is there anything you're seeing, john heilman about 13 hours, 14 hours ahead of the caucus that's tell you anyone other than mitt romney will win here? >> no. i don't think anything says that. you look at those -- you look at all the polling and in iowa it's almost, you can get into the weeds. but you need to look at the plus signs and minus signs. who's rising at the end? who's falling at the end? you see consistently mitt romney for the higher vantage point than santorum. constantly ticking up a little bit every day. santorum had a more dramatic rise. plus signs next to their names. minus signs next to ron paul's name next to newt gingrich's name. starts to tell what you the shape of the thing is. boston, people in the romney campaign extraordinarily confident. they're acting in a way that would suggest they are either supremely certain that they're going to win or they're so diluted that they lost their minds. i never detected that lunacy from them. they're a careful, cautious group. i think they know something. >> mike, you've been looking at the numbers for months and parse these

andrea mitchell and john heilman, thank you both very much for joining me. little later, john. i have more stuff for you. coming up, the supper pact invasion of south carolina. mitt romney's super pact may have finally met its match. next, a few words about my friend tony blankman. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool if you took the top down on a crossover? if there were buttons for this? wouldn't it be cool if your car could handle the kids... ♪ ...and the nurburgring? or what if you built a car in tennessee that could change the world? yeah, that would be cool. nissan. innovation for today. innovation for tomorrow. innovation for all. ♪ >>> in 1995, newt gingrich became the first republican speaker of the house in 40 years which meant that his unflappable and dapper press secretary tony blankly became the first republican press secretary for a speaker of the house in 40 years. tony was born in london where his father was winston churchill's accountant. but when tony was 3, the blankly family moved to los angeles where tony began to develop his poise in f

andrea mitchell and john heilman, thank you both very much for joining me. le later, john. i have more stuff for you. coming up, the supper pact invasion of south carolina. mitt romney's super pact may have finally met its match. next, a few words about my friend tony blankman. [ woman ] my boyfriend and i were going on vacation, so i used my citi thank you card to pick up some accessories. a new belt. some nylons. and what girl wouldn't need new shoes? we talked about getting a diamond. but with all the thank you points i've been earning... ♪ ...i flew us to the rock i really had in mind. ♪ [ male announcer ] the citi thank you card. earn points you can use for travel on any airline, with no blackout dates. of how a shipping giant can befriend a forest may seem like the stuff of fairy tales. but if you take away the faces on the trees... take away the pixie dust. take away the singing animals, and the storybook narrator... [ man ] you're left with more electric trucks. more recycled shipping materials... and a growing number of lower emissions planes... whic

. >> i thought john heilman had a great line, michael this morning on "morning joe" basically that elvis is creating a greatest hits reel for david axelrod on mitt romney. it just seems to be piling up. >> i think it does, and start about the 1% inequality in america, the super rich who are out of touch with the rest of the country and get the benefits, romney is the perfect foil for them if that's the campaign they want to run, so throws pieces are falling into place. the only question is whether it's happening earlier than they would like. >> i want to go to the romney campaign. peter alexander is traveling with them. what's going on there, peter? >> chris, we're expecting to hear from governor romney a short time around when he comes to greet his supporters here, the base of support in south carolina. he just finished up a conference call, and we listened in. this was after rick perry we heard, would be dropping out of race saying he thought disney world was a fitting backdrop for the president to make his comments today. he also grouped newt gingrich, his prime competition, saying it

joining me now from des moines, iowa, is john heilman, editor for "new york" magazine and an msnbc contributorblican side of the iowa caucus in delivering a nominee is not good. what remains the case for campaigning in iowa? >> well, lawrence, i think actually the governor has kind of a point. there is a process here by which the field does get winnowed. we've seen that it ultimately does produce a president or a nominee. i think there's no -- there is no nominating system that is a perfect nominating system. and the one that we currently live with is one where there's an attempt at geographic diversity, by having the first four early states be iowa, new hampshire, south carolina and nevada. the year florida kind of skipped the line a little bit. but to have a system where you have four early states that are all small enough that candidates can compete who don't have enormous financial resources, there's a case for that, for why you would want to do that. a lot of people say, it would be better if you had more demographic diversity, more racial or ethnic diversity. but the main places in ameri

. >> joining me now are john heilman from the debate location in florida. he's the national affairs editor for "new york" magazine. tom brokaw, nbc news special correspondent and author of "the time of our lives," a conversation about america, who we are, where we've been and where we need to go now to recapture the american dream. and chris hayes, host of msnbc's "up with chris hayes." tom, how do you score it? >> well, i always let the voters decide how they want to score it. i really just try to call strikes here. who scores the most runs tonight, we'll know when the florida voters go to the polls. i think objectively, however, there was a different mitt romney on the stage tonight. i think in the last ten days or so, the questions have been both, can he throw a punch and can he take a punch? tonight he threw a punch pretty effectively against newt gingrich at the beginning. the speaker did not look happy on that stage. i think one of the essential questions about his work for fannie mae and freddie mac has never been asked. for all the explanations and

and national affairs editor for new york magazine and msnbc political analyst john heilman back at thes made over the past couple days, i actually -- it's sort of starting to sink in a couple hours later. i don't think the actual issues, the cayman islands. >> there are people coming out saying you pay the same tax wlz you file in the cayman islands or america. i think at the end of the day that's not going to impact him. i'm talking to the republican primary. we republicans have fought for lower capital gains tax rates for decades. i don't think that's going to hurt him. i do think more than anything else, it is this inevitable air around him may be starting to be shattered a bit by one mistake after another. self-inflicted wounds. because that's what mitt romney has more than anything else. and i will repeat what rick perry said. if we're going to fire you, we got to fire you in february, january and february and not in september when you're up against barack obama. and a lot of people and really powerful conservatives are starting to ask that question now. is this really the safest

, jon huntsman and with buddy roemer and with us, we have msnbc contributor, mike barnacle and john heilman, you must be tired. >> i team like i just saw you. >> down the street is the armory. i'm like an lsu running back. i run about a 5.2, 240. >> you made history. there's no question who the national champion is. >> i didn't want to bring it up. >> he wouldn't stay for the very last second to make sure that they won. >> fortunately tj is not in the shot. >> he's tj? >> we'll see highlights later. no, i don't know who gave me that, but i appreciate it. the great thing about this is, lsu is such a great team. >> i know the great thing. >> before this game everybody was saying they may have had the best season, regular season in the history of college football. think if you look at who they beat, they certainly did. >> you be nice to madelyn over there, who is very upset, okay? >> i know they're a great team, they respect us, we respect them. >> she decorated a table and balloon and her team lost. >> you want to know the real excitement? the real excitement is that newt, two worlds collidin

back with us we have john heilman and steve ratner. coming up, you know who we have. >> your dad?ategic vision now? >> read it, twice. >>> i enjoyed the debate. >> romney won? >> i don't do winners or losers, but. >>> it was kind of a dry. they both looked sleepy to me. >> the lack of audience, such a contrast between south carolina and florida, where the audience was so involved in the two -- last night the audience was if they had muzzles on. >> but gingrich took it down a notch, slightly more statesman-like, and romney did what he had to do, get gingrich back on his heels a bit. >> new polls points to a dramatic shift in the republican race as the two leading candidates sharpen their lines of attack according to a new poll, they're in a statistic cal tie. romney dropped eight points white gingrich gained 14. with his lead evaporating the former massachusetts governor got increasingly aggressive, in tampa. romney questioned gingrich's record in washington, leading the former speaker to respond. >> speaker was given an opportunity to be leader of the pare and at the end of four y