jeremy peters, you were following him around in iowa. was he able to connect with voters so quickly there at the end. >> i think it was just a matter of voters looking around and being tired of all the other candidates and seeing them'm plod one by one and finally settling on the one guy who, a, didn't have a lot of baggage and b, spent a lot of time in their state getting to know very iowa-specific issues. >> woodruff: and what sort of voters... i mean, how would you describe the republicans and independents and others who voted for rick santorum? >> it was a broad spectrum and that's what struck me when i was on the trail interviewing people and asking them why they supported senator santorum. on the one hand you have what you would expect, evangelical christian voters, social conservatives. but what surprised me were the number of white-collar conservatives who said they were supporting him. and often these were voters who had decided that newt going had too much personal baggage, that perry had been problematic in the debates and tha

that was written by jeremy peters. there is all this talk about a lincoln-douglas debate.e very boring and given the shrinking of the attention span that we have today, i mean, we just can't do that. the audience should be able to react and i think gingrich is right when he invokes the first amendment. >> gregg: let me play devil's advocate because i read the same article and let me quote from that same article in which the author posed the following question. we'll put it up on the screen. does the roar of an exercise crowd distract from the real weighty task at hand selecting the best candidate for president by encouraging candidates to play for applause lines? look, shouldn't the candidate, lays, be judged on his views and his proposed policies, not on his ability to pander to a debate audience with applause lines? >> of course. but i would put it this way: if you're decrying the aspect of this -- is it any worse than watching these overpaid super anchors emote and play devil's advocate and act like it's their running politics in this country? i don't think they should