. >> reporter: iowaens can't escape the last minute blitz of ads. >> one man stands alone. >> reporter: ever notice how some people make a lot of mistakes. >> the big mistake -- >> the fox guarding the hen house is like asking congress to fix washington. bad idea. >> reporter: mitt romney has decided he'll take a quick break from the state. he'll go to new hampshire to campaign for about 24 hours, and then ron paul has decided he'll go back to texas to spend new year's with his family, but will be back on the campaign trail monday. >> i here governor chris christie is also mixing it up. how is that. >> reporter: in he's on the ground in iowa campaigning for romney and showed a little attitude. watch this. >> you people disappoint me on tuesday, you don't do what you're supposed to do on tuesday for mitt romney, i will be back, jersey style, people, i will be back! >> reporter: i think he's the only one who can get away with saying something like that. >> i think you are right about that one. mixing it up on the campaign trail. thanks so much for that report. >>> former american idol wi

. >> i think the more that iowaens look at ron paul, the less attractive le become. >> paul responded by questioning u.s. military overseas. >> the constitution gives none of us authority to police the world and tell other people have to live and get involved in internal affairs. >> reporter: newt gingrich made an apparently at an iowa caucus wednesday. the talk may be the last bit of sweetness on iowa's campaign trail, there will be a lot of television campaign ads and maybe negative newt gingrich promised his remaining ads would be positive and romney said if he can't take the heat he should get out of the race. >>> after tuesday's iowa caucuses, the next race is on january 10th. >>> the maryland health commission want there to be a crackdown on cardiac stint surgeries. hundreds may have been implanted by unnecessary stints but dr. mark dacay. there's more oversight requested and to suspend the surgeries if the standards are not met. >>> baltimore police need your help over a triple shooting. the detectives want to question people about a shooting. a 26-year-old and two, 24-year- ol

iowaens are going to make their decision based on who they meet and see and what they feel about that candidate. >> reporter: but unlike carter and a slew of candidates in the past who did it the hard way and won here, santorum is way behind. so, too, is michele bachmann who's been in iowa 65 days and has just announced a 99-county tour. they're both behind mitt romney who spent just ten days in iowa, has only one office in the state and has run only one ad. in fact, eight years ago-- the last time only one party was contesting the caucuses-- iowa was buried in nearly 14,000 ads. as of last week, the number was 8,600. the man at the top of the pack, newt gingrich, has benefited less from glad handing than from good debate performances and the buzz they've created on cable news and the internet. for the time being, it's overcome a nearly total lack of organization on the ground for him. but tim albrecht, who's worked in three past campaigns here, points out that with 1,784 precincts in iowa, a lack of organization is a big risk on the one night that counts. >> you have to have everyone

that the caug and turnout, but you're beginning to see there are more firm decisions by some of the iowaenepublican caucus-goers than before. look at this poll, december 6th, 55% of those polled said they may change their mind. 27th of december, yet, just 43%. so more and more we see people at least indicate their mind is made up. are you feeling that on the ground there in iowa? yes, that's what i'm hearing and what the romney campaign is starting to see and say, that their supporters will come out for them again. if they can get up to 25% in the caucuses a week from now, then they think they can still win, because everyone is so fractured on the right. even if mitt romney wins iowa and new hampshire, some people are saying it's going to be over, but the polls in south carolina don't necessarily bear that out. as we start to see candidates drop out of the race after iowa, let's say or in new hampshire, we might not see very many candidates go to new hampshire, they may chalk it up as a romney victory and then they may go to south carolina and start campaigning there. if candidates start t

bachmann, perry have bus campaigns going, and we're talking about a really small audience, what, 119,000 iowaen voted in 2008, so what's your strategy if you're any of these folks, what's your closing argument? who do you aim it at? >> they can switch the votes in the middle of the caucus. so it's a very, very fluid process, including when the actual ballots are being cast. again if you're romney, your strategy has to be an ant-gingrich strategy, which seems to be working. it seems the iowa voters are taking a close look at newt gingrich and the closer they look, they don't like what they see, gingrich is really the only candidate standing who has a chance of taking i think the nomination away from romney. you look at the last four primaries, you had bush in '92, dole? '96, bush in 2000, xwush in 2004, and mccain in 2008. it seems the party at the end of the day goes for the establishment candidate who is electable. that doesn't seem to be the wade iowa voters have been going right now. to michael's point. democrats, when we went for candidates ike mike due caucus in 1998, there was an xi stenc

magazine reports paul insiders claim to have hard pledges from 20,000 caucus egoe, a record 120,000 iowaens showed up in the 2008 republican caucuses. and one more number. 30. congressman paul joins me now from his home state of texas. congressman, you were greeted this morning by a new "des moines register" poll that i want to share with our audience. it is showing newt gingrich on top at 25%. and then coming in second, ron paul at 18%. beating out mitt romney at 16%. and everyone else in the single digits. how do you take these numbers and roll it into a victory in january? have you got the manpower to do it? >> of course it is very encouraging because we're getting pretty close to it being within the margin of error. so i think we continue to do what we're doing. we've had the flavors of the month up and down so far in this campaign. i'd like to think of myself as the flavor of the decade. we keep plodding along on a couple of issues that are really striking a chord with the people and that is, of course, the wars, the end of the wars going on, as well as the financial condition of the c

he's invested in all 99 counties and i believe that iowaens are going to reward him next week with a>> did if feel at all awkward all of a sudden leaving bachmann and showing up at a ron paul event at the microphone? >> here's something else i want to make clear. i heard you guys talking beforehand i was at a bachmann event earlier in the day. that happened to be at a hometown that i represent. i attended the event because it was in my district, just like -- just like i attended a ron paul event there and month earlier. if any presidential candidate invites me to attend an event in my district, i definitely do that. i even would have attended probably a mitt romney event, but unfortunately, he decided not come to our area. and ron paul has invested time and effort and i believe he needs to be rewarded for that. but it wasn't -- it was awkward because i had friends on both sides. but when i came over to the ron paul campaign, it wasn't like i was going into a group of people i wasn't familiar with. these were people that had volunteered for me, people that door knocked for me, people