single digits. there were a lot of undecided folks there even after he spoke. >> and that unacceptable number

is up 19 points over the last couple of weeks. >> negative ads work, by the way, they work. >> i'd really be curious to see the iowa public ask a month ago how many -- how many of you knew that gingrich took $1.6 million from freddie mac and now how many of you know? i would say that 90% of the people in iowa now know he took that money. >> yeah, that's clearly unhelpful. the tea party support. santorum on top with 20%. you might expect that. mitt romney, though, within the margin of error at 17% among tea party support in the state of iowa. >> actually, lookç at it. everybody -- >> yeah. >> the floor is ten, the ceiling is 20. you want to explain -- if this is what happens tuesday night, if this is the jumbled mess that is half of the more conservative part of the iowa electorate and mitt romney's the winner, this will be the most important poll

number to explain, well, why did mitt romney win? this is why if mitt romney wins, this is why he won because there is no conservative alternative. they did not coalesce. when at four years ago, 25% was a losing number for mitt romney. 25% could be a winning number four years later here in iowa. >> yeah, and you look at that number, that's great news. matt's not with us. that's unfortunate. but there's no huckabee candidate this time around. >> i'd like to just take a moment to talk about the person at the bottom of that list. michele bachmann, the leader of the tea party caucus in the house of representatives is at the bottom there, with only 10% support. i mean sometimes this can be a very, very cruel profession. and bachmann is ending this campaign in humiliation. her campaign co-chair jumped ship in the last few days before

the election. the results like this for her, i almost feel sorry for michele. >> i can see that. you feel terrible. >> she's actually a very nice person. >> she's very nice. and we're going to talk to her on tuesday at java joes. another one, chuck, you pointed number. commitment to the candidate rick santorum leads that 59%. how committed are you to your candidate? ron paul, 54%, perry, 52%, and romney, 51%. >> the rules are different between the democrats and republicans, there isn't a threshold you have to meet at each one, but you have to show up in a small window in the evening on tuesday evening. this isn't a primary where you vote all day. that's why the intensity of support number matters to me and looking at where this is going. santorum and paul, those folks are coming and perry even higher

a little bit than romney and romney's support here is soft. in this respect. they like him, they call him acceptable to be the nominee, but you're not finding anybody that's in love with mitt romney. for instance, i interviewed a guy yesterday at a paul rally that said he drove four hours from minneapolis because he said i love ron paul and i want to meet him before i die. and there isn't that kind of -- you don't find that person at a romney rally. there's just not the same level of intensity, and one other number we didn't put up there, but again, it's the other piece of evidence of why i say, boy, we may be capturing gingrich in the middle of his fall. gingrich is under 50% in intensity. and i'll tell you, you can tell it is at his own rallies. people are saying, yeah, i like him, but boy, that virginia thing, he doesn't have his stuff together, does he? >> yeah. >> that's another warning. there's a lot of flashing red

signs on newt gingrich inç thi poll. >> before we let you go, chuck, destill these numbers down and i'll ask you to make a prediction for tuesday night. who do you like? >> well, i will say this, it is easier to see how santorum and policy get quicker to paul and romney than anybody else in this field. it's hard to see paul's number moving all that much. i think romney's is a malleable number, pliable number, it could go anywhere from 20% to 25%. santorum probably has the most room to grow and so does perry after him. >> all right. chuck todd, we'll be watching you right after we're down here 9:00 eastern. >> that was called a dodge. >> everybody's dodging this morning. chuck, we'll see you this morning at 9:00. coming up, senator scott brown unloads on the media in massachusetts. why he says his challenger is getting a free pass. we'll be right back. progresso. it fits!

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welcome back to "morning joe," 7:35 in the morning. in the state of massachusetts, senator scott brown voicing a

little frustration with the media when it comes to his ciallenger eliz. in a new interview with the boston herald, he gripes with what he considers unfair treatment. >> it would help if you guys would ask her some tough questions too. you know -- >> sure. >> ask her about how she would vote on things and why and -- >> right. >> because, you know, there's -- >> i think we do and then i think she usually doesn't answer. >> give me a break. >> well, that's just it. do you think the media's been treating her with kid gloves a little bit? >> well, i just think if you're going to find out where people stand, you've got to ask them tough questions like you guys ask me every single day. >> the state poll shows warren with a seven-point lead over the incumbent republican. interesting to watch this, joe. scott brown taking kind of an underdog role against elizabeth warren. >> i don't know that line of attack really works. the thing about elizabeth warren, she's a great candidate. this is a woman who can explain really complicated economic and

financial issues using plain english. and that is a skill that the president should've utilized to greater effect. she's going to get pinned down sooner or later on issues, but massachusetts is a little state. >> she's tough. you know, and she's got a lot of credibility because she called a m$' before they happened. m$' when they did happen, she was there to say what to do. and so she's a very, very strong national figure. not only a powerful candidate in massachusetts, but a very, very important national figure. >> and on top of that, i think it's really lame when a candidate blames the media for the success of his or her opponent. come on, scott çbrown, you're e sitting senator. you have positions, you have ideas, you have a platform to stand on, so why not push it out there? it's not like the media's not going to cover him. so give the media something to cover. stop blaming us for what you think we're not doing. >> there's a long way to go.

the heat will be turned up on her no question. >> she's probably the best new democratic candidate of this cycle. >> that's right. joe klein, thanks so much. we'll see you back in iowa. you're home for a couple of days heading back. coming up next, the "morning joe" rewind with jimmy fallon. he breaks down some of the things he's most thankful for. >> let's let jimmy do it. >> let's see -- >> we've got to get the music. >> got the music, guys? >> thank you, microbreweries for making my alcoholism seem like a neat hobby. >> the full interview with fallon straight ahead.

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in this "morning joe" rewind, late night host jimmy fallon got up awfully early for us to talk about his book,

"thank you note" and about the success of his show. >> sometimes late night shows with very funny people don't work. >> yeah. >> we were afraid you were going to suck. >> i know. >> but you, really -- about three, four, five months in, man, you hit your stride. numbers higher than conan's ever were. what's happened other than just you being an all around great guy. how does it work? >> i think what happens is i just got comfortable and just calmed down a bit. you know, i think i was a little too nervous when i first started. i was worried about time and i was freaking out flop sweating. >> kind of a nervous situation. >> well, you don't know how to do the job until you do it. there's no real advice to give somebody. how do you talk to people? you have to start talking to people. i was interviewing my wife. i was having my wife to the right of me forç the first thr months before the show and i'm like, so, honey, how's your dinner? interviewing her, everyone sits to the right of me. i think the more you do it, you calm down a bit and it's about having fun and making people

laugh. >> still flop sweating? >> just the armpits. i get botox in the face. >> right up here? >> yeah, no, i mean i calmed down and then i think also -- when you first started, you were one of my first guests, joe. it's hard to book the show when you first have the show because everyone thinks you're going to flop. and publicists think i don't want my client near that flop. >> let's get people who -- scarborough. >> back up. >> it seems to me also you look at all of the people who have failed in a very public way. you're out there when it is the jimmy fallon show. >> that's all you hanging out there all alone. >> no safety net. >> how long did it take you to say, okay, this is my show, you know, the ghost of david letterman's not chasing me or conan, this is my show, i'm going to do it my way and i'm going to have fun? >> probably after i didn't get any phone calls from letterman or conan. i was like, okay, i'm here by

myself. sink or swim. >> nice guys, huh? >> i'm going to do well or i'm not going to do well. the only people going to get hurt is me. we are good people around us. we just started -- when you have your show, you get to hire people like producers and writers and we built a great team of fun people. i figured if the show's going to fail, i'm going to fail with fun people. >> willie, and let me just say, willie, heç dedicates this boo to people. this book is dedicated to the writers of late night with jimmy fallon. we've always said it starts and ends with writers. it wouldn't be possible without you and my flawless delivery. >> yeah. >> read that one out loud. i've got a couple of good ones. >> this book is great because if you're in a bad mood, pick it up, open it up to any page. thank you, customer service guy in india who calls himself todd

thinking that will trick me into thinking he's actually in omaha and not in new delhi, nice try, todd. yeah, i'll hold. >> the weather is beautiful here in oklahoma. it is just gorgeous today. wishing you were here, my name is todd. have you tried unplugging it, waiting ten seconds and plugging it back in? thank you so much. you're a genius. i didn't think about that one. >> how about this one? thank you lifetime achievement awards for being a nice way of saying we think you're about to die. >> yeah, good-bye. you're probably going to die in five years. >> let's let jimmy do it. >> okay. >> do you have a pen? >> get into position. okay. >> thank you note music. going now. that's the weather guy? >> no. we killed him. >> thank you, microbreweries for making my alcoholism seem like a neat hobby.

pumpkin ale. >> that's a good one. hits close to home, doesn't çi? >> thank you, yes, i agree to the terms and conditions box in order to install software, you know full and well i didn't read the terms and conditions, for all i know i agreed to become the new face of herpes, but i'm still going to click you. the last one here. thank you, dad, for discovering text messaging. i really like that text you sent with the smiley face, but not as much as the 27 blank text messages you sent right after. thanks so much. appreciate it. certain people shouldn't -- >> they shouldn't do it. >> my parents have cell phones and they keep them off. >> my parents tried skype. you ever try to do that? they were looking at -- they were looking at a camera that wasn't -- is this camera three?

they were freaking out. is this on? can you hear us? they were looking in the corner. there's no camera in the corner of the guest room. my mom was bending aluminum foil trying to get reception. it was like what are you guys -- this is awful. i couldn't get it off fast enough. my parents have lost their minds. >> they shouldn't even try it. >> they shouldn't. >> a lot of people love you on "snl," the sketch stuff. were you thinking, i need to do a talk show? it seems to me now you've done more of the sketch stuff and the big numbers and the things that made you famous. >> i don't want to be too hammyç i don't have to worry about me getting air time. i think i read all of these books when i was starting out and one was jack benny had a book and he said i do the show

and i'm not funny at all on the show. but other people come on and they're really funny and rochester's funny. the next day people go to work and say did you see him last night? he was so funny. he goes, i wasn't funny, rochester was funny, but i get credit for it. it just happens. it's like, oh, that was a good thing to know going in. i want to set people up. >> set up a dynamic. you dunk it, you get the poster review crushing it off the dunk, i don't get a poster of me throwing an alley-oop, but either way, i win. >> there's certain late night comics that don't understand that that get in the way of their guests. but the gold standard, johnny carson, he wasn't a great joke teller. he was funniest when his jokes bombed and looked at the camera. but carson night after night stayed out of the way and yet everybody worships johnny carson. >> and think about that. right now we do -- what do we do? an hour show? i'm trying to think -- i think we do an hour and a half -- no, an hour show, but johnny carson did an hour and a half every

night. so by -- do we -- when you see the ed ames throw, remember when they threw between the cowboys? you see eddie ames go to pull it out, and he grabs it, oh, no, we're going to milk this one. he's like, please, stand back, the crowd's going nuts, i didn't know you were jewish. >> oh, my goodness. >> that was his line. so quick, he's brilliant. >> how long didç it take you o did it take you very long at all to allow yourself to allow others to be funny? you know to, hey, he's on a roll, i'm going to let him go. >> when you have the first comedian on or something like that, i think artie lang took over and was funny. any time you have a comedian on or someone who is comfortable, you know, with themselves and they have a good story and they just take over and the crowd's going nuts and you sit back and

go thank you. >> the great jimmy fallon with us on "morning joe" earlier this year. ahead this morning, i will break down the best and worst of 2011 in our year-end review. plus, jonathan capehart takes us through the day in sports. a well known professional athlete lays down a $1 million bet against tim tebow and the broncos and wins. so who put up seven figures against the chosen quarterback? jonathan capehart will tell us when "morning joe" returns. oh it's clearance time!

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boy this is going to be good. jonathan capehart was in 1979 one of the founders of çespn. it was chris burrman, bob lee, and jonathan capehart. so now we'll take you back to your roots as a sports guy and let you walk us through the night in sports. >> you know what? last night an insane alamo featuring baylor and robert griffin iii taking on washington. get this. in the first griffin showing why he won the heisman somehow slips the sack, breaks free, and takes open -- oops -- takes off from the open field and across the goal line, a 24-yard run.

baylor up by 14. but rg iii isn't the only quarterback who can run. check out washington's keith price. he steps up. finds some space. puts a nice fake on the defender and runs it 15 yards with a diving touchdown. >> nice. >> washington would jump out to an 18-point lead in the third quarter but baylor would make a furious comeback on the legs of terrence beganway in the third. ganway found a hole and burns the defenders. he runs for 200 yards and five touchdowns. baylor beats washington, 67-56. >> wow. >> both teams combine for nearly 1400 total yards. 17 touchdowns. 123 points. it is the highest scoring regulation bowl game in history. >> you've seen a lot of bowl games. >> i have. the uniforms are fabulous. to the nba an incredible finish to last night's mavericks/thunders game. nowitzki draws the defenders and kicks it out to vince carter who

drains the three-pointer to take the lead with only 1.4 seconds left on the clock. kevin durant, your move. >>ç will throw in. kevin durant! he has won at the buzzer. >> oh, yeah. durant hits it before the clock expires. thunder win, 104-102. >> wow. what a shot. >> willie, finally, boxing. champion floyd "money" may weather is living up to his nickname. according to "the las vegas review journal" the boxing champ placed a $1 million bet on the december 18th football game between the new england patriots and the denver broncos. may weather bet against tim tebow and the broncos. isn't that like betting against god? >> can't do that. >> no word on what type of bet was placed but the patriots beat denver handily by the score of 41-23. the spread on the game was seven points. by the way, may weather begins serving a 90-day jail sentence

next week so we'll have to wait to enjoy that cash. >> deferred gratification. could i just say that was absolutely as good as anything i've seen. on this show -- >> thank you. >> or on espn or anything else, going back. >> it was the stretching before the 30-second break. >> jonathan capehart, you are good. jack of all trades. brand new polling from nbc on the republican race for president in iowa coming up next. who's got the momentum just four days -- you're not suppose today sweat after do you that. >> it's sports. >> "morning joe" back in a moment. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. lord of the carry-on. sovereign of the security line. you never take an upgrade for granted. and you rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. and go. you can even take a full-size or above.

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whenç generations of immigrants looked up and saw the statue of liberty for the first time one thing they knew beyond any doubt. that is that they were coming to a place where anything is possible. that in america their children would have a better life. i believe in that america, the spirit of enterprise, innovation, pioneering and can-do propelled our standard of living and economy past that of any other nation on earth. in the campaign to come, the american ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear and unapologetic defense and i intend to make it because i have lived it. we stand for freedom and opportunity and hope, the principles that made this nation a great and powerful leader of the world have not lost their

meaning. they never will. i'm mitt romney. i believe in america and i'm running for president of the united states. good morning. it's 8:00 here on the east coast as you take a live look at new york city on our very last show of 2011. back with us onset jonathan capehart, dr. jeffrey sachs, in des moines, iowa mark halperin and in washington matt lewis. what's happening out there? >> reporter: crowds are growing although to be fair they're growing for most of the candidates now. mitt romney is running a low risk campaign. he is doing some interviews, but his stump speech i saw yesterday both in mason city and in ames is about the olympics. he recites lyrics from patriotic songs. he talks about the president and the economy. but otherwise we're not talking about policy. he's not playing for the tea party crowd or the social conservative crowd in any way. he's runningç a very safe, generic campaign right now. i think it put him in a

commanding position and the other candidates seem to be more interested in fighting with each other than they do with taking on mitt romney. >> what kind of patriotic songs are we talking about, lee greenwood? do you have any specifics for us? >> i do have some specifics. i wish it were lee greenwood. america the beautiful. >> okay. >> that's a good one. >> yeah, it is. >> and little -- he's doing a version that is spoken. i told him yesterday as he was getting on his bus in mason city he's going to have to break into song. you just can't recite the lyrics. he is kind of doing like a rex harrison thing where he just speaks the lyrics rather than singing them. >> it loses something in the spoken word, the poetry of it all. matt lewis i have a bone to pick with you because you've exposed us here. you've written a piece for "the daily caller." the headline a confession we can't predict who will win iowa. you talked about the prediction on games on espn and saying that a monkey, this is true, has actually done better than him in

randomly picking nfl games. gncó=[ó political press to monkeys, matt lewis? >> yes i am, willie. >> i thought so. >> actually no. we're more like ron, being beaten by the monkey. >> yes, correct. >> by the way, anyone who doesn't listen to tony's radio show on espn should. every friday he has this segment where ron of course, the great former eagles quarterback, great analyst who watches hours and hours of game film and looks through -- culls through these statistics, goes on the radio and predicts who is going to win on sunday. then they have reginald theç monkey who is down at the d.c. zoo who predicts who's going to win and the monkey is vastly out performing ron. my point is that, you know, the experts on the ground, you know, folks who go through and watch the debates and blog and tweet, we all think we know what's going to happen. we all think either mitt romney

or ron paul might win iowa but you know what? i think newt gingrich or rick perry -- it's not -- i'm not betting it's going to happen. but look. using -- to over extend the football metaphor if you ask me who is going to win the super bowl i'll probably tell you the green bay packers but guess what? tim tebow and the denver broncos could potentially do it. >> yeah. and the caucus system makes it all the more difficult. we've just got out a new nbc news maris poll in the state of iowa that shows mitt romney and ron paul reflecting what other polls have shown lately neck and neck at the front of the pack followed by rick santorum at 15% and you mentioned rick perry's name, right there with santorum at least in this nbc poll. gingrich has fallen 15 points since december 4th down to 13%. jonathan, what do you make of those numbers? >> well, it's sort of like the other poll that came out earlier this week where mitt romney is on top. ron paul is second. santorum is third. if you look at the margin of error, and plus or minus 4.7, i think that says, they're all

bunched up. >> yes. >> this actually goes, this goes to the point that matt lewis is making, which is we can't predict what's going to happen. i think we might be very surprised on january 3rd by who actually comes in first, who actually comes in second, and who comes in third. and i haven't seen all of the numbers but i'd be curious to see just how strongly held are the feelings frç each of those candidates and how likely is it that these people are going to change their minds? >> right. >> that's a good point. mitt romney's support is incredibly soft and anything could happen between now and then. he's running as mark said a very safe campaign, a very boring vanilla campaign. i think his support is sort of an inch deep and a mile wide or whatever that expression is. so it's soft. things could still change. i think there is a lot. maybe not quite 50% but a lot of people are still undecided so that the sort of truth here is that we don't know. >> dr. sachs, i'll ask you a painful question. i know you are not a terrible

fan of any of these candidates in particular. is there any one among them whose economic plan would be better than the rest in any way help us get out from the hole we're in or say better than the president? >> un, they've just been chasing each other to the right so i think any of them if they're going to have any real shot at win k the presidency is going to have to be scrambling from the positions that they've come to in this primary race because the republican primaries of course lead everybody to the extreme right. they're competing with each other, how many federal departments they're going to close down. are we going to have a department of education? no way. department of labor, environmental regulations, but the moderates are going to determine the election next november, and all of these candidates, any of them, would have to scramble back to the center from where they are today. >> can't even get to the center though. have they swung so far to the right that even if they do try to get to the center they're

still firmly wedged into the far right ofç the political spectr? >> you would think so in a way, of course, that any of them can change positions and all of them have pretty frequently. but it's amazing, actually. i thought romney was being very careful to maintain a centrist position in his policies but if you actually read his campaign documents at this point, he is really positioned himself quite far to the right in order to be competitive in these early races on the republican side. it would be a long distance to travel just like you say back to the center. >> i didn't hear an endorsement for any of those economic plans. >> no endorsements there. >> the nbc poll also finds 41% of likely iowa voters saying ron paul would be an unacceptable republican nominee. 41%. 35% say the same of former house speaker newt gingrich. only 21% say mitt romney would be an unacceptable nominee. among tea party voters in iowa,

rick santorum has a narrow lead over mitt romney and ron paul. he's got 20% support. newt gingrich down there at 16 as well. rick perry 15. michele bachmann at 10. i don't know that he's over confident, matt lewis, but i know he is probably looking at polls and seeing where he sits right now. he is looking at internal numbers, looking at perhaps some of the way the tea party candidates could be fractured and split the vote among them. he's been very cautious i'm told a week ago and now is going full bore into iowa. >> i think it is a calculated risk but if mitt romney wins iowa and new hampshire it is a juggernaut. and then it looks like he's -- runs the table kind of thing. frankly, i think if romney were to win iowa, then!ghat you have to do if you're newt gingrich or rick perry, by the way, the two guys that i think still could potentially wrest the nomination from romney, is you go straight to south carolina. and you make that the last stand. you make that the fire wall. if romney were to roll through

there, it's game over. >> matt, jeff sachs here. you said that romney's support was pretty thin. it seems that he's been quite consistent at roughly this 20% to 25% support. so he's had his base. he's kept it. and what seems to be the real dermer in thtermin determineate in this race is how divided the rest of field is. >> yes. depending how you look at this race you could either praise or condemn romney. on one hand he is winning. on the other hand if you look at it as sort of romney versus the anti-romneys there are a lot more anti-romneys. that's why this race is so hard to predict, because let's say if a couple people were to drop out after iowa, if it could somehow be a one on one race between perry or gingrich versus romney you could imagine the rest of the field or the rest of the

conservative base could gather around one of those guys. mark halperin is absolutely right. this is a turf battle. michele bachmann hates rick perry more than mitt romney. if you look at -- this is almost becoming a bush versus reagan thing here, sort of -- no one is talking about it.ç but mitt romney has the backing of george h.w. bush and dan quayle and the former chief of staff john sununu while newt gingrich has michael reagan and art laffer who was the architect of the reagan economic plan. so that's taking place, sort of conservatives who are really paying close attention are starting to notice that as well. >> jeff sachs actually has the laffer curve framed over his bed. >> i got the original map. >> one of his favorites. also in this nbc poll voters were asked who they think is the, quote, true conservative in the race. this is inside iowa.

rick santorum and ron paul tied atop the list there. michele bachmann at 16%. rick perry at 11%. mitt romney getting only 7% support. newt gingrich at 6. mark halperin, front page of the "wall street journal", talks about iowa's evangelical rift. which i guess is splitting some of the candidates we just looked at there. in "the wall street journal" it's concluded that helps mitt romney. do you agree with that? >> i do. you know, it helps him here. it also could help him in south carolina. the muddle amongst the conservative movement, rick santorum has risen but rick perry's got some support, michele bachmann does, gingrich does. the best thing for romney out of here is a win. the second best thing is a muddle among social conservatives so they all go to south carolina and that could allow him to win south carolina, win the first three, and really put a lock on the nomination. the thing about romney spending more time in iowa is a couple things. one is he's going for the kill. if he wins here he likely wins new hampshire. he effectively ends it. the other thing is in both

public and private polling he's so far ahead in new hampshire that he doesn't need to be there. and there is nowhere else really for him to wox he's not going to leap frog all the way to south carolina. so he's doing what most candidates would do, spending moeflt most of his time here and is well past the point where he can say he's not competing in iowa. if he finishes first of course that is the best result for him but in the top three with santorum and paul the romney people don't believe they can lose the nomination to either of those two guys and it will embolden everyone to go on and that muddle of social conservatives will help him here and as i said help him going forward. it'll even help him in florida if the candidates still stay -- the more of those candidates who stay in the better it is for him, the lower percentage he needs to win the state. >> that gets to the question i was just about to ask you, mark, whether you thought it's beneficial to mitt romney to be in a crowded field at least through south carolina when you ask to deal with super conservatives, evangelicals in south carolina, and maybe even

in florida. >> i don't see a result where the field just collapses and then everybody gets out before south carolina because you've got too many candidates like newt gingrich who's talked a lot about south carolina in the last few days. rick perry, santorum who spent a lot of time in south carolina when he hasn't been in iowa. i think they'll all want to go to south carolina and that's good for romney. the more of those candidates are in the more they divide the vote that is not available to him. that poll -- the nbc poll showing him not being considered a conservative, that is still a problem for him now but as we move to -- if he consolidates support -- the establishment may not want the most conservative. they may want the most electable and that's someone who is more center/center right rather than far right. >> up next our "morning joe" rewind takes us just two weeks back to an interview with mitt romney. he joined us right here on the set. what the front-runner of the republibqn presidential race told us about his missionary work and how it prepared him for this presidential run. plus, with just two days left in the year we take a fond look back at 2011. who will be our most important

person of the year? depends on your definition of important i guess. first bill karins with a look at the forecast. hey, bill. >> willie, this is my last forecast of the year. what a year it's been. we had $11 billion disasters across the country. typically we only have two or three. hopefully 2012 will be a lot less dramatic weather weise. we're ending with rain in the northwest. rainy start to the day in oregon state and northern california. as far as the weather pattern in december, very unusually warm. no snow. people are dying for the snow in northern new england. also the northern great lakes haven't had a lot of snow. all of the snow so far this winter has been back in new mexico and colorado. now, the weather pattern is changing. i'll let everyone know when you return back to school and work next week a cold blast of air, one of the first of the season is going to move through the eastern u.s. usually you get the cold air, then the snow. this time it looks like just cold air. really no snow around. for today there is not much in the way of any travel trouble. enjoying a very mild december day everywhere in the southern half of the country. have a great holiday weekend

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welcome back. just two weeks ago mitt romney joined us on this very set. he gave his pitch for the presidency. in this morning's rewind he handicaps his competition for the republican nomination. >> it's crazy out there. can you believe how things are just churning in this ç24/7 ne cycle? you've got a new person rising every week, falling the next week.

i feels just looking at a magazine article that is still on my desk that says, the cain factor. what he -- he's gone. >> remember him? >> why is this happening? why is there such a violent turnover in the republican party? >> well, i think republican party voters really want to see barack obama out of office. >> right. >> they want to make sure they got the person that can take him out. and so they're taking a very close look at the person who is most effective in going after the president. in some cases the most incendiary gets a lot of interest. >> is that the problem? is that why you haven't closed the sell because you're not a bomb thrower? >> i'm not a bomb thrower. i'm happy with the fact that i've been eerither at the top o next to the top through the whole process. that is pretty good. everybody else has gone up and down so to be able to be steady through this and build some support over time is a good sign. >> i saw your chris wallace

interview. i thought the parts that were the most fascinating to me was when chris started talking about your personal life. you don't talk about it much. you don't lead with, we know your wife and kids and love them. it's not that you're ashamed of them but you don't lead. it's almost like you've hidden some of that. you don't talk about your time overseas as a missionary quite so much. are you going to start doing that more? >> well, part of it depends on what you're asked, of course. >> so let me ask you. what was it like being a mormon missionary for two years overseas? >> well, it was a dramatic ç experience, a great shift in what i had known. i had been in america. i came from a family that was prosperous. and then i found myself in a lower middle income kind of category, the homes i lived in, the -- >> no indoor plumbing. >> well, some of the apartments yes, some no. at the end of my mission i lived in a very beautiful place at church headquarters but the first two years we lived quite poor. and a lot of rejection being in

america. this was during vietnam and i had come to the door and they'd interrupt me as i was speaking in broken french and say are you american? i'd say yes. and they'd just slam the door or say get out of vietnam. >> how many rejections -- it's fascinating when you talk to somebody that is a stock broker they'll tell you they open phone books and make a hundred calls and if they get one it's been a good hour. >> that's nothing. >> talk about your rejections as a missionary knocking on door after door after door in a hostile environment. >> i spent five months in a city called lahar, france. i think the population was about 250,000 people. in five months we knocked on doors from morning until quite late in the evening. we didn't convert one person in five months. so if you understand rejection you know that that's a pretty high level of rejection and you get used to it and you say, okay. what do i believe? what's important to me? and you don't measure yourself and your success by how other people react but instead by how you're doing and how you feel about the things you care about.

>> how did your missionary work shape you as a man when you came back home? >> i became more convinced of the things i believed in, more committed to what was important to me, and less concerned about how other people thought about me. and that's something which you will have as you go through an experience where you're received in, notç in a hostile way but a way people -- some people thought i was a salesman. some people thought i was an american, true. some people thought i was a missionary. also true. in each case they were -- they rejected me. i had to learn to still maintain my confidence in myself. >> all right. so i'm taking notes here because we've known you, covered you now for a couple years. we love your family. we love your wife. your personal story is incredibly impressive and your professional story is incredibly impressive. and yet there's this sort of constant conversation that you can't close the deal with the base. why do you think that is at this stage in the game given the fact that this is your second run for

the presidency which historically is good for a republican candidate? >> if you look over history and say how many people have been able to get to 25% of the support in their party this early when there are eight or nine candidates, there are not very many that get that high. the last time around john mccain, i don't know, 20%, 25%. rudolph guiliani, myself, fred thompson. we have a lot of good people running for president. some like rick santorum the best. some like michele bachmann the best. at this stage with all of those candidates to still be seen typically as number one and number two i think is pretty darned good. what my objective is, is to get about a third of the votes in the first month and then about 40% of the votes in the next month and then about 55% or 60% in the next month in this process and get the delegates i need to become nominee. >> here's what's dogged you though. that is you changed over the years. the word flip flopper has come and gone too many times as your name has come and gone too many times. how do you translate that

criticism into a quality that you can sell to the voters atç this point? because the argument is, the complaint is that they don't really know what you stand for. >> well, the nice thing that people have to go for in my case is i have a record. i was governor for four years. and you can look at my record and see what i did, what my beliefs were, were evident in the actions i took. balance the budget every year for four years. fought to put in place a system that made sure that our kids would only graduate from high school. if they pass an exam. that was a requirement established years before. i made sure it stuck. we also had english immersion that we put in place in our schools. these experiences i had as governor demonstrate a conservativism and i think people want to see it and i ran for office, the positions i had four years ago are the same positions i am campaigning on today and also wrote a book and laid out in my book my vision for america. have i become more conservative over the years? yeah. i think if you've been through

the experience i've been through, if you've been a governor of a very liberal state and seen the policies some of the liberals wanted put in place you become more conservative as you become convinced that they're wrong and you're right. >> newt gingrich has attacked you for what you did at bing capital. are you proud of your work at bing capital? >> absolutely. we helped create tens of thousands of jobs. i'm proud of the private sector. there is no question but that speaker gingrich and much more significantly the dnc and president obama are going to put free enterprise on trial. >> they say you threw people out of jobs whether south carolina or new hampshire. you were responsible for people getting fired. >> what i was responsible for was four enterprises during my life and all of them were successful andç ultimately gre. we invested in over 100 different businesses and in those businesses many were successful, added lots and lots of jobs. some were not successful. that is the nature of free enterprise. if someone thinks they can find a way that every enterprise that

one invests in becomes successful, they're not living in a free enterprise system but in a system like the old soviet union where the government insists everybody adds employment every year and the ultimately the economy suggests the people become poor. i believe that free enterprise works. and i believe that other models have been proven to be failures time and time again. i was surprised to have newt gingrich pick up the story line that came from barack obama and the dnc and go on the attack against free enterprise. >> do you win iowa? >> i think that's hard to predict at this stage. everyone wants to win iowa. they want to win every state. >> you think you can though? >> all things are possible. and i hope do well. but i think when we got into this this time around we thought, well, iowa would be a real stretch. new hampshire we hoped to do well in. >> do you have to win new hampshire? >> i don't think today you have to win anything. i think you -- the only thing you have to win is 1150

delegates. and we've seen that some people have gone down and then come back. i mean, if one of the people on the stage doesn't win the first two, i wouldn't write them off. one of those people could come surging. we've seen people surge from nothing to high numbers very quickly. >> is it possible this goes all the way to the convention? >> absolutely. that's possible. i don't think it's terribly likely. but it's possible that this goes a long way. we have built enough resources, raised enough money,ç to have campaign that'll go to the very, very end. >> and we will see in just four days whether or not mitt romney can win iowa. coming up next here the year in review. my look back at the biggest stories of 2011, whether you like them or not. let 's go to vegas. alright, let's do it. let's do it, let's go to vegas. vegas baby! maybe we should head back to the dealership first? vegas!

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the insiders are here. what was that, t.j.? i like being an insider. >> let's not do that again. >> i've never seen that before. we are the insiders. come on. you screw it up own it. let's see it. >> we don't have it. >> there you go. okay. now they can't produce it. >> we don't have it. >> we are of course the insiders. jonathan capehart and myself. by my math, jonathan, we've got 39 hours and about 28 minutes left in 2011. what was your favorite person or story of this year? >> by far without question my favorite person was herman cain. he was at once entertaining and

enraging for a good four months. >> i have a feeling you might see him in our year in review. >> the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden. >> all day all week occupy wall street! >> breaking news out of japan where there has been a massive tsunami wave. >> these are the people that drove this revolution. >> 9-9-9. >> you know what? it's turned out to be magical. >> duh. winning. >> the voices of 2011. aç year whose arrival was announced by a golden voice that touched our lives. for about a week and a half. nothing but the best of oldies. you're listening to magic 98.9. >> soothing as ted williams' baritone may have been it was the deep pipes of a former pizza executive that really stayed with us this year. ♪ imagine there's no pizza >> awe shucky ducky.

>> deep dish. >> becky becky becky-stan-stan. >> there was no sex. >> no. >> none. >> no. >> i believe these words came from the pokemon movie. >> herman cain's pokemon farewell closed a beautiful chapter in the year's bizarre race for the republican nomination. >> if he has a birth certificate he should release it. >> ah, the, ah -- commerce -- i can't -- the third one i can't. >> did you owe a half million dollars to a jewelry at one point? >> go talk to tiffany's. >> i'm speaking. >> because he has a lot of chutzpah. >> are you a flake? >> well, i think that would be insulting. >> terrifying. >> this is an unusual interview. all right. let's do it again. >> victory or die. victory or death. bring it. >> this year washington suffered an actual earthquake. >> feel that? >> and some political tremors, too.

there were debt ceilings. >> pull out the band-aid. eat our peas. >> super committees. >> you spend more than you earn you lose your butt. >> and congressional deals from hell. >> but on the surface it looks like a sandwich. >> a long war was brought to its end. >> the war in iraq will soon belong to history. >> and a bright political career brought to its end by a tweet heard around the world. >> that's not true of you? >> there were profiles in political courage like the montana state representative who fought to protect the right to drive drunk in big sky country. >> either you hitch hike or you drive. i promise you that they're not going to hitch hike. >> the illinois state senator who invoked wutang klan during a money fight. >> get the money. dollar dollar bill y'all. thank you. >> and a subtle ad warning against the forces of darkness that want to kill our grandmas. >> ah! >> oprah and regis were not

pushed off the cliff as far as we know. the icons stepped off the stage and the nation was forced for the first time in a generation to search for its own favorite things. alex trebeck meanwhile remained on television and haunted our dreams this year with the min mind-searing knowledge that he sleeps in the nude. >> i put on my underwear and ran down the hall. >> it was another strong year for the world leader who from time to time likes to fish topless. vladimir putin spent good portions of 2011 scuba diving and bending frying pans. not such a good year for moammar gadhafi. after decades of terrorism and flowing robes gadhafi met his end in a libyan drainage pipe. >> we shot him. >> with masses in the streets@ d the world, one mass was in the streets to celebrate its historic lack of change.

america had its own royal wedding. and then 72 days later a royal divorce. >> if i wanted to i could throw you off the edge. >> the kardashian divorce cost the united states its triple-a rating but we still had our heroes. richard simmons keeping us safe in the skies. >> the captain says, let's kick butt! >> meat loaf keeping gary busse honest. >> the last person in the [ bleep ] world you ever [ bleep ] want to [ bleep ] with. >> and miss arkansas, throwing her voice competitively. ♪ miss arkansas reminded us all of american exceptionalism as china began to show signs of vulnerability, its leaders looking the opposite of threatening playing hoops and its senior citizens singing and dancing to lady gaga while wearing golf shirts and dockers. ♪ the competition for our 2011

person of the year was fierce. there was the kid in the darth vader super bowl commercial. there was the guy who tried and failed to rob a 7-eleven in a gumby costume. there was wendy murdoch pimp slapping the guy who tried to pie her husband rupert. there were the two old guys who scrapped on stage at a canadian football reunion. alas, there can be but three medalists and only one whoç wes gold. the bronze goes to the mountain biker who was dominated by a 300-pound leaping antelope. the silver to a crowd favorite who's become an internet hero. the coon-skinned cap eyewitness to a police chase in panama city, florida. >> getting it, digging like that, dukes of hazard. like dale jr. >> it is honestly hard to believe there was someone better

than that guy over the last 12 months. or someone more entertaining than the cain/perry campaign combo. >> ah, shucky ducky. i feel pretty good today. >> if they print any more money over there in washington the gold is going to be good. >> but there was. this year saw perhaps the greatest public meltdown in the history of american popular culture. our 2011 person of the year is the star of both hot shots and hot shots ii. he is mr. charlie sheen. >> tired of pretending like i'm not a total fricking rock star from mars. i've been riding on a mercury surf board. i'm a high priest. tiger blood, you know, adonis dna. i am on a drug. it's called charlie sheen. can't process me with a normal brain. winning. i win here and i win there. now what? duh. winning. >> yes, charlie sheen gets gold in 2011.

you have a quibble with that. you wanted the coon-skinned cap guy to have gold. >> yeah, digging in like dale jr. dukes of hazard. >> this is the kind of insight you get from the insiders. we are the insiders. we have no idea what that animation is, what show it's from or what it means. but we are now the insiders.ç coming up, were you lucky enough to work for america's happiest companies in 2011? that's next in business.

all right. time for a check on businessç before the bell with cnbc's brian sullivan. he's live at cnbc headquarters on this very last day of trading for 2011. brian, good morning. >> good morning. you know, don't expect a lot of shares being traded today. there is a little news to watch. been a lot of concern out there about china. well, the news agency is saying that china's growth should be above 9% again for next year. i don't necessarily buy it that

much. they're going to have to do some things like cut rates like our fed did. a lot of bank concerns out there. still, that china news may help elevate us here in the last trading day of 2011. maybe push the dow even further into positive territory for the year. that's probably going to be the main piece of news today. >> 9% is a big number though china came out and admit ted is fais -- admitted it is facing quote down side pressure next year. >> a company called career bliss surveys hundreds of thousands of employees around the world and they've got the five happiest companies to work for where the employees sing and dance their way through the hallways. >> sure. >> number five is a german company with big operations in america, basf. you have nordstrom which is sort of a perennial on that list. you have johnson & johnson. you've got fluor which is a big engineering company. maybe not a household name. the ones helping redo the golden gate bridge in san francisco. number one is,$çó hilton hotels before i go i got to read you this quote from their chief human resources officer.

every day our more than 140,000 employees work hard to fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality. how's that for a quote? >> daffodils grow in the hallways there. >> we put them in our ears. >> thanks so çmuch. happy new year to you. we'll see you in 2012. up next we're getting you in the new year's mood. carole king next performing a song written by her daughter called new year's day. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. premier of the packed bag. you know organization is key... and so is having a trusted assistant. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...and go. you can even take a full-size or above and still pay the mid-size price. here we are... [ male announcer ] and there you go, business pro. there you go. go national. go like a pro.

welcome back to "morning joe." we hope you're enjoying your holiday. we are and that's because we have carole king with us. >> she is really exciting. >> i love her christmas album. >> when we first heard this idea, months ago, carole, we were really thrilled. we can't believe how well it's turned out. i just played the album in a loop at my house and i didn't even know as i was listening to some of these songs that i thought, you know, you dug up christmas classics, a lot of them are originals and you keep it all in the family. >> i do. i did not write any of the songs on this album. i had my brain in my book. so my daughter louise took over production and wrote three original songs with other cowriters and i love singing them. >> and what are you singing? >> this is a song called "new year's day" and louise wanted to present a positive outlook on the coming year and let us hope.

>> god knows we need it. >> louise worked on this with guy chambers? >> yes. she wrote this with guy chambers. >> all right. carole king. >> all right. ♪ç ♪ everybody makes a dream this time of year from now on it's gonna be good for you ♪ ♪ all your friends and family gather round in peace and harmony it's a time to remember your blessings it's a time to remember your

goals ♪ ♪ all the people in your life be they new friends or old ♪ ♪ and it could be the time of your life everything's gonna turn out all right ♪ ♪ it'll be okay in every way making it better ♪ ♪ it's new year's day ♪ and should old acquaintance be forgot keep everything they gave you ♪ ♪ and though they may seem so far away

you walk withç them each and every day ♪ ♪ and i know sometimes the road isn't easy and we said some things we wish we'd never said ♪ ♪ once a few rounds you've loved and lost you pick yourself up and take a chance again ♪ ♪ and it could be the time of your life everything's gonna turn out all right ♪ ♪ it'll be okay in every way making it better ♪ ♪ it's new year's day

♪ countdown's done and we're swaying along with the band ♪ ♪ just one more dance may all your dreams come true ♪ ♪ and it could be the time of your life everything's gonna turn out all right ♪ ♪ it'll be okay in every way making it better ♪ ♪ it's new year's day ç ♪ new year's day

[ applause ]

all right. it's time for the final segment of 2011. thank you for being here this morning. >> thank you. it's fun. >> we did a little segment about the happiest places to work in america. believe it or not despite the fact we wake up in the darkness of night this is a great place

to work. so grateful to all of you for watching in 2011. and to all of these fantastic people who put this show on the air you have no idea of the hours they work. we are so grateful. happy new year to all of you. see you in 2012. >> happy new year.zh ♪ holiday oh, holiday and the best one of the year ♪ corpus christi ♪ ♪ç

♪ ♪