john huntsman left here an hour ago. john huntsman spent his entire campaign here in new hampshire. the question is, will it pay off. he is hoping it does because voters appreciate that kind of attention from the candidates. >> reporter: it was repeated many times today. a candidate, this time john huntsman visited a cafe. this is new hampshire. less than 5,000 people live here. john huntsman has been here at least twice. here voters can size up their candidates face to face. >> i wanted to meet the candidate. i am looking at him and mitt romney. >> reporter: mitt romney with a commanding lead and the candidates vying for second place, ron paul, john huntsman rick santorum and newt gingrich have been taking swipes of mitt romney. >> i think a reagan conservative has a better chance of defeating a left wing president than does a massachusetts -- >> reporter: the race for first place is all but over, that doesn't sit well with some new hampshire voters. >> makes me more determined to vote tomorrow. >> reporter: a poll shows mitt romney in the lead by 33%. the ron paul is at 20%. john

we're talking about john huntsman. >> john huntsman with momentum. >> without money, i won't matter. >> new hampshire produced surprises. >> i hope you'll be enjoy awe future that is littered with death panels, re-education camps and asking you all to answer yourself what if? >> michelle bachmann, everybody. >> good evening from new hampshire where michael dukakis and paul tsongas before him mitt romney has the commanding lead in the first in the nation presidential primary. romney was his own worst enemy today. >> i like being able to fire people that provide services to me. >> governor romney enjoys firing people. it may than he is slightly under pressure from the economic reality we have in america now. that's a dangerous place. >> the rick perry campaign has a new ring tone for the over 70% of republicans who support a presidential candidate other than mitt romney. >> i like being able to fire people. i like being able to fire people. i like being able to fire people. >> romney tried to provide context to his comment later in the day. >> oh, you saw i was talking about insurance

john huntsman made a stop here. >> how is everybody doing? >> reporter: john huntsman spent his entire campaign effort in new hampshire. >> i wanted to meet the candidate. i am looking at him and mitt romney and it is between the two for me. >> reporter: john huntsman needs more like her. a poll shows mitt romney with a 33% lead. ron paul in second. john huntsman surged to 13%. 12% of voters remain undecided. john huntsman and newt gingrich took swipes at mitt romney. >> i think a reagan conservative has a better chance of defeating a left wing president. >> reporter: rick santorum absent from new hampshire yesterday. he was not raising expectations. >> we started out great with rick perry. and we are not there anymore. we feel good about that. >> reporter: well, we were essentially all over new hampshire today. rallies, campaign events, town halls and with the end of the events here with john huntsman, that essentially is the end of it. the next campaign events we will see will be after the primary tomorrow night after the vote is in. in new

john huntsman coming in third with 17%. now let's flip over, newt gingrich coming in fourth right now with 10% tied essentially with rick santorum who also has 10%. >>> more live coverage from new hampshire, let's take you live outside inside john huntsman headquarters where there's also a crowd gathered there. you can see it's a decidedly different tone here. john huntsman coming in from these early results in third place. the battle here really was for who's going to be coming in second and according to the early results we have john huntsman is coming in third place here after ron paul. let's switch it over now and give you a live look at what's happening with ron paul's headquarters. you can see here a lot of people assembled. no sign of the candidate just yet. you see there the podium and microphone just waiting. at this point we understand ron paul came in second, john huntsman coming in third. again we are talking about early results still. we are going to stay on top of this story, our campaign coverage continues he

really showed personal peek peek by criticizing john huntsman for having served as ambassador to china while he, mitt romney and others were trying to elect republicans, and it gave huntsman the best moment of his entire candidacy, when he contrasted what he saw, rather self-serving narrow partisanship of not serving your country when asked by a president to unselfish public service. and that was his magic moment. it happened sunday, and that was it, and i think david is right, there is no place for him to go from here, except to contemplate his future and to try and hone a message. >> obviously, the huntsman people thought they hit on a message there with the country first slogan, they changed a lot of their campaign signs since last sunday to reflect that. i guess they needed more campaign signs. so, david, you know, mitt romney now has been laboring under the idea for some weeks now, months now that anybody but romney, the anybody but romney movement. is that movement still alive tonight? >> there is still some of it but i think you will begin to see emotional builds underneath romn

really showed personal peek peek by criticizing john huntsman for having served as ambassador to china while he, mitt romney and others were trying to elect republicans, and it gave huntsman the best moment of his entire candidacy, when he contrasted what he saw, rather self-serving narrow partisanship of not serving your country when asked by a president to unselfish public service. and that was his magic moment. it happened sunday, and that was it, and i think david is right, there is no place for him to go from here, except to contemplate his future and to try and hone a message. >> obviously, the huntsman people thought they hit on a message there with the country first slogan, they changed a lot of their campaign signs since last sunday to reflect that. i guess they needed more campaign signs. so, david, you know, mitt romney now has been laboring under the idea for some weeks now, months now that anybody but romney, the anybody but romney movement. is that movement still alive tonight? >> there is still some of it but i think you will begin to see emotional builds underneath romn

followed by ron paul, john huntsman and rick perry. a real clear average of four polls is giving mitt romney a wider lead in south carolina. it is important to note, three of the polls were taken prior to the new hampshire primary. the average shows mitt romney leading at 29.3%. newt gingrich with 20%. followed by rick santorum, ron paul, rick perry and john huntsman. >>> copper thieves stealing and the way they are getting away with it. >>> it was a frosty morning this morning. and frosty again tomorrow morning, temperatures back in the 20s. i will see you back here in 10 minutes. >>> a fire badly damaged a home in san jose. it started at 3:30 a.m. took firefighters two hours to put out the fire. the people weren't home and no one was injured. no word on a cause. >>> two more days before the playoff game between the 49ers and the saints. ktvu's david stevenson was given special access and here now to show us what is being done. >> reporter: we took a tour inside candlestick as the team, officials and fans gear up for saturday's big ga

i mean what were the negatives about those candidates that you see as positives in john huntsman? think they'll be -- the choice really came down to romney and huntsman. they had the most presidential demeanor. i think that rick santorum is a fine spokesman for particularly a religious right constituency that represents a more narrow slice of the republican electorate. ron paul speaks for a narrow slice of the electorate. >> why not mitt? >> romney and huntsman have a broader focus and seem more credible to us as presidents of the united states. but huntsman been bolder in the campaign. you have a real sense of where he would take the country. he's engaged on the issues in a much more forceful way than romney has. obviously, we're from massachusetts. we have good memories of him as governor. he disavowed some of the positions. so i think that romney could be a credible president. we say in the editorial that a vote for hunts man might be wasted or something like that. or would have an impact on the overall race and could have an impact on mitt romney in the way that some of the ot

john huntsman sits down for a live interview.nd "30 rock" stars reveal what's in store for the hit comedy's new season. >>> now keep it on this channel for continuing local news, weather, sports and much more. i'm veronica de la cruz. thank you so much for watching "early today." just your first stop of the day today on your nbc station. have a terrific tuesday. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

what's strange about that, john huntsman is a very rich man and his father is enormously rich man. of huntsman chemical, hundreds of millions. new york times what they indicated was that the father wants the son to ask him for support, and the son doesn't want to ask the father for the support and so they're kind of generational standoff and the result is the guy is broke even though he's as rich as can be. >> megyn: maybe there was a fear he would go naked. [laughter] >> we do indeed. >> bret: kirsten, we heard steve mention holy cow two debates in 24 hours. >> yeah. >> bret: do you think they raigtsed the ball in any way, shape or form? >> hard to know the debates were so completely different. the debate last night. everyone kept their hands off of mitt romney and he had an easy ride and came out of it unscathed and did a great job and this morning, everybody got up on the wrong side of the bed and saw he was a front runner and really, really going after him and i think that steve was saying, that huntsman got a lot of time and the question is, is this something that will make en

i mean what were the negatives about those candidates that you see as positives in john huntsman? 'll be -- the choice really came down to romney and huntsman. they had the most presidential demeanor. i think that rick santorum is a fine spokesman for particularly a religious right constituency that represents a more narrow slice of the republican electorate. ron paul speaks for a narrow slice of the electorate. >> why not mitt? >> romney and huntsman have a broader focus and seem more credible to us as presidents of the united states. but huntsman been bolder in the campaign. you have a real sense of where he would take the country. he's engaged on the issues in a much more forceful way than romney has. obviously, we're from massachusetts. we have good memories of him as governor. he disavowed some of the positions. so i think that romney could be a credible president. we say in the editorial that a vote for hunts man might be wasted or something like that. or would have an impact on the overall race and could have an impact on mitt romney in the way that some of the other pressur

today john huntsman up and quit the race for president. hire, huntsman pushed on and off to south carolina he went. but now five days before, he dropped out. joe, take me through this, please. >> reporter: pretty simple, really. john huntsman came out of new hampshire thinking he had wind beneath his wings, and he didn't. the bottom line was, at least talking to people at the campaign, they said, hey, we wanted to see much more of a bump coming out of new hampshire into south carolina. we didn't see it in the polls and therefore he got out. listen to the sound bite. >> i believe it is now time for our party to unite around the candidate best equipped to defeat barack obama. despite our differences and the space between us on some of the issues, i believe that candidate is governor mitt romney. >> reporter: so, brooke, the bottom line for john huntsman is he was at the bottom of the polls compared to all the other candidates and there was only one way to go in this campaign, examine that was o and that was out of it. >> you just showed us hu

has gotten a lot of publicity may gos nation hide. -- nationwide. >> if you look at john huntsman's record as governor of utah, if you look at the economic policy he has butt out economic policy the wall street journal which is the bible of economic conservativism said that huntsman's economic policy his plan is the best of all of the other republican candidates. this guy is 100 percent pro-life. >> his proposal is as impressive as any in the gop presidential field and certainly better than what we have seen from the frontrunne frontrunners. >> it is the best ever if you saw his plan. it is fantastic. >> first off welcome mary k huntsman. >> those are very special clips. we have not had a chance to talk about the character of somebody. you know john huntsman the best. he is knew to america because he wasn't in iowa. what can you tell them about who he is as a person? >> that's the best part of it. the person he is off the camera this person that i see every day we have been married 28 years we have 7 children, three girls the john 10-12 girls they have been a secret weapon on the cam

a little bit of movement for john huntsman, i think the ads are paying off for him.ovement in the wrong direction for ron paul and the other candidates seem to be stable. that doesn't mean that things aren't going to change. we see over and over again, 30 to 40 percent of people make up their minds in the last three days and 15 to 20% on election day, what happens the next two days could definitely change the order from second place to fifth place. >> bret: you've seen a lot of new hampshire primaries, does it feel different to you? >> it does feel different, i think because mitt romney has been out front in our polls since february of 2009 i think the other campaigns have largely conceded new hampshire to romney or haven't had the resources to compete here and in south carolina. they picked their battles and usually the socially conservative candidates go to iowa and more moderate, two, three years, moderate candidate and only recently has john huntsman tried to fight him on that part. >> bret: and you talk about hundreds of people out of the woodwork and he came he

what is john huntsman seeing in the new hampshire that he doesn't see in iowa? >> reporter: what he didn't see in iowa was support. huntsman made a calculated decision here if he's going to be successful and able to sustain the campaign of his into the spring, he's going to have to at least count on some support long the way. he circled new hampshire. geez doing all of his campaign bis in new hampshire and all of his appearances for the most part in new hampshire. if he's going continue past next week,wise going to at least have to finish -- he's going to have to finish at least second or third and later on down through the rest of the month, possibly in south carolina. if he can emerge as some sort of romney alternative at this point. that appears very shake, brian, and this is a very risky strategy for john huntsman. >> and as you said, after new hampshire is south carolina. how large is that looming with the instable here? >> it's becoming all-important, brian. we're shaping up now as iowa having been known for the surprise candidates. remember, four years ago

but john hunts n ma -- huntsman, not saying he would do this.hen he was governor and mitt romney was governor, john huntsman did create jobs and a better economy in the state of utah. what if john huntsman does not win new hampshire and becomes a third party candidate. >> jamie: what about it? >> the more the merrier. governor huntsman has spoken truth to power and he's talked about entitlement reform and served in the obama administration and a terrific mix of people broadening the choice for the american people. >> jamie: doug, i'm waiting for you to throw your hat in the ring. >> you may have to hold your breath. >> i know you're a democrat and you know what i'm saying, and a little bit you're agreeing with angela here. let's say ron paul decides to, to throw his hat in the third party ring. what's his record on jobs? >> well, ron paul, listen, ob-gyn, i don't know his records on jobs, but if he became a third party candidate he'd have a lot of young support. a lot of college students that really like this guy. >> but he's been in congress, d

there is a new attack video out there aimed at john huntsman, his time as a u.s. ambassador to china, his ability to speak chinese and questions the adoption of his daughters. fox 5's tom fitzgerald is following this one. who is behind this? >> the video was posted on youtube by a group calling itself nh liberty. the campaign is distancing itself from the spot, but john huntsman today blasted whoever is behind it, calling the video in a word, stupid. >> john huntsman focused all of his attention on winning the new hampshire primary. >> no one has even come close in terms of what we have done on the ground here in new hampshire. >> but friday, a not so subtle video posted by the group nh liberty attacked huntsman as a candidate. clips of huntsman speak mandarin with videos of his two adopted daughters. >> i haven't looked at it, but it's an ugly ad. >> ron paul's campaign distanced itself from a video issuing a statement, saying the video is disgusting, whoever put that up, should remove it immediately. >> we elected a person we didn't know very well. >> out on the

john huntsman his campaign was actually all in new hampshire. more than 150 campaign events since just the summer. the surprise of the night was not of course mitt romney winning new hampshire, the real contest here the suspense was over the second place position. and this campaign the huntsman campaign had hoped that they surged. as we're seeing now with the results coming in it was not enough. the question is, will the huntsman campaign go on to south carolina. what does it mean for his came pain to have that third place mark. huntsman did speak a short time before, he talked to cnn and huntsman said that he believed there were three tickets out of new hampshire and on to south carolina. but, right now huntsman's polling numbers in south carolina are quite low. so he would need some momentum from this third place finish here in new hampshire to do well there in south carolina. we do expect when john huntsman takes the stage to put a positive light on what happened here tonight with this third place finish but it is clear that his campaign was

by the end of the day this could be the story of two candidates, mitt romney and perhaps john huntsman. huntsman pegged his chances on new hampshire and based on numbers, the poll numbers it looks like that might have been a smart move. >> reporter: this is bedford, new hampshire's largest polling place, statewide 250,000 people expected to vote in the republican primary. >> i think it was pretty clear who the upfront candidate is. >> reporter: it's mitt romney slipping, but stronger today than yesterday, according to suffolk university's overnight poll. >> i have strong faith and feeling that he'll turn this country around. >> reporter: he's double digits ahead of ron paul but moving up overnight, jon huntsman. he's doubled support in new hampshire in four days. focusing on romney and trust. >> whoever is our party's

has gotten a lot of publicity may gos nation hide. -- nationwide. >> if you look at john huntsman's rd as governor of utah, if you look at the economic policy he has butt out economic policy the wall street journal which is the bible of economic conservativism said that huntsman's economic policy his plan is the best of all of the other republican candidates. this guy is 100 percent pro-life. >> his proposal is as impressive as any in the gop presidential field and certainly better than what we have seen from the frontrunne frontrunners. >> it is the best ever if you saw his plan. it is fantastic. >> first off welcome mary k huntsman. >> those are very special clips. we have not had a chance to talk about the character of somebody. you know john huntsman the best. he is knew to america because he wasn't in iowa. what can you tell them about who he is as a person? >> that's the best part of it. the person he is off the camera this person that i see every day we have been married 28 years we have 7 children, three girls the john 10-12 girls they have been a secret weapon on the campaig

it shows john huntsman running third there in new hampshire.is third high enough for him to stay in the race, has he said? >> well, i guess ultimately, it depends on how those numbers actually look. you know, the debate is going to squeeze into third or is there more spread between all the candidates? he believes that he's going to do better than expectation, but the bigger issue here is that he really put all his eggs into one basket, he bypassed iowa and spent all his time in new hampshire. i asked him what his strategy was since he's following iowa, and he says he's pretty sure he can land iowa. >>> meantime, iran sentences an american to death for espionage. his family says he was merely there visiting relatives. ba barbara, what is going on there? >> they're trying to figure out what is facing this 17-year-old marine. now he faces the delt penalty there for espionage. >> if it is true that he had been so sentenced, we would condemn this verdict in the strongest term, and we are working with all of our partners to convey that condemnation f

. >>> john huntsman dropped out, how will his decision impact the race for the white house? >>> i'm alex demetric, coming up 1,500 job openings and no lack of applicants, that story as wjz eyewitness news continues. >> wjz is tracking some rain on the way to maryland. bob has more in his updated forecast. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, >>> john huntsman is out of the republican presidential race and he's throwing his support to mitt romney. he is also urging the remaining candidates to stop attacking each other as they battle for votes in south carolina. manuel gallegus reports from the campaign trail. >> reporter: john huntsman's bid for the white house is over. >> i offer my heartfelt thanks. today our campaign for the presidency ends, but our campaign to build a better and more trustworthy america continues. >> reporter: huntsman now supporting romney. calling him the candidate most possible to beat obama. that's not what he said last week. >> he seems to be detached from the problems americans are facing. >> reporter: now huntsman is urging the remaining candidates to stop attacki

sit for romney, is it for santorum. >>> as we have just reported, john huntsman will make it official in just under two hours. he's making sure there's no speculation of him going third party. nbc's embed with the huntsman campaign, jo, what a turn around in 24 hours, you can't find a single romney video anywhere on the intertubes. >> they have cleaned it all up, they have even taken down their anti-mitt romney website, there was chatter about potentially dropping out of the race, this happened after the new hampshire primary. the family got together and they looked at the infrastructure here and they saw basically nothing. here in south carolina, they have no signs, very little money, a very frustrated staff and so it looked like the path was going to be very difficult and it was going to be very difficult to avoid a last place finish, chuck. >> it's interesting about how the candidate dictated this decision to his staff rather than maybe working with his staff, is that the impression you got in sort of coming to this decision together. >> it certainly seemed like a lot of the staff

this could be a real gri time for john huntsman. i mean he'll probably get a really big headline out of this. because one really big thing about this is that the winner of this vote for the republicans since they've been doing this vote since 1960 has gone on to win the republican nomination consistently since 1968. so, because i wasn't really a clear winner, it was tied between mitt romney and john huntsman, again, everybody is expecting mitt romney to do well. but this bodes very well for john huntsman. >> there was a clear winner if you count actual votes. there were three votes for president obama. so he actually had the highest talley. but historically, dixville notch is not so good at picking the democratic candidate. this year i think they're right, aren't they? >> that's right. they had been very good at picking the eventual republican nominee. but they haven't been so good at picking the democratic nominee. or even for that matter the person to win the new hampshire primary or even the white house. so it's kind of like a ti

john huntsman saying it didn't matter. you have the dnc out with a web ad and cataloging the instances where senator mccain criticized romney. let me play a bit of that web ad. you see it here. does this help at all with mitt romney getting this endorsement from mccain? >> it's tough to gauge. in new hampshire and nationally mccain is not beloved by republicans. there were a lot of republicans never really were crazy about him and disappointed about the way the 2008 campaign turned out. new hampshire has been a place that warmed him and rewarded him in his presidential campaigns. in new hampshire, it helps him and nationally i'm not so sure. the point i think that romney is trying to convey is that the establish cemetery coalescing around him and the powers that be. the machine is saying i'm the guy who should take on president obama. i think he is saying don't waste your time on these guys like santorum. let's take the fight to obama. >> electability mattered when they looked at mitt romney and you still have a great numb

john huntsman this is boost? maybe gets it. we should say history is a never good judge of the granite state. there is something new every time. so, dixville is tied for the republicans. first of the first in the history books. rest of the state s start to vote tomorrow morning. >> sean: all right. i hope you you -- get a little bit of sleep. thank you for staying up late. >> thank you. >>. >> sean: we continue here in manchester, new hampshire. instantly, you watch the program tonight. i asked rick santorum why is it catholic social conservatives are the biggest target? and there is a if you can tie it into tim tewow. there are interesting comments. >> i think that you, i'm not an anonymous santorum voter. but very to say that i he is unapologetic defender of unborn life. and every front. you know? whether it's a baby that is has genetic defects is just as valuable as a baby that doesn't should be born. and this is on every aspect. >> we have to take a break. and why it is that there is such criticism. we'll get to that and ge

coming up, right now john huntsman is dropping out of the presidential race.hy this announcement came at a peculiar time. and who huntsman says he'll support now. >>> we'll have the latest on the cruise ship that ran aground and capsized off of t usc any. we'll tell you what caused does your cable company keep charging you more... and more... and more? stop paying so much for second best. upgrade to verizon fios and get tv, internet and phone for our best price online: just $89.99 a month guaranteed for two years. you save $600. go to verizon.com/greatprice to sign up now and get $300 back with a two-year contract. fios is a 100% fiber-optic network that delivers superior picture quality, more hd, plus america's fastest, most consistent and most reliable internet. why keep paying so much for cable? switch to fios at our best price... $89.99 a month with a two-year price guarantee. plus, get $300 back with a two-year contract... or choose no annual contract. ordering online is easy... you can even chat live with a fios agent. visit verizon.com/greatprice. that'

newt gingrich, rick santorum and john huntsman have joined the lawsuit. >> a plan to make social studies causing major controversy. why parents are outraged over the word problems. that story coming your way on 9news now at 7:00. >>> we'll see you then, but still to come in this half hour, lots of need but not a lot of money as our local legislatures prepare to meet for the first time this year. we are looking at some of the transportation issues on the agenda. >>> and up next, metro wants riders to have plenty of notice before closing stations for >>> a three day weekend for the means two stations on the blue and orange lines will be closed. federal center, southwest and capital south will close friday night at 10:00. they will reopen tuesday morning after some rehab work. >>> at the detroit auto show today, chrysler unveiled a new version of the dodge dart. the new dart has sleek lines way short hood, long roof and flaired tenders and we are told it is based on the frame of an alpha romeo. chrysler hopes the dart will give them a breakthrough in the small market. >>> a comfortable car

romney, the odds-on favorite in new hampshire, tied for first place with former utah governor john huntsman, each getting two votes. huntsman already seemed like he was in celebration mode at a packed rally last night. >> ladies and gentlemen, can you feel a little bit of momentum in the air? [ cheering ] >> reporter: but romney wants to be the one holding the victory party tonight. >> let's take it to the next state after new hampshire, giving me the boost i need i hope. >> reporter: the former massachusetts governor is still dealing with the fallout of this comment he made on mondayly. >> like being able to fire people that provide services to me. >> reporter: at the time he was talking about letting people change their health insurance. the candidates will be stopping by several polling places today to squeeze in some last-minute campaigning but it appears some have already conceded the top spot. >> you cannot compete with romney if you are totally positive and he is running $$3.5 million of attack ads. >> second place would be a dream come true. >> reporter: rick santorum is hoping to g

herman cain's campaign manager gets press for smoking. ♪ i am america >> reporter: and three of john huntsmanaughters -- >> tomorrow is friday. >> reporter: and make fun of the smoker. ♪ i am america >> reporter: but the fun turned ugly with this ad that questions huntsman american values in part because he speaks chinese and adopted a chinese daughter. >> first of all, it's stupid. >> reporter: he said it's okay to poke fun of him. >> what i object to is bringing forward pictures and videos of my adopted daughters and suggesting there's some sinister motive there. >> he names every animal after disney characters, and he was a foster child. >> reporter: nancy doesn't get that antihuntsman web ad. >> i think there is nothing more american than adopting a child that has been abandoned anywhere in the world. >> reporter: her daughters have learned politician's kids can get drug into any ad discussion. >> voters were being asked if they would vote for john mccain if they would vote for him if they knew he fostered a black child. >> reporter: ron paul's campaign says they had nothing to do with it