president obama, then-candidate obama, going through iowa, making promises. and i think the gap between his promises and his performance is the largest i've seen, well, since the kardashian wedding and the promise of "'til death do us part". >> for a state this size, to spend that many dollars in that number of negative ads, i feel romney voted. >> it's the final day of campaigning and people are still making up their minds. this is the new iowa poll, 41% of likely voters still don't know who they're going to vote for. or could be persuaded to switch. mitt romney's maintaining a slim lead over ron paul, but that poll was taken over four days. if you look at just the final two days, santorum jumps to second place and takes a lot of that support from ron paul. chris matthews is the host of "hardball." he's live in iowa, has been for days now. christopher, good morning. how you dog? >> hi, chris.

how are you? >> author of "jack kennedy elusive hero." will on the best seller list. congratulations. >> thank you. >> what's it like in iowa for those final candidates? >> they're all going to be running around and romney as you just saw in that clip running against president obama, trying to make himself the candidate who can defeat obama and is already doing that or trying to. i'm telling you i've never seen such a lack of excitement for candidates. there's no charisma factor in this race, no john kennedy, there's no anybody that has that sort of cutting edge like a reagan or an obama last time or bill clinton. there's no excitement about these candidates. 75% of this state is uninterested in voting for mitt romney. he is not the charismatic leader of the conservative republican party. if they do win here, that campaign, it will be like outsourcing the republican nomination to mumbai.

it's just outsourcing it. it's finding somebody else to run for you besides a conservative republican. nobody believes mitt romney is a kuhn serve tiff republican. >> now they're on rick santorum. do you think it's just his turn? there does seem to be some enthusiasm for him from what i'm reading. he's drawing big crowds,ed people there are very excited about it. >> yeah. i guess we went to the wrong events. the last couple of daze we've been -- yesterday we went to a couple of santorum events, actually, the day before, there was no one interest. there were seven people at one and 12 at another. all this excitement about santorum may be out there in the polling and the daily tracking poll, but we didn't see it when we went to the actual events. now, look, there's another event with not many people at it. these are events but i don't see the big wave of excitement for this guy. in fact, if he does win the caucuses out here, it's the best news mitt romney ever had because he is a guy romney will

easily defeat fwor the nomination. it's like paul saugus running against bill clinton. he will not go anywhere. the number one goal from romney's point of view is to spend millions of dollars in this state to destroy newt gingrich with tv advertising and then say nice things about the country when he's appearing in person. it's been a very double-edged campaign. romney quotes "america the beautiful" the lyrics again and again in these campaign stops, meanwhile his tv advertising in the guys of restore our future has been destroying newt gingrich on the ground day after day after day. it's a very deceptive campaign if you're actually out here. >> you say it's deceptive, but is it smart? i mean, he may well end up on top. we were just watching some live pictures of him out campaigning. we should also say he came pretty late to the game. i mean, while a lot of those folks have been in iowa for the better part of a year,'s really only dug in over the last several weeks. >> well, he's still down in the low 20s, chris. the guy can't break 23, 24 points. what he can do is destroy any

one of his conservative opponents down the road as a throat him here in iowa. what he's done is run these ads without his name on it, it doesn't say i'm mitt romney i paid for this ad. 100% negative ads from this super pac associated with romney, destroying newt gingrich over and over and over again. you turn on "earn tainment tonight," any program, you get relentless anti-newt gingrich ads. meanwhile, mitt romney walks around smiling with his beautiful wife and family and chris christie and other surrogates acting like the happy warrior. it's very deceptive. if there is what modern american politics are about, voters are going to have goat basically very discerning and turn off their tv sets and watch the candidates. if they have the tv set on, all they're getting is this relentless negative attack without any attack name on the back of t. so you're hearing

awful things about newt gingrich without any signature. i mean, i think they ought to put bowling shirts around these ads so you really know -- or little league ads -- who is actually pay forge them, which we don't know. the voters don't know. >> when you read the paper, hear some of the folks there, a lot of them are muting these ads. they've had it. there's been too much. they've been inundated, all that money that's been spent. but if there is a lack of enthusiasm, chris, dow think small numbers will come out for the caucus? what dow think is going to happen tomorrow night? >> reporter: well, it's very cold, windy. it's a challenge go out at night, a challenge during the day here. it's iowa and it's january now. so you have go outside at night, you have to go out and spend some time out there, you have to vote. it's not like going out in the day with the sunlight. i thil the evening will depress some of the moderate vote that 0 would perhaps go to romney. i think you'll see tremendous enthusiasm from the ron paul

people in the mid-20s. you'll see support for santorum, the surging candidate. i think it's one of those races where it will be very evenly balanced in terms of the vote. bachmann falling behind, gingrich falling behind out here mainly because of the negative advertising. that would be my pick right now, three closely tied front-runners coming out of iowa tomorrow night. >> chris, you certainly don't need my endorsement, but if folks believe you can learn something from history, they ought to pick up your book. congratulations on the good numbers. >> there's no jack kennedy running out here and no ronald reagan here this time. >> chris matthews, you can catch "hardball" right here on msnbc, of course, 5 clks and 7:00 p.m. eastern time. steve grubbs was the republican party chair who worked for herman cain in that state, rich stray land a republican strategist, also worked for newt gingrich.

guys, let me fin the conversation that chris and i were having about this "des moines register" poll. 41% of people have a candidate but could be persuaded to vote for someone else. steve, what's going to persuade them? >> well, the bandwagon effect has a big role to play in the last few days as people see, for example, with rick santorum, the biggest criticism people had of him is he couldn't win. now they believe he can win, they're jumping on board. as i talk to people over the weekend, i saw a lot of people moving toward rick santorum and a lot of people moving toward mitt romney. i think they'll both have -- rick santorum a big surge and romney a small surge. >> what i find fascinating over this, rich, is we've heard so much about how this was a different kind of campaign in iowa because so much of it had to do with social media and more money was being spent in add tuzing. and yet here you have a rick santorum who basically didn't have any money. all he had was i guess his car

and his bus and going around door to door. he spent almost no money there compared tolt other kacandidate >> that's true and it appears it will have worked here fleece to get him in the top three. the problem for santorum is that he doesn't have six months between here and new hampshire. he doesn't have six months between new hampshire and south carolina and between south carolina and florida. so the question everybody is asking is, if he does very well here, as steve says, if he has the kind of surge it looks like, how does he monetize that and how does he extend that through the rest of the month? there are four of these events within 28 daze. that's a high hill to climb for someone who's been living ost land. >> i'm going to skip ahead to tell the control room, i want to skip ahead since we're talking about rick santorum. one of the interesting things that's come up is who he endorsed for president the last time around. let me play that little clip for you. >> senator santorum was kind enough to endorse me last time

around. i appreciate that. and we've been friends. i can tell you that our backgrounds are quite different. like speaker gingrich, senator santorum has spent his career in government. >> you said governor romney is the candidate who will stand up for the conservative principles we hold dear. >> well, i was saying it relative to john mccain. that's what i meant then. >> steve, does stuff like that matter? >> i think it matters to a certain degree, you know. obviously rick santorum is more of a pragmatist in a lot of ways than he has -- than people believe necessarily in iowa. i think some of that came out in his interview yesterday. but ultimately people are going to judge him by what he's saying today and whether they think he can win. when i was in mrpleasant valley sort of a suburb of the quad cities, talking to voters over there who you might not think would be rim can stoantorum voters, they were leaning toward him. he's broadening his base beyond

local done serve actives right now. >> to go back to what chris matthews was talking about, that i think does in the end help romney because it actually body-blocks both perry and gingrich from being able to do their own surge at the end because i think the romney folks believe they can take santorum over the long haul. they're not so sure about gingrich or perry. >> let's talk about newt gingrich because it seemed like a blink of an eye ago he seemed like the real threat to mitt romney. here he is over the weekend. >> i dmoent. $3.5 million in negative ads, you tell me. >> he said, not only, rich, suggested that mitt romney was trying to buy the election but that he had been sort of swift boated or as he called it romney boated. what do you think about that? does he think it's just gooten

away from him? >> if i were neuwelt, i would not be comparing myself to john kerry. i thai's not eye good idea in the first place. second of all, i do happen to remember that it was the swiftboat veterans for truth so, again, newt's on the wrong side of that metaphor as well. it sounded good in the beginning but my guess is he wishes he hadn't said that. the issue for newt is it, how long can he keep dog this? one of the things we know about newt, when i was press secretary, communications director on the political side when he was speaker is that he truly believes that most people who have a good idea but fail, fail because they gave up too soon. and we've seen that already here. we saw it from 1982 to 1994 when he started plotting to take over the house. he didn't know what year it was going to happen, but he has a long view of these things. i don't think he's going anywhere. he'll be nipping at the heels until he flat runs out of money or he just overtakes the whole campaign. >> steve, is is that what keeps

folks in the game at this point, folks who are at the bottom of the polls? first of all, we've seen how volatile this campaign is so far. there is that little bit of hope either from history or just recent history that somehow a miracle is going to happen? >> well, first of all, john mccain came in fourth in the iowa caucuses four years ago and ultimately became the republican nominee. but what happened in iowa, the average iowan sitting in their living room, saw 50 to 70 negative tv ads attacking newt gingrich. the reality is, they're going to shift to rick santorum or some other candidate and that can't happen in other states. you can't afford that much tv on the east coast, fist of all. he'll have a chance to revive himself in states after iowa. i don't think you'll see the level of negatives as we did in iowa. >> negative ads work because they're highly distilled gossip and human beings, whether we like it or not, are hardwired to love gossip. they do have an effect and that's why people use them. everybody says, i hate them, but

they use them. >> i thought it was very honest on the "today" show this morning they had a group of undecideds, think said they hated the ads and they kind of worked. confirming what you just said. rich gailen, steve grubbs, thank you, gentlemen. so why are iowans still so undecided with just one day to go? i'll ask terry brand stead. he'll be here in five minutes. 18 occupy protestors were arrested in iowa over the weekend in front of the campaign headquarters of michele bachmann, rick santorum and future gingrich. hundreds more say they plan to disrupt campaigns. in new york city, police arrested 68 occupy protestors who stormed zuccotti park new year's eve. they were part of 500 it demonstrators who tried tearing down the barricade. one was arrested for assaulting an officer. shazi: seven years ago, i had this idea.

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so we're talking a lot about iowa, but a new new hampshire poll shows mitt romney might have things locked up there. romney with a giant lead, flun% of the vote, paul and gingrich in double digits, jon huntsman who staked his campaign on new hampshire is in fourth with 9%. looks like the campaign could be getting to newt gingrich. he started to cry over the weekend while talking about his mom. >> my whole emphasis on brain science comes in directly from de dealing -- dealing with, you know, the real problems of real people in my family. so it's not a theory. it's, in fact, my mother. and this morning on the "today" show governor rick perry once again attacked a surging rick santorum.

>> you've got rick santorum who's talked about being a fiscal conservative but has voted eight times to raise the debt ceiling. he's raised it more than obama has. >> so here's santorum kind of making a joke out of the whole thing. >> i love these candidates who get these huge applause on, i'm goegt rid of this one and this one and one other one! hey, he's running the negative ads, not me. >> santorum's surge in the polls loading up to tomorrow's caucus is motivating a lot of undecided conservative voters to take another look. >> i'm going take a closer look and just see what he is really, truly about. i'm not really satisfied the other candidates right now. >> joining me now, iowa republican governor terry branstad. governor, good morning. >> good morning. great to be with you. >> what's going on in your state? love your state. i have family there. but 41% of voters could still change their mind?

why? we've never seen anything like this. >> well, you know, the lead has changed hands just about as many times as you can imagine. in fact, rick santorum's the only one who's not been in the lead and now there's some people who think he might be the one who will actually win. i think iowa voters are looking for the best candidate, nobody's perfect but they're looking for a strong candidate because they know the country's in trouble. when you increase the national debt more than a trillion dollars every year that obama has been president and when you attack the private sector business decision makers, the entrepreneurs, businesses that need to create jobs, i think people realize, we need a new leader, we need a new president. >> but when you say -- >> and this is important and serious business. >> when you say governor best and strong, what does that mean? certainly on the electability issue, bochblg anecdotally and the polls we see that's strongly for mitt romney yet he seems pretty much stuck in the 20s. so why don't you think he's dog better?

what's the other definition of best and strong if it's not electability? >> well, i think it's not just electability. it's their record and their stand on the issues. i think people respect what governor perry has done as governor of texas, in creating jobs. they look at newt gingrich as an idea person. they see rick santorum as having solid conservative record. they see ron paul as somebody who is consistently voted against increasing the federal debt, manipulating the currency. so they see some strengths in all of these candidates, but, in the end, they have to choose the one they think is best and they think will be the best president for our country. so it's an important responsibility. iowans take it seriously. i'm expecting we're going to see a great turnout at the republican precinct caucuses tomorrow night. >> what do you make of the surgery rick santorum? no one in the race has spent less money and arguably until he went up in the polls, nobody got less attention.

maybe nobody had lower name recognition? was it just his turn after, as you pointed out, the voters had kind of cycled through and rezwrekted the other candidates or is there something else at work here? >> well, he's gone about it the old-fashioned way. he's gone to all 99 counties, he's spent a lot of time, met with a lot of people. i think he's made a good impression, and he's just been building and building and building. now obviously becoming one of the front-runners, he undergoes some scrutiny like the other candidates have. we'll see how he stands up under that. wuf you've got goif him credit for putting the time and energy and effort into his campaign and still shows personal contact is important. iowa voters appreciate that kind of attention. >> well, i have to ask, you have not need an endorsement yet. arguably there will be no time where your endorsement could be more consequential than right before the caucus, right as we have 41% people trying to figure it out. want to make some news here and

make an endorsement? >> i want to be a great host in the first in the nation caucus state and consequently i've tried to treat all the candidates well. i want the voters to make that decision. i think endorsements aren't worth all that much. and i think the voters themselves are going to endorse the candidate they think will be the best and we just encourage people to go out, make their decision, choose the best candidate, and then we need get together and defeat barack obama because america needs new leadership. we can't afford -- we don't want to become the next europe, can't afford to continue the direction we're going. >> that's a no, but you can't blame a girl for trying. >> thank you. >> governor terry branstad, thank you so. . have a good day tomorrow. >> thank you. politico meantime is reporting that newt gingrich is ready to go negative in his campaign and the gloves will come off in new hampshire. gingrich plans to hit mitt romney hard on health care issues, including his massachusetts health care law and he'll call romney soft on abortion. romney holds a clear lead, way

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president obama's leaving hawaii a little later on tonight. he'll get to the business of the reelection campaign with a web chat with supporters in iowa tomorrow. then he heads to the important battleground state of ohio on wednesday, visiting cleveland. redwood house is the communications director for the democratic national committee. good to see you, brad. good morning. >> thank you, chris. good morning to you. >> we've been focusing on iowa, obviously, while you folks at the dnc have been pretty much focusing on mitt romney, frankly, starting with some of those ads a couple of months ago painting him as a flip-flopper. so day before the caucus, how confident are you that obama will be running against romney? >> look, we're not going to try to pick the republican nominee. what's interesting about this race is there's a different flavor every month. we have santorum now, gingrich before that.

romney's been the stale flavor, if you will, he's been at 20%, 25%. i think this is still smin nin's race and the president can beat any one of them because they you'll subscribe to the same economic philosophy that sank the economy in 2008. americans don't want to go back to that. >> yet, as i watch what you folks are doing, it does seem the dnc focuses on mitt romney. yesterday he used randy johnson, the former paper plant worker, whose plant was bought by bain capit capital, johnson said, quote, i really feel that he didn't care about the workers. is this going to get pretty negative pretty fast? >> well, look, let me just say one thing about that. i mean, we've been focused on romney to a large extent because he's been focused on the president. he has been strutting around like he's the presumed nominee and if he wants to act like that, we're going to treat him that way. this is not about being negative. this is about setting the record straight.

mitt romney would have you believe he was doing something in the private sector akin to what his father was dog, making cars. he wasn't. he was buying and selling companies and he was making money no matter what it took. if that meant bankrupting them and that made bain capital money, that was fine f. it meant laying off workers, outsourcing jobs, that was just fine. we want to make sure the american people know what he was dog in the private sector. perfectly fine to do it, it's legal. some people may question whether or not it's moral, but we want to make sure people know he wasn't making widgets. >> while you're gearing up your campaign, the republican advertising plan is pretty well known. they want to use barack obama's words against him. "the washington post" has seen "the book," this 500 pages of quotes that they plan to use to make the case that obama made specific promises and came into office with high expectations and has failed to deliver on both. given the state of the economy, do they have a good case? >> i don't believe they do, chris. i mean, when the president came in we were losing 750,000 jobs a

month. we had just come out of a quarter of nearly 9% negative economic growth. and now we've had 21 consecutive months of private sector job growth to the tune of 3 million jobs. the president saved the economy from sinking into a second great depression and republican s -- >> here's the problem with that argument, i'm not the first to say that, it's not an easy argument to make when you look at a job approval rating of 46%, when you look at an oun employment rate that's still 8.6%, gdp at 2%, that in the very real lives of people, while you may be able to legitimately make those claims, the broader picture and history will tell you that's a tough place to be running from. >> well, look, there's no doubt. but, i mean, this president has -- he put policies in place that did reverse the decline. we have seen, as i said, 21 consecutive months of private sector job growth. we see some signs in the economy

that things should continue to turn around. but, look, for the past year republicans have tried to stop any progress. they would be happy if we didn't create a single job between now and the election if that meant they can throw barack obama out of office thaxt's a case we'll be making as well. >> dnc communications director brad woodhouse, good to see you. thank you. >> thanks, dris. we got a lot of reaction last week to our discussion about whether iowa should even be first in the nais contest since the population doesn't look like america overall, it's whiter and more conservative. well, we wanted to ask you a question. let's go back five caucuses, '92 to the present, how often has iowa gotten it right? we're looking at both parties here. no googling. send us a tweet. the answer, coming up.

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so here's the key question right now. is there anything that can happen in the next 24 hours in

iowa that can be a game-changer? because, if not, you could make the argument that some of these candidates are some serious denial. i think we're going to surprise a lot of people. >> it's very heavy retail politics where we're with iowans, i think we're going to bear fruit tomorrow night. >> you're still confident. >> oh, yeah, we really are. >> larry sapito is the president of university of virginia politics. his crystal ball is a leader on picking elections. we're here to put you on the spot. how are you, larry? >> fine, chris. how are you? >> good. can all of these candidates survive in new hampshire or south carolina, or are we seeing a smaller field on wednesday or thursday? >> i don't think it will happen that quickly, but it's inevitable. you said candidates are in denial. candidates live in their own reality and that's enforced by the people around them, and that's okay. maybe that's how they survive the ridiculously long days and

all the pressures. but clearly the process is geared to winnowing out weaker candidates. we'll see tuesday night, michele bachmann, no offense to god, and some others are frobl probably going to be in the lower category of voting. >> what do you make of santor santorum's momentum in the poll snz do you think it's well timed or given how this horse race has changed so quickly momentum has gron person to person to person, is it possible even he peaked too early? >> well, there was nobody left. you know, all the other ones were exhausted. the social conservatives really had no choice left but the unexamined rick santorum, who will get examined over the next week or two. but, look, he timed it very -- i don't think he timed it, but it was a well-timed surge. i'm looking to see, even in the last, you know, 24 to 36 hours, whether any candidate or

candidates start launching youtube videos or even get a little rotation into the tv ads, which despite what some people think, is indeed possible to do if you know the ad people at the tv stations well. >> you also i thought posed a really interesting question on your web site -- what if romney, gingrich and paul or let's say even romney, paul and now santorum end up with nearly the same percentage of the caucus vote? what if it ends up really all bunched together? what happens then? >> well, it's happened before in iowa and the parade simply moved on. that's why we have all the contests, plus d.c. and puerto rico and republicans abroad and all the rest. the parade moves on, and i think it's important to remember tuesday night, because we get so wrapped up in one little state, and i love iowa like everybody else, but iowa is iowa. it's got its peculiarities, it is not the country in loads of ways, and indeed we'll find that

out i think as we move to other places that have other peculiarities. >> and i have to ask you finally, since the name of the web site is crystal ball, what does your gut tell you, larry? who is going to win? >> you never go too far wrong on betting on the surging candidate, the last one surging at the last minute. it's clearly between romney and santorum at this point. i assume that paul's invisible army will help him keep in the upper tier, but it's hard to see him winning outright at this point. i would say it's a close call between romney and santorum. >> who would have predicted that a month ago? professor larry sabato, always good to stee you. >> thanks, chris. is since 1980, every winner of the south carolina republican primary has won the party's nomination. >> and the election won't be over as of iowa. it's going to go on. we bought our plane tickets for south carolina. >> chad connelly is the chairman of the south carolina republican party, dick har putly the

chairman of the south carolina democratic party. gentlemen, good morning. >> good morning. happy new year. >> happy new year to you. you know, bachmann says she's bought a plane ticket, so did rick perry, says after iowa he's putting all his efforts into south carolina. not surprising that these conservative candidates are going to the next conservative state. do you think, chad, they'll all make it there? >> well, you know, it's beengoing to be a wide-open race. i've been saying a long time our state is the ultimate retail politics place. it's small enough everybody can chris-cross the state and let's face it, our primary voters have a high level of expectations. we'll see who survives wau awe and new hampshire and on to south carolina. like you said, since 1980 we've selected the right nominee. >> one thing is for sure, dick, everybody will have to adjust their strategy a bit depending on what we see hop hapiappening iowa. i want to play a clip from gingrich over the weekend. >> i think new hampshire is the perfect state to have a debate

over romney care and to have a debate about tax-paid abortions which he signed and have a debate about putting planned parenthood into a government board which he signed and have a debate about appointing liberal judges, which he did. i think new hampshire is a good place to start the debate for south carolina. >> good place to start the debate for south carolina. and the indications are that his whole idea, obviously, of being positive has not helped his standing in the polls. does it sound to you, dick, like he's changing his strategy, that we're going to see him on the attack? >> i'm sort of shocked he's waiting so long. i've got to tell you that romney peeled the bark off of him in iowa and we're just beginning to see ads down here in south carolina. i want to tell you, this reminds me a lot of 2004 on the democratic side when we had kerry and six or seven others fighting each other all the way through. there was a leader one day and the lead changed nine times in 2003. so we've seen this phenomenon on the democratic side before, and,

again, you know, watching these guys go at each other is fascinating on the democratic side because mitt's right about newt and newt's right about mitt. and perry's right about both of them. so we're looking forward as democrats to them coming to south carolina and telling the truth about each other. >> well, one of the things that we know and we've seen in the past, chad, about south carolina, it's been kind of a fire wall for conservatives. is it likely to serve that function this time around? >> yeah. you know, i really think so. there's no question about it that some of them have really placed their bet here. from what we're hearing it looks like speaker gingrich and governor perry might even come early and really get into that retail politicking. i think a lot of candidates see this as a pfeiffer firewall. certainly if he look at what governor huckabee did out of here, he launched out of here and john mccain and raised a whole lot of money. i think you'll see out of iowa momentum and we'll see who

shakes out of that mix. but i do believe this will be a firewall and i think the voters of south carolina, our primary voters, are typically a good blend of conservative mix. we'll see exactly what happens in a couple of weeks. >> without the results from iowa yet, we're seeing that santorum is it finally putting up ads. he spent almost no money but now is putting up ads in south carolina. what do you think about that whole firewall concept? >> well, i think it is a good concept and santorum has been very many, many times. i think he has some retail network. i think gingrich has done the same thing, as has perry. romney just recently added george w. bush's chief strategist and longtime political operative announced this weekend he's with romney. we'll see sort of hand-to-hand combat over the next couple of weeks i think. it's going to get negative, nasty and dirty. we know this. it's a lot like a midget mud wrestling match.

we don't know who is going to win, but when it's over it's a midget covered with mud. >> i'm rarely left speechless. dick, chad, gentlemen, look forward to having both of you on very soon, closer to the primary there. thank you, guys. >> thank you. >> thanks for having me. have a great day. >> thank you. you, too. massive winter storm about to unleash freezing temperatures in the midwest and northeast and blizzard-like conditions for the great lakes. so much for the mild winter. mike seidel is 50 miles from buffa buffalo, by the shores of lake erie. mike, i grew up on the shores of lake erie. i know how brutal it kb. what's in store? >> reporter: really? i dmot know that. >> just outside of cleveland, ohio. >> reporter: well, i want to tell you, cleveland and those areas like lake ashtabula, geauga county, they're getting snow, pretty good snow this morning, an inchable hour in some spots, up here, too.

some of the preferred lake belts will get as much as two feet of snow. buffalo has only had a few inches of snow. this time last year in syracuse you had already shoveled six feet of the stuff. this year only seven inch ltz. really the story is the cold air, our first arctic air mass after a very lovely and mild december. new york city tomorrow, highs in the upper 20s, boston stays in the 20s, d.c. afternoon freezing. by wednesday morning, chris, temperatures in florida for most of the state at or below freeze pg, enl a frost down near ft. myers and northwest of miami. chris? >> weather channel's mike seidel in dunckirdunkirk, new york, beu than me, my friend. thank you. here is a frightening story. about 125 visitors have been evacuated from mt. rainier national park as the man hunt continues for an armed gunman suspected of killing a park ranger. 24-year-old benjamin barns, officials say, shot margaret

anderson when she stopped him at a road block. she was married to another ranger, their children 2 and 4 years old without a mom. he is also suspected of shooting four people at a party earlier in the day, two of them in critical condition. investigators believe barns is armed and still somewhere in the park. it seems like for every anti-aging problem, there's a different cream. i challenge that with olay. i've found one cream with everything i'm looking for... olay total effects. with 7 age defying effects in just one, easy to use cream. i've swapped to all-in-one total effects. why don't you swap too?

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by marie claire as one of the 25 beauty products that will change your life because it whitens by removing up to 80% of surface stains. see how it can change your life. crest 3d white. life opens up when you do. hi, everybody. i'm thomas roberts. in the next hour of msnbc, the rick santorum surge. with one day to go, the former pennsylvania senator has the momentum heading into caucus day. can undecided religious and ultra conservatives push santorum over the top? and speaking of the undecideds, a staggering number of iowans remain on the fence. what do the undecided voters really need to hear? then a political whip with the insider campaign nuggets that you are not going to hear anywhere else. that and much more coming your way in the next hour. chris? >> nowhere else? >> nowhere else. >> thomas roberts, thank you. the answer to our trivia

question, in the past five caucuses, how good has iowa been at picking the nominee? on the democratic side, four for five. of course clinton was the incumbent when he won in '92. he lost to iowa native tam harkin in a landslide. for republicans, iowa also four or for five. both bushes won the year they were incumbents, george w. also in 2000. bob dole won his year. last year around it was mike huckabee who did not win the nomination. we've been talking about the polls and what oes social media buzzing about before the first in the nation presidential contest. richard lui has been crunching the numbers. >> good morning. you may not be able to vote in iowa, but you can place a bet on the winner. the most familiar place in trade where you buy and sell shares of

a presidential winner. this election trading, by the way, 50% higher than 2008. let's take a look. mitt romney right now leads, probability of an iowa win close to 45% after six months of a roller coaster ride for him as you see there. echoing recent polls, ron paul dipping under 30% at the moment, but you can see he was pretty low earlier on. and the rick santorum surge we've just been talking about, now 28.5% after months as a penny stock. and that's where newt gingrich is, it's a boom and bust, now at 1.6%. look at that fall, how high he came from 60% just a month ago. now another momentum measure, their social media portfolio. now, in the last month, romney and paul facebook likes, they rose the most by over 70,000 as you can see here. rick santorum trailing, but by percentage growth -- i'm going show you this -- look at that, 21% down there for rick santorum doing quite well. twitter followers in the last month, fairly even growth as you see across this graph.

romney and paul lead, but on growth -- i'll throw up the percentages again -- santorum and paul lead with 30% and these are the latest numbers. digital campaign strategies aren't only for the gop. president obama's campaign manager is going big saying, quote, our efforts on the ground and on technology will make 2008 look prehistoric." now, "newsweek" says new capabilities include so-called microlistening, which will scour off-and-on behavior patterns, also computer modeling will formulate custom plans for each supporter. that means custom fund raising, custom persuasion and mobilization. and they are scrapping 2008's my barack obama.com for a brand new one. also, new mobile web capacity for smartphones, devices that were uncommon in 2008. so will 2012 be a whole new digital election? chris, you can bet on it.

>> i'm not taking a bet from you. >> i'm trustworthy. i will pay. >> thank you so much. appreciate it. richard lui, thank you. iowa a trending topic on twitter. one of the funniest tweets come from stand-up comedian kevin christy. we're less than 48 hours away from iowa, mattering for 12 hours. to make the water we dri, taste a little more, perfect. reduce lead and other impurities with the advanced filtration system of brita.

pay to play, lebron's engaged and gonna need a bigger boat. it's going to cost you more for the chance to win more. january 15th, the price of a power ball ticket doubles to 2 bucks. organizers believe the change will draw more people with the promise of bigger payoffs. they also want to distinguish power ball from mega millions. 12 nfl teams betting they'll be in the super bowl with the playoff picture set, nfc, lions taking on the saints saturday, giants/falcons sunday. packers and 49ers have a bye. in the afc, cincinnati versus the texans saturday and steelers versus the broncos on sunday.

the bye goes to the patriots and ravens. first it was michael jordan, now another nba great is set to tie the knot. bra bron james' surprise proposal to his longtime girlfriend on new year's eve. they already have two children. in florida, a set of twins not only have a different birthday, they were born in different years. twins jenna bear born 11:59 december 31st, cicely area just after midnight january 1st. both incredibly cute. and the birth of a different kind in morocco. these adorable lion cubs called the lion of atlas and the species is extinct supposedly. the zoo has the most of these kinds of lions in the world, 27. we're going to need some bigger boats due americans' ever expanding waistline, the coast guard has officially upped what it calls the assumed average weight per person. the new weight is 185 pounds, a full 25 more than the previous

average. they use the measurement to determine how many p people a vessel can hold. [ buzzer ] is that for the weight gain over the holidays? that will wrap up this hour of ""jansing and company."" thomas reports is back and up next. i'll see you back here tomorrow. ! get in the game! [ male announcer ] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies? lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older. you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. millions of men, forty-five or older, may have low t. so talk to your doctor about low t. hey, michael! [ male announcer ] and step out of the shadows. hi! how are you? [ male announcer ] learn more at isitlowt.com. [ laughs ] hey!

iowa countdown. one day to go and right now rick santorum has the momentum heading into caucus day. will religious and ultra conservatives push santorum over the top or will mitt romney ride to victory come tomorrow? watching the undecideds with 41%, that's right, 41%, of iowans still making up their minds in this race, it could break anybody's way. what do the undecided voters need to hear? and forget about november. the general election fight is already beginning in earnest. with team obama and mitt romney's campaigns framing the choice ahead for voters. we'll look at the lines of attack from each side. hi, everybody. hope y