smith: i think about chris cillizza. downie: yeah. smith: let's think about chris cillizza for a second, who is, uh, he, i want to get his title right. am i remembering, he's managing editor of postpolitics.com? downie: yeah. i guess so, but what he really is, is the fix. smith: he's really the fix, which is the premier. downie: that's, that's how you know him. smith: . or a premier political blo.blog. he is a tv personality. downie: yes. smith: he's a prolific tweeter. downie: yes. smith: he obviously blogs, but beyond, uh, blogging, he reports in a way that takes the events of the day on a minute-by-minute basis and makes sense of them. downie: yes. smith: .provides context and. downie: even has a staff of his own to help him with that report. smith: and has, how often does chris appear in the newspaper? downie: uh, he appears in the newspaper a few times a week with essentially things drawn from his blog that appear in the paper. smith: the bulk of his work, though, is not done for print. downie: the bulk of his work is done, is do

chris cillizza is down there at "the washington post" right now. he's in the sitting room as we used to call it. and john harwood is with us with "the new york times." a somewhat superior newspaper, historically speaking. >> geez. >> let's go. mitt romney trounced his opponents last night and got to give the big speech in primetime. i think he gave a speech more appropriate to a convention as if he'd already won and picked up all the marbles. but his focus was clearly obama, not the guys he beat yesterday. >> president obama wants to fundamentally change america. we want to restore america to the fundamentals that made it great. he wants to turn america into a european-style social welfare state. we want to ensure we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity. this president takes his inspiration from the capitals of europe. we look to the cities and towns across america for our inspiration. >> chris cillizza, you can't see it. john and i can see it. his sons were lined up there like one of those motown groups. four of them lined up, all in u

he's got to come up with something bigger. >> chris cillizza, i don't know if you believe in luck. i do. i look at a guy that ran against alan keyes because the other guys that were going to run against him had marital problems right before the election. now he is running against, well newt gingrich is in there doing the blocking for him attacking the probable, i can still say, nominee. romney destroying him for basically being the very thing obama says he is, an aloof, elitist bad guy. and then he is having to do the dirty work for him and then the guy has to put his tax returns out the very day of the state of the union. >> it's better to be lucky than good, chris. that is triply true in politics. go back even further with barack obama. his first race for state senate he got in because the woman he was replacing a woman who got disqualified from the ballot. yes this is someone who he is quite skilled, also pretty lucky in the right place at the right time. to chuck's point i think we've long thought, well romney's probably the best nominee republicans can put forward. he has the

but chris cillizza, a cold february, where does newt recover? >> i'm looking at the map, chuck.aries are created equal, we know they're not. the one that will get most attention, jon ralston will be happy for me to say nevada. and arizona and michigan because they're larger states with primaries. both, all three of those, i would be stunned if it was even close with romney. nevada won 51% in 2008. ron paul got 13% or 17% for second place. arizona, same problem. >> jennifer, though, he is battling his own expectations in michigan, it is a home state. arizona strikes me as a place that could be an interesting, conservative electorate. >> on the other hand, he has strong surrogates. jeff flight, hardly a softy when it comes to the issues. i think he has a lot of momentum. it is the best possible scheduling for romney. he is going to have a breather, won't have any debates. >> february was the cold month that basically ended hillary clinton's candidacy, waiting for ohio in march. you have newt gingrich waiting for southern super tuesday. >> also, michigan is problematic for romney,

msnbc contributor and managing editor of post politics.com chris cillizza rejoins us.ead to florida, beyond south carolina. >> yeah, well, look, andrea, mitt romney is going to be in south carolina tonight, west palm beach, florida, tomorrow. all of this is aimed at showing he's in it for the long game. you talked about mitt romney, $24 million raised in the final three months of the year. he has $19 million on hand. so you've got south carolina on january 21st, ten days from now, 20 days from now florida, and super tuesday march 6th when a bunch of states are going to vote. question that anyone other than romney in this race has to answer is how do you compete organizationally and financially with mitt romney going beyond south carolina? no one has answered that question yet. and mitt romney is making sure people like you and i ask that question because it's the central question of the race at this point. >> can they live off the ground, can they live off debates? they've got our big debate in tampa january 23rd. newt gingrich does well in them. can't they argue that

chris cillizza, also an msnbc contributor and managing editor of post politics down in washington.e looked at these numbers. let me ask you. let's take a look at axelrod talking on "meet the press" yesterday about what they are learning. here he is. >> independent voters are fleeing governor romney now and his numbers are falling. he's under water nationally. this process is not helping him because he's so intent on pandering to those forces on the right of his party, to try and win this nomination. >> he's on the mark there. some evidence of mitt romney's fall right now among independents in the latest nbc/"wall street journal" poll. while those independents rating him overall positively have remained steady, his negative rating has gone up. in november, 22% viewed him negatively. in december, up to 29%. now that number is up to 44%. he's rising on the negative side. look at romney and obama, how they match up among independents. back in november, romney beat obama by 13 points. now obama beats romney by 9. 44 -- actually 8. 44% to 36%. it seems there's been collateral damage here

. >> chris cillizza, you've been watching this. we know rick santorum hasn't had the money, the advertising, he has not been able to go negative the way the super pacs on behalf of mitt romney and others have gone negative. what do you think in his message right be resonating with voters? >> well, i think it's he's the last credible guy standing number one and he's pretty consistent andrea. i think the other thing is, in some ways this is a throwback. i wrote a couple weeks ago, is organization overrated? we had newt gingrich at the top of the polls in iowa even though he had almost no organization. santorum suggests maybe the old shoe leather that you associate with what you have to do in places like iowa and new hampshire is working. no candidate has worked iowa more traditionally than rick santorum. i think ann's point is the exactly right. people liked him but they didn't want to throw their vote away with santorum. when he started to look like, wait a minute, gingrich is falling. we don't want to be with romney, maybe this san

chris cillizza is managing editor of the post politics.com and david corn from mother jones. analysts. chris, you first. this game of cat and mouse that this guy has created here, because it's never been created before. everyone assumes you have to show your tax returns. it shows you have done your tax returns. everybody has them. you can't be a legal citizen in this country without tax returns. we know he has them. we know they exist. he refuses to show them. there's only reason reason he doesn't want to show them. he doesn't want to. why? >> chris, i agree with you. i mean, i've been baffled. you showed the bit from cnn last night, but on monday night, romney was asked the same thing and he again fumbled. which is odd to me. this is a guy who is quite good as a debater. he had to know it was coming. if he didn't know it was coming monday, he definitely knew it was coming last night. and yet, he still kind of struggled with it. i think it has to do with him being uncomfortable in some way about his wealth, although we know he's rich. what it makes it look like, chris, and yo

chris cillizza join us now. the polls open at 7:00, they close at 7:00 local time.out the key counties to watch, how florida is divided up and represent a cross section of america. >> this is massive state. this is a totally unique challenge. somewhere between 1.2 and 1.9 people we expect to vote. you have it highlighted at the to of the screen, jacksonville. this is very conservative. the average person is more like georgian than a floridian. this is where mitt romney has spent the most money. about 10% of the republican primary vote comes from there. if he doesn't perform well in duvall county, it's not going to be a good night for him. >> kwa are you looking at for miami-dade? >> i think the latino vote is the focus. mitt romney lost miami-dade county by 52,000 votes in 2008. he has to make that up. obama won by 15 points in miami-dade county even though mccain had done well there. let's see if romney can start on that path tonight. >> florida by the numbers, 50 delegates. winner take all. thanks so much. we'll be watching and reading. that does it for us on this

chris cillizza, the president coming here, delivering his third state of the union. going to have all of these symbolic guests. in the first lady's box you'll have warren buffets assistant. you'll have the widow of steve jobs. this goes back to the tradition of the ronald reagan started. that has now become a state of the union tradition and a slight cliche. it's very special with mark kelly. >> absolutely. i would say, look, this is a speech the president is projecting beyond the chamber. the american people is the audience, not congress. i think putting people in the first lady's box, referencing them, it allows any president to connect or try to connect with average people's lives. it's hard to give a speech to a room of people, at least half of whom are not favorably disposed to you because of your party affiliation. he's trying to connect beyond the room bringing every day stories of heroism a. >> our thoughts are with senator mark kirk. he is recovering from a stroke. his bipartisan seat mate will have his seat open for him in the chamber tonight. thank you ver

. >> chris cillizza, thanks so much. see you later in the show. >>> the boston globe endorsed jon huntsman over mitt romney. but he had to rebut an attack, when a racist ad shows his adopted daughter, questioning the american values. huntsman called it stupid whil n come directly from them. huntsman is still stuck in fifth place. so is it a good idea to gamble everything on next week's primary in new hampshire? he stopped by to talk to me last night. >> let's talk about new hampshire. was it a mistake to skip iowa? >> no. in fact it was part of the plan from the very beginning. you have limited resources to deploy. you get in the race a little bit late and say, where can i get the best return in my effort? in iowa you have a caucus. fair enough. a limited turn out. a specific representation of the voting population. then move to new hampshire, a primary. broad-based turnout which includes republicans, whole lot of independent and some democrats. if you can do well in new hampshire, can you establish the very important id

chris cillizza joins us. you and i are going to be on the set together. election day, south carolina in the next 24. >> yeah. first of all, beautiful background there. charleston is my favorite city of the early primary. >> wish i could bring it home with me. >> it looks like a two person race between newt gingrich and mitt romney. i think newt gingrich play wind up eking out a victory over mitt romney. kind of an amazing thing. this is the second re-rise of newt gingrich in this race. what it means going beyond 24 hours is does he have the organization in florida and the super tuesday states. he's clearly the momentum candidate and the candidate speaking the language that conservatives want to hear in a way that mitt romney hasn't been able to in this primary so far. >> conservative republicans not wanting it to be over yet, and there seems to be a protest vote thing going on here. thanks so much. that does it for us for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." our thanks to everyone here in charleston, south carolina. join us for a special edition of

chris cillizza joins us. we're talking about the debate.rn right here on a special edition of rock center. this will show if newt gingrich can mix it up with mitt romney and where whether new aggressive romney is enough. you know gingrich will come out fighting. >> you hit the nail on the head. if you talk to the romney folks privately, it was that rom was not aggressive enough. he was not aggressive enough by beginning. we see that today they will not be repeating that mistake in florida. the question is does the candidate do it? how aggressively does he take it? and to your question, how natural or comfortable does he look doing it? can he win those back and forths with newt gingrich. that's how we will judge who wins the debate. >> we should point out that the tracking poll shows them tied. newt gingrich has picked up three points in the gallup tracking. we'll have to take it up from there. we'll talk about the debate. that does it for us on this edition of "news nation." form we'll be live on capitol hill with a preview of the state of

chris cillizza joins us. >> thank you for making me follow the cute dog. i grew up a giants fan. i was thrilled that they won yesterday. take that patriots. hopefully, we'll get to be the new england team over the new england patriots. i'm bitter at the owner for faking as he was coming to my home state of connecticut just to get beata better deal from t massachusetts. >> congress comes back together. they might send more than 20 seconds there? >> we spent all the end of last year talking about the payroll tax cut extension. that bill is coming due literally here. the other dynamic, president obama and the state of the union later this month, and his plan that appears to be working to run very, very aggressively against congress. all that is a backdrop to the proposals that have to get done. >> thank you very much. that's it for us for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." tamron has a look at "news nation." >> chris followed the cute dog. i have to follow chris. it's not fair. thank you very much. too bad it's not the cowboys. in our next hour we are

coming up nbc contributor, chris cillizza joining us. we had the white house party.t is an established tradition for presidential candidates to release their tax records. then senator obama released multiple years and has released his tax records. president george bush. president clinton. nominees for each party. i think it was a tradition that was initiated by then presidential candidate george romney back in 1968, who released 12 years of tax records. >> oh, you sly, sly guy. >> see what he did there? >> yeah. >> does this hurt him in south carolina? >> i don't think it does, andrea. only because i think the cake is baked. if you care about electability in south carolina, we think there's probably between 25, 31% who that is their primary concern, you're going to vote for mitt romney. does it matter in the long-term? absolutely. this is something the obama campaign will work to paint as out of touch with the average person. there's a reason with mitt romney, and i know you asked him, why not release your records. we now know it's going to show him paying a lower ta

chris cillizza, how is -- do you measure the strength of the conservative movement of the tea party movementf mitt romney in the month of january? >> if we wins, first of all, he's made history by winning iowa and new hampshire. if you win south carolina, in 2010, we talked about the power of the tea party because they won a bunch of senate primaries. christine o'donnell won. ken buck in colorado. small electorates. i think the smaller the electorate in terms of raw nerm numbers, the more influence they can have. a presidential primary, these are not millions of people voting. it's still too big an electorate for that relatively small slice to decide who the nominee is. >> in fairness to the tea party movement, clearly, romney changed his tone and rhetoric enough to make sure he was never trying to alienate the tea party. >> that's the point. he addressed tea party groups, talked about his own values. it's important to define, what is the tea party? is a conservative voter a tea party activist? is tony perkins a tea party activist? i don't know there's a strict definition. one way to judge i

panel, nbc news's chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell, and the "washington post" chris cillizzae a daily fix. >> i want to start with one thing we know, win or lose, the last two days have been w horrendous for mitt romney. we hear the issue on taxes and we put together this montage. it may be romney's problems in a nutshell right now. let's hear it. >> i doubt it. i will provide all of the financial information, which is an extraordinary pile of documents that show investments and so forth. i don't intend to release tax returns. >> i do remember when i was running against ted kennedy he wouldn't release his tax returns. >> it's not that hard to make a commitment if you're elected president of the united states you would release the tax returns. every president does. >> if i become president, i'll consider that. >> see what the future holds, i don't have any plans to release tax returns. >> we're showing a lot of exposure at this point and if i become our nominee, and what's happened in history people have released them about april of the coming year. that's probably what i'd do

joining us to wrap up the show for what to look for in the next 24, chris cillizza joining mark halperrine. one of the things that was really notable last night was the lowering of the teleprompters at the romney victory speech following santorum's, i thought, politically brilliant speech. hitting all the right notes. >> yeah. first of all, i always love being out with mark because he is one of the smartest guys out there. second of all, the contrast between, they all happened after 12:30 at night on the east coast so most people probably didn't see them. the could that tras between santorum's speech which was heartfelt, a populist message and romney's speech, a pure stump speech. if you spent five minutes covering mitt romney, you've heard it before, was striking. it probably doesn't make a difference but there was clearly a difference there. and santorum showed, he is not somebody who can be totally dismissed. he has some abilities. >> thanks so much. we're out of time. mark, thank you. and that does it for this edition of andrea mitchell reports. tomorrow we're live in new hampshire ag

chris cillizza is managing editor of post politics.com. what should be the watching going forward? >> i do think newt gingrich bears watching, andrea, because he's stated -- if you watched his concession speech i guess after the iowa caucuses, he made very clear two things, one, he's quite supportive of rick santorum and the campaign he ran in iowa. and two, he's not happy with mitt romney. you played the ad that he's up -- that's a very soft negative ad against mitt romney but if it's a sign of things to come, i do think a double barrelled attack from gingrich and santorum against mitt romney, it may not hoble romney in new hampshire where his numbers could drop 15 points and he could still win. but it could make romney's winning strategy a little bit more complicated. the question is if newt doesn't think he could win, is he willing to do or say whatever it takes to keep it from romney? i find that to be a fascinating dynamic. >> is he a suicide mission? what about rick santorum, i was with him watching him in a town hall meeting, packed crowd, the money is coming in. he's gettin

chris cillizza is an msnbc contributor, managing editor of postpolitics.com and our daily fix.this is a big, healthy number. how does it compare to what the romney people have done? >> it's significant more, andrea. the $68 million, you've got to separate it out a little bit. about $42 million of that is raised for obama's re-election campaign. another $24 million raised for the democratic national committee. and another $1 million raised for an account that's going to be spent in swing states. now, president obama is raising all of this money, but to compare apples to apples, he raised $42 million in the last three months of 2011, as compared to $24 million for mitt romney, so almost double. >> almost double. both sides are going to have more than they need for this campaign, if romney does become the nominee. talk to you later, chris. thanks so much. >> thank you. >>> republicanç party pressuren mitt romney's opponents for ripping apart his investment banking career could be having an effect today. both newt gingrich and rick perry seem to dial it down, softening their rheto