s -- plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. all right. time for one quick e-mail back in new york. >> we have william. he says call me crazy but i predict willie geist will be a surprise third place finisher in the iowa caucuses. >> i like the prediction. die have a strong ground game like mitt romney. i've been running a subterranean campaign. i think you'll be very surprised tonight around 10:00 central time. "morning joe" starts right now.

we're going to win this thing with all of our passion and strength. >> everything we say will have romney's quotes, romney's videotape, romney's record. it'll all be based explicitly on romney. he set the terms of the campaign so starting wednesday morning we'll lay out, here's his record. here's my record. you choose. we'll do that all day every day until i win the nomination. >> okay. some people are going to say it's negative. >> well, the facts are negative, that tells you about his career. >> somehow weird, somehow odd, and should be subject to ridicule. when people say, rick, you're so extreme, you want to value all human life. you want to recognize and value the life in the womb at the moment of conception. why? because it's a human life. that's somehow extreme. >> okay. it is starting. the iowa caucuses, one of iowa's

proudest traditions start tonight at 7:00 central time. good morning, everyone. welcome to "morning joe." it's january 3rd. >> this is big, mika. >> yeah. it's big. it's caucus day. >> it is caucus day. we showed three clips yesterday. i think three fascinating clips. let's break it down quickly because before we even get to the news there are tons of polls and i think they show a real pattern going. but three quick things we saw there that i think are big news. one, mitt romney says i'm going to win this thing. >> yeah. well -- >> mitt has staked his claim. forget low expectations. he said i'm going to win iowa. number two you have newt gingrich saying the day after iowa i'm going to focus on nothing but taking down mitt romney. and number three, you have rick santorum. and we were all at the event last night where rick santorum was questioned about the way he treated the death of a young

child. >> that was incredible. >> his wife started tearing up. he teared up. he said would you tlik answer this question? >> this was the loss of their baby. >> he was attacked by alan combs on fox news, a guy i love, a really nice guy and subsequently apologized but it was a really personal attack against him and rick broke down in a very moving moment. i'll tell you what, there were a lot of people tearing up. >> in the room. we were there and it was, i mean, you could have heard a pin drop, number one. and number two, he addressed it head on. and i don't know. i think a lot of people will feel sympathy toward someone making an extremely personal decision like that and then having it dragged out in the press and criticized. >> right. >> that was just incredible. >> and the personal decision really quickly without getting to a lot of details, he had a premature child who died and they took the baby home.

and they just wanted their other children -- they said they wanted their other children to meet their brother before they buried him. i wanted to ask really quickly, though, mark halperin, we were there. it was an extraordinarily moving moment. everybody in the press was riveted by it. i'm really surprised this morning we're not hearing more about that moment from a guy who's a potential front-runner. i think it was one of the most personal moments of the campaign. >> i can't really explain it. the only factor i can account for is it happened about 6:15 eastern time or a little before that when the evening newscasts are sort of set in place. but i agree with you. a really emotional moment. unfortunate. i'm sorry the question was asked. i was sorry he answered it really but he -- it was very moving and scanning the media landscape just hasn't gotten very much attention. as you said, potential front-runner, guy who could end up winning this showing real emotion. >> you're sorry he answered it though?

what is he supposed to do? you're a candidate and you're supposed to put everything about you out there. >> i don't want to be critical of him. >> i would never criticize him. >> personally as a human being sitting about four feet from him i just wish he'd sa i'm not going to dignify that kind of thing. >> this story -- the story of what happened is public. it's been very public. >> right. >> his wife wrote a book about this. the "new york times" magazine wrote a lengthy story about it. "the new yorker" wrote a story at the time it happened. this is not the first time rick santorum has talked about this in public. the criticism from alan combs i think was out of line and the humanity that it showed -- if you ask why rick santorum is rising he has many weaknesses as a politician. why has he caught on here? one of the strengths he has is that he comes across like a real, authentic person and people recognize there is not a trace of phoneiness about him. >> even as you stood up there after being a congressman for two terms and a senator for two terms you know who you're looking at.

>> yes. >> i'm not campaigning for him here but we all were in the room and he is the grandson of a pennsylvania coal miner and you still see that. he doesn't boil things down for people. he says it like he feels it and it's not the most succint message, not the tightest message, but he is a real guy and you sense that. >> and there is a contrast to mitt romney for whom many people do, even people who admire romney, he has always had that problem of coming across like a stiff and phony to some people. rick santorum does not come across that way. i don't think he did anything here in a politically calculated way but the truth is that message does reinforce the depth of his conviction about the life issue. it reinforces the depth of his spiritual, cultural conservativism and the depth of his spirit chul commitments. the authenticity and the depth

of his religious conservativism are reinforcing the things that make him attractive to a lot of iowa voters. >> willie, you'll be surprised but actually the comparing and contrasting believe it or not, mitt romney not the grandson of a coal miner. but we move forward from that and let's talk about what newt gingrich said yesterday on the campaign because newt has been savaged by mitt's super pac. yesterday we saw him say enough. i've had millions and millions of dollars thrown against me and i've been hammered. this is it. starting tomorrow i'm going to spend my $9.6 million i raised this quarter on nothing but drawing the contrast between me and romney. he even said i'm not talking about anybody else. i'm going straight at romney, game on. this is going to be about -- >> it may be too little too late. everyone asked what happened to newt gingrich over the last couple months. it's pretty simple. mitt romney had all this money, his super pacs had all this

money. they waited until the bitter end here in iowa and unloaded on newt gingrich. if you watch any television program of any kind in the state, whether a news show or watching a football game, you're going to see a negative ad about newt gingrich. >> the attacks are unrelenting and we always hear, willie, about iowa nice. we all remember back to 2004 when gephardt started launching negative attacks against howard dean. >> right. >> they went back and forth killing each other and that of course allowed john kerry to win. isn't there a possibility that these negative attacks could turn off iowa voters? they're not stupid. they know it could be a super pack but they know this is going for mitt romney. >> i think it's too late. i think it's too late. i think mitt romney has put himself in a position running a great ground game here. it's not going to happen. >> i'm not going to talk about mitt. i'm not talking about newt. isn't there a chance that all this negativity back fires on mitt? >> i think it's part of why

santorum has gone up. his campaign manager told me yesterday he has not done one cent on voter communication negative message. no robocalls, no direct mail. obviously no tv ads. i think it's helped him because there has been sniping back and forth particularly with the tv ads against gingrich. >> i don't think it's necessarily true and this is not to in any way impune the sophistication of iowa voters. the truth is these ads are as result of citizens united, the super pac, these ads do not have fingerprints on them. for voters who are not watching "morning joe" and not necessarily paying attention to newt gingrich when he names mitt romney as the source of those ads, a lot of people see those ads and do actually kind of wonder, i don't really know where that comes from. it's from the restore a future pac. i don't know what that is. it lets romney get away with a lot of negative campaigning. >> the latest polls show four candidates within striking distance of each other in iowa. mitt romney at the top, ron paul, rick santorum, and newt

gingrich. according to the american research group poll romney leads the pack with 22% support among likely caucus goers. ron paul in second dropping four points in two weeks. and rick santorum surges to third place gaining 12 points since the week before christmas. newt gingrich drops to fourth place in the hawkeye state down four points since the last poll. rick perry and michele bachmann round out the top six. >> let's look at the right side of that poll. it is all about trend lines. in fact, i've got a guy that worked with me on my last campaign and there was this poll that this professor did and it was just phone calls and sometimes he'd only get four or five people in a precinct. and if my numbers were going down i would go crazy thinking this isn't a scientific poll. crazy. i said, look at the trends. always look at the trends. i don't care if it's five people. if i had 4 of 5 votes last week in the precinct and i've got 2

of 5 this week something's happening. let's put those numbers back up. i want you guys to see these trend lines because as you come down to the last weekend it is all about trends. john, what do you see there? >> i see what we've seen in a lot of polls over the last couple weeks. look at the plus and minus signs. mitt romney ticking up from a -- a higher level than rick santorum but rick santorum surnling up. ron paul falling. newt gingrich falling. and michele bachmann and rick perry flat lining. that has been the story of the last two weeks in iowa. >> we went to a ron paul event yesterday. i thought ron paul's message as far as message discipline goes is the best i have seen in this campaign. i talked to joe klein whose going to be here later on, mark. he said that ron paul is better this week than he was last week and better than the week before. that he's really finding his voice. and yet ron paul, if you talk to every campaign, the internal show, his numbers are going down. >> well, finding his voice and

blessed with an audience that knows his message already. it's like they play the screen door slams and they all know. they just know he gives his short-hand bullet points about key issues and they all know it. it is still the case that a lot of people in the room at that event yesterday, young people, people from out of state, people who don't know how to caucus, so the ceiling he's hit is in part because of his message particularly on foreign policy misses the mark with a lot of republicans and also because there have been a lot of negative ads against him. >> he can still win though, right? we're in a position today are we not where romney, ron paul, or rick santorum could all win. >> look at the poll we saw before. there was 14, plus or minus 4% margin of error. 14 points separated first and last. >> john, you disagree with that? >> well, i think it's, again, just on the basis of what everyone, what i like to hear from all the campaigns and on the basis of trend lines and the

basis of the fact that it looks like we are going to have a pretty nice day here. and we, again, you keep hearing from all the campaigns that turnout is going to be very high. they'll expect it to be very high. ron paul would benefit from a bad weather day where a turnout was low and where organization and commitment mattered more. i won't be knocked over if ron paul wins but i'd be a little surprised if ron paul came in first. >> some people in the romney campaign disagree with that which has been the conventional wisdom that paul would benefit from a low turnout. they say if there's a big turnout paul has brought in a lot of new people, independents. >> like obama four years ago. >> if it's just a caucus amongst republicans paul won't do well. if it's a bigger field he might do better. >> joe, if you watched mitt romney on the stump this week and if you listen to what his advisers are saying and you go to an event, they are supremely confident. i think it's fair to say in a way that they were very reserved about admitting up until a few days ago. so they're seeing something and talk about trends, they're seeing something internally that is allowing them to go out

publicly and say we feel good about this. >> they're seeing a couple things. first of all the internal polls that show them moving but they also understand this. they're like the biggest banks in america. if they win, they win. if they lose they win. right? if the economy is good they're making lots of money. if they go bankrupt, the federal government is going to bail them out anyway. so let's talk about the three scenarios for mitt romney. mitt romney wins, that's good. mitt romney loses to santorum, that's good. mitt romney loses to ron paul, that's good. they were -- the only time this campaign has had any fear in their bones where you went up and you talked to them and they said, yes, this is a crisis. this could be the end of our campaign, was when newt gingrich exploded. they do not fear santorum. they want santorum to do well. because that splits the conservative vote. they want ron paul to do well because they believe that proves

the iowa caucus does not matter. they have calculated this out and they killed newt politically in iowa, so they think that they're going to win in a big way. they've survived iowa. last year, you know, mika, they remember. we were here. a lot of people -- we saw mitt's organization here four years ago. it was impressive. then you had mike huckabee sitting alone on a bus with chuck norris talking about arkansas football, winning it all. >> that was a little different. definitely. >> playing guitar with joe scarborough. which by the way, if you look at the trend lines, huckabee was at 14% yes. >> before i got on stage and played guitar with him. boom. right up to 38. >> okay. exactly. of course. >> you and ron paul should get tlup tonight. >> oh, yeah. >> that would be something to see. >> one thing that is, unless it's selective memory, but so different than four years ago, is the two events we went to yesterday, it was like old home week with my friends at cbs because it was all media, a few people. >> crowds were so small.

>> all media. it was like a crush of media. >> it was like a high school reunion. >> yes. >> by the way, there were a couple of voters there. can you guys quiet down? we're reminiscing about four years ago. >> i have to do two interviews with dutch tv. please get out of here. >> exactly. the crowds were so small. >> it was sparse. >> this is one of the things i just don't understand. i said second ago everyone thinks there is going to be a big turnout. you hear this from every campaign and yet there is not a reporter i know who doesn't hear that and think, well how can that be? because every event we've gone to for the past month has been relatively speaking tiny. >> yeah. >> the big events are smaller than the big events were four years ago. the small events are miniscule. so given that there's a much lesser degree of voter interest in these events, what is it that's causing people to think that the turnout is going to be historic tomorrow? >> exactly. >> i just don't get it. >> four years ago when we were here we would have people constantly coming up talking about president obama, then

senator obama. hillary clinton. >> so excited about the candidates. >> everybody came up. they all had their candidates. >> fred thompson. >> fred thompson. >> oh, my lord. >> they were all talking saying we wonder if he's going to get out of bed today. >> is he going to budge? >> i heard that two weeks ago there was a signing but he saw his shadow and went back to sleep. but that said, people were excited. now they come up and they go, hey, we watch your show. we love -- it's about everything else. it's about "morning joe" and iowa football, alabama -- it's about everything else but these political candidates. >> kind of sad. >> mika, when i hear these projections it is going to be a record turnout, 140,000, i'm like these guys. i don't see it. >> and the numbers of undecideds still at this point. is that unprecedented, bill, mark? >> higher than normal. >> yeah. >> again, it also confounds --

generally people don't, you know, high turnout elections are when people want to go out and vote for someone and they know who. so generally if you're undecided this late, why are you turning out? you don't just decide hey i'm going to a movie tonight. you usually go because there is a movie you want to see. >> the numbers in the des moines register poll about intensity for candidates, commitment, rick santorum's number was huge, something like 75%. beyond that even for mitt romney they were not that strong. low 50s. >> i will say this, willie, to that point, when you go to a santorum event and people are sitting there, you know 90% of the people at that event are going to be caucusing on tuesday night for santorum and same with ron paul. i don't know about the other candidates. i think that's one of the challenges for mitt romney but i think mitt's in great shape right now. >> yeah. >> one of the things with modern politics which tim pawlenty talked about who got out of the race, it's a lot like a reality

show. you have to have some pizzaz and excitement and this field of candidates among their weaknesses are just not that compelling as a group. >> or compelling in the wrong way. >> oh, stop that. >> there is a reality show aspect to it. >> i find them all compelling. >> oh, right. >> do you think tim pawlenty wishes he had hung around a little longer? >> nah. >> don't you think there is just one problem for mitt romney, which is that he made newt gingrich angry. like the teddy bear is mad now. >> freddy kruger. >> stop that. >> i'm serious. i agree -- did all of you guys play risk growing snup? all the way through college it took my friends through high school and college finally the senior year of college they figured out that i was spending the entire game getting them to attack each other. and after they figured that out, every game i played they said we're going to kill scarborough first and then play the game. that's happened with newt gingrich. now he said, okay. you know what? everybody's attacked me.

i'm going to focus on mitt romney and it's going to make mitt's life a lot more difficult, especially in south carolina. >> and in the two new hampshire debates this weekend. >> and the new hampshire debates. >> really? >> you're exactly right. those debates are looming large because that's where newt does his best. those debates did a lot to swing the new hampshire election last time. >> they could weed out more candidates. >> between those two debates and people need to realize this, no matter how bad newt does tonight between those two debates and having the union leader supporting newt gingrich, don't count that guy out for having a strong showing in new hampshire next week. >> oh, good lord. okay. much more ahead live from java joe's in des moines. guess what? mitt romney will -- >> do you believe this? she just can't hide it. he said one neat thing about your dad. your dad's fine with it. >> we are a transparent show. we are very honest about everything. >> all right. >> i look forward to interviewing newt gingrich on the show. i'm showing you -- >> i don't think he will come here. >> all right. i'm sure he does.

>> we have dnc chairman debbie wassermann schultz is going to be here. we had quite an encounter with the occupy group yesterday. they had some strong words for congresswoman schultz. also chris matthews is going to be here and after the break the great mike allen and the playbook. you can feel the electricity sweeping through java joe's. >> look at him! >> here's bill karins with a check on the forecast. good morning, joe. as you know, everyone there at java joe's knows in des moines right now the wind chill is zero. it is a cold morning in iowa but a nice afternoon. the caucusing takes place later on this evening and so by then it's going to warm up significantly. temperatures will be in the 20s and 30s in most cases so as far as the turnout goes the weather will not affect that at all. there is no snow, no rain in the forecast. just sunshine and then clear skies later on tonight. for everyone else joining us on

the east coast you're back to work, back to school. bundle the kids up. cold this morning so far this winter season. wind chill is 6 right now in chicago. 0 minneapolis. the cold air is now heading all the way down into florida for the first time this winter season. so today's forecast, anyone traveling the big cities, airplanes will be no problems at all but it will be cold as advertised. the southeast a chilly day for you. only 30s for atlanta. florida barely getting up out of the 40s. even to miami it's cold by your standards but the good thing is for much of the country this cold snap is over with by the upcoming weekend. warm temperatures on the way. more from java joe's in des moines. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool if you took the top down on a crossover? if there were buttons for this?

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some of your staffers have told us that you ran this as a gubernatorial campaign for too long. that you didn't look big enough, get big enough fast enough. do you take some responsibility for that? >> i don't know who you're talking to so i can't respond unless you give me a name. >> these are members of your staff. >> you got a name? >> who say -- >> you got a name? >> you won't listen to -- >> you got a name? if you don't have a name to tell me this individual said this, then i don't take that as a corroborated source. >> so you think your campaign has run perfectly and there is nothing you would change? >> i didn't say that at all but you were starting to point fingers at somebody on my staff and you can't give me a name. >> they're pointing fingers at each other. >> here's what i'm telling you. you want to say that story you give me a name and you can't do that so that's on you. >> well now. wow. >> mike. >> mike allen and texas governor rick perry going at it on sunday. willie, you got a name? you got a name?

>> you can say that story but give me a name. here is the white house correspondent for politico, what was going on there, mike? >> politico had posted a story about jonathan martin and maggie hagerman quoting members of governor perry's current staff shooting at each other over the way this campaign has imploded. the newcomers on the staff were blaming the texans who started the campaign, the inner circle, saying he had not done enough to ramp up, make it a presidential campaign quick enough. that it was running more like a gubernatorial campaign. he was used to rick perry going out there and the people and the money coming to him. it didn't happen on the national stage. >> you going to give us the name? >> what's the name? >> i think mark halperin has it. >> you got the name? >> i'll put it on twitter. >> so there is obviously a lot of back and forth between the national folks and the texas folks. i mean, this happens in a lot of different campaigns. >> yeah. what happened was you have that very tight perry inner circle who were with him through his

governor's races who probably helped talk him into getting into the governor's race. they eventually added some other national consultants and reading between the lines of this, the governor was also smacking down and scolding the people who were talking. they had been doing a lot less talking and he went on here to strongly defend the texas team, the people who had helped keep him in the governor's office. >> mark halperin just to verify this story from politico, you're hearing it. we're all hearing it. this is one of the worst presidentirun presidential campaigns in many cycles. it starts with the candidate's terrible performances in the debates but behind the scenes chaotic as well. this is not breaking news. >> a lot of people get into their first presidential campaign and think i've run for big offices. this won't seem much different. governor of texas seems like a step away but rick perry learned what a lot of people before him have learned which is it is nothing like running for president. one reason rick santorum is so

impressive is because he's been in national life long enough that he has handled himself so far very well and his staffing very well. rick perry did not. and the tensions between the texas folks and the national folks have been palatable. >> perry is pulling down there in single digits. let's talk about the guys at the top of the polls. romney, santorum, ron paul. you went to an event for each, watched them make their closing arguments. joe and mika were talking about this earlier. small crowds at some of these events. what did you see yesterday? i agree with your point about them not getting to the 140,000. something else we noticed as we were driving out to the santorum event at the pizza ranch. it was my first pizza ranch event out in boon. >> it was lovely. >> i love the pizza ranch. >> i could have grazed there all day. >> mika's personal hell is the pizza ranch. >> i'm looking at these buffets of pizza! >> and you had none. come on. >> and dessert pizza. whole separate apple pie pizza. >> let me tell you something. this is my kind of place, iowa.

>> iowa is great. but we need a little more -- >> you know how much the pizza buffet costs? >> 9.99. >> no way. >> oh, god. >> no way. he got oust campaign. >> yet his legacy lives on. >> it does. by the way, it's only been three weeks since herman cain dropped out of the race. >> that's disturbing. >> it seems like a year. >> we've been a little immersed. >> herman, we hardly knew you. >> let's go back to the point. not a lot of people at these events. >> right. and a very simple thing. roughly an hour, we decided to count bumper stickers or signs in the race and you remember you were talking about '08. had the big 4 x 8 signs in every farm, right? there are no signs, no bumper stickers. >> why? >> occasionally ron paul. the people just -- we went to the mitt romney event last night. it was very presidential. you know, that hollywood lighting and the whole thing. it was a big crowd. he had the whole family there.

he clearly is looking ahead for tomorrow. he is going to be doing an event in manchester, new hampshire in the high school where barack obama last appeared. so a little message there. a little jab. a little chin music. but the people weren't applauding, and i noticed the contrast when we went to a ron paul event. ron paul event, people who weren't iowans and weren't of age. 17-year-olds from minnesota aren't much help to ron paul but they were excited, shouting his name, shouting end the fed. and the excitement there just showed me how really calm these other events are. >> we've been talking, mark halperin, about how a lot of these candidates haven't been running good campaigns. if you just look at, you know, the blocking and tackling. one of the things that surprised me, ron paul yesterday, this didn't surprise me, his message was the tightest, the most succint. i think that one of the best speeches i've seen again, forget the ideology. i'm just looking how the guy runs the 15 and out pattern.

and he did it right. that said, remember governors that have run for office many times, we've got congressmen, senators, and yet it's like they forget how to do the blocking and tackling they were taught in the little league. >> feels like a local race. >> i don't understand why that is. >> i can't understand it but it does explain why one of the weakest front-runners, either party has ever had, may be able to win the nomination relatively easily because in boston the romney campaign does do the basic blocking and tackling. >> do you know how you get people to put signs up in their yards? >> ask them. >> you ask them. and a lot of times whether they're -- whether you're a boring candidate or not, if you sit in somebody's house for 30 minutes, tell them what you feel, i'll tell you what. i asked a thousand times at the end of a 30-minute conversation, thank you so much. i'd love for you guys to vote for me. tell your friends. do you mind if i put a yard sign in your front yard?

every time. they say yeah. and give me another one because i got a friend down the block. >> a sign is a vote and a button is a vote. >> yeah. yet they're not doing that. >> watch how inefficiently still they are at collecting e-mail addresses from people coming in and going out. nothing like a modern campaign, the obama campaign, the edwards campaign, the clinton campaign last time. not even close. >> you know what i heard about talking about buttons? if i get somebody to take a button -- >> oh, no. you're not going to tell this story. >> i got to tell this story. >> so disturbing. >> i was talking to a newt supporter yesterday. i said who are you supporting? he goes well i was going to support newt gingrich. i said what happened? negative ads? he goes, no. i saw him and i asked him for a button and he told me i could go on his website and buy one for $4. >> put those in your pocket, buddy. >> seriously. >> i love democracy. >> we have a store dish- >> no, no. just amazing. it's basic blocking and tackling. >> newt gingrich got a political director on december 19th. >> december 26th the day after christmas everybody else was

getting rolling. he was in mclean, virginia, the giant supermarket. not how you win an iowa caucus. >> no. that's not where they are. >> fascinating. mike, thanks so much. get that name for us. all right? >> yeah. >> coming up a little later mitt romney will be with us onset. >> all right! >> also tom brokaw joins us here at java joe's in des moines on caucus day, 2012. this is an rc robotic claw.

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there's one. score! across, score! on the outside and he scores! and here's brum with it. a shot. he scores! rebound, scores! briere against lundqvist. save lundqvist! >> that was the great doc emmerich with the call on nbc yesterday for the winter classic where the new york rangers beat the flyers by the score of 3-2. the game played outdoors in citizens bank park in philadelphia. time for some football. it was not the national championship game but stanford and oklahoma state put on a great show in last night's fiesta bowl. imagine as you watch these

highlights that it's a final four game in a college football playoff. in other words, imagine if this game actually meant something. first quarter, two-time heisman runner-up andrew lott gets stanford on the board. hits ty montgomery for a 52-yard scoring pass. then in the second montgomery again fields the kickoff but stopped in his own tracks by teammate jeremy stewart. the freshman wanted to make a run for it but stewart tackled him to keep him in the end zone. >> good for him. >> let's go to the fourth quarter. three seconds on the clock. tie game. stanford has a chance to win. jordan williamson right down the middle for 35 yards. misses badly. but another shot in overtime. this is where you start to feel bad for the kid. 43 yards. he misses another one. that gives an easy shot for oklahoma state's quinn sharpe. he hits a 22-yard field goal for the win. cowboys win, 41-38 in a great

game. we should point out, oklahoma state's only loss to the iowa state cyclones in ames, iowa. otherwise they'd be playing lsu for the national championship next week. >> you know, iowa -- >> that stanford kicker. >> my god. his life is over. >> iowa state by the way is the reason we're going to go to the national championship. >> exactly right. >> go iowa state. by the way, this has been the year, willie, where one missed kick after another has shaped the outlook of the entire college football season. boise state lost their -- that way. >> alabama against lsu. >> alabama against lsu. yeah. but it's unbelievable. one miss after another. >> you feel bad for that kid. red shirt freshman. he has three more years to redeem himself somehow. >> he had three more years. >> he may not be back. >> now the rose bowl is another great game. >> a great game. >> it is.

>> against wisconsin. heisman final, monty ball, 42 yards set up a touchdown for wisconsin. 14-7 badgers. he had 164 yards and tied barry sanders' single season touchdown record with 39. fourth quarter, darren thomas. ducks up four. two seconds left. wisconsin drives with a chance at one last shot at the end zone. quarterback russell wilson tries to spike the ball as time runs out. he thought he got it down. they reviewed the play. they showed the clock was at zero before it left his hand. game over. oregon in those ugly uniforms, 45-38, the highest scoring game in rose bowl history. oregon wins it, the first rose bowl in 95 years. >> i think that's -- they missed a field goal against usc. >> all comes down to kicks in the end. we'll be right back with the republican congressman steve king of iowa asking why he

decided not to endorse a presidential candidate in this state. also mike barnicle is here. keep it on "morning joe." an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement, if your car is totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. liberty mutual auto insurance.

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we are back at java joe's. time for the must read opinion pages. joining us now msnbc contributor mike barnicle and republican congressman from iowa representative steve king and this -- >> yeah? >> this goes. >> what are you doing? >> oh, no. >> stop it. good lord. >> i don't know who gives that to you. but that doesn't happen. >> you decided yesterday to not endorse any candidate. tell us how you got there. >> well, first of all, a long

trip there. we started in january 6th of last year to start planning the caucus process. i believe all along that i would pick a time in september or october and there would be a candidate that would bring my head and my heart together and i would jump in with both feet. >> that just never happened. >> that has not happened. >> just didn't get there. >> a lot of people thought you were getting close with rick santorum. is rick popular in your district? >> he is popular. he's built a good foundation across the state and especially in the corner of northwest iowa. now spint a fair amount of time with rick. i like him. i just wasn't ready to do it. >> on rick, i'll get to that. on ron paul you say he is not dangerous unless he is president. mitt romney you say he could win in iowa in the general election. on santorum you said he's built the best face-to-face network which we saw happening. >> let's start with ron paul. >> all of those things. >> why do you think ron paul would be dangerous if he were president of the united states? >> well, there are lots of things i can say about what ron paul has done that's good but once you get to the foreign policy part of this, i just

remember a question i asked him in columbia, south carolina on labor day and the forum down there with jim demint and robby jordan. i said where would you project power? he said, well i wouldn't. i would bring all the troops home. all of our troops out of japan, germany, korea, all of them back home again. what about our navy? all of them back home. i didn't ask the air force question. that was obviously the answer to that question. >> yeah. >> so just think of bringing, collapsing the power we've projected around this globe that's been paid for in blood and treasure, collapse it into the 50 states, what happens? our enemies will fill the vacuum right up to our borders and that's a -- that is a very scary thought. you could never put it back again. >> mike barnicle, ron paul obviously does take what many consider to be a very extreme position on foreign policy. we obviously have serious misgivings about staying in afghanistan and of course the same with iraq. but ron paul is actually talking

about not standing up to iran, saying they've got a right to have the nuclear weapons, saying a lot of things that might be scaring a lot of republican voters. >> and it's also why he's never going to be president of the united states. >> right. >> i mean, that aspect of his foreign policy. my question to you, congressman, you just alluded to it, why, given our fiscal condition in this country, do we today have 85,000 troops in germany and 25,000 in okinawa? why? are we afraid finland is going to attack europe? why do we have that many troops? why are we spending that money? >> well, i won't defend the numbers of troops that are in places like germany, for example, but i do believe that we should maintain those bases and those bases of operations and the numbers, that's a question i can negotiate with you all and have that discussion but when we sit around the world and if we sit there in okinawa that means we project power across the pacific, that china is less aggressive when we can project power to the middle east iran is less aggressive. >> what do you think the odds are that the next war will be a land war? >> i don't know.

i hadn't thought about that question. >> yeah. >> but a whole lot of the last ones have been and desert storm comes to mind but if we could project power by the air force is what you're suggesting maybe we don't need the troops. we can get troops in and deployed quickly. i think we need to have perhaps more overall standing military but more mobile, more special ops, and less large operation capability. >> john? >> you mentioned long process, you couldn't get there to endorse anybody. what is wrong with rick santorum from your point of view that you couldn't get there for him? i think about his issue positions on foreign policy you've just been discussing, social conservative, a lot of things i would have thought would be the perfect way to unite head and heart for you. what held you back on him? >> it's a good, strong, professional and friendly relationships with a number of the other candidates and that is a bit of a restraining factor. i didn't get up this morning to say anything negative about rick santorum. it's pretty hard to do that. but, rick strengths we know.

i'll say economically he's not as comfortable talking about economics as several of the other candidates. and he is not as comfortable talking about immigration at several of the other candidates. so it was just a matter of the energy didn't come to me in that way. i like rick a lot. i would be very comfortable with him as president. he would use the bully pulpit to strengthen our families and if we fix the social structure the rest will flow. >> how many terms have you served? >> my fifth term. nine years. >> have you been undecided on a candidate before like this? i find it troubling. >> i find it troubling. >> you're troubled, mika. >> are you and has this ever happened before? give us some context. >> well, the last -- four years ago of course i went through a very similar process and sometime in early december i endorsed fred thompson. and i jumped on the bus and the band wagon and head and heart, both feet, we went a 50-town tour in carolina, went with him

and threw myself into it. i couldn't get to that point this time and it was not the right thing for me to do to pick a candidate's name out of a hat or throw myself into something unless it was a genuine conviction and i weighed that. >> it sounds like you don't have anything personal against any of these candidates. it's just that it didn't all come together. for instance with mitt romney i find it fascinating what you say about mitt. he could win a general election in iowa. i can tell you, in your district, and in my old district, that's not necessarily a compliment. that's saying he is a little moderate. a little more jim leeks than steve king but it sounds like there is something good about every one of these candidates. >> there is. >> but not enough. >> the package just doesn't come together. >> not enough to overshadow the other candidates, to make it distinct. but think about what mitt brings to the table. esthe consummate executive. and the trains would run on time. he would put professionals in every slot. it would flow down through and the executive branch would be back functioning like a real

government again. that is a really good thing about mitt. think what he said about finances. i asked these questions in columbia. what would do you with dodd/frank? well, after he got over his rant about dodd and frank i would rye peel it. sarbanes/oxley repeal. privatize fannie and freddie. that is a pretty good financial package just to clean up the mess. >> can i ask you quickly, stop that. you're making trouble now. >> really quickly now let me ask one final question. if i've endorsed fred thompson four years ago i'd ablittle shy. >> oh, now. >> did he show up -- >> and you endorse a guy and then he sits in a balounger. one thing that disturbs me as a conservative like you is that republicans took control of the house of representatives a year ago. we heard about how right wing and how radical they are. we've heard about how they want to tear down the government. they want to cut and slash too

much. >> burn the place down to use your words, joe. >> exactly. >> do you use those words? >> de. >> do you get to the end of the year though? guess what? we added another trillion dollars in debt. another trillion dollars. as you know, article one section seven says all spending bills start in the house. what can the republican majority do over the next year to win more of these battles and just say no to big spending? >> i don't know that we can. that is another factor in this. we had our opportunities to draw the bright line. we should have cut off all funding to obama care. i burned up about any good will i had left in the congress seeking to try to force the vote to cut off all the funding obama care on the $105.5 billion. the speaker determined we were not going to be facing the threat of the president shutting down the government. there will not be that kind of showdown. if you can't force the showdown you have to have a majority in the senate and a president. so i'm not hopeful we'll do much of anything except stop bad

things. >> is john boehner a strong conservative leader? >> i think that he is a conservative across the board. but he doesn't want to confront the president when it comes to the threat of a showdown. everybody knows that in this country. >> you have to do that. >> and i've said that for a year. >> all right. >> congressman king, thank you. if you get some clarity in the next eight hours will you call me? >> i'll call you first. >> thanks very much. >> congressman steve king, thank you so much. coming up next we've got mitt romney. >> all morning. here we go. >> tom brokaw, chris matthews, and eugene robinson. we'll be right back. losing weight clicked for us when we realized

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you guys, i need you tomorrow night. i need every single vote in this room and i need you to get a couple of other votes from your neighborhood and get to the caucus. i need a great showing here in cedar rapids. we're going to win this thing with all of our passion and strength and do everything we can to get this campaign on the right track to go across the nation and to pick up other states and to get the ballots i need, the votes i need to become the nominee. >> i don't think i'm going to win. i think you look at the numbers and i think that volume of negativity has done enough damage but on the other hand if the des moines register was right and it's 41% potentially, who knows what's going to happen? whatever i do tomorrow night will be a victory because i'm still standing. this is the second time in a year that, you know, the last time it was media by you guys, not you personally, and this time it is paid media by romney and twice people tried to drive me out of the race. >> isn't it disingenuous to tell us not to settle when it's what

you did four years ago? >> i think what i'm telling you to do is pick the more conservative of the candidates. and it's not to settle for something less than what you believe is the best. and sometimes the best isn't that great but it's the best. and as i've said, i'm not a perfect candidate. but i would make the argument that i believe that we're the best alternative out there. in the case of governor romney and john mccain, i settled for what i thought was the best alternative out there. >> all right. welcome back to "morning joe" live from java joe's. it is here, joe. it's caucus day. >> it is caucus day. >> and joining us now, prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" and msnbc analyst, eugene robinson. also, msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele. i was noting a lot of republicans yesterday at the

events we got to. i got hives but i got through it. i got through it. it's okay. i did. i learned so much. >> there is no doubt about it. mitt romney seemed to have that glow. and let me ask you. he seemed very confident. >> he is. >> did he not? michael said i'm going to win after all of these months of playing down expectations mitt romney yesterday said i'm going to -- >> it's over. >> i think he's got some internals and showing that he has the strength on the ground to do that. i think his organization has been -- a lot of people have under estimated about his campaign sort of looking for his physical presence here in the state. while that was not here, his organization was. and they have been working over the past year, even the last four or five years really on keeping that energy going for his team. >> that was a real takeaway also, gene, yesterday, the takeaway for newt gingrich when he said, from here on out, starting wednesday morning. >> going after him. >> i've got a target on your back, mitt romney.

and you know what i'm going to do to beat you mitt romney because you've been attacking me nonstop? i'm just going to churn up old videos, old statements that you've made. i think we're about to move into a new phase where newt gingrich becomes the first person to attack mitt romney. >> yes. >> is that going to work? >> mitt romney welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. you know, it's going to have an impact. you know, negative advertising works. it has an impact. i talked to a bunch of voters yesterday. many of them undecided by the way trying to pick between what they -- what they saw as the lesser of two evils. but everybody knew what had been in every negative ad. everybody knew all the reasons not to caucus for romney, not to caucus for gingrich, not to caucus for any of the candidates. that stuff works. and i think it's going to work on romney. it's just going to --

>> mike barnicle, it is going to be. this is the first day of the rest of mitt romney's campaign. he's going to win today but tomorrow morning something is going to happen. i can't wait to talk to him about it when he comes in here in a little bit. he's actually going to start being attacked. this has been a really strange campaign because all the conservatives who have been attacking each other and letting romney stay in his own lane, that ends if newt comes after him. >> this, joe, is a newspaper guy's definition of heaven. we're just about to go to new hampshire. mitt romney's back yard, his adopted home state. it will be a tension convention with newt gingrich slamming him left, slamming him right, slamming him 24 hours a day. and when you put that recipe -- >> and the union -- >> doubling up on romney because they've endorsed newt gingrich. when you put newt's background into the equation given his --

he'll have ample opportunities for making a monumental gaffe verbally, rhetorically. >> yeah. >> i can't wait to get to new hampshire. >> that'll be exciting. eugene robinson in today's "the washington post" does not think that mitt romney has this locked in. i'll read a piece of that. you say this, eugene. i don't subscribe to the screw that romney somehow locks up the nomination even if he finishes second to santorum or paul. first there is the obvious fact that you don't win by losing. second, the primary schedule still offers the opportunity for anybody but mitt to coalesce behind a single, strong challenger. a romney victory in new hampshire next week is already taken for granted but then comes south carolina, a state where it's easy to imagine romney being beaten by santorum, newt gingrich, or even rick perry all of whom will still be in the race. yes it would be remarkable if the antiromney sentiment all came together behind one of those contenders in a week and a half but stranger things have

happened. remember herman cain. just three and a half weeks ago in the game. >> on top of the game. >> unbelievable. >> we've seen palin at the top of the game, trump in the spring, michele bachmann at the top of the game in the summer. rick perry in august at the top of the game. herman cain. newt gingrich. ron paul. every one of them gone up, every one of them come down. >> gallup poll, the most volatile gop race they've ever seen since polling started. it's been so consistently volatile that i don't know why we should expect it to change all of a sudden. it's become kind of a normal. i don't think romney has the strength yet. maybe he'll consolidate. i don't think he has the strength yet to crush and squash gingrich. >> gene, you and i were going through the process last year or four years ago together and we saw the back and forth on the democratic side. we saw mccain win very quickly.

few people realized at the end of the campaign if democrats had republican rules, hillary would have won. >> oh, yeah. >> but this time you get republicans with a democratic rules and you are not going to see mitt romney win the first two states and lock it down. this is a long, hard battle regardless of who wins over the next two weeks. >> you can stay in and however well you do in a primary you can scrape together a few delegates because it's proportional now. >> but mitt's obviously got the only organization that's built to last through the long campaign. >> he has that but, you know, as we've discovered, you know, organization does not a winner make necessarily. i think you should look for the second win for perry for example down in someplace like south carolina. >> i want to look at the polls really quick, alex, if we could, before we get to the next sound bite because we have the latest poll showing four candidates within striking distance of each other for iowa.

this is the american research group poll. romney leading the pack with 22% support among likely caucus goers. you've got ron paul in second dropping four points in two weeks. rick santorum surging to third place gaining 12 points since the week before christmas. and newt gingrich dropping to fourth place in the hawkeye state. >> mike barnicle, what's your take? >> my take off of what gene and make l were talking about is that romney seems to be the only candidate with what i would refer to as organizational stamina and money. and so no matter what happens here today, and i think he'd probably win here today, new hampshire, he should win in new hampshire, going south to south carolina, florida, might have a few bumps in the road but he has the organizational strength and the money that the other candidates seem not to have. and i think that's going to win the day. >> we'll get him way beyond iowa. >> michael, still, is there anybody that looking at the long haul is better positioned to take on romney than, say, newt

gingrich? if you look at the long haul, is it probably going to come down to mitt and newt? >> i think organizationally that would be perry. if you're going to look at someone longer haul who still has some cash and reserves. >> does per sry still have a chance here? >> i think in a place like south carolina where i know he's got a very strong team of folks working for him, where, yeah, newt is strong in the polls there, you'll have this sort of coalescing particularly out of iowa and new hampshire of the base there around this idea of a conservative candidate which is why i asked the question yesterday of bachmann. have you guys had a meeting yet? >> right. >> and made that effort. >> she didn't like that question. she thought that wasn't helpful. >> there are a lot of reasons why rick perry ought to be doing better and in fact there is talk last night and today that maybe he'll finish fourth. maybe newt will finish fifth in

the caucus. >> that's a lot. >> what if perry finishes sixth. what if bachmann, santorum, what if perry finishes sixth? does he get out then? >> he should go back to texas. you know, what they used to say about brazil, remember, it's the country of the future and always will be? rick perry is the candidate of the future and always will be. i'm starting to believe that. >> so, mike, it used to be you would, if you go back to past campaigns, that you covered along with tim, if you were a senator or a governor and people are talking about you winning and you ended up with 5% or 6% you got out of the race. >> oh, yes. >> you got out quickly. we've seen that time and time again. i get the feeling just talking to these candidates and their people that they're going to hold on for dear life. they don't play by the rules. that candidates used to play by. >> well it's different now, joe,

because say rick perry finishes fourth or fifth here. the debates will keep him in the loop. >> yeah. >> he has all these free debates. two coming up in new hampshire. the critical component of today i would think, not that it matters what i think, mitt romney has been campaigning in iowa for five years. he's got to win here today. if he can't move the needle in five years of campaigning, tomorrow that's going to be the story. >> yeah. >> i think you're going to find, mika, a lot of people looking at what, mitt's 25% last time 40 years ago and after five years of campaigning -- >> 25%. >> if he's at 24%, 25%, that's going to be part of the story. listen, a win is a win. >> it is but you just touched on i thought what was the most important point of the section i read of eugene's piece and that is that at south carolina you'll still have santorum, newt gingrich, rick perry. these people aren't going anywhere. they're planning to go to new hampshire.

they're planning to go to south carolina. don't usually the caucuses weed out some candidates? >> they usually do but if you are mitt romney, you are paying each one of these candidates to stay in the race. because as long as you have got six conservatives splitting up 75% of the vote, you could win with the 24%, 25% of -- that traditionally -- i mean the republican party is always 20% to 25% moderate. 75% conservative for the most part. that's the same case here. and if you are the guy, whether mitt is conservative or sees himself as conservative or not you look at every single poll. you look at the cross tabs. you go in there. and the moderates, the self-identified moderates, support mitt romney. >> but don't you find it disturbing that there is such a high number -- >> i find many things disturbing. >> i know. but i asked specifically if you find it disturbing that there is such a high number of undecided and even a five-term republican

congressman comes on our show within the past hour and he can't make up his mind. >> well, i mean -- >> that's why these people aren't going to hang on. >> there is -- we have the moderate candidate. again, even if mitt is conservative, we have the candidate that moderates say, there's our guy. we don't have the conservative candidate. because i can look at ron paul. i say, listen. i hear this guy talking about small government. i love it. he starts talking about iran. i get really nervous. i can look at rick santorum and hear him talking about his wife and his kids and his family and his service and how he worked with democrats as well as republicans in pennsylvania. okay. yeah. i like that part. michele bachmann, we are very tough with michele bachmann in the past. but you get her on this show and you talk to her and she is tough. she is a fighter. i respect her fighting spirit. and you can look at newt gingrich and say he's a guy with

big ideas. he takes chances. there are a lot of positives in each one of these candidates. >> it's caucus day. shouldn't we be beyond all this? >> inspired to go out and do something. >> by any of them. >> that's the difference. >> usually, like for instance you look at a clip of margaret thatcher and you go, wow. you look at a clip of ronald reagan, look at a clip of jeb bush. you look at a clip of chris christie. we see chris christie yelling at reporters. >> he's fun. >> you go boy, i'd sure like to vote for him. that's true. >> doesn't like being yelled at. >> but there just isn't that one candidate, gene, in this race that brings it all together. >> you're right. as they start dropping out and maybe that support coalesces that's bad news for mitt romney. another piece of wheresome news and this can be exaggerated if we pay too much attention to this but i talked to several people yesterday who said you

know, i wouldn't vote for mitt romney in the general election. i will not vote for him if he's the nominee. conservative republicans just can't abide the guy. >> wow. >> we can over state that but it's kind of out there. >> a little harsh, gene. >> no, no. we're hearing that. but mitt romney, though, has got another sell to make. just winning these races is not going to be enough. he has got to make the sell with conservatives. i think he can. as you remember, michael, he was wildly popular at c-pac four years ago. they didn't want him out of the race. he can make that sell. you're right. between now and next year -- >> he has a sell to make. >> and in order for him to make that sale we need to zip it so we can get to him. all right? coming up republican presidential candidate mitt romney will join us here at java joe's. also, "hardball" host chris matthews, moderator of "meet the press" david gregory and nbc political director chuck todd.

up next dnc chair and florida congresswoman debbie wassermann schultz. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. we're at java joe's today. [ whistle blows ] oh! [ baby crying ] ben harper: ♪ what started as a whisper every day, millions of people choose to do the right thing. ♪ slowly turned into a scream ♪ there's an insurance company that does that, too. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy?

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first step toward another war in the middle east. then obama two days ago represents an active aggression toward constitutionally protected rights in the united states and is the first step toward another war of oil in the middle east via the escalation of sanctions against iran. the people lying before you represent the victims of the 1%'s war on democracy both at home and abroad. we are determined to remain here until debbie wassermann schultz the chair of the democratic national committee agrees to meet with us to discuss our demands that corporate money be removed from national politics and civil liberties be restored to their primary position in all public policy. we seek a discussion about how

the democratic party will stop serving the interests of wall street and corporate money and start putting people before profit. >> welcome back. what you're looking at is video from yesterday in a hotel lobby where occupy wall street protesters were lying on the ground. they had money over their mouths and fake blood on their hands. >> barnicle was with us and he leaned over and tried to pick up the dollar bills. it was tasteless. >> it was. >> now we have the chair of the democratic national committee, democratic congresswoman from florida debbie wassermann schultz. they were protesting and demanding an audience with you because they say the democratic party is corrupt, the republican party is corrupt. is that a fair charge, that there is so much corporate money in campaigning that both parties are owned by wall street? >> well, i think if there is anyone who has set an example about making sure we reduce the influence of lobbyists and corporate and outside special interests on campaigns it's

president obama. the commitment he has consistently made to not accept pac money, not accept money from federal lobbyists, that is a start. we have the citizens united decision which really has i think compromised campaigns. the disclose act is legislation that should have passed but the republicans refuse to pass that. we've taken steps. >> he goes to fund raise for the dnc, gets people from wall street that he attacks writing $38,000 checks for a piece of chicken and some mashed potatoes and both sides do it. >> yeah. >> but it seems that the president is raking in money from wall street while playing populist in kansas. >> well i think the important thing is -- >> and the republicans are, too. both sides are. >> let's look at the contrast here. we're talking about a republican party who had been the champions of not the working family, not the middle class but the wealthiest, most fortunate americans. and president obama who in iowa four years to the day committed

that he would give the middle class and working families a tax break and within a few months 95% of americans had a tax break. >> if that's the case, why is it that the protesters yesterday were complaining about you and the democratic national committee and president obama? you know, the president signed ndaa which obviously causes a lot of civil libertarians concerns. why, you know, those protesters are usually the bane of republican candidates' existence but yesterday they were talking about democrats. why is that? >> for the most part the occupy wall street folks have been -- they've demonstrated all over iowa at every republican candidate's eevents. they also showed up at the hotel -- >> both sides. exactly. >> yes. so i think their existence and quite frankly i admire the organization that they've built up and -- but they are a reflection of the frustration of people who are at the short --

gotten the shortened of the stick from republican policies for far too long. >> so you're going to sit down and talk to them? >> i just got here at 1:00 in the morning and then i -- i mean really. >> we thank you for being here. if you get a chance to talk to them will you? >> i probably won't have a chance while i'm here but i have talked to occupy wall street folks over the past few months, i've been publicly supportive of them. i think that they are well within their rights to be frustrated and president obama has been a champion of making sure that we provide -- >> all right. i need to ask her the tough question. >> okay. >> that wasn't it? >> this is -- >> that was the easy question. >> i'm ready. >> you tell me, debbie wassermann schultz, who is going to win the democratic caucus tonight? >> you know, i'm a hundred percent confident that the people of iowa and the american people will win the day on

november 6th of this year when president obama is re-elected because of his policies, because of the fact that he has brought this country out of the worst economic disaster that we faced since the great depression and the people of america -- >> do you hear that? >> what? >> do you hear people applauding? >> no, i didn't hear that. >> you make it sound like everybody's been completely -- >> let me just share with you -- >> thank you. >> -- what is going on. mika, i want to follow up on what you said. you had my good friend steve king here a little while ago. >> yeah. wasn't that stunning? >> it was. >> oh, stop it. >> i think what you zeroed in on with him was absolutely on point. >> thank you, debbie. >> steve king is the epitome of the base of the republican party. i like to say that steve king was tea party before the tea party was cool. >> yes he was. >> and if you haven't appealed to a guy like steve king who has very strong feelings and deeply held convictions, and there isn't a single one of the candidates on his side that have

found their way into his heart -- that says a lot. >> what do you say? >> i don't know. >> you've got nothing. you got nothing. okay. >> i'm just amazed that the chairman -- well, you're doing your job very well. >> seriously. >> no. i think that, look. obama is going to win his caucus tonight. okay. we kind of get that. but november will be a vastly different kind of election and the president is going to have to count for the $3 trillion he's added to our nation's deficit. you can link it back to whatever you want that at the end of the day the president has to stand up and own up to that. he has to stand up and own up to the job situation. and i think it's a legitimate point. there's a reason why occupy wall street is not just focused on republicans but also focused on the system as a whole. and you can't sit back and, again, finger point the other way and act like the democratic party through the arms of move on and all of these other folks

that have participated long before we got to citizens united, you guys act like citizens united was some -- some moment in politics. long before that, you had the sorros money, a whole lot of dollars already coming out that has to get accounted for as well. you can't just look at this one sided. >> but she brought up the contrast because there is one. and finally, we have a president who is actually -- has actually done something and not nothing. >> that's right. which is different. >> it took more money. >> no, no. >> for wall street. >> no. >> american politics. so yes. >> don't even try and filibuster this. because you know. >> oh, really. >> you know, should i just get up? hello. good to meet you. it is so good to have you back again today. are you going to eat that? how are you doing? good to see you.

i love iowa. >> the point that we're making is they both take the money. >> they both take the money. >> the president is taking the money isn't somehow more normal. >> president obama inherited the worst set of problems since any president since fdr. >> gene, what are you up to buddy? everything okay? >> everything is all right, joe. everything is fine. >> is the filibuster over yet? >> yes. >> i wanted to ask gene a question. >> let me say something counterintuitive. >> look who is here. tom brokaw is here. >> this is big. this is big. >> good morning. nice to see you. >> debbie, thank you very much. it's great to see you. when we come back, we got tom brokaw and mitt romney. it gets no bigger than this, tom. >> no one can confuse me for him. >> no. very good.

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♪ live it up live it up baby you're in iowa now ♪ ♪ live it up live it up baby you're in iowa now ♪ welcome back to "morning joe's" with mika the true star signing some autographs. we'll sit down with governor

mitt romney in a couple mints. if you're not from around here you might have a field of dreams vision of the state of iowa. you think it's populated by sweet farmers. well native iowan film maker scott sipker is here to change that vision. this is a video burning up the web right now called "iowa nights." >> so i hear you think you know something about iowa. [ bleep ] you. you heard we're a bunch of knee jerk, conservative reaction ris. i guess that's why we're democratic in five out of six presidential elections. how do you like me now? did your state legalize gay marriage before us? probably not. the first woman in america to become a lawyer was in iowa in 1869. you think we're all hillbillies. well, four out of five of us live in the cities, punk. what about farmers you say? you think farmers are hillbillies? sit down, son. one iowa farmer feeds 155 a year. you like to eat? looks like it.

iowa has the sixth lowest unemployment in the nation. des moinesers rank the richest in the country and second happiest. guess you can have it all. the next time you fly over, give us a wave. we'll wave back. we're nice. that's right. we're nice. [ bleep ]. >> he's got your iowa nice right here. check out that video online. that is about half of it. coming up next mitt romney the man expected by many people to win the iowa caucuses tonight joins us live at java joe's in des moines. we'll be right back on "morning joe." ♪ he was a 21st century global nomad ♪

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everything we say will have romney's quotes, videotape, record. it'll all be based explicitly on romney. he set the terms of the campaign so starting wednesday morning we'll lay out, here's his record. here's my record. you choose. and we'll do that all day every day until i win the nomination. >> okay. some people are going to say it's negative. >> well, if the facts are negative then that tells you about his career. >> and here we go. the republican presidential candidate and former governor of massachusetts mitt romney. also with us tom brokaw and willie back on the set. we have -- someone too young to caucus, hannah -- she does want your autograph. >> let's get a picture of hannah. she said she'll try to convince officials she is 18 years old so she can caucus tonight. >> you might want to sign this for her. there you go. mitt romney.

welcome to the show. good to have you onboard. >> so, mitt, obviously a lot of things going very well right now. >> here you go, sweetie. >> yesterday you were confident enough to tell your audience that you were going to win iowa. what do you see out there that you like? >> i don't think i quite said that. >> you said i'm going to win this thing going away. >> yeah. that's what i heard. yeah sure. >> no, no. if all goes well i hope i become the nominee and i take on the white house but at this stage i think it's hard to predict exactly what's going to happen. i think i'll be among the top group. i don't know whether it's one, two, or three but all three will get a good send off into new hampshire, south carolina, and florida. it is a long road as you know. >> newt gingrich is going to to make your road longer. >> he is. >> yesterday he threw down the gauntlet and said i raised $9 million this past quarter. i'm going to spend it all on mitt romney. how do you respond to those attacks if they come? >> oh, that's just fine. that's the nature of a campaign. i expect people to come after me and if i do well here i'll have

a target painted on me so i expect other folks to come after me. if i can't stand up after that i shouldn't be the nominee. >> what about the problem we had in the past hour? i think you've probably heard this before but we had a congressman, five-term republican king. >> steve king. >> can't decide. he can't decide. what do you do with the fact that we've got hours to go here and there are high profile republicans who can't decide on a candidate, who can't pick you? >> well, there may be republicans who have decided but they don't want to make that public. whether it's for me or someone else. i'm pleased that if the congressman and the united states house, we have about 47 of them that have endorsed me. that's a good start. got a lot more to go weechlt have a lot of folks that have endorsed us and are helpful in our campaign but i understand other guys have key endorsements as well. that is the nature of the proce process. we got eight terrific people running for this spot. i'd choose any one of them over the current incumbent of the white house but i'm not going to get everybody to support me, not yet. >> you look at the cross tabs on the polls. you know this internally.

moderates in the republican party are behind you. you have some conservatives behind you as well. but you still have going forward, you've got to make the sell with conservative base of the republican party. how do you do that? >> how do you close it? >> i'll point at my record and i think about new hampshire for instance. we looked at the tea party voters. those who identify themselves as tea partiers and said, who's your favorite candidate? i vote a good lead with tea partiers and people who consider themselves very conservative. so where i'm known pretty well, where my record is pretty well known, why i have very good support from very conservative tea partiers. >> let me say also, tom, really quickly that you look at the des moines register poll, the latest poll. we've been hearing for sometime that evangelicals won't vote for a mormon candidate. despite the fact if you look back at super tuesday, mitt got one-third along with mccain along with huckabee. in this des moines register poll he came in second behind santorum so some conservatives are moving that way.

>> i was with four undecided voters yesterday and they were all evangelical christians. one of them said that she couldn't vote for you because you were a mormon. she was a baptist. she said i just can't go there. the other three were not troubled by it. i have a couple other questions on a substantive issue. rick santorum seems to have gotten some traction in the last week or so by emphasizing foreign policy and taking a very tough line against iran. and as a great friend of israel. my impression from the people i was talking to yesterday in perry, iowa was they were glad to hear that because i think for the last couple years they've been hearing from talk radio and from a number of the blog sites for example that this president doesn't stand up for america, that he is not an advocate for this country. and they like the fact that rick santorum says i'm going to put iran on warning. shut this down or air strikes will degrade your facilities. do you agree with his position on that? >> i agree with my position on this which is if i come in as

president i'm going to number one put in place crippling sanctions against iran rmt number two i'm going to stand behind the dissidents in the nation to try and get regime change and number three i will develop military contingencies that we will exercise if iran does not depart from its path of becoming a nuclear nation. it's unacceptable to america to have iran have nuclear material that they can provide to hamas, hezbollah, other terror groups. those things would ultimately be used. >> how robust will your effort be to engage russia for example and other members of the nato alliance and all of this beyond israel? or will it be primarily an american/israeli effort to try to get all that done? >> well, i think the russians and the chinese have to recognize that a nuclear iran is not a good thing for them either. because a nuclear iran is a lot closer to their neighborhood than ours. then you'll also have other nations, saudi arabia, egypt, syria that will also become nuclear. and i don't think they want in that region all these nations to become nuclear. i don't want them to assume somehow america is going to take care of all of this.

they have to be involved. if not militarily, at least electionally and po tlings diplomatically. >> can i ask you one more question about the economy? >> you're tom brokaw. ask as many as you want. >> not even in my house do i get that. >> you've been talking a lot about the middle class and what you could do for them. that has bethesda naval hospital part of america that has really been hammered in the last ten years. >> yeah. >> as a result of this down turn we have a much larger group of people is who are no longer the middle class but have gone down. they're at the poverty line or way below it. food stamps are way up. are you going to have to spend more time worrying about the poor as well as the middle class if elected president? >> i want to make sure we have a safety net to care for those that are poor but i want to get those that are poor into the middle class. my ambition is to make sure we start creating jobs again in this country and that we have rising median incomes as opposed to the 10% decline we've seen in

the last four years to get people back into work, get higher incomes, and let people have a middle income life standard they've had in the past. that's the whole effort i'm involved in. i want to help -- somebody that's fallen for the middle class to poverty in my opinion is still middle class. i want to get them back into the lifestyle the middle class individual would expect in this country. >> when you come to iowa, so striking, farm prices are at a record high, commodities are doing well. farm land prices are through the roof. $14,000 an acre and up. unemployment is down in the 5% range. what do you think they're angry at. >> because they recognize america's place in the world is changing. that america has been put on decline. this president i think has accelerate thad decline and they recognize what is good for america is good for iowa. people want to see a president who believes in the principles of america, believes in freedom. i just heard of a series of labor regulations -- >> you don't think this president beliefs in freedom? >> i think he believes in

freedom. i don't think he understands free enterprise and the power of individuals pursuing their own course in life. i think he believes government guiding economy, guiding lives through obama care that that kind of approach makes america stronger. it makes us weaker. the right source for america's vitality is the principle, series of principles that the founders lit upon including free enterprise, the right to pursue one's life as one chooses, and that kind of freedom is something which people are concerned about here. >> willie geist? >> in this era of 99% you're viewed by a lot of people fairly or not as the candidate of the 1%. grew up with privilege, the son of a ceo and a governor, a ceo and a governor yourself, how do you convince ordinary americans that you relate to and understand their problems? >> well, just a couple things. one, my dad grew up poor, didn't graduate from college. >> but you did not. >> exactly. and like him i have a great deal of concern for people who have been left behind. the reason i'm running for office is not for the 1%. as you point out the 1% are doing just fine.

the reason i'm running for office is i've had experience to get an economy going. i understand how the economy works at the most granular level of small business. i want to use that experience to get america's economy going again so we can put people back to work. this is a campaign about helping the middle class of america. >> what is the one big idea you would tell middle class workers? you will put in place as soon as possible to put them back to work? >> i will get america to be the most attractive place in the world once again for innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, and job creators so we can start creating jobs again. >> but how? how? >> very simple. one you have to make sure to make america the most attractive place in the world for enterprise, for job creators. you have to do a number of things. one, our employment -- our employer tax rate has to be competitive with others in the world. two, regulators and regulations have to be up to date, moderate, not burdensome. three, you have to take advantage of our energy resources here which we're not. four, you have to open up new markets for american goods and crack down on cheaters like

china that have been stealing jobs by holding down their currency and stealing our intellectual property. the list goes on but those are some of the top things. >> you look at long-term trends, the long-term trends didn't start with barack obama. they didn't even start with george w. bush. >> right. >> you got to go back to 1973. that's the last year men's median income went up. it's been going down since 1973. globalization kicked in in 1978. we are a nation of over the past 30 years been seeing jobs going overseas. >> yeah. >> bit by bit. it's not just about china stealing the jobs. it's about productivity. it's about we have become more productive. >> yeah. >> how do we face not only external challenges but internal challenges of a new economy and get middle class americans back to work? >> well, you put your finger on it when you said productivity. and output per person is the highest in america of any other great nation. and in order for a high productivity nation to compete

and have a bright future, you got to sell goods other places. and what's happened particularly during this administration, we've stalled all of our opening of new our opening of new marketplaces. this president has put in place no new bilateral trade are agreements with other nations. china has entered 44 other agreements. you've got to take advantage of world markets and get american goods out there. we're finding that our ability to compete in manufacturing and other sectors of our economy is getting greater and greater. we just need to -- by the way, one more thing. you can't get people to invest in america and hire in america if they think we're going to hit a wall like greece or italy. our budget, our deficit simply has to be slashed. >> let me ask you about ron paul. steve king said ron paul is not dangerous unless he's president of the united states. do you believe that ron paul's foreign policy positions on iran are dangerous? >> i do. i think he has a number of positions, particularly on foreign policy, with which i

disagree quite vehemently. there are differences between me and other candidates. i think he would be better than the president but i would have to work with him long and hard to keep him from pursuing a series of policies. >> what about newt gingrich. is newt gingrich a conservative? >> i believe he's primarily a conservative, but the big issues of our time he's made some extraordinary departures. medicare, for instance, reforming medicare has been a key cornerstone of conservative thought. paul ryan goes to congress, gets virtually every republican congressman to vote to reform medicare and then newt gingrich, we turn to him and he says it's right wing social engineering. i don't understand that. likewise, the other big issue was global warming. at the time republicans are standing up fighting against a cap in trade plan, newt gingrich sits down with nancy pelosi and cuts an ad? in favor of global warming legislation? >> i'm wondering if he regrets that. >> there may be some regret there. >> it's interesting. there are a lot of folks who

decide when they get into a presidential campaign regret what they did before. deathbed repentance is not particularly effective. >> well, we really enjoy having you on the show. will you please bring ann the next time. >> you invite, she'll be here. >> we're going to be in new hampshire, which is sort of close to boston, which is sort of close to pancakes that ann makes. not that we're inviting ourselves. >> the best. >> we are. >> it's great to see you. >> great to see you, mika. joe. >> we will be right back with more "morning joe" right from java joe's in des moines.

welcome back inside java joe's. mitt romney making his way through the crowd after our interview with him here in des moines. talking to some of the voters here, i'm here with milton cole of west des moines. tonight in just a matter of hours, iowans will get together at community centers, churches and schools and discuss who they want to be the nominee for the republican party. milton, who will you caucus for tonight. >> if i had my preference, i'd

be caucusing for willie geist. >> i'm not on the ballot, but thank you for the endorsement. >> and my second choice would be willie geist, but the truth of the matter is i'm going to be caucusing for president obama. >> how will you do that? >> i will be -- i will be in west des moines at a school there where people will come together and indicate who they want to go to the state convention and then on to the national convention. >> and what issue concerns you most this election cycle? >> one of the issues that concerns me is education. there have been a lot of people who have indicated that they have a quick fix to the challenges of education throughout our country, but i don't really ever hear any position papers, any kind of real ideas of how education can be remedied and enhanced. luckily here most places in iowa have great education so while that hasn't been a conversation point here, we would do well if

you looked at a broader picture in terms of the country. >> any of these republican candidates doing anything you like about education in their proposals? >> well, many of them have been creme de la creme. so for those of us who were well educated we have a responsibility to help others. >> milton cole of west des moines caucusing, he's going to try tonight, for president obama. we'll be right back live from java joe's. >> but if i were a republican, it would be for him. ♪ i am you

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welcome back to "morning joe" live from java joe's. david gregory on deck, talking with mitt romney. >> joining us now inside java joe's, the host of msnbc's "hardball," chris matthews -- >> and best-selling author. >> best-selling author of "jack kennedy, elusive hero." we also have chuck todd and also back with us tom brokaw. >> so, chris, we have some new

polls out today, but what's your gut going from event to event in iowa right now? >> there's three different parties really. i mean the santorum wing, i think he'll get the lion's share of the evangelical vote. i think he's very religious. i think he's the real thing, by the way. i think rick santorum is rick santorum and is the guy i've known for 30 years. that community knows him well and trusts him so he'll do very well tonight. despite the noise level on programs like mine and yours, there's a lot of moderate republicans out there, and they call themselves moderates. they're not ashamed of the title. in fact they'll tell you that word, "moderate." they're suburbanites, they have a little money and are comfortable with mitt romney. they see him as a traditional republican. he may well win tonight. then you've got the libertarian wing, the old barry goldwater

wing with sort of an anti-war streak attached to it. that's going to be a minority in the party. the party is still more hawkish than the democrats, obviously. so i think you'll see a three-way split, in that order probably, probably in that order because of the zealtry of the santorum people. but i think mitt romney is on the way to winning the nomination. but the republican party is a very predictable party, as you know. they tend to pick the person who's tried a couple of times before. you go to the super bowl and lose, you come back and win. that's a very republican pattern with nixon, with bush, with dole. they picked the same three names and romney fits in that pattern. >> but chuck todd, chris just brought up the biggest challenge of this field. and that is the fact that the republican party is always -- it sits on three legs. you've got the libertarian wing, you've got the eadvantage gvana

evangelical wing and the business wing. believe it or not i nailed down two of the thing but if you get all three you win. right now you've got congressman like steve king and conservatives that are -- >> undecided. >> -- undecided and just can't find that candidate they live. >> mitt romney was 25% on the night of the iowa caucuses in 2008. he was 24% in 2011, he was at 23% in the nbc poll, our last one and 24% in the last des moines register poll. he clearly has a harder ceiling here. it's the social conservative stuff. let's not pretend that it's anything other than that. so i think the hardest thing i have of getting a handle on tonight is what turnout will look like. some argue it's going to be bigger than four years ago because there's enthusiasm to beat obama and all this stuff. but it doesn't feel like this is

going to be -- >> there's more media than anybody else. >> exactly. you don't feel that organic burst of energy. >> yes. >> that's going to drive a few more people to the polls. if it's a traditional turnout, i don't know how romney breaks out of the 23 to 25% part. look, i can't imagine romney not being the nominee. i just -- we go back to he's just going to have to work hard to get there. >> i think iowa, the test for him is do no harm. >> yeah. although -- >> he gets out of here without getting damaged. if he's in the top three, then he goes on to new hampshire. you'll remember that last summer we were saying he was going to have more difficulty than it appears he is having right now going into this stage. his campaign as we've all been watching it is the best organized. he's been more confident, both in this appearance here this morning and all his recent appearances. i think a larger issue, by the way, is what happens to president obama in this swing

state as a result of what has been going on here for the last nine months, about how much damage has been done to him going into the fall because he has been hammered day after day after day. as i have been going around a very short period of time, but i'm in and out of iowa a lot, i haven't heard anybody saying they just can't wait to reelect president obama. >> there's a weird thing about iowa. we sort of forget here. they have full employment here. the economy is pretty good here. by the way, just walk downtown des moines, they talk about look at us, we're the richest metro area per capita in the country. they're advertising this. so that's also not great for romney in this state in particular when his strongest pitch is fixing the economy when here there's a lot of -- conservatives can say the economy is okay and they can go back to their social conservative passion. >> chris, i want to have all three of you guys put this in

perspective, but i want to start with you and then go to tom. you've been to a lot of these things. i have been surprised by the low numbers i have seen at every single event. 40, 50 people. maybe 75 at rick santorum's closing argument yesterday. there are no yard signs out in the yards. i don't see the big four by eight signs dotting the landscape along the highways. there seems to be a historically low level of interest. i wonder if this circles back to what tom has been telling us for some time, and that is that america is getting more disconnected than washington, both parties than ever before. >> well, i think there's occasionally an exciting campaign like there was no obama last time. it may not be like that for him next time. but you go back to the pattern and trend line and the campaign i was covering, the kennedy/nixon campaign. there were 500,000 people at downtown rallies in philadelphia, chicago, cleveland even, new york.

a half million people. a million people would show up on wednesday at noon for shopping day. people wore voter hats, big buttons, not just yard signs. people walked around clearly identifying with candidates and showing up at rallies. those upstate new york rallies where the whole town would come out. they would fill the downtown streets with the candidate coming through. now, maybe that's gone, because people watch television now, and maybe because they make their decisions. let's just remember, newt rose on television with the debates all the way to the sky and he's crumbled apparently almost to the ground because of the advertising. not because of the failure of his rallies. >> chris, they had television four years ago, it's the candidates. >> when he went out in the streets there was not a huge break behind him. it was an internal spike in the polls that he had. and in fact as joe pointed out, as i've been going around country the last couple of years, on the political process, people don't have a lot of faith

in it. and republicans, you don't find that big excitement because they have learned to pay attention to their own issues. >> by the way, it used to be people believed the federal government would set out to do what it said it would do. 75% believed the government could do what it set out to do. today what is it, 20? >> in 1960 when everybody was pouring out there, 15 years after our government -- >> defeated the nazis. that our army defeated the japanese. >> there was also a generational shift. >> chuck, there is so much disillusionment out there that tom has written about in the past. when i go out, i hear it about both parties. i hear it about the president. and you look at some forecasts for the new year, goldman sachs put out their forecast for the new year yesterday, chris, you were showing me this. >> it goes back up to 9%. >> unemployment, they're

expecting it to spike back up. goldman sachs usually predicts it right. >> the pessimism that's out there that's in general, it's something that you wonder is it going to take a decade or a half generation to get through. but can we go back a little bit to these candidates. i actually think republican voters might be responding to the fact that they're disappo t disappointed in the field. >> i think you're nailing it. >> mitt romney certainly would belong in any top tier. >> sure. >> if chris christie and paul ryan and mitch daniels, jeb bush, mitt romney would belong in that group. it's not clear who else is there. i do think it's interesting and give iowans a little bit of credit, they may send out of here rick santorum and mitt romney. well, who are the two guys that have sort of shown themselves at the debate to understand broadly all of the issues? they have their own vision for it, but broadly both domestic and foreign policy. both, by the way, sort of living

a clean background and all this. i think let's give iowans credit. they're sort of weeding out the ones -- >> but there's still a lack of excitement. chris matthews, imagine the scenario. we're at the ron paul event and then the rick santorum event. at both events there are more cameras than caucuses. i saw a crush of cameras and a pour caucuser being crushed against the wall because the reporters were competing for people to interview. >> danish television, more people from danish television. >> by the way, if i were president obama, what i would worry about is not the zealotry of the right, which he can use against the right, it's the quiet suburban republican. i like to say when you go to the movies and you get there a few minutes and the previews are still showing and you get there with a can of coke and popcorn, they're all sitting there

quietly like they have been there 10, 20 minutes. they're all the republicans. they're the organized people. they're not exciting. >> republicans get to movies earlier than democrats? >> much earlier. >> i talk about my dad all the time. two hours before the plane takes off we're there. >> they're very regular people and they vote regular republican. they show up very quiet re, just quietly thinking this guy doesn't quite have it, obama, and just quietly vote republican. that's what i would be afraid of if i was obama. >> tom, the thing that i've noticed with a lot of these campaigns is we talk about the candidates. it's not as strong of a field. it's not even personality driven. you know how you get a yard sign up in somebody's yard? and i know this because i've knocked on 10,000 doors. you get a yard sign up by knocking on the door, talking to the person 30 minutes and asking to put a yard sign up. and you know what they do? they put a yard sign up. we haven't seen the basic

blocking and tackling by this field. it's almost as if they believe the press, that you can win by 30-second ads put on by a super pac. >> except for santorum. >> except for santorum and ron paul, and that's why they're doing well. but the field overall doesn't seem to be doing the sort of grassroots work that it takes. >> no, because they can fly over the top of those lawn signs with their ads. by the way, that screen has widened so considerably. it's not just appearing on television anymore, it's the websites that are out there and how you connect with people with e-mail, the twitter accounts. they're all the new tools of american politics. they see that as a much more efficient ways to get at constituencies they want. let's also remember this is not the end of the campaign we're talking about here. it's the beginning. it's the beginning of the next year. this thing will -- we're in the overture stage right now. i'm trying to get away from

sports metaphors. we've got three more acts to play out over the next ten months. >> so, chuck, what are you going to be looking for today? >> it's the makeup of the turnout. four years ago, huckabee/romney. you ask people what was the number one characteristic. we give four which is shares my values, says what he believes, best chance to win, best experience. four years ago, romney won experience and electability, but overall combined, only one in five iowans came to the caucuses thinking about those two attributes. instead what was more important to them is says what you believe and shares my values. if it is that kind of split, an 80/20 split in that direction, santorum will win. if it's more of a 50/50 on that front, where electability and this whole we've got to beat republican, then that's how romney wins. so it's sort of what are they coming to the caucus thinking tonight. >> all right. chuck todd, thank you so much.

we'll see you on "the daily rundown" right after "morning joe." tom brokaw and chris matthews, stay with us. up next, mike barnacle rejoins the conversation. >> irish mafia. >> also ahead, "time" magazine's joe kline and david gregory will be here all live at java joe's. first let's go to bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> you just wonder what barnacle is saying and showing them there. nothing but trouble. good morning, everyone. wonderful crowd out there at java joe's. we are watching temperatures that are very cold. that's why everyone is inside. windchill is 0 in mika and joe are. later as everyone is going out to the caucuses, temperatures will warm up. the windchill will not be as bad. temperatures will be in the 30s. the cold air has settled not just in iowa but the eastern half of the u.s. atlanta has 8 for a windchill right now. we're going to warm up a little bit this afternoon in areas of the mid-atlantic but it's a cold day, the coldest by far so far this winter. there's no snow on the way, though, so i guess we can deal

with the warmup this weekend. you're watching "morning joe." we're brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] is zero worth nothing? ♪ imagine zero pollutants in our environment. or zero dependency on foreign oil. ♪ this is why we at nissan built a car inspired by zero. because zero is worth everything. the zero gas, 100% electric nissan leaf. innovation for the planet. innovation for all.

the other big issue was global warming. at the time republicans are standing up fighting against a cap in trade plan, newt gingrich sits down with nancy pelosi and cuts an ad in favor of global warming legislation?

>> do you think he regrets that? >> there may be some regret there. >> it's interesting, a lot of folks decide when they get into a presidential campaign regret what they did before. but deathbed repentance is not particularly effective. >> mitt romney earlier on "morning joe." welcome back to "morning joe." still with us here at java joe's in des moines, iowa, chris matthews, tom brokaw and mike barnacle. >> let's talk about iowans for a second. look at this, the irish mafia, the collected political wisdom is amazing. i want to go back because a lot of people ask why does iowa matter, why is iowa first. gosh, i think i was in middle school maybe and i'm sitting in my home in upstate new york. they interrupt, it's probably brokaw reporting it. interrupt and say that this unknown governor, tom, from georgia has won the iowa caucus and that is the first time iowa exploded on the political

landscape. carter, of course, got elected. and things have not been the same since. >> it was less about television than it was about johnny apple, the lejd ar political reporter from "the new york times" who wrote about it the next day and it launched jimmy carter, no question about that, and iowa found its place on this very rich firmament of getting the media to come here year after year after year. i think starting in the heart land is not the worst idea in the world. i have always believed that we ought to have more regional primaries, more regional tests to begin the process. that the whole midwest ought to be involved and then move to new england, then move to the south and the far west. but as i said earlier, i think you have to take a look at iowa as a swing state next year. this is the beginning of that process. this state will be in play. it's lost one electoral vote, it's down to six, i think. nonetheless president obama won

big here four years ago. the question is, he's going to need iowa and wisconsin and those states that he won four years ago and can he hang on to them, given what -- the kind of beating that he's been taking here in the republican caucuses. >> chris, 1976 you were working for muskey trying to help him become vp. he finished second, i believe, in the iowa caucus. >> no, he got beat in '72. but you know what's really interesting is jimmy carter in '80 came back and beat kennedy out here. our friend was pr'ing that campaign for carter. they established kennedy had the best organization on the ground. then kennedy got beat out here and carter was back in. i think what that does is gives you the first photo of who the winner is. and i think that's how obama beats senator clinton out here the same way. once you get that first shot of who the winner looks like, it's very hard. the same thing happened

nationally in 2000 with the recount. once it looked like bush the first time, they had a tremendous advantage. that first flash picture. it's very hard to go back and readjust that. so senator clinton had a hard time coming back after winning new hampshire because this state gave that picture, obama is the winner. it's very powerful. >> at the same time, mike barnacle, iowa and new hampshire have always worked very well together in defining the character of the candidates and the campaign. let's just talk about 1980, george h.w. bush beats ronald reagan. ronald reagan shows what he's made of in new hampshire the next week and he comes back and wins new hampshire. mr. green, he said, i paid for this mic. eight years later it was george h.w. bush that got whipped in iowa and he went to new hampshire and just pummeled bob dole. these two states work pretty well together. you always talk about tv being the mri of the soul. iowa/new hampshire, pretty good

mri for campaigns. >> there's no doubt about that, joe. while i am like tom, in favor of a regional primary or series of regional primaries, i would say this. years of covering these things, iowa and new hampshire give voters, people, a chance to meet the candidate in a way no other state primary does. and the process of politics in electing our presidents has become so remote from the average citizen that once they leave new hampshire, then the only time they are really seen is on tv or in paid ads that they direct and produce. but here in iowa and in new hampshire, you can get a sense of the candidate, how he reacts and interacts with people. in covering it, you can get a sense from the people of what they think of meeting an actual human being rather than seeing these candidates on tv. >> chris matthews, what would the first photo look like potentially here, and could it have several faces on it? >> yeah, it could. romney said that he'd like to

win a quick one. he'd like to start here, win new hampshire and win the whole thing fast. that was an honest answer, which is rare out of here. usually he's very programatic. yeah, i'd like to win it quick. i think that's one headline. i think santorum finishes strong. he'll be the second headline that works for him. >> the candidates, potentially, tom brokaw, linger a little bit and iowa doesn't weed anyone out potentially except maybe the bottom tier? >> well, i think if michele bachmann, for example, i think newt can get really wounded here. i think he'll continue to go on, but the fact is, you know, there's not been a recovery from any of these people who surged up and then fallen off. they don't come back after that kind of a surge. santorum is obviously the story that everybody is going to be looking at for the next 24 hours, about how well he's going to do. i think in a lot of ways it works well for governor romney to have santorum out there as he goes into these other states and

says, look, electability is a big issue. i'm best equipped to run against president obama come the fall. that's the decision you have to make. i have to coalesce republicans around me. on the other hand rick santorum has been very impressive especially in the last week. >> especially with the retail politicking. i'm going to put you on the spot. how would you characterize this field at this stage of the game, especially after the people we talked about, congressman king who came to the show today, republican, five-term congressman from iowa undecided. >> it is the same campaign today that it was a year ago. you've got mitt romney, a moderate, getting 24, 25% against a conservative field that's splitting the other 75% of the vote. mike barnacle, it looks like it's going to stay like that for a long time because nobody is getting out. i believe, and tom is right, i believe we haven't seen somebody go up and down and back up, but that's only because we haven't

had the time. i think people will continue to grapple, conservatives, with the possibility of mitt romney winning. >> well, two things. i think most of the candidates will stay in this race because of the free debates. that keeps them going. you don't have to pay for that, just show up for the debates. the second thing is i've known governor romney for quite some time. i have never seen him more comfortable, more at ease, more confident in himself than i have seen him here in the past three or four days. strikingly confident. >> he's definitely feeling good, talking to him backstage. he's getting some one info. gingrich now wants to destroy him and so we'll see those negative attack ads in the coming days. it should be interesting. tom brokaw, thank you so much. >> tom has got a hawkeye hat on. >> he sdchdoes. he also has a book called "the time of our lives." chris matthews, author of "jack kennedy, elusive hero." thank you as well. great book. a fun read.

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you scolded mitt romney, his friends, who are running this super pac that has run that and you said of mitt romney somebody who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to you when they are president. i have to ask you, are you calling mitt romney a liar? >> yes. >> you're calling mitt romney a liar? >> well, you seem shocked by it. yes. i just think he ought to be honest with the american people and try to win as the real mitt romney, not try to invent a poll-driven, consultant-guided version that goes around with talking points. and i think he ought to be candid. i don't think he's being candid and that will be a major issue from here on out for the rest of this campaign. the country gets to decide, do you really want a massachusetts moderate who won't level with you to run against barack obama who frankly will tear him apart. he will not survive against the

obama machine. >> okay then. >> wow. >> that's one way to put it, but i'd be really careful if i were newt gingrich. i'm just saying. >> with the sound moderator of "meet the press" david gregory, joe klein and anchor of bbc world news. david gregory, here you have newt gingrich calling mitt romney a liar. yesterday he told abc that he was going to spend the rest of the campaign, spend millions of dollars just attacking mitt romney. this is about to get pretty ugly. >> well, it is. i think that romney, even if he comes out of here with a win, which would be significant, i think, is still going to be a weak front runner running against a constellation, not a candidate, not a defined number two. but there's going to be a number of candidates, gingrich will be front and center, who will really try to rip his face off and they'll try to do knit new hampshire. we've got our debate on "meet the press" coming up on sunday. there's another debate as well and they go down to south

carolina. so there's still more room. there's still that room for volatility and a number of social conservatives still in the race. >> catty, newt has decided they spent millions attacking me. you can't turn on the tv without seeing one of mitt's super pac ads attacking newt gingrich. he has decided i am going to return the volley and do what nobody else has done. i'm going to focus on mitt romney. >> but he's done it late in the stage at least for iowa. all he's done really for the last week or so that i've heard is complain about the super pacs and the attacks against him. >> about being a victim. >> he's lost the narrative of why he wants to be president and what he would actually do as president. he spent the last week or two complaining about the fact that he is going to -- if he loses iowa, it would be because he was attacked the whole time. he may not turn that against romney but about one day to go i think it's a slim chance out of iowa. >> joe. >> it's not about iowa, it's about south carolina. it's all about south carolina. south carolina is the super bowl

for the anti-romneys. emerging from that, you're going to have romney, you're going to have an anti-romney and ron paul. but, you know, if you looked at newt yesterday, you know newt, i know newt, that dude is angry. and i would not -- i would not want to be sitting on the same -- or standing on the same debate stage as newt gingrich if i remember mitt romney this weekend. i mean it's going to continue the tradition of the wildest, woolliest debates i've ever seen in a campaign. >> wait a minute, don't you think it's an opportunity for mitt romney? >> sure it is. >> some would argue they want to see him really engage and really be strong and really go after somebody. who better to go after than newt gingrich, who has so much baggage, so many things he can be called out on -- >> but it's also like arguing that having a calm cause kamik you is --

>> nobody has attacked mitt romney to date. the conservative been attack each other because they want to build on that conservative vote. they have left the front runner alone. it has actually been surreal how easy it's been for mitt romney to this point. >> and how little money he and his campaign has actually had to spend to fend off some of those attacks here in iowa. you know, he's faced the criticism that you heard from newt gingrich in that interview. but i think it's right that everything ramps up to south carolina, because that's the last stand for more social conservatives who want to become the anti-romney candidate. if they can't do it by then, and then florida is right behind it where he can carpet bomb his opponent and then draw it out, then you're in a tougher spot if you haven't become an insurgent by that point. >> i'm not sure i would want to jump on the newt gingrich angry bandwagon if i was one of the other candidates because newt gingrich in angry mode doesn't look at the attractive to voters. i don't think this is going to open the flood gates to all the

other candidates starting to attack mitt romney. >> but it's very good for rick perry who has been advertising in south carolina. let them tear each other apart. >> and it's not going to be bad for santorum either. but there is one sentence that did not bark, and really changed the nature of this campaign. the sentence is my name is mitt romney and i approve this message, because you have these super pacs that don't have to identify the source of their money. you've had far sharper and more pointed negative advertising, which is really what has ticked newt gingrich off. >> so, joe, we ran into you tehrat the the ron paul event. he has tried to organize very hard. and yet at the event yesterday, at the santorum events, at most events across this state you've got more cameramen and reporters -- >> and bloggers.

>> -- from sweden and japan than you do voters from des moines. >> that was yesterday. but when i was out with santorum last week and ron paul last week, they were actually getting regulation iowans. >> regulation iowans. >> the other thing really you should say about this race is that despite the free range buffoonery we've all had so much fun with, these republican candidates have really gotten to basic first questions. how much government should we have? what kind of welfare state do we want to have? if we wind up having that debate in the fall, it's going to be a very valuable exercise for this country. >> how many people are actually there at those events? the scrum of reporters way outnumbers the scrum of voters i went to yesterday. it was like ten voters and 1000 reporters. even in the weeks before that, they haven't been huge events.

>> can i just get out some of the process. i think we were at this event yesterday in newton. that question about the baby gabriel, which we can talk about. but the guy in the back who was undecided but he said i'm leaning toward romney because he's got that executive experience. let's not forget the bad taste so many americans had after the debt fight was that there is a leadership vacuum. that washington doesn't know how to get anything done. and while i think authenticity matters, of course, and stalwart conservative values will matter to a lot of values voters in the country, a lot of conservatives, i think there really is a sense of how do you do what george w. bush and barack obama said they'd do but could not do, and that is actually transform washington to accomplish something. >> who in this group can do that? >> that's a good question. >> but i'm not sure we're really getting to a resolution on that. >> but a candidate changes positions as much as mitt romney

has done doesn't suggest that he's a candidate who's going to say i'm going to take you by the scruff of the neck and lead you, washington. it's a little bit of a candidate that's likely to be molded by political events rather than shaping political events. >> like a candidate, joe klein, that votes present 100 times in the illinois legislature. >> but the thing about romney is, going back to what gingrich said, one of the things about romney's record that he is very accurate on was the difficulty of coming in as a republican and dealing with majority democratic legislature in massachusetts. that is a part of his resume that he is duly proud of. the other thing that's going to be happening in washington is that the tea party movement is maturing. i think the hard edges of coming off. the truth is that they have blocked most of the compromises over the last couple of years and it may be different going forward. >> they're injured at this point. >> well, let me ask you guys really quickly. joe, you follow mitt romney out on the campaign trail an awful lot. is mitt romney a conservative?

>> on some things, yeah. >> and i ask this question because i don't -- if ronald reagan were governor of massachusetts, ronald reagan would have had to make some of those compromises. if margaret thatcher had been governor of massachusetts, she would have made compromises because she would have had to. the question is at the end of the day is mitt romney a conservative? >> in my book, yeah. a lot of the people who describe themselves as conservatives now are radicals. romney is a conservative of the newt gingrich variety from the early 1990s. >> all right. >> david? >> what do you want answered this weekend on "meet the press" debate? what are you trying to get out of the candidates? >> i think it's a question of what americans have to be prepared to sacrifice to move the country forward. what do we have to do with less of. i think that's what americans expect to hear but politicians haven't had a lot of guts. >> and still haven't heard it.

>> yeah. >> perhaps should have heard it several times by now. david gregory, joe klein, katty kay, thank you very much. where's willie and what does willie have coming up next? willie geist. >> hey, mika, i've got a big story here in the state iowa. a journalism professor about a month ago wrote a piece basically trashing the state of iowa saying it should not go first. that created a firestorm inside the state. we are the only network he would talk to. our interview with professor bloom coming up next on "morning joe."

welcome back to "morning joe" live again this morning inside java joe's here in des moines, iowa. one thing you learn pretty quickly is that iowans are proud of their state and particularly of this tradition every four years of the iowa caucuses. so when a university of iowa professor wrote a vicious piece explaining why iowa should not have so much impact on the presidential nomination, they didn't take kindly. professor stephen bloom of the university of iowa is walking the streets of new york city, hoping to blend into a crowd. we flew him to manhattan from an undisclosed location where he'd been hiding, all because of something he wrote. >> gosh, i raised some unspeakable truths. in my mind. they're opinions. and there's a firestorm. >> that firestorm is the reaction to his article "observations from 20 years of iowa life." it was published in december on the website of the atlantic. professor bloom spends nearly 6,000 words painting a mostly ugly picture, arguing that iowa

is not representative of america. >> it's basically a white, very, very christian state. >> born in new jersey and educated in california, bloom has spent the last two decades in iowa teaching journalism and traveling to every corner of the state. he's even written two books about small-town iowa. >> there's one passage in your piece that's come to summarize for your critics the disdain they say you have for the state of iowa. it reads this way. those who say in rural iowa are often the elderly waiting to die. those too timid or lacking in education too peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of wasteoids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth are those who believe like little orphan annie that the sun will come out tomorrow. are you really surprised that iowans are upset when they read something like that? >> yes. you know what, it's important to say those things. it's an impression of what i get in the state of iowa after 20 years. >> i think for people reading

it, though, and not just people in iowa, but outside the state, it's not the problems you raise which are valid, rural poverty, poor economy in certain parts of the state. those are all valid concerns. it's the way you do it is what got people. >> i'm sorry, willie. i'm sorry. i'm sorry, this is the way i do it. this is called satire, this is called parody. >> if bloom's article is parody, many iowans missed the joke. >> that's the biggest bunch of trash i've ever seen. >> older iowans aren't out in the country waiting to die. >> i think a lot of people took offense to some of the things he said, that we're all immediate heads and that we just shoot things all day long. >> she's talking about a section of the article where bloom writes about iowa's hunting culture, describing men in orange overalls who mix guns with alcohol. >> do you hunt? >> no, i do not hunt. >> so how have you seen this scene where they're drinking before they go shoot. >> i've seen ptographs. i've seen photo essays about

this. >> about people drinking before they shoot? >> yes, absolutely. >> do you regret painting with such a broad brush? >> no, no. i'm sorry that people don't get it. i knew i was stepping into something, absolutely. but isn't that what journalists ought to be doing? >> the outrage first exploded online as the article spread quickly across the state just weeks before its moment in the national spotlight for the iowa caucuses. >> conversations started bubbling. so social media, facebook, i wrote a column about it, other people wrote op-eds and it just mushroomed from there. >> kyle munson wrote a front page response to the article. munson concedes that bloom does make some valid points about iowa. >> but the problem is they get buried under the way he's mangled some of the facts and the mean-spirited nature of his prose. so if he's going to ratchet up his attack, he needs to also make sure he rises to the occasion with his facts and the way he presents them. >> bloom says the half dozen

corrections and clarifications posted with his article are quibbles. his claim the state is 96% white when the most recent census data has the figure at 91%. meanwhile des moines entrepreneur mike draper is turning a profit off the controversy with a little parody of his own. >> the shirt is iowa, if you're reading this, congratulations, you've survived meth, jesus, hunting accidents, crime-filled river slumz, old people. unfortunately, you are going to die sad and alone soon. >> the t-shirts have been selling as fast as he can make them. >> we also wrote a blog post that said iowa should have more of a hip-hop community now that we realize we have crime-filled slums and a suicide rate three times new york. >> perhaps the most deeply felt insult was to iowans' faith. bloom, who is jewish, writes about the state's quote, in your face religion. he said he went into hiding because his wife received an anti-semitic phone call. >> do you fear for your life?

>> people told me i shouldn't go back to iowa. >> will you? >> yeah. that's where i teach. that's where i've taught to 20 years. i'm not going to be bullied into leaving iowa. this is my home. >> a home he insists he loves, but one that's having a tough time loving him back. our piece that first ran last night on "rock center with brian williams," professor bloom says he's merely doing what he teaches his journalism students to do, which is to shine a light in dark places and speak uncomfortable truths. that so far has not been good enough to satisfy iowans. we'll be right back here live with more "morning joe." java joe's in des moines. ♪ i am you ♪ you are me i'm jennifer hudson, and i believe. i was strong before weight watchers, but i'm stronger with it. i believe weight watchers can do the same for you. i believe you have more power than you think you do.

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