democratic strategist julian epstein and political analysts and former dnc communications director karen finney as well as cnbc chief washington correspondent john harwood. julian, are these criticisms of newt solely coming from elite columnists? republican voters seem to be saying they like him, they love him, and they'll vote for him. >> for now, yes. the irony here is that newt is the first establishment candidate, and he really is an establishment candidate who is hated by the establishment. why is that? mostly because they've seen this play before. newt is very good at one thing. he's very good at being the voice of insurrection for angry white men. when it comes to governing, we know two things about him. one, is he can't govern and two is he loses support of his followers and the people closest to him. he's been on the national ballot twice. he was on the national ballot in 1996 when clinton ran for re-election. it was a very conscious effort by the clinton campaign to run against the dull gingrich congress and he they won. in 1998 during the midterms, the first time the party in

we are back with jonathan cape hart and julian epstein. let's continue with you. a win for the president, no doubt about that. but this is a two-month extension. does the president get any momentum or does the fight pick up where it left off? >> he clearly won this fight. with adversaries like these, democrats hardly need political friends. these house republicans are like dr. evil's guards. for the last two weeks, every single analyst has been saying that they would lose this political battle to hold up the payroll tax cut. i think the real story here is that boehner who even early this week when we knew this was a political losing argument for the republicans didn't have the political courage to step in and tell them that they should take the senate deal voted overwhelmingly. the cowardess of john baner who couldn't tell his own party to do the right thing and had to wait for the senate republicans to say the inmates are in charge before he made a move. the question is whether he keeps his job next year. >> does he? >> i don't know. i would be very surprised if

. >> that was actually said on this broadcast by julian epstein. is that a preview of everything coming against newt and in a way, i wonder whether newt is trying to say let's be friendly because he knows he's the one that will be hammered. >> absolutely. you know where the charges are coming from and what the pounding will look and feel like. you want to try to get in front of that as much as possible. certainly that ad is a boone for someone like mitt romney. those votes if they do get peeled off are going to get peeled off of newt. they may go to someone else like santorum or ron paul, but that's the goal is to take the allure and the luster off as much as possible. that is an effective ad and whether or not it resonates to the point where on election day on the 3rd of january, they go we can't pull that trigger remains to be seen. stuff like that will be the order of the day from the ron paul campaign who has a good chance who has a chance to maybe win iowa. >> david, let's move to mitt if we can and we retweeted your video on the campaign trai

democratic strategist julian epstein in miami and in washington, republican strategist sherry jacobyist. good afternoon to both of you. >> the very latest polling has ron paul running away from both romney and gingrich in iowa. but given that few expected romney romney to win iowa, isn't this in effect the next best thing for him? >> well, i think it is probably relatively good news for mitt romney because it puts some distance between him and newt gingrich. but ron paul is never going to be a republican nominee. and i think that his supporters would, if they don't get ron paul, they would vote for barack obama which means they have no business operating in a republican primary. if they support him being a spoiler running as a third party candidate. so also you have to remember the caucus voters are very small percentage of republican voters in iowa. so it is a strange situation. it makes it difficult. but in no way, shape or form shows that ron paul is a threat in materials of the nomination but he is a threat in material of being a spoiler. >> you've repeatedly made the point that new

. >>> i want to bridge in michael steele and julian epstein. good morning, happy holidays. >> good morning. michael, we got the first indication that he may be changing. it's titled fact sheet, and they say can we trust a massachusetts moderate to enact a conservative agenda? was this inevitable? >> yeah, chris, you know it was. you can only hold out for so long. >> and apparently so long is a couple weeks. >> but think about it. it's been a couple weeks since he's been at that level where you've had close to $7, $8 million of negative advertising. after a point it begins to hurt and you realize you have to push back. as much as people complain and don't like it, it is effective, it does bring down your numbers. newt has seen this happen, seen his behind, shall we say, exposed, and he's got to cover it now. he's going to try to do that in the next seven days in a way that allow him to at least save some ground that he's gained here in iowa. but it's tough. he's got to do something at this point. you can't sit back, take the incoming and smile.

megyn: jailan epstein -- julian epstein. this is not without controversy.ed. they don't want fraud or any of that stuff. but there is controversy, jay in the attorney general's announcement. tell us why. >> he's saying he wants to prevent fraud and voter intimidation. but he really is focusing on voter identification. and the idea someone will be required to show proof of who they are, that's how you protect the electoral system. so this idea of suing the states or threatening to sue the states for trying to make sure their process is followed and it's thorough and fair including voter identification shows the misplaced nature of this justice department' the idea that they are taking taxpayer dollars to look at this when they let the black panther party, the new black panther party off the hook when they were staning in front of voting areas in chicago and other areas, where they actually had clubs in their hand and were threatening people, that they don't prosecute. but they will make sure texas can't have a voter i.d. system that lets them have a picture