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Candidates Prep For Final Push; Ron Paul's Unconventional Appeal; Police Question Man About L.A. Fires; Blackbirds Found Dead In Arkansas; "Gopher" Supports Newt Gingrich; Gingrich Looks for Last- Minute Votes; Dems in Iowa to Counter GOP Attacks
Aired January 02, 2012 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We are hitting the top of the hour. Thanks so much for staying with us.
We begin this hour in Iowa, of course, the clock is ticking toward tomorrow night's caucuses and the first real test for the Republican candidates.
In the final poll now by the "Des Moines Register," Mitt Romney is in a statistical tie with Ron Paul. Rick Santorum in third place and riding a wave of momentum though we've been talking quite a lot about this morning.
The winner could be decided in these final hours. As you know, nearly half of likely caucus goers have not yet settled on a candidate. This hour Newt Gingrich is reaching out.
He's actually hosting a campaign event in Independence, Iowa. Jim Acosta is following all the candidates and well, of course, as they blitz the state.
Dana Bash takes a closer look at Ron Paul and his unconventional campaign that's definitely clicking with voters. But Jim, let's go ahead and start with you.
On the eve of the caucuses, let's talk about how they're spending their last full day of campaigning. We've already seen a number of live events this morning.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. For Rick Santorum who we're following, he's going to be here about an hour from now inside this coffee shop in Polk City. He's been the marathon man of this campaign.
He's been to all 99 counties. He's held something like 360 town halls. Now it's a sprint. Now it's a sprint to the finish line and he knows that. He's got a series of events today. Basically they're almost drive-byes.
You come in, you shake some hands, you get on TV. There's a bunch of cameras in here. I'm going to guess this is probably the first time that he's had the British, German, Japanese press following him on the campaign trail before the Iowa caucuses.
He is in a little bit of a fight right now with Mitt Romney because if you look at that "Des Moines Register" poll that came out over the weekend, what was really interesting is the last two days that poll was taken, Rick Santorum had moved into a sort of statistical tie with Mitt Romney
Now aside from that match-up between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, there is also Newt Gingrich who is changing his strategy somewhat. He has been, as you know, just been the subject of a barrage of attack ads from pro-Romney forces.
This pro-Romney "Super PAC" that has been blanketing the air waves with anti-Gingrich ads. Well, out in Marshalltown, Iowa yesterday inside the sports bar, Newt Gingrich signalled he is going to change his tactic.
He is going to get away from this positive campaign that he's been running in recent weeks. He's going right after Mitt Romney. Now whether that's too late here in Iowa, you know, that remains to be seen.
But I asked him at this press conference yesterday in Marshalltown, I asked the former speaker, do you feel swift-boated in this campaign in reference to those outside groups that were attacking John Kerry back in 2004? Here's what Newt Gingrich had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: For a state this size to spend that number of dollars in negative ads into one candidate is pretty amazing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you feel swift-boated?
GINGRICH: Well, I feel Romney-boated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: He feels Romney-boated, which has become sort of a buzz phrase of the last 24 hours of this campaign. It's possible that Newt Gingrich has basically changed the game for himself -- the game plan for himself a little too late in Iowa.
He's going on to New Hampshire right after the Iowa caucuses. Start drawing some sharp contrast with Mitt Romney. So that's going to be interesting to watch after the Iowa caucuses are over, Kyra.
But one thing that we should keep all in mind, in that "Des Moines Register" poll, Gingrich was essentially in a statistical tie for third place.
So even though everybody is saying Newt Gingrich, he's done, he's toast, don't count him out. He's drawing some big crowds. He had some big crowds yesterday, but so is Santorum. You can see this room starting to fill up -- Kyra. PHILLIPS: Yes, indeed, it is. I was going to say it's starting to pick up since you and I talked last hour. What's the buzz in the room like? What can we expect?
ACOSTA: Well, you know, I think we're going to hear Rick Santorum make his closing argument. That basic closing argument has been to thank the people of Iowa for covering him over the weekend. What he wants Iowans do, what he's saying to Iowans in these final days, in the final day now before the Iowa caucuses is reward the guy who has put in the hard work.
He has tried to wage this the old-fashioned way. He doesn't have a big splashy bus with his face on the side of it, Rick Santorum for president. He's been going around in a truck with his son, you know, going from stop to stop talking to these Iowans.
He's really capturing sort of that Mike Huckabee spirit that carried Mike Huckabee over the top in 2008. You know, he is getting those social conservatives behind him at just the right time.
That's going to help. I think there is a sense among Iowans that they want to give it to the guy who's putting all the hard work. So we're going to have to see if that works for Rick Santorum. He's picking it just the right time -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, Jim Acosta. Thanks so much.
All right, let's talk about Ron Paul and how he's seen his poll numbers surge in recent days. But while his message resonates with some voters, it also is irritating the very party that he wants to represent in a presidential race. Dana Bash has a closer look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Go to a Ron Paul rally and his appeal is apparent.
RON PAUL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Different strokes for different folks as the old saying goes.
BASH: Especially on the economy. Anti-tax, anti-debt. Tea Party mantras Paul talked about well before they were cool.
PAUL: I want to cut a trillion dollars out of our spending in one year.
BASH: Libertarians love it.
PAUL: The role of government in a free society in the republic should be to protect your liberties.
BASH: Isolationists eat it up.
PAUL: I think we're in way too many wars and it's time to change that and start bringing our military home to protect this country. MATT STRAWN, IOWA GOP CHAIRMAN: Anecdotally I've had people come up to me that have been self-described Democrats who are going to caucus for Ron Paul strictly on the basis of his non-interventionalist foreign policy beliefs.
BASH: Iowa's Republican chairman says Paul has an organization to behold. In 2008, he finished fifth with just 10 percent of the vote, but his supporters never left.
They've been building a Paul infrastructure all over Iowa for four years. Campaign offices in tiny towns like here in Miquoqoda, population under 6,000.
STRAWN: I think that's an incredible example of the way he's organized around the state. I can't imagine that any campaign either in the current caucus season or past caucuses would have had an office in that small of a community.
BASH: But Paul's power in Iowa appals many in the GOP establishment. Exhibit A, about the Bush administration.
PAUL: Just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately before there was any assessment, there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq.
BASH: On foreign policy, this makes many Republicans go berserk.
PAUL: Why does Israel need our help? We need to get out of their way.
BASH: So does his hands off attitude towards a nuclear armed Iran.
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That makes him a very dangerous person to be our next president.
BASH: Paul opposes sanctioning Iran.
PAUL: I think we should not put on sanctions. They are act of war.
ARI FLEISCHER, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Ron Paul wants to abandon the world and I often think that if Ron Paul was around at the time of the American Revolution. Would he have told the French to stick their nose out of our affairs and stay home and that we have lost the revolution?
BASH: But even worried Republicans who call Paul dangerous say they get it. For caucus goers who want to send Washington a message, this is hard to pass up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cut a trillion bucks in year one, that's trillion with a "T", Department of Education, gone. Interior, Energy, HUD, Commerce, gone. Later, bureaucrats. That's how Ron Paul rolls.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Now I know how Dana Bash rolls. She's in Des Moines, Iowa, for us this morning. So Dana, how is Ron Paul's camp responding to Santorum's rise?
BASH: You know, it's interesting, Kyra. He has risen. He, Santorum, so fast that we haven't really seen much of a response from Ron Paul. The congressman was home in Texas, a very unusual move to do a couple of days before the caucuses, and so we don't know.
We're going to catch up with both the congressman and his son, the senator, in just a little while. They start a five-stop tour here in Des Moines in a couple of hours.
But one thing that we really are looking for is whether or not Ron Paul's organization can prevail. I talked to a senior Paul advisor who insists that they have enough voters identified that could give --
PHILLIPS: We apologize for that. We lost our connection to Dana Bash there in Des Moines, but we'll continue to check in with her. She's following Ron Paul.
And also in about 8 minutes, we're going to check in with former Congressman Fred Grandy. You may remember Ms. Gopher on the love boat.
But we're going to ask him about his endorsement of Newt Gingrich. Why he's throwing his support behind him when so many other Capitol Hill vets are running in the other direction. The former congressman is joining me live.
Tomorrow night, the country's first real votes. The candidates' first true tests take place in the Iowa caucuses. Watch what happens from all sides. Special live America's Choice 2012, coverage of the Iowa caucuses. It all begins tomorrow night at 7 Eastern right here on CNN.
All right, Los Angeles police now say they've arrested a man in that suspected arson spree. At least eight more fires were set early this morning making for more than 50 fires since Friday.
But we're not yet sure if it's the same man that police identified in this surveillance video from several crime scenes. CNN's Casey Wian is joining us now live from L.A. So Casey, what do we know about the man that police detained?
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we don't know that much, Kyra, except for the fact that he looks very similar to the man that was in that surveillance video that police released over the weekend, a man that was emerging from an underground parking structure here in Hollywood.
A man that was emerging from an underground parking structure here in Hollywood. A man that police say they wanted to talk to, the man who was arrested not far from here at the corner of Sunset and Fairfax in West Hollywood is being questioned by investigators.
But police and fire officials will not tell us why they stopped him, why they detained him, why he is being questioned. What we do know though is that arrest was done not far from where the last of 11 fires were set overnight in about a two and a half hour stretch.
When we arrived at the command post about 1:00 local time this morning an arson investigator told us all was quiet. That really changed over the next couple of hours as 11 different fires, more than a dozen cars, were reported throughout the city of Los Angeles and West Hollywood.
Fire investigators and fire crews were scrambling to get to all of those scenes. Once this person was stopped and detained for questioning, fire department just confirmed to us that there were no more fires throughout the rest of the morning.
So you can draw from that whatever inference you will. The fire department says they are continuing to investigate these arsons and they are continuing to comb over these scenes. They have no conclusions on whether they have a potential perpetrator in custody or not. That's the latest -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: OK, keep us informed. Casey, thanks so much.
Well, it happened again. Dead blackbirds reported falling out of the sky in the same Arkansas neighborhood as last year. Rob Marciano has been checking in to this for us.
So same neighborhood, same holiday and we talked about this a lot last year.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And it's disturbing to say the least. Last year, it was pretty much pinned on the conclusion was fireworks or shotgun, people celebrating on New Year's Eve.
These blackbirds, their migratory patterns bring them into Arkansas on the south and places further south of that. Arkansas is just north of Little Rock, and these birds can actually roost within residential areas.
The blackbirds -- the black ones are actually male. The brown ones are actually female. The ones that we've seen if we have the video, we'll just pop that up. The ones that we saw with this one, 200 fell to the ground.
Authorities think that folks went into these roosting areas, not once but twice, and flushed them out with fireworks again. These birds, they only fly during the day because their night vision is bad.
So if you flush them out or disturb them at night they're going to get scared and spooked, like they did last year, 5,000 of them died. This year, they think anywhere from 100 to 200 of them died on New Year's Eve this past weekend.
This is the migratory map of how these birds -- they're all over the place they're prevalent across North America. The area across the lower 48, that's where they can hang out year round. If they go up to Canada to breed in the springtime they'll fly down a little farther south in the wintertime to feed.
That's what they're doing right now. They feed during the day. They come back in large quantities at night to roost. Authorities are pretty sure that someone went into the roosting areas and scared them and flushed them out with fireworks once again. That's a sad story that we certainly hope doesn't repeat in 2013 -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: What a shame. All right, Rob, thanks.
Coming up, we're going to tell you about the manhunt going on right now in Washington State. Authorities think that a killer could be hiding somewhere in the rugged shadow of Mount Rainier.
Later, gopher Newt for Iowa congressman and TV star Fred Grandy telling us what Gingrich has to do to win over those undecided caucus goers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: All right, let's get back to the Iowa caucuses. They are one day away. Romney's in the lead. Santorum on the move and lots of caucus goers aren't sure who to pick. So let's keep the conversation going, shall we.
This time with Fred Grandy, yes, you remember him as gopher on TV's the "Love Boat." He and I were just talking about that. He was also a Republican congressman, by the way, from Iowa. He's a current supporter of his old colleague, Newt Gingrich.
Last hour, we were able to talk to Steve Deace, the influential radio guy in Iowa, Fred. He's also supporting Gingrich. You know, his support of Mike Huckabee in 2008 actually helped him win Iowa and kind of put his campaign on the map.
Do you think Deace's endorsement will help Gingrich with those undecided folks?
FRED GRANDY (R), FORMER IOWA CONGRESSMAN: Well, I hope so. I started supporting Newt about three weeks ago. He dropped 20 points in the polls. He needs something. But, yes, the radio host in Iowa I think do make a difference.
But really as I'm sure you're aware, Kyra, this is very much a combination of a ground game and now the net effect of the 13 debates, which is a relatively new phenomenon in the Iowa caucuses.
PHILLIPS: Were you being serious about your support of the 20 points. You actually got me there for a second. I thought is he giving himself a hard time? Do I need to laugh or should I follow up with that?
GRANDY: Well, I thought I'd criticize myself before you got to it.
PHILLIPS: You poor guy. Well, let me ask you. You know, I mean, many of Gingrich's old colleagues have slammed him and won't support him. You're sticking it out. You continually have backed him up. Why? GRANDY: Well, because I think he's the perfect guy for the job in this time, and one of the reasons I'm supporting Newt is because he -- and this is taking nothing away from most of the other candidates.
But I think Newt really understands how dangerous the world is, both at home and abroad, particularly with emerging threats in the Middle East, new problems coming out of Europe, China, and Russia.
My experience having worked on national security issues and counterintelligence issues is that Newt is superior to the other candidates. The other ones are good.
Some are better than others, but I really feel Newt is say man whose time has come for this particular election cycle. So I'm staying with him for as long as he's in the race.
PHILLIPS: Well, you know what? You know, you're part of a D.C. think tank that focuses on national security issues. You basically just pointed that out. What is it that you know about Newt Gingrich about that topic that's keeping you tied to him?
GRANDY: Well, I think part of it is the contrast with the present administration, Kyra. This is an administration that has accommodated, bowed down and pretty routinely (inaudible) to countries like Iran, now the growing Islamist movement, the political movement in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia.
And the speaker was one person who stood up and said, no, we shouldn't go this way. This is an emerging hostile hegemony (ph). I think we need a president who understands that. Now this is taking nothing away from Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney who I think are coming around to this conclusion.
But I believe the speaker has led on this. I think we need a man right now with a very strong world view. Someone who understands what is happening in China, what is happening in Russia, Europe, and the Middle East.
PHILLIPS: Well, let me ask you because, you know, you're a former Iowa congressman. You know Iowans. How do you explain Santorum's surge?
GRANDY: Well, I think Rick Santorum is essentially profiting from the kind of sweat equity and road trip that a lot of Iowans expect. He has run a traditional Iowa campaign. And to a very large degree, he is now reaping what he sewed.
It's hard not to like Rick Santorum. He's one of the best stories in this campaign. This particular Iowa caucus story I think has some of the best narratives that we've ever had. The debates, the whole prevalence of the "Super PACs," and yet you have so many come from behind stories, starting with Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry, the speaker, and now Rick Santorum.
So there is a lot to like about that narrative. I think that Rick Santorum, if nothing else, is an imminently likeable person. PHILLIPS: Fred Frandy, appreciate you chiming in with me this morning. It was great to see you. I love to see that you've kept your sense of humor, Fred.
GRANDY: Great to see you.
PHILLIPS: We're going to take a look at news from across the country now.
Police in Florida, near Tampa say that a 12-year-old boy was shot after New Year's travelers fired guns in celebration. Doctors say that the bullet went through the top of his head. He's in critical condition now. His parents say that he was watching fireworks in his front yard.
State leaders in Ohio's state of four fluid injection wells will stay closed indefinitely. That's after several small earthquakes hit the Youngstown area. Experts will try to find out if there's a link between the wells and the quakes.
And an active duty soldier is charged with trying to get on a plane with a military grade explosive. TSA agents in Midland, Texas say that they found it when they screened his carry on. Authorities say there was nothing sinister about this. There's no way to detonate the explosive.
Well, cops have cleared people out of Mount Rainier National Park. They're looking for a man that they think killed a park ranger. It's not going to be easy. They have more than 235,000 acres and five feet of snow to deal with.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Live to Independence, Iowa, now. Newt Gingrich, wife by his side, last-minute campaigning there. Let's go ahead and listen in. He's at the farming museum.
(BEGIN LIVE SPEECH)
GINGRICH: One of the keys is to understand there's this really complex system in which many different individuals have good ideas. We were down at Vermere a couple of months ago. They started as a company with three people because somebody has a better idea and they think they can build something and they build one of them.
Then they get to sell it and they build a second one. They gradually build a company. You go out and look at some of the name plates that are no longer existing that were very important at one time because somebody had an idea at that time that was the best idea and it worked
I think this is a great introduction to the fact that technology and innovation have been at the heart of America's standard of living and that we need to find ways to have policies that continuously maximize technology. That's why part of my job as an economic growth plan has 100 percent expensing.
So that you could write off any new equipment in one year so you maximize the desirability of buying the next generation of new equipment so that our workers and our farmers are the most productive in the world. This is as perfect a place to look at that as you can imagine.
Second, I notice there are several young people here, and we have our grandson, Robert, who's 10, and his friend, Will, who have come in from Atlanta to hang out with us for part of the campaign.
As I look at the young people that are here, I think somehow I wish we could get across that they should really be what the campaign is about. One of the reasons I've tried to run a positive campaign is I really believe we are in trouble.
I think that to get out of trouble we have to have a positive conversation about real solutions and we have to have an ability to look at alternative options of real solutions and to talk about them and to offer them a better future.
I wish, frankly, that the people running all these negative ads would adopt a very simple rule. If you won't show your ad to your grandchildren, don't run it. If you're not proud of it, don't run it. I think you'll see about 80 percent of the negativity come off TV.
Again, I have no problem with contrast. People can say this is where I stand, this is where you stand. That's fine. But a lot of the negativity is just very clever consultants who are paid a lot of money to be nasty. It has nothing to do with governing America, solving our problems.
It has everything to do with a very cheap, and I think very destructive model of politics, which is part of why Washington is sick today. Let me also comment on the president's most recent comments, which I found beyond astonishing.
The president has obviously had problems, and he found it difficult to be president. It turned out to be a really big job, and having gone off to Hawaii for a while he's now concluded, at least as I understand the news reports, they have decided they're going to govern without Congress.
Now I don't know what country he thinks he's in, but it's constitutionally impossible to govern without Congress. There's some comment this morning, some White House staffer said now that we've got the two-month tax extension, we don't need them.
Well, what happens at the end of the two months? What happens to all the appropriations bills this coming year? What happens to the debt ceiling? What happens to all of our national security concerns?
The idea that a president of the United States a year before the election is going to decide I'm going to do it by myself is literally unthinkable. It's not possible. I think it tells you how little President Obama understands about the American constitution, the American system, and the process of governing.
What you need is the opposite. You need a president who says how do I get us to work together? You need somebody who says, gee, this has been a mess. Why don't we sit down and as a New Year's resolution -- I'd of felt better if he invited all 535 House and Senate members to come down to the White House for a couple of days and just chat.
No negotiations, just can we find some common ground? Could we do something together? I was asked a while ago, how would I start to break it up? Senators Webb and Warner have a bill that would allow development of oil and gas offshore in Virginia.
They're both Democrats. It's a bill I agree with. I would urge the House Republicans to pass their bill exactly as it is. Send a Democratic bill to the Senate on behalf of more American energy, more American jobs, more revenue for the federal government.
And challenge Senator Reid and President Obama to stop a Democratic bill that has bipartisan support. I would look for excuses to bring people together. When I was a very junior member, in fact when I was a freshman, I helped the Reagan campaign in 1980. We developed capital steps event for the very first time in history. We brought all of our candidates together. We stood for five big ideas.
As a result of the momentum of that event, we won control of the Senate by really a narrow margin. We had six senators who won by a combined total of 75,000 votes. We now had a Republican Senate, a Republican president, but we still a Democratic House. I was serving as a sophomore with Tip O'Neal.
So if Reagan wanted to get his economic growth plan, which is the three-year tax cut plan, if he was going to get it through, we had to get a third of the Democrats. We couldn't pass it as a partisan idea.
Reagan worked very hard as a former FDR Democrat. He worked very hard to always reach out to Democrats and independents. Even at the Republican convention in 1976, he said my fellow Republicans, and he stopped.
And there was a pause and he said, and those Democrats and independents who agree with us around the country. He always in the back of his head understood that he had to be an American who brought us together. He couldn't just be a narrow partisan.
So when I got to be Speaker, we had the same thing. Now I knew from the Reagan experience that there's a Reagan cookbook. Lower taxes, less regulation, more American energy, and be positive about people who create jobs. Make them feel good about the risk they're taking to go create jobs.
Now the Obama cookbook is the exact opposite. It is higher taxes, more regulations, anti-American energy and class warfare to attack the people who create jobs.
(END LIVE SPEECH) PHILLIPS: Newt Gingrich campaigning there in Independence, Iowa. We're checking in with all the live events that are taking place before the Iowa caucuses. And you know if the Iowa caucuses were a reality show, what would it be?
We ask our "Political Buzz" panel next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Checking "Top Stories" now.
Iran says it successfully test-fired a long-range shore-to-sea- missile today. The test came on the final day of naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz.
And a man in southern California has been detained in connection with a suspected arson spree. There's been 55 fires in the Los Angeles area since Friday.
Such a beautiful voice -- and Etta James son says that the singer is off a respirator and breathing on her own now. The 73-year-old Grammy winner remains in a California hospital and is in the final stages of terminal leukemia.
All right. It's time for your "Political Buzz"; your rapid-fire look at the best political topics of the day. Three questions, 30 seconds on the clock. And playing today: CNN contributor Maria Cardona, Sirius XM political talk show host and comedian Pete Dominick and CNN contributor Will Cain.
All right, guys first question. Everyone is talking about Iowa this morning of course. But for Jon Huntsman the focus has never wavered from New Hampshire.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN HOST, "STARTING POINT": No one here is talking about you. I mean, literally it might just be me this morning. Doesn't that hurt you ultimately?
JON HUNTSMAN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, that's about to change in about 48 hours. And then the big, bright light is going to be here on New Hampshire and in true fashion, New Hampshire always tends to upend conventional wisdom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Is that true and are things going to change? Maria?
MARIA CARDONA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it depends on which cycle that Huntsman is pointing to. If you look at what happened just a few short years ago, then, yes, because clearly what happened in Iowa was not what happened ultimately for the Republicans at least for the nomination.
The opposite happened for Democrats. President Obama won in Iowa and Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire and President Obama ended up winning the nomination and the election. So I think it all depends.
The problem with Huntsman overall is that he is actually reasonable and moving on in this process he's not going to be able to convince conservatives that he can win.
PHILLIPS: Will?
WILL CAIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Will it upend the conventional wisdom, I don't know. But look Kyra, this was in the Concord, New Hampshire Monitor. The newspaper there this morning it said an Iowa Republican caucus winner has never won a New Hampshire presidential primary in the modern, era. Never, never has the same guy won a contested election in both states.
Now what does that mean? Which one of these - which one of the winners? I think Maria is right, if you win Iowa or you win New Hampshire, which is more indicative of your ability to win nomination? I think that's up in the air.
But it does indicate who we'll be talking about this week until we're blue in the face will probably be different than who we're talking about next week until we're blue in the face.
PHILLIPS: Pete?
PETE DOMINICK, SIRIUS XM POLITICAL TALK SHOW HOST: This is sad, Kyra, because Jon Huntsman is actually probably the best candidate for Republican voters. He chose not to compete in Iowa. He didn't make the ballot like almost all the rest of the candidates except for Ron Paul and Mitt Romney in Virginia.
He's got a lot of money. He comes from a lot of money just like Mitt Romney. He's also a Mormon and there's a lot of Evangelical Christians who are on the record saying we can't vote for him. It's sad because like Maria said he is a reasonable candidate who kind of believes in science but he doesn't have a chance and he'll be done after New Hampshire. That's sad.
PHILLIPS: You said done after New Hampshire.
DOMINICK: Because he's a smart guy.
PHILLIPS: Ok. Mitt Romney telling an Iowa audience, guys that he thinks or what, exactly, he thinks rather of the promises that President Obama made on the campaign trail. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The gap between his promises and his performance is the largest I've seen, well, since the Kardashian wedding and the promise of until death do we part.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: All right. Now he might get some I guess pop culture cred for that one, but if the Iowa caucuses were a reality show, what would it be, Will?
CAIN: Well, here's the problem with that question in my estimation, Kyra. The Iowa caucuses largely are a reality show. Let me show you something. This is the numbers that everybody's playing for in Iowa. The winner if the polls hold true right now will win seven delegates. The second place guy will get six delegates.
By the way here's New Hampshire. The winner right now as poll suggests they would get four delegates while the second place guy would get two. You're playing for a spread of three delegates on your way to 1,144 delegates. So what are you playing for?
You're playing for the conversation. What we're all talking about for the next week. That, I think, is a reality show.
PHILLIPS: Will Cain's magic board, ladies and gentlemen. Maria, what's your take?
CARDONA: Well, with all the back biting and nastiness and negativity and snarkiness, I think I'd have to say first of all the "Housewives of D.C.", I'm sorry, "The Housewives of D.C." But ultimately because all of these candidates will have atrocious policies for the American people, it would have to be "Deadliest Catch".
PHILLIPS: Pete?
DOMINICK: Oh Kyra, I've got a lot of different ideas of what reality show the Republican race can be. How about "America's Got Less Talent than We Hoped"? Perhaps "Who wants to vote for a multi- millionaire with multi-millionaire's interests in mind?" Maria mentioned the -- the real housewives. How about the Real Housewives of Texas, Utah, Bethlehem and Newt Gingrich?
Can I go on? I mean, this has been so bizarre --
PHILLIPS: This is your shtick go ahead, Pete.
DOMINICK: This has been so bizarre to watch, Kyra. It really is a reality show. Oh, man I had so many more.
PHILLIPS: Yes, I'm sure. You can use it in your next stand up.
DOMINICK: You got it.
KYRA: All right here's the "Buzzer Beater". All right, 20 seconds each on this one.
It's often said that there are three tickets out of Iowa. So make your predictions. Who will take the top three slots? And will one of those top finishers become the Republican nominee? Maria?
CARDONA: Well I actually don't think that there are just three tickets out of Iowa. Bill Clinton came in fourth in 1992 McCain came in fourth just a few short years ago. But I think it's going to be Romney, Paul and Santorum. And probably one of those will be the nominee. And again, "Deadliest Catch" for America.
PHILLIPS: Will?
CAIN: I think conventional wisdom is probably going to hold true here. It will be Romney, Paul, Santorum. And Romney wins the nomination.
PHILLIPS: Pete?
DOMINICK: Will took mine. Romney. Romney will win. I think Romney will win. Maybe Ron Paul will win. But Ron Paul will be done after this I think because he's a skeleton with more skeletons in his closet. And either Santorum or Rick Perry might surprise some folks.
But you've to get that Evangelical vote. Don't forget about that in Iowa. There's 600,000 Iowan Republican voters. And a lot of them -- I went too long. I apologize. But that vote is going to matter.
PHILLIPS: I mean the skeletons alone we could have kept going another 20 something seconds on that. Guys, thanks.
DOMINICK: It's good to have you back, Kyra. Happy New Year.
CARDONA: Thank you. Happy New Year.
PHILLIPS: Thanks so much. Same to all of you I appreciate it.
Well, it's not just the Republicans swarming Iowa before tomorrow's caucuses. Democrats are there too and they are fighting back. One candidate in particular is taking the brunt of their attacks.
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PHILLIPS: Democrats are on the attack in Iowa. The DNC opened their war room in Des Moines yesterday. They actually plan on holding news conferences to counter Republican talking points until Thursday. They even brought in a man who was laid off in the '90s when Mitt Romney's former company, Bain Capital, bought his employer. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RANDY JOHNSON, FORMER FACTORY WORKER: I really feel he didn't care about the workers then. I mean go back and look at some of the philosophies. Look at the pattern. Everything was probably done very legal, done the right way, but it was all about profit over people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: CNN political analyst Roland Martin is here with us. If you don't know who he supports, take a look at his iPad. You want to bring up that picture?
ROLAND MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Actually in this particular race I support anybody but the folks with conventional wisdom. I want to see a long campaign so we can have lots of fun.
PHILLIPS: He has a picture of himself with the President of the United States --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: and Michelle Obama from the White House Correspondents Dinner.
MARTIN: But I also have one with President George W. Bush.
PHILLIPS: Ok.
MARTIN: Look at you. See?
PHILLIPS: Interesting. Well, you should bring that in then.
MARTIN: It's a Texas family. See, look at you.
PHILLIPS: Hook them horns.
MARTIN: Check mates.
I'm an (INAUDIBLE) stop it.
PHILLIPS: All right. Let's stay focused here, shall we?
MARTIN: All right. Let's go.
PHILLIPS: We have a short amount of time.
MARTIN: Let's go.
PHILLIPS: This war room, ok --
MARTIN: Right.
PHILLIPS: we're seeing for example this laid-off worker that was brought out in the news conference, is this going to work? Are we going to see more of this?
MARTIN: Absolutely. First of all it's not new.
PHILLIPS: Is this going to undercut Mitt Romney and talk about job creation?
MARTIN: It's not new. You've always seen this. It takes place at both national conventions and so it's not new at all. But it is important whether you are a Democrat or Republican because you want to be able to frame the other candidate.
This is not the old days where you wait until Labor Day, you actually begin the campaign. The Obama Administration, they know, the campaign knows they're going to have a tough race. Now also keep in mind he won Iowa by 9.5 percent in 2008. They have six Electoral College votes this year. This is going to be a tight year so absolutely you want to be able to target him because you need to win Iowa again as a part of your overall electoral strategy to get to 270.
PHILLIPS: What do you think about the various articles that are coming out, I told you about this one that I was reading in "The Economist", "Barack Obama Clearly Beatable".
MARTIN: Well, look, it's a tough economy. And so when you look at the debt issue, when you look at the jobs issue, although we've had these consecutive months of employment growth, it is still a problem. And so people keep asking me, is he going to win, is he going to lose? I say, well, he's got a 50-50 shot.
I mean bottom line is you have to get to 270. And so Republicans, they certainly have a strong hand to play, but like this particular worker, if it's Mitt Romney, he has to deal with the issue of driving the company into bankruptcy but your company's still walking away with $10 million. That big number doesn't play well with somebody who's out of work.
PHILLIPS: Is it too early to single out Romney?
MARTIN: No, absolutely not because you look at the trends and that is, look, Republicans also historically have always chosen the next guy. McCain lost to Bush in 2000, he was the guy in '08. Romney lost in '08, likely the guy in '12. Reagan lost in '76, he was the guy in '80. And so obviously you want to target the strongest person. You want to weaken him out of the gate. You also want to force him to respond to you while he's responding to the GOP candidates as well.
PHILLIPS: Who do the Dems want to be the nominee?
MARTIN: Well, look, I think they -- frankly they probably want Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann. You want the weakest person. You certainly don't want the strongest of the lot. I think they recognize that there are weaknesses among all the candidates. Their job is to exploit the weakness. Just like in football you play whoever's in front of you if you want to win unlike the Cowboys, they lost.
PHILLIPS: I knew we'd get football in there somehow.
MARTIN: Well, of course, my Texans won.
PHILLIPS: Yes, you want to talk about the --
(CROSSTALK)
MARTIN: Houston Texans, where the playoff cowboys. Sorry.
PHILLIPS: Good to see you Roland.
MARTIN: Likewise.
PHILLIPS: All right.
MARTIN: All right.
PHILLIPS: So who would travel more than 200,000 miles for an 82-day stay? NASA would and has. We'll explain.
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PHILLIPS: Well, there is a manhunt going on right now at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington for this man. Cops are looking for him; wanted in questioning for the fatal shooting of a park ranger. They say his name is Benjamin Colton Barns. And he has military experience and knows how to survive out in the deep woods and the snow. Co-workers say that Ranger Margaret Anderson had tried to stop that man before she was shot and killed.
New York police investigating three attacks, one of them at an Islamic center. Cops say Molotov cocktails were used in all the attacks. Some damage was reported but no injuries.
And same sex civil unions in Hawaii are now legal. Couples started lining up after the process went online yesterday. These unions give same sex couples some of the same rights as married couples.
After a rocky start for NASA's Grail mission, both research probes have successfully entered the moon's orbit. Rob Marciano has been watching every move. Tell us more about it.
MARCIANO: Yes. Exciting stuff. It took 3.5 months for this thing to happen. We watched the launch right here live on CNN on September 11th. And it was a beautiful launch and 3.5 months to get up there. Back in the Apollo days we got up there in I think I remember two or three days.
Well, it took a different route, that's for sure. The way this puppy went up, it used what we call the balance position or the balance point between the earth and the sun. It uses that kind of to get a free ride basically to the moon. At some point when the spacecraft turned around it split into two. Now we have not one but two orbiters that are making their way around the moon.
So they've got into orbit yesterday. Right now they're 100 or so miles in orbit in this kind of oblong orbit. But over the coming weeks they're going to fire a couple of more rocket engines and get them into an orbit that's about 34 miles up. That is close.
And for the first time they're going to be able to peer not just on the surface of the moon, both the dark side and the side that we see, but through the crust and hopefully into the manholes.
See what the inside of the moon is made of. That will give us an appearance of maybe how the earth was made; how rest of our solar system and potentially the universe was made as well.
Here's the thing. It's supposed to go to June 4th. On June 4th there will be a partial eclipse of the sun. That means that these vehicles will be in the shade. They're not designed to do that so they don't know if they're going to make it out of that, but if they do, Kyra, for the next few months into December what we find out will just be a freebie. It's like going to the casino and playing with the house money. God knows what we'll find.
You had to key the song. Partial eclipse of the sun. Here we go. Cool stuff. We'll be watching it, definitely. Not so easy to understand but you put it in layman's terms. I appreciate that
(CROSSTALK)
MARCIANO: I struggle with it too, believe me.
PHILLIPS: You're the man.
CNN's checked with Iowa's GOP insiders. And they are picking Mitt Romney to win the state's caucuses. We're going to tell you where the other candidates showed up in the survey next.
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PHILLIPS: I love political coverage because everybody is here in town by my side. I love it. Our political director, Mark Preston with us, out there getting the scoop from all the Republican insiders.
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, you now, I just got back from Iowa. I spent a week out there. Of course, we have so many troops still out there. This is where we're doing it here in global headquarters.
But as you said, out in Iowa, Kyra, and the Republican insiders. Who do they think is going to win the Iowa Caucuses? We'll we had a story up on CNN.com. Let's just take a quick look at these numbers if we can, if we have him there.
It shows that two-thirds of Iowans -- Iowan Republican insiders; think that Mitt Romney is going to win. Now I do have to caution. When you look at those numbers now that this was done last week at the same time we saw Rick Santorum starting to surge. It started with our CNN Time/ORC poll. Those numbers were backed up by the NBC poll.
And of course, the gold standard poll, "Des Moines Register", showed our numbers were the same. So Rick Santorum could actually win even though the insiders say no.
PHILLIPS: We also know Romney has been the most consistent throughout all of this. We've watched the up and down, the roller coaster, right? Does that have any -- does that hold any weight?
PRESTON: It does and bottom line, when you're talking to the insiders, a lot of them are GOP establishment folks, they want Romney to win. They want him to be the Republican nominee to take on President Obama next November.
PHILLIPS: We're going to be talking a lot more this week especially tomorrow.
PRESTON: Absolutely.
PHILLIPS: Great to see you Mark. FISCHEL: Thank you.
Well, the search continues for a man after a park ranger was shot and killed. Police say that he may be armed and military trained. And he knows how to survive in the deep woods in the snow. Next hour Suzanne Malveaux talking to the spokesperson for Mount Rainier National Park.
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PHILLIPS: And here's a look at what's happening later today.
The 123rd Rose Parade makes its way through Southern California starting at 11:00 Eastern.
The New York Rangers take on the Philadelphia Flyers in the National Hockey Leagues winter classic. That outdoor game begins at 1:00.
And vacation is over for the First Family. They're headed back to the White House scheduled to leave tonight at 10:00 Eastern.
That does it for us. We are back here bright and early; 9 a.m. Eastern time. Let's take it over to Suzanne Malveaux, who's usually right next to me. I ask where's Suzanne, she's in the newsroom.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: In the newsroom, weird. This is weird.
Yes. Kind of bizarre but kind of cool at the same time. Good to see you Kyra.
PHILLIPS: You heard all the action.
