marathon, i will be on with rachel mad doe at 9:00 p.m. that will do it for this show today. i'm dylan ratigan. "hardball" is up right now. good evening. i'm chris matthews up in manchester new hampshire. one day before the primary. leading off tonight, you can't handle the truth. it's finally happened. mitt romney, the number one threat to president obama's reelection is under attack by his own party. the other republican candidates are inflicting wounds that could destroy romney for the general election. at yesterday's msnbc facebook debate. jon huntsman had the line of the day after romney criticized him

for working for president obama. >> this nation is divided, david. because of attitudes like that. >> that moment recalled joseph welch asking joe mccarthy, have you left no sense of decency? gingrich called mitt out for his bologna. mitt romney's pretension of being a man above politics. so the games begun. romney's biggest vulnerability of all may not be his reputation as a flip-flopper, but his years making millions of the bane capital. newt gingrich is going for the kill launching an advertising campaign probably all negative in south carolina using excerpts from a brutal new documentary about romney's years at bain that point him as a heartless predator. the obama team is in full campaign mode. it's all about reelection, not government. whatever happened to the tea party? they control the house and face

a vulnerable president. they are about to nominate, pause, mitt romney? if they don't rally around other candidates, could romney grab this? finally, absurd pretensions to political innocence and right-wing orthodoxy. we start with mitt romney under attack. thank you to this gentleman here. we have amazing clips to show you. from david gregory's debate yesterday, over the last few days mitt romney has been attacked by the rest of the republican field on the exact things that are seen as his selling points. let's face it. his business background and his outside washington persona, his political innocence. he was hit hard yesterday at that meet the press debate. let's watch what romney said

about his career and then watch newt gingrich cut into him. >> this for me, politics is not a career. for me, my career was being in business and starting a business and making it successful. my life's passion has been my family, faith, and country. >> can we drop some of the bologna. that's why you didn't serve with rick santorum. you have been running for years and years and years. this idea that suddenly citizenship showed up in your mind, just level with the american people. you have been running at least since the 1990s. [ applause ] >> while you hear the applause there, i was in the audience. my family was. i was sitting here watching it. i thought that was a pro-romney crowd, but they all laughed that the. they enjoyed that moment. >> i think what gingrich was saying, in a way, was, you know, give up this pretension you weren't politically calculating.

and two, this is not a huge deal. at the end of the day, if you were politically calculating, that's not going to sink your nomination. but the idea that somehow romney has built his campaign around a narrative that he has business ak men. so the level of distinction is i'm not a political insider, when he might have been. >> had he won. >> and santorum would have been if he had won in 2006. he would have been there for 21 years by now. but he says, i did lose. but i learned some thing its on the outside. you'd think at this point, romney would be able to pivot to that and take advantage of that. >> it seems the starchy persona. when you question him the way that the other guys did the other night, the fact that santorum went after him. he gets a little peeved. >> two things. first of all, he's overmanaged, overcoached, and overnarrative.

they have created this story around him for a specific purpose, which was a 9% unemployment rate. not talk about mormonism or cultural values or anything but jobs, jobs, jobs. >> the plan was to talk up mormonism? >> i'm saying not. but the point is, they overdid it. they overmanaged. you can be honest about things is all newt is saying. and mitt romney is a control freak who has a control freak for a campaign where they deliberately just for the fun of it to take notice of things, when they say an event, they put them to start at 5:05. >> here's jon huntsman hitting him from another side all together. he serve d as ambassador to china. he had strong words for romney. i thought it was effective yesterday morning. let's watch jon huntsman go after romney. >> i was criticized last night by governor romney for putting

my country first. he criticized me while he was out raising money for serving my country in china. yes, under a democrat, like my sons are doing in the navy. >> i just think it's most likely that the person who should represent our party running against obama is not someone who called him a remarkable leader. >> this nation is divided, david, because of attitudes like th that. >> one of the badges you're going to wear when you get old, david, is you were there for that discourse. it was to me, the knife that cut through our time. whatever happens to huntsman, he delivered that line. >> i agree with that. and i agree with it as a moment in his debate, but there's another side to that coin. unlike his son, his sons serving our country, this is a man who went to work for a democratic

president and his ambassador and somewhere along the way, also plauded to challenge that president to run for presidency. >> that's a problem he would have with obama and not fellow republicans. >> you would have it with both. republicans like romney is saying, we were out there working for the party. you're calling this guy a great leader. then there's a loyalty issue. you know what? i'm working on the inside. and now i'm going to challenge you? >> that's true. but howard, there's a history up here. at the time, there's a history of this live free or die world. they respect public service. >> the debate was fantastic. i thought when people applauded was incredibly instructed. you pointed out the first time when even though it was an establishment kraud, they couldn't help but applaud when they forced mitt romney to get real.

then they applauded again when jon huntsman made the appeal to bipartisanship and called mitt romney out. a guy who worked with democrats in massachusetts for trying to stuff himself into this highly-partisan role, which people know mitt romney really isn't. >> he's the kind of guy who would serve. >> some of the best things about him, the fact that he mixes politics and government. >> david is right generally. and you're right in this weird case. he isn't the kind of person to be making this shot. let's get to the integrity issue, which is always important. here's a new line of attack used against mitt romney that he doesn't always tell the truth. watch what happened when he was asked about negative ads against newt gingrich by his pro-romney super pack. you're not supposed to have a hand in writing ads, but he's

protesting too much. >> with regards to their ads, i haven't seen them, and under the law i can't direct their ads. i hope everything that is wrong is taken out. but the ad i saw showed that you had been forced out of the speakership. it said that you sat down with nancy pelosi and argued for a climate change bill. that was correct. anything wrong, i'm opposed to. but this ain't the bean bag. >> it may not be bean bag, but it is a question. in the same paragraph, he said i haven't seen them. and he said in the same paragraph, the ad i saw. >> i don't think a lot of voters are surprised by all of this. i don't think they hold out hope that somehow the politicians are removed from the political experience. it's a little bit like president obama is very dismisive of the game of politics in washington. he is the game. he's the president. romney was trying to have a bit

of both ways. >> here's mitt romney. listen to what he said yesterday to differentiate himself from president obama. >> i don't think he feels it. he experiences it the way so many of you do and i do by virtue of having lived in the real world. i know what it's like to worry whether you're going to get fired. there was a couple times whether i wondered if i was going to get a pink slip. >> we'll think about that. today rick perry, jumped on romney's comment. let's watch. >> i have no doubt that mitt romney was worried about pink slips whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out. because his company and all the jobs they kill, i'm sure he was worried he would run out of pink sli slips. >> you're in trouble when rick perry is smarter on his feet than you are. he was pointing out he was the one doing chop shop work like corporations looking for the

inefficient si inefficienci inefficiencies. >> i marvel at every politician to embellish. they can't help it. but the difference here is this guy is a 37%. he's trying to close it out by winning the new hampshire primary here. and so people -- the other thing that surprises me is they think people aren't paying attention. people aren't going to -- >> we are. >> everybody is. >> he's so far ahead he may be losing the tendency to campaign within himself. he should -- he's fashioning himself as a guy with business ak men who can handle a distressed economy. that's his calling card. >> you covered this like we do. is it today so important that you act like the average person and you have to assume the garb of the average person? i faced firings too. is that some new requirement of

politics? you have a wealthy man, can't he just say, i have been privileged. >> it's an instinct to try to connect. if you're looking for somebody who grew up poor, that's not me. but i do think voters are sophisticated. they sort of get it. i don't think they expect mitt romney, if they support him, to understand their journey through life. >> he did it because rick santorum got good reviews for talking about his coal miner ancestors. again, david is right. on the one hand, i think romney is too scripted at times. they are trying to make him fit a nairtive he doesn't fit into. then on his own, he makes it worse. >> congratulations. it was a great debate. i think you got it riveted up they were forced to think quick on their feet. >> if the meet the press debate had happened last thursday or wednesday, as opposed to yesterday, the dynamic in this

state could be different coming down. >> then you can't say this is sunday meet the press. it's thursday. >> it could never work. >> congratulations. great work. coming up, newt gingrich is on a la last-chance mission. he's going right into this guy. he's going to hurt himself, but he may blow up what looks to be the position of mitt romney because of his position at bain capital. you're watching "hardball" on the eve of the new hampshire primary. ♪ he was a 21st century global nomad ♪ ♪ home was an airport lounge and an ipad ♪ ♪ made sure his credit score did not go bad ♪ ♪ with a free-credit-score-dot-com ♪ ♪ app that he had ♪ downloaded it in the himalayas ♪ ♪ while meditating like a true playa ♪ ♪ now when he's surfing down in chile'a ♪

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welcome back to "hardball." today a pro-gingrich super pack

unveiled a new video coining m romney a predatory corporate raider. this is republicans saying this. it interviews people who lost their jobs because of romney's former employer, bain capital. >> his mission, to wreak massive rewards for himself and his investors. >> mitt romney, they don't care who i am. >> romney took foreign seed money from latin america and began a pattern exploiting dozens of american businesses. >> i feel that's a man that destroyed us. >> wow. newt's support is coming from an old friend, and the money is already being spent. $3.4 million already committed to a south carolina ad campaign. will these attacks bring romney

down? john harris and glen johnson joining me. i have to point out in the interest of full disclosure. msnbc and bain are both co-owner of the weather channel. if you want to do this for president obama, you would have a republican spend millions of dollars claiming this job creator is a job chopper and destroyer and a e predator at that. john harris. >> it's not a new charge, but it's one that's potentially devastating for mitt romney if he does not answer effectively. if you look at the various charges that have been levelled against romney that he's a flip-flopper on things like abortion or gay rights. those don't hit the bone because people can say well mitt romney probably doesn't even care that much about those things. this is the essence of who he is. >> is it a strategy of attack

the strength? go after the main bragging point and smash his face on it. >> yeah. if you think about the scale of these ads, we're talking about $3.7 million being dumped in south carolina. that's about what mitt romney dropped on newt gingrich in iowa. and it had a devastating effect on him. then you throw in rick perry competing down there. and they are thinking that south carolina could put this away for them, but it could be a tough state. >> let's get to the point of what the ad says. here's another excerpt of the video going after romney from a pro-gingrich super pack. let's watch it. >> they fire people. they cut benefits. they sell assets. >> what did he do when he was the ceo of this holding company? >> a group of corporate raiders led by mitt romney, more ruthless than wall street.

for tens of thousands of americans, the suffering began when mitt romney came to town. >> i just want to suggest something. maybe i just thought this up. the president has been running a very sharp campaign saying it's okay to make money if you're creating jobs like steven jobs or steven spielberg. anybody that makes things and puts people to work is a good american entrepreneur. the people that make money off money are not particularly good. we all try to get a dividend. but it seems to me to be saying, here's a direct case made for that. mitt romney has not made his money by creating jobs or building anything. he's created by a chop shop. a company that goes in and chops apart companies and gets rid of inefficiencies and creates debt and watches them go broke down the road. >> he's not a real businessman in terms of building something. he's a manipulator of money for

his own advantage. not for the greater good. people generally like the idea of businessmen in positions of leadership. but wait a minute, he's not really a businessman in terms of creating jobs. mitt romney has got to answer this. >> you know politics. in answering it, doesn't he bring it to the fore of debate? doesn't he make it the focus of the campaign? i'm not a job destroyer? >> one of the problems, too, is this is the kind of thing that resinates with voters. the whole reason mitt romney is running now talking about jobs haven't been created. the people out of work, a lot of them got put out of work by people who laid off a number of people. they can identify with the criticism of this kind of corporate raider strategy. >> it's hard to kill a whispering campaign when it's true. >> he has to say there's been

some job losses, but a lot more job gains. mitt romney is never going to be a bill clinton-style, i feel your pain. but he could say i want more people to be successful, like i have been successful. i want more opportunity. >> here's the argument back here. here's mitt romney's response to the new negative ad from the pro-gingrich campaign. >> i thought he apologized for going after my record of bain. wasn't that a couple weeks ago? you apologize for that and now he's decided to make that a center piece. i'm not going to worry about that. free enterprise will be on trial. instead, it's coming from speaker gingrich and apparently others. that's just part of the process. i have broad shoulders. i'm happy to describe my experience in the private economy and the fact that if you take all of the businesses that we invested in over our many

years, over 100 businesses that collectively they net over 100,000 jobs. >> how does newt show up on the republican platform should he lose this fight and endorse this guy? >> it's a good question. this is all in for him. it's not his committee. it's a pro-gingrich super committee. they are dump iing a bomb on th potential nominee of the party. it's not like something people are easily going to be able to forget. >> here's romney putting gas in the fire. speaking about being able to fire people like insurance companies. i'm not sure it's fair, but it's a bad tone for him to be striking right now. let's watch. >> i want individuals to have their own insurance. that means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. it also means if you don't like what they do, you can fire them. i like being able to fire people that provide services to me 37 if someone doesn't give me the

good service i need, then i'm going to get someone else to provide that service to me. >> i like being able to fire people. this is another republican. this isn't -- let's watch. >> it's become abundantly clear over the last couple days what differentiates governor romney and myself. i will always put my country first. it seems that governor romney believes in putting politics first. governor romney enjoys firing people. i enjoy putting them to work. >> governor romney enjoys firing people. i was watching, billy left as chief of staff, who was the pro business guy. is this wheeling out the canon basically? saying this is going to be an antiwall street campaign? and here the republicans are joining the fight against the man who will probably pick up the pieces here to defend it. >> the president goes out to

kansas a couple weeks ago and delivers an elizabeth-warren-style speech. >> is this a fifth calm against wall street? >> it's obviously, at some level, you might call it pious bologna. the republicans, as a party, are not opposed to bain capital. they call it free enterprise. but it's devastating because you have republicans, democrats, and the newt media reenforcing that message. >> i saw a couple great bytes that he likes firing people. thank you john harris. thank you. that's coming up next. [ male announcer ] the inspiring story

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now for the side show. first up, last laugh. michele bachmann finished sixth in the caucuses. it meant the end to her presidential bid. "saturday night live" marked the occasion with their farewell to her campaign. >> you haven't blinked? >> would you like to now? >> i would love to. those babies were dry. do you mind if i shut them again for a second, seth? >> sure. of course. >> you don't mind? >> no. it's like my eyes are eating a peppermint patty. to the iowa voters, i want to say thank you. i so enjoyed my time with you.

i hope you enjoy a future littered with death panels, reeducation camps, and forced ending in a nuclear bomb that will bring about the rapture, saving me and leaving you all to ask yourselves, what if? >> michele bachmann, everybody. [ applause ] >> well, it's time to look back to the beginning of her campaign. let's watch. >> what this election shows is people believe in this country. they love free enterprise. we want to make sure we have jobs going forward. >> congresswoman, are you hipttized tonight? has someone put you under a trance tonight that you give me the same answer no matter what question i put to you? >> we did get back to that. that question, was she hypnotized?

was her campaign what it looked like? a trance. next nancy pelosi was asked about newt gingrich saying that 2008 ad featuring the two former speakers discussing climate change was "the dumbest thing i have done in four years." here's her answer. >> by the ethics committee, you'd think he'd consider that a big mistake. since he brought my name in association with the dumbest thing he did, there's plenty of stiff competition as far as his activities are concerned. >> the former speaker is tough. people don't mind being used. they mind being discarded. and finally, what's? ads featuring dick cheney that popped up last month in a local paper in wyoming. its producers are working on a documentary about cheating. they are looking for home movies on cheney's early days as a teenager and college student

when he lived out there in wyoming. they got a nomination that focused on the bill clinton campaign. up next, big changes at the white house. bill daily stepping down as president obama gets into campaign mode. you're watching "hardball" from manchester on the eve of the new hampshire primary. n rc robotic . my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪

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the dow up 32 points. fourth quarter earnings season kicks off this week. reuters says profits will be up 8%, but that's down from a july prediction that there would be more than 17% growth. after the closing bell today,

alcoa reported a loss of 3 cents a share. consumers were borrowing in november according to the latest readout. borrowing is up by $20.4 billion. that's biggest gain in a decade. credit card debt rose by $5.6 billion. in the meantime, salaries at gold man saks are going way down. the fixed income trading business, 2011 pay is going to be down 60% from the year before. that's it from cnbc. now back to "hardball." we're back. breaking news from the white house. chief of staff bill daley is

leaving his post at the end of the month. the news comes as the president has begun focusing entirely on the reelection. daley had been brought in to improve relations and focus on working with republicans. joining me to talk about this development is nbc news political director chuck todd. i have to start with you about this. we knew he had a different role, a reduced role. but why did he quit? >> this all happened over the holidays, i'm told. went home for the holidays, realized he didn't like living in washington, d.c. coming back, he thought i'm submitting my resignation. did it. the president tried to talk him out of it, partly they don't say this was the motivation, but they didn't want this story out here. it looks bad for the reasons we're talking about. it looks like it's a west wing that's not being well managed.

but he had a reduced role. figure heads too strong of a word, but it was less than a powerful chief of staff. not a lot of business left to do with congress. it's just getting the rest of this payroll tax deal done. and i think he didn't look forward to the idea he was just going to be a leader and name only. why do that if you don't like living in washington in the first place? >> people want to know this. how does obama run this country? who is the person that's his job boss? the one who says i want this done by the end of the day. if they don't take my orders, who does he talk to? >> it used to be ram emanuel. they brought in bill daley to decrease a lot of the inflow into the white house. bill sat in the office with his door closed. >> who does the president call who wants to bark orders to joe biden?

who does he tell that to? >> i'm not sure. i don't know if it's bill daley. >> i think david pluf is the big decision-maker. and i think at this point, when you say who communicates with the rest of the government, i think it's pete rouse and in this case who is going to be doing it. i was told this by multiple people i talked to today. not going to have any role on the campaign, which is unique for a chief of staff. >> who hires and fires for the white house in the name of the president? who says you have to go? who has that kind of power? i'm thinking of jim baker. >> sure. i would argue, from my feeling, that basically david pluf and bill daley were sort of working hand in hand. whether one was the "boss" over the other, i wouldn't make a distinction. but the two of them were supposed to be partners.

>> a couple minutes on this. big story in "the new york times." a big book coming out tomorrow that talks about the dysfunction in the white house. a fight between the former chief of staff and the first lady. >> i haven't seen the fight, but i heard a lot about it from former white house staffers. it's certainly reigns true. one of things about bill daley, one thing he did well is on the first days, he called michelle obama to let her know he was there. but this is a well-known struggle. >> was there an ideal oj call struggle between ram emanuel and the first lady? >> no. this is more of somebody protecting their husband and protecting the image. >> but i read in the book about

how she wanted to go more aggressive on health care? >> more in messaging and what you're not feeling as if the way they were going about it, which was going the back room way, which was the wrong influence. but this book is really exposed. it's being framed as the east wing versus the west wing. but someone who was brought in -- remember when she was brought in in the fall of '07 as the eyes and ears of michelle obama. this tension has been there with the senior folks who went from the campaign to the white house. that tension never went away. whatever happened, it never went away. what you're seeing in the book is score settling, which in talking to other people who talked to jo day canter, says it didn't look good. >> explain it to the public. why it matters that there's been this fight between the chief e of staff and first lady.

>> it's important because it shows the first lady in a different light she's been in so far. it shows her very involved with the white house. the flame of obama, i think that's why it's important. i think it might give spin on the different networks showing her as more of a co-president as too powerful. >> i was just going to say. this is nancy reagan and hillary clinton. it's so reasonable. >> spouses support their partners. >> if it wasn't the case, you'd wonder about that too. >> good work. chuck todd. we lost a good friend over the weekend. a noble colleague. tony blank was on this program. he was a man of political and patriotic commitment. i saw that so many times. and always a good cheer. he was great company to work

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it will be "unconventional." but will it matter? there's also rick perry. >> i will tell you, it's three agencies of government that are gone when i get there. commerce, education, and -- what's the third one? the third agency of government i would do away with, education, commerce, and let's see -- i can't. the third one i can't. sorry. oops. >> we call that a brain freeze in this business. this debate moment pretty much doomed the candidacy of rick perry, although he's still in the race. e he hasn't come near the levels of the support before that oops movement. and finally michele bachmann, she dropped out of the presidential race after coming in last in the iowa caucuses with with just 5% of the vote. who will the tea party support in the end?

david coins, not a member of the tea party, also matt kibby. matt, i have to wonder where you're thinking where you can stop romney? how do you stop him? how do you do it? >> i think this process is a lot more competitive than a lot of analysts are saying because of romney's persistent weakness in had this process. he can't get above 20-some percent. you just ran through variations of folks that tea partiers looked at. but we haven't found one champion that we think is the perfect anti-romney. if this continues, i would argue somebody else is going to get in this race. >> of the people in the race now and have filed for the various primaries and can win them now, who are you looking at? >> well, to be honest with you,

the problem that we're having with newt gingrich and rick santorum is a lot of the votes that they made that look a lot like mitt romney's record. that's the problem that a lot of these politicians who are pretea party, they got in and started talking our talk. the most consistent performer has been ron paul who stayed around 20%. >> at 76 years old, can he be our next president? >> no, i don't think so. i think he's running to drive an agenda. he's running to hold the other politicians accountable. >> i don't know what they are talking about. they don't have a candidate who they are ready to nominate. what happened to the tea party? >> i almost feel sympathy for the tea party. listening to matt, i can hear the pain in thiz voice. there's no one in the non-mitt field who can appeal to these people. there's no one coming in from the outside. you need delegates at the

conventi convention. sarah palin is not going to jump in at this point in time. there's nothing. i'll give the tea party a tip of the hat. because hat. i think they have affected the debate and the shape of the republican party. mitt romney had a run to the right. i think somewhat disingenuously to get this report of conservative primary republican voters. but that has always been the case with republican primary elections. >> let's take a look at the tea party in national polls. the tea party has lost support. as of november 2011, 20% say they agree with the tea party movement. that's 1 in 5. 27% disagree. one year earlier, the numbers were reversed with 27% of the country agreeing with the tea party. just 22 disagreeing. when you look more closely at the 60 congressional districts represented by tea party caucus members, the tea party is even losing support there. in november 2011, 25% of voters in those districts agreed. 23% disappear. but one year earlier, far more

agree with the tea party. 30%. if you are eroding in your support nationwide, how can you convince the republican party voters that you've got the hot hand and you should have a tea party favorite as the nominee? >> you know, the tea party as we know is not a political party. and those polls measure as if we're running against republicans or democrats. the tea party is a set of ideas. and those ideas still dominate this republican primary debate. they still dominate the concerns of the american public who still believes that the government spending too much money and is a damper on economic recovery. that's where we're going to win. we're going to change the debate. we're not running for office. >> well, let me tell you who is running from it, nbc in a political debate. mitt romney declined to say he was a tea party member. let's listen to him in his words. >> starting with you, governor romney, are you a member of the tea party? >> i don't think you carry cards in the tea party. i believe in a lot of what the

tea party believes in. the tea party believes the government is too big, taxing too much and we ought to get to the work of getting americans to work. if the tea party is for keeping government small and spending down and helping us create jobs, then, hey, i'm for the tea party. >> not exactly a membership claim there. >> if you look at the budget fight, the debt ceiling fight, the payroll tax fight and what's happened with the american jobs act, i think he has shown the course of this past year that the tea party values are not the values that a lot of americans have. he put them on the defensive. that's one reason these numbers are going down. >> you are a leader of the party. let's talk about you are a leader of the tea party movement. how your going to get to the republican national convention to influence them. how are you getting in the door? how are tea party people getting in the door? >> i don't plan on going to the convention at this point. and again, we're not trying to

run inside. this is about whether or not whoever wins the nomination actually runs on the agenda that we've all shown up to defend. and i think both barack obama has changed his language about what he cares about and i think republicans have as well, but i appreciate the fact that you are both worried the tea party is not changing america quickly enough and i'm sure tea partiers appreciate that you care. but understand this is not a process that's going to change overnight. politics is not going to change overnight. and balancing the budget is not going to change overnight. >> i think you are being too humble. a year ago you took over the congress of the united states. you beat pelosi out of her job. you basically ran the congress for the last year. so you know how to influence elections but not this one for president. and that's what's different from the last time around in 2010. we'll talk about it again later. david korne, matt kibbe. it's still an open question. you had power. when we come back, the absurd pretentions of mitt

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let me finish tonight with this. in the hans christian andeveryson story, the emperor of lore appeared before the people wearing what he called his new clothes. everyone around him raved about the great leader's new attire which really consisted of nothing at all.

he was naked except to those who clung to him seeking the benefits which often flow from an emperor. well, think of mitt romney. he presents himself in the new clothes of a conservative, a figure who has no faith in government, a hard-nosed man of the right who has great fondness for the tea party. great distaste for other countries, who assumes all the trappings of the american angry enemies of the establishment. oh, yes, that other adornment, he's a man who never and he wears this code well, wanted to serve a life in politics. he ran for the senate but never really wanted to serve a career there. it helped he lost that race. he ran for governor and was elect bud never intended to run for governor because that would have made it about him. he isn't one of those politicians who runs for office with the idea of serving there. he's just a private citizen. a conservative businessman who on some occasions offers himself for public service. well, of course, all this is nonsense. these new clothes he's adorned himself with are not real at

all. he's been a moderate governor of massachusetts who started the individual mandate which president obama applied to the country as a whole. he is in fact a fellow who has been running for office since the early part of the 1990s and in all probability has had his eyes on the presidency since his father lost the race in 1968. well, the emperor's new clothes which mitt romney has been sporting since he began his run for the presidency were all the fashion in the republican party right up until yesterday morning when in a truly great debate, his rivals suddenly, much like that young boy in the hans christian anderson tale began to shot, the emperor has no clothes. the emperor has no clothes. and now mitt romney, should he won the republican nomination, will go in the battle against president obama as starkly naked. he'll have been exposed by those in his own party that know he's not a true belier in his