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Mitt Romney's Sons Campaign in Iowa; Ron Paul Speaks to Iowa Voters; Iowa Caucuses: Democrats' View; Condolences Pour In For Park Ranger; How The Iowa Race Is Shaping Up; Gingrich Speaks In Iowa
Aired January 03, 2012 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
DANA BASH, CNN SR. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What do you think about that, particularly as sons of his and as people who are watching thinking, you know, the shoe could be on the other foot, there could be a lot of ads attacking your dad like that and will be?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't get into too much of the political punditry. I mean, we leave that for you guys. We really just focus on my dad and his experience as a business guy, as a governor, and we really focus on that stuff and don't get into the details. You guys are the ones to speak on that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know there are going to be a lot of tough ads, though, and it doesn't change our opinion of our dad. Anything that we hear said, we know who he is. He's a great man of integrity, he's a great father and a great leader. So we know that we just have to have thick skin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Politics is a tough sport. You've got to be willing to take the heat if you want to get in the kitchen. So we know there's going to be a lot of negative ads coming from the Democrats in the general election, and you have got to be able to withstand those things.
BASH: Your dad made a bold prediction last night which I think kinds of defies politics 101 of lowering expectations. He said he's going to win this thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The nomination.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's going to win the nomination. That's what he was talking about. We have lots of paths (ph) to win the nomination. We're hopeful that that will be the case.
BASH: Thank you all --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Dana.
BASH: -- all four of you. Really appreciate you spending time. And have fun and good luck tonight. We appreciate it.
I think Ron Paul, one of your father's other prime competitors, is about speak. So thank you very much. OK. Enjoy. Suzanne, thank you very much. And it was very interesting to talk to these four, because four years ago we talked I think behind the scenes, but not so much for the camera. So it is different. You're absolutely right.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Right, they are out front and center there for their dad.
Well, let's listen in to Ron Paul, as you said, one of his fierce competitors. He's at the Rock the Caucus vote, taking the podium.
(BEGIN LIVE SPEECH)
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
REP. RON PAUL (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Because recently she endorsed me a couple weeks ago and something happened, because I had to admit I didn't know a whole lot about her. But I do know that our supporters were so enthusiastic about it, they went up and bumped up her sales of her records by 600 percent.
So it is a great pleasure to be here to talk to young people, because our campaign has been known to -- being a great appeal to the young people. And a lot of times people ask me that. I don't know the exact reason for it. But for one thing, I do talk to a lot of people and ask them, "Why are you enthusiastic about the campaign?" One of the most common answers that I get is that I endorse the Constitution and defend the Constitution constantly in Washington, and that's very appealing to young people.
(APPLAUSE)
Also, young people like individuals who will stick to principles. And in Washington, sometimes the two parties mesh together and there's not too many times that -- and it's not too infrequent -- that I am -- I feel obligated to vote by myself, which means that I'm sticking to that principle. And when they see that, they say that he won't go back and forth, but he'll always stick to principle.
But there are some other issues that are very important to young people that I find they recite to me when I talk to them. One thing is, is it seems like it's inherent in young people that we have a government and we have a president who is very cautious about going to war.
There's no reason in the world that we cannot be strict constitutionalists, strong national defense, and say that we should not send young people off to war unless it's absolutely necessary, and necessary for national security, and a declaration of war is made. Make the declaration, fight the war, win it, and get it over and come home.
(APPLAUSE)
In the last 10 years we have been fighting endless wars in the Middle East. We're in 135 countries. We have 900 bases around the world. And we're flat-out broke.
And the country knows it, the world knows it, that we're in a financial crisis, and that's what you're inheriting. But just in the last 10 years, yours and my national debt has gone up $4 trillion because of those expenditures.
Now, if we thought it was necessary to fight these wars for our national defense, that would be worth considering, but it really isn't. Some of these wars are fought for who knows what reasons. We go in. Sometimes we don't even go in with permission of the Congress.
This president currently has gone into countries by getting permission from the United Nations and NATO. He should only get permission from the American people through a vote of the Congress.
(APPLAUSE)
But another issue that young people bring to my attention when I ask them why they are interested in what I'm doing is because I emphasize very much the nature of money. Money is a very important issue, because if you can destroy the money, you can destroy the economy, and that's what we have been doing.
The founders knew something about that. The founders understood something about this because we had runaway inflation at the beginning of our -- at the constitutional convention, by that time. So they said in the Constitution that only gold and silver could be legal tender, there shouldn't be a central bank, there shouldn't be a Federal Reserve system, and you're not allowed to print money. But for over 100 years we have rejected that notion.
We print the money. The value of the money goes down and your prices go up. So if you're thinking about college, all you have to do is look back over the last 10 or 20 years, and the cost of education has skyrocketed.
That isn't because education cost goes up, that's because of the value of the money that's goes down. And young people know this, they are studying it, they're looking at economics and they're looking at the Federal Reserve system, because it is the business cycle that can be explained by understanding monetary policy and the Federal Reserve.
Economic liberty is very important. And you come to the conclusion that economic liberty is important because individual liberty is important. In our founding, Jefferson stated very clearly that our lives and our lives (ph) are gifts from our God. And therefore, your income, the fruits of your labor, should be yours and not the government's to spend.
(APPLAUSE)
So we were given a country, and it was a great country and great prosperity. It was the richest country, the largest middle class in the world. But today we have drifted from that because we're living off debt. We do too much overseas and we run a welfare state here at home. But that is coming to an end. That is what the society is telling us today because of the financial crisis. But if you understand one issue, you can understand foreign policy, you can understand economic policy, if you understand the principle of individual liberty. The purpose of the Constitution is to restrain the federal government, not to restrain you as an individual.
(APPLAUSE)
Personal liberty means a lot. Personal liberty, if you understand it, it means you have a right to your life and you have a right to the fruits of your labor. You both have economic and social liberty. As long as one does not hurt another individual, you can run your life as you so choose, but you have to be responsible.
The founders of this country warned us that they gave us a republic and it won't work unless we are a moral society and assume responsibility for ourselves. And this is where I think we have failed for a couple generations.
We have failed because we have said the government can take care of us, and they never wanted to ask the question, who's the government? The government is us.
And now we don't have the jobs. We don't have the income. We don't have the prosperity.
We've had 30 million new people in our country over the last 10 years and no new jobs. So this is what you're facing. This is why the debt is $1.5 trillion every year.
We owe $15 trillion in our national debt. We owe $3 trillion to foreigners, the biggest debt in the history of the world. So this is why we have to look for a change. And the change is not complicated.
The change is just restoring what was -- those principles that made America great. That is, understanding what liberty is, what it means to mind our own business overseas, to let the people live their lives as they so choose, and let the economy work without the government regulating the economy.
We had the prosperity, but now the middle class, as it shrinks, guess what? The lobbyists run Washington.
The lobbyists can go to Washington. The rich get bailed out. The rich corporations and banks, when the crisis hit four years ago, they got the bailouts, and all the bad debt and the mistakes -- they got bought up by the Federal Reserve and by Treasury. And it was dumped on the people.
And that debt put on the people means the economy can't recover until we dissolve that problem. But we can find our answers in the Constitution. We can find that answer in the principles of liberty. And with the great experiment that we have and the great success in the last 100 years it's been challenged. So, your challenge will be, do you want to live in a free society? Do you want to live in a prosperous society? Are you going to think about the materialism of a free society?
No. You have to think about the principles of liberty. If you have a free society and property rights and sound money, believe me, the prosperity will come.
If you concentrate on the materialism and the redistribution of wealth and the influence of special interests, believe me, we can't get out of this mess. So you have to have an understanding, a belief and a conviction about what true liberty is all about.
It was a grand experiment. It was the best experiment in the history of the world. Most of the world has lived under tyranny both in the past and today, and even today we are moving in the direction of less personal freedom.
Each and every day we have things passed like the Patriot Act, which means that your privacy is no longer protected. There are plans now to regulate and control and monitor and regulate to an nth degree your Web sites and the Web pages, and for the federal government to come in and take away the privacy of the Internet.
Believe me, the Internet is very, very valuable. If you lose the privacy of the Internet, you have lost a big hunk of your freedom. And that move is on. It's something you need to look at and pay attention to.
So, with all the problems we have around the world, the perpetual war, the spending and the debt, the inflation and the monetary system, believe me, it's not difficult to solve the problems. All we need are people that believe in the Constitution, are energized by the principles of liberty, and are willing to say that it is not our business to solve all the problems of the world and get involved in all these conflicts in the world. We need to make our nation a great nation again. If we want to influence the rest of the world, we should do that by setting a great standard -- a great standard of individual liberty, a standard of prosperity and sound money in a foreign policy when we mind our own business.
When we have that greatness, we won't have to try to force it down the throats of others by bombing, invading those countries. They will want to be like us because we are a great nation and we have the prosperity.
I am encouraged, especially because I have so many young people supporting this cause, and because there's so much activity and interest. So we see this as a real opportunity, this campaign and what's coming up tonight, and in the next several months. It's a wonderful opportunity to restate our sound principles about why this country had been great and what we need to restore peace, prosperity and liberty to all of us.
Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
(END LIVE SPEECH)
MALVEAUX: You've been watching Ron Paul Rock the Caucuses, addressing the young folks and the young voters who will be participating throughout the day and the evening. We're going to have more of that live as it unfolds.
This is it, the Iowa caucuses, maybe the most hyped night in politics. So what's a caucus? In its most basic form, a caucus is simply a meeting, a chance to change minds. And tonight, conservative Republicans across Iowa are going to put on their winter coats, hop in their cars, spend the evening arguing over who they think should be the next leader of the country.
This is more than a popularity contest. It is democracy, and it is about to get loud.
We're going to take you live to Iowa, the final hours before the caucuses kick off.
And the race is up in the air. Campaigning is going down to the wire there. The candidates are out in force. So are CNN correspondents and analysts -- I guess you can put them together -- we are covering a Rock the Caucus rally as we just saw in West Des Moines. That is targeting the younger voters. Three of the candidates are taking part in that.
Later this hour, we're going to take a look at Newt Gingrich and his campaign bus. They are going to be rolling into Burlington, Iowa.
And our Dana Bash, she is reporting from West Des Moines. We're going to get insight as well from political contributor James Carville, here in Atlanta.
Well, the candidates, they got started early today, making the final pitches to Iowa voters at the campaign stops across the state. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann all going after Barack Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He was going to get everyone back to work. He was going to repair the nation and repair the world. Extraordinary promises, but there's a huge gap between the promise and the delivery.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: At the election level, I think I'm the only person who can take on Obama's billion-dollar campaign and defeat him head to head in the debates in a decisive way.
(END VIDEO CLIP) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RICK PERRY (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This election is about stopping a president of the United States and his administration that is abusing the Constitution of this country, that is putting America on a track to bankruptcy. And folks, we are going to take America back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What I want to do, too, is bring down the price of a gallon of gas. Gasoline was $1.79 a gallon the day that Barack Obama became president. We can get it back to that again because the United States is the number one energy resource-rich nation in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: New Hampshire is the next stop in the presidential race. And Jon Huntsman already there.
He campaigns in Lebanon, New Hampshire, this hour. It's actually his second stop of the day.
Huntsman decided to skip Iowa altogether, focus his efforts on New Hampshire. And that primary is a week from today.
At a school last hour, Huntsman talked about his decision to run for office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON HUNTSMAN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I got the same lecture in life when I was growing up from my dad. If you want to change the world, if you want to make it happen, you have to go into business. That's where you need to make change.
But not everybody's cut out for that. You're always going to need a fallback position. You can always go into politics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Fresh from his holiday vacation with his family in Hawaii, President Obama is going to be speaking in Iowa tonight -- sort of -- after a day of meetings in D.C. He plans on speaking to Iowa supporters this evening as the Republican caucus votes come in.
A campaign official tells us that the president is going to use a new video technology -- it's kind of like Skype -- to chat with Democrats about his own campaign.
And candidates, they are scrambling to lock up the last-minute votes. We've got less than seven hours before the start of the Iowa caucuses, and three of those candidates, they went looking for young voters. This is the Rock the Caucus rally. This is in West Des Moines.
Dana Bash is there with them.
And Dana, you had a chance to talk to it Mitt Romney's sons. That was really interesting. We see a lot of the kids and grandkids of the candidates.
How important is this young vote, these young people taking part?
BASH: Well, it's important because these are people who have never been to caucuses before. Many of the people here -- Suzanne, there are 800 people just in this high school gym alone. And this is something that is taking place at 25 high schools around the state today.
And look, these are incredibly important voters because caucuses -- I mean, let's face it, they are scary things. They are very different from just going in and closing the voting booth and saying, yes, who you're going to vote for.
You have to go into a room, you have to listen to people speak. You have to really make an effort. And it's a very different kind of experience than what they are going -- these voters are going to experience as they get older in regular elections.
And so these particular young voters, many of them have not even registered. So you're seeing a lot of people with registration forms, a lot of people just saying that they are here to listen to what these candidates are saying.
Ron Paul just spoke before, Suzanne. This is, I think, one the most interesting dynamics of this caucus in general. And look, he's 76 years old. He is not the kind of person you would think off the top of your head would appeal to young people.
But I spent a lot of time here, and Deirdre Walsh, our producer, walking around and talking to young people. And we talked to a lot of them who say that they are definitely going out for Ron Paul.
Why? Primarily because of his economic views, that he wants to reduce the debt and deficit, but also because they say he is consistent. He hasn't, in their words, flip-flopped on the issues.
So, very interesting that these new voters, people who haven't gone before, who clearly are skeptical of Washington, skeptical of politicians, they like the guy who hasn't changed his position. And that is why many of them say (INAUDIBLE).
MALVEAUX: Dana, it's almost reminiscent of what happened before with Barack Obama. There were a lot of first-time caucus-goers, a lot of young people very excited about what he offered there in Iowa.
Do we think it's going to make a difference for Ron Paul?
BASH: You know, that is a wildcard. They don't know the answer to that.
If you speak to the Ron Paul advisers that I've been speaking to, they honestly say that you never know. I mean, look what happened with Howard Dean in 2004. That is kind of the most famous example on the Democratic side.
He had all of these young people out, some of them -- many of them actually turned out. They weren't even from Iowa. They weren't eligible to vote in the caucuses. And it didn't do him any good at all.
They insist the Paul campaign, for example, that they have identified voters, even new voters, to gets out to the caucuses, to actually put their vote where their mouth is, so to speak. So we'll see.
But it is absolutely a wildcard, because generally what you see at these caucuses are people who have been, time and time again, older voters. The new voters, you never really know. But you'll appreciate this, all of us as former students. A lot of people here said they are required to go for some of their government classes. So they want to get an A, they are going to go tonight.
MALVEAUX: All right then. And they'll participate, I'm sure.
Dana, thank you so much. Good to see you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: The Republican candidates are taking aim at the man they hope to defeat in November.
President Obama and the first family, they returned from their vacation in Hawaii this morning just in time for the Iowa caucuses. Well, President Obama, he is going to be keeping track of how his potential challenges are doing tonight, but he's also going to be reaching out to his own supporters in Iowa.
Joining us to talk about the caucuses from the Democrats' point of view, CNN political contributor and Democratic strategist James Carville.
Always good to see you.
JAMES CARVILLE, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Fired up. The voting tonight is actually going to -- be able to keep score. This is fun.
MALVEAUX: You and I actually love this stuff.
CARVILLE: Yes, I do. I do.
MALVEAUX: Love this stuff.
So, the president, he's coming back. He's going t be in D.C. And he has no challengers, so he's reaching out to his Iowa supporters through this Skype mechanism here. What does he need to do, what does he need to say to kind of get things -- jump-start his own campaign, get the enthusiasm going for him?
CARVILLE: There's not a lot that he can do. I mean, the big story tonight is the Republicans. But we need to keep in mind that come November, Iowa is a must-win state for President Obama, and it's very close, it's very tight.
So I think it's kind of smart for him to come in at night to sort of get the Democrats kind of energized, because they are just watching the Republicans, appropriately so, getting all of the publicity because they actually have a contest here. So that's the thing to keep in mind.
MALVEAUX: In the last go-around, nobody knew him in Iowa, so he spent a good year kind of getting folks to know him in Iowa. People know him now.
What does he need to convey to them to say, hey, you know what, I'm president, things are going to be good, things are going to be better if you get a second term?
CARVILLE: Well, I think he's got to convey that he knows how difficult this job has been. I think he's got to convey that he understands what's happened to the middle class around the country, and that he contrasts very well with Republicans on that. He's also -- he can't say that he's been a success on the economy, but he can surely explain all the things they've done to try to get it going again, and that they are going to pursue these kinds of policies that are going to really change the course and direction that the middle class has taken over the last 10 years.
MALVEAUX: You've been a part of Iowa caucuses, you've spent a lot of time in the ground game there. What are these guys going through? What are they thinking, these candidates? How nervous are they?
CARVILLE: They are exhausted. I mean, you cannot convey enough just how tired they are.
And remember, they don't get to go to Disney World when this is over. They've got to go right to New Hampshire. And they are going to be really tired tomorrow.
And they are going to leave tonight. Most of them are going to fly out of Des Moines tonight, and that's going to be behind -- for some, they'll have the energy of doing well. Some didn't do so well.
I remember in 2008, I wasn't part of the campaign, but remember vividly when Senator Clinton had to go to New Hampshire and had gotten thoroughly beaten in Iowa, and then had a tremendous comeback there. But I think fatigue is the first thing, but they are excited, and they are going on adrenaline.
I was watching the Ron Paul rally, and it's fun, because Gingrich is calling Romney a liar, and Santorum is saying that Ron Paul is disgusting. We need this to go on because we need some other adjectives to sort of get this --
MALVEAUX: That works in your favor.
CARVILLE: It does, yes. And I like that kind of -- I hate to say this, but that's kind of fun politics when you're starting to call people liars and disgusting, and you want it to roll a little bit further downhill if you can.
MALVEAUX: You're a veteran to all this stuff.
CARVILLE: No, not me.
(LAUGHTER)
MALVEAUX: All right. Well, we'll see how President Obama actually fights off some of these criticisms and these challenges as well.
James, thanks you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.
CARVILLE: Love being here. Big night tonight, Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: Big night. Big night. We're going to be watching.
So, does uncertainty from Republican voters actually work in the president's favor? What does exactly he have to do in Iowa to win 10 months from now? The answer from both sides up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: Keeping track of all the candidates today as we approach tonight's Iowa caucuses.
We are waiting for -- Newt Gingrich is live at an event in Burlington, Iowa. It's supposed to start in just a couple of minutes. We're going to bring you his comments live once it starts.
We want to get you up to speed on some of the top stories of the day.
Syrian officials and opposition activists, they are blaming each other for an attack on a gas pipeline. Now, it caused a huge fire near the city of Homs, which is at the center of the uprising. Elsewhere in Syria, a leading opposition group says at least 18 members of the security forces were killed in clashes against soldiers who have defected from the Syrian army.
For the first time, the Taliban are signaling they are ready for peace talks without the condition of a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. This is significant.
A purported spokesman says that the Taliban have struck a deal to open an office in Qatar. Now, the group wants Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to be released as a condition for the talks. It's not clear if the purported spokesman speaks for all parts of the Afghan Taliban.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul responded today, saying, "We support an Afghan-led reconciliation process in which the Taliban breaks with al Qaeda, renounces violence, and accepts the Afghan constitution."
Well, it looks like the L.A. arson spree is over. A part-time sheriff's deputy is the one who actually arrested the suspect. Twenty-four-year-old Harry Burkhart has been charged with one count of arson. More charges are expected. Investigators think he set 52 different fires in the Los Angeles area.
Now, the guy who arrested Burkhart earns just $1 per year for his job as deputy, and here's what he said after the arrest.
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RESERVE DEP. SHERVIN LALEZARY, LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: Thank you to the men and women of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department West Hollywood Station for coming into work every day, doing this full time, putting their lives on the line every day, full time. I really appreciate everything you guys do and I look forward to coming back for my next shift with you guys.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: A suspect is said to be arraigned tomorrow morning.
Well, condolences are pouring in online for Park Ranger Margaret Anderson, mother of two. She was gunned down in Washington's Mount Rainier National Park on New Year's Day. An intense search for her shooter ended when his body was found in a river. Patrick Oppman runs down what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATRICK OPPMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm standing at the entrance to Mount Rainier National Park. This is where Benjamin Barnes arrived on Sunday, already a wanted man and armed to the teeth.
Police were looking for him after he allegedly shot up a party on New Year's Eve and got into an argument with people he was spending the night with, came back and shot and injured four people.
When Barnes arrived here on Sunday, police said he had automatic weapons with him and body armor and survival gear. He didn't get too far into the park though, running into a checkpoint that park rangers maintain to make sure that people have the proper equipment, snow tires and chains on the tires if they need to navigate around the park during the wintertime.
He blew through that checkpoint. Police said then as rangers gave chase, he got out of the car and shot killing Ranger Margaret Anderson and kept up a running gun battle with police over the next 90 minutes.
Then they say Barnes fled into these thick woods, woods that as you just step off the road, you can see are almost impassable, very, very deep woods. One of the reasons that people come into this park, he didn't get very far though.
Police on Monday found his body in a river bed. There are no signs that he had been shot, committed suicide. It appeared this man, an army veteran, could not spend the night in the elements. Police said despite the fact they thought they were looking for a survivalist, somebody who might know how to spend long period of time in the woods, Barnes had very little clothing with him.
They said when they found him he was only wearing a t-shirt and pair of jeans and one tennis shoe. It was a very scary event though at this park and the park remains closed as people mourn the loss of Ranger Margaret Anderson.
They are giving Anderson credit for stopping potentially a much worse situation. Authorities said that as Barnes was traveling in the park, he was coming in the most populated area. If Ranger Anderson hadn't stopped him, a much worse tragedy could have taken place. Patrick Oppman, CNN, Mount Rainier National Park.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: So tonight, make or break for Rick Santorum's bid for the White House, the answer up next from both sides.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: Just hours before the voting begins, we want to look at how the race is shaping up. Joining us from Des Moines to talk about that, Republican consultant and CNN contributor, Alex Castellanos and CNN contributor, Democratic strategist, Donna Brazile.
Both of you looking very colorful. We appreciate your commentary. Alex, let's start with you. You worked for Mitt Romney back in 2008. What do you think he's thinking today as we were counting down the hours?
ALEX CASTELLANOS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: This is a tense time. He's out there from the reports we're seeing, he's getting some big crowds. And he's probably thinking that, gee, I hope these folks understand that my message.
That I've got the best shot at defeating Barack Obama and that pulling country back from an economic precipice, he wants them to think about electability. And that's on his mind, has he gotten that message through today?
MALVEAUX: You guys have been working really hard day and night. I know it's getting tiresome down to the wire here. Donna, you know, the latest polls are still showing that 41 percent of Iowa Republicans planning to attend the caucuses tonight could still change their minds. Does that work in your favor for the Democrats?
DONNA BRAZILE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, let me just explain what that means. As you know, when the caucus gather tonight, there will be a surrogate from all of the campaigns and they will make the case for their respective candidate. If they are convinced and persuasive enough, they will be able to perhaps draw support from some of the candidates that may not have a good surrogate there to make his or her case.
So there's no question that tonight Mitt Romney will do very, very well. He's been in the state for over five years, he's organized very well. He has money to compete. He has spent money on television ads, hurting his Republican opponents.
I feel confident tonight that not only Barack Obama will do well because we have eight states -- eight offices open across the state, Democrats will caucus, but the real show tonight is what the Republicans will do in terms of coalescing around an anti-Romney figure.
MALVEAUX: Donna, who do you suppose President Obama wants to run against? Who would be the person they would like to see the winner out of tonight?
BRAZILE: Well, ou know, I think the president is ready for any of his opponents, but Mitt Romney is the odds on favorite to win the Republican nomination.
Mitt Romney will have to, of course, unify the Republican Party and we're ready to run against Mitt Romney who ran for governor in 19 -- back in 1990s.
And we're ready to run against Mitt Romney who ran in 2008 and Mitt Romney who's now running for president in 2012. Three different Mitt Romneys and we're ready for all three of Mitts.
CASTELLANOS: I think President Obama is probably going to do well since he has a Saddam Hussein election tonight, he's the only one on ballot. So he'll probably do OK.
But you can tell who the Obama campaign is concerned about running against because that's who they've been attacking. They've already been attacking Mitt Romney. So you wouldn't do that to a guy you didn't have concerns about.
BRAZILE: Spent more than $26 million over the last year saying negative things about President Obama. I mean, there's been millions of ads against President Obama, but we're ready for the fight.
Right now, tonight, the showdown is here with the Republicans and let's see, which candidate will come out of here along with Mitt Romney.
MALVEAUX: You guys look way you're too much too friendly here for two foes who are on the opposite sides. Try to shake it up a little bit.
BRAZILE: It's too early to fight, Alex.
CASTELLANOS: Donna is wrong about everything, but she's a good person so what can we do.
BRAZILE: Alex has never said anything I agree with, but I like him personally. MALVEAUX: That's what we like. We like to see people getting along here, but they disagree. Alex, I want to bring this point up here because obviously, you know, we've seen -- we saw Romney's sons and seen a new more relaxed kind of guy, no longer has the permanent tan, someone that Iowans can relate to a little bit more. How different has that been time around in terms of his strategy?
CASTELLANOS: I think it's been very important for him. In politics we have a thing called a law of the car keys. That is before I give you my car keys to take me somewhere, what do I want to know? Where do you promise to take me, policy or plans, your 59-point economic strategy?
But I also want to know character. Can I trust you to take me there? Who are you? And Ann Romney, the family are so important to him. That's where his values come from. If you want to know what Mitt Romney would do in a crisis, look at the way he responded when Ann Romney was sick.
Look at the way he cares about his family. I think who he is, is as important as what he believes.
BRAZILE: Great surrogates for the candidate.
MALVEAUX: Donna, real quick here. We know that Iowa was a place we spent a lot of time in. This is where Barack Obama really got -- people got to know him in Iowa. Now as president, what does he need to let the Iowa voters know about him this go around?
BRAZILE: Well, as you know, tonight, he will be calling into the various precinct caucuses. He will talk with his supporters. He will remind them that he made a commitment to them back in 2008 to get this economy moving again, to end the war in Iraq, to pass a health care bill.
He will remind voters in this state that he has delivered on many, many important promises and then he's going to continue to stand and fight for middle class and help move this economy along.
MALVEAUX: All right, Donna, Alex, good to see you both and you're still getting along there after many hours. We'll see how it goes tomorrow but --
BRAZILE: We'll see what happens at midnight.
CASTELLANOS: The night the young.
BRAZILE: Yes, the night is young.
MALVEAUX: All right, good to see you both.
So everybody is talking about the attack ads, the polls, but where do the candidates really stand on the issues that matter? We're going to take a hard look at how the White House hopefuls plan to get tough with Iran.
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MALVEAUX: All right, forget the polls and politics just for a minute. How do candidates stack up on the real issues? All this week, we are taking a hard look on where the White House hopefuls stand on where it counts.
So this hour, we're talking about Iran. It's a country that weighs heavy on every president's mind. A nation run by an oppressive regime with nuclear ambitions. So how do the candidates plan to get tough with Iran?
Well, no one differs more than the field than Ron Paul. He wants to shut down U.S. military bases abroad and starkly opposed to military intervention with Iran.
Newt Gingrich is on the other end of the spectrum. He says that covert operations and assassination missions against Iran nuclear scientists are all viable options.
Michele Bachmann says it's about protecting our ally Israel and she has criticized President Obama for not getting tougher with Iran. Rick Perry, he agrees. He says we're bond to do whatever is necessary to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Rick Santorum says we can't take the military option off the table. Jon huntsman is not opposed to using force to keep a nuclear weapon out of the hands of the Iranians. Mitt Romney, favors sanctions, but if push comes to shove, he too says military action is an option a president would have to consider.
Tomorrow we're going to take a hard look on where the candidates stand on another hot button issue. We are talking about Social Security and entitlement reform. That is tomorrow, 11:00 a.m. Eastern in the CNN NEWSROOM.
Well, three small states could have a huge impact on which candidate faces President Obama next November. We are taking a look at how the primary process gets started and what's at stake.
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MALVEAUX: We're watching all things live. Events out of Iowa. Newt Gingrich. We're taking a look at an event in Burlington, Iowa. Let's tip in and listen to what he has to say.
(BEGIN LIVE SPEECH)
NEWT GINGRICH, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And Callista and I have talked about it. We had a wonderful life. We're making movies, writing books, really having a good time. I was almost learning how to golf. We have two grandchildren, Maggie who's 12 and Robert who's 10. It's great fun hanging out with them. And yet you looked at the mess we're in and you ask yourself a fun little question. This election is not just a referendum on Obama. This election is an effort to find somebody and to find a program that can get America back on the right track. Now, that is a dramatically bigger question than politics as usual. And one of the reasons I've talked so much about the negative campaigning is it totally clutters the ability of the American people to have an adult conversation about solutions. I mean we are in real trouble. You know, if this was just a game, if this was like a senior class president, that would be one thing. But this isn't a game. This is the presidency of the most important country in the world at a time when the whole planet is shaking.
You have the Iranians trying to get nuclear weapons and practicing closing the Straits of Hormuz. The Straits of Hormuz have one out of every six barrels of oil in the world go through them. If the Iranians succeed in closing the Straits, you have a depression in the entire modern world.
You have the rise of China, who are now cheerfully announcing they're going to go to the moon, probably faster than NASA can hold bureaucratic meetings to figure out how to get off the planet again.
You have a $2 trillion a year deficit in the U.S., which has a political class in both parties which is getting us to look more and more like Greece, more like the Italian parliament in a bad year. When your political leadership in the House and Senate and presidency struggle to pass a two-month extension of a tax bill, regard that as a success, and go home triumphantly, you have a sense of how totally out of sync things are.
And so we're almost like a family that's so dysfunctional, we need somebody to intervene. And that's really where we are. And this is not a conversation the news media knows how to carry. It's not a conversation our political culture knows how to carry. But it's where we are.
And if you go to newt.org, you'll see lots and lots of proposals and you'll see -- you know, I'm dealing with the fact that the judges are too strong and too dictatorial. So we have a 54-page paper that outlines historically starting with the founding fathers, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR. That's not what politicians normally do. But in times of serious problems, that's exactly what leaders do.
Remember, the Federalist Papers, which is a pretty thick book, was a campaign brochure. It was written for the purpose of convincing the American people to ratify the Constitution. Because they were serious about their country. And this year, I think this election, for us to succeed as a people, this has to be not just the most important election of your lifetime, it has to be the most serious election of your lifetime. And that requires qualitatively a different approach to this whole campaign.
Now, how many of you are fed up with all the negative ads and negative mailings and negative press? OK. And I would simply ask you to go to the caucus tonight and say to your friends and neighbors that Iowa has a remarkable opportunity to say no to every candidate who's been running negative ads. And if you were to do that, you would be able to change the entire culture of campaigning in America. You know, as long as the consultants believe that negative attack ads work no matter how dishonest, and as long as they think they can raise money for millionaires to pay for millions of dollars of attack ads, we're going to remain sick.
And this is a serious problem. And so I raise it with you because what we really have to have is a different conversation. How are we going to create jobs and economic growth? How are we going to get back to a balanced budget? How are we going to replace bureaucracies that don't work? What threatens America and how do we defend against it? What are the values we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren? What does it mean to be an American?
These are real -- this is what this campaign should be about. These are big ideas. The reason I tell people that if I do become your nominee, I will challenge President Obama to seven, three-hour debates in the Lincoln Douglas tradition with a time keeper but no moderator isn't for a gimmick.
It's because I believe the gap in values, ideas and information between the (INAUDIBLE) radicalism and the performance of the president and his team and where most Americans are is so big that he owes us an opportunity to have a conversation. He doesn't owe me. He doesn't owe -- this isn't about cheap candidacy. This is about a historic moment of decision. Who are we and what are we trying to accomplish?
Now, if you go and you look at my tax and economic job plan, which "The Wall Street Journal" has said is by far the strongest and most jobs oriented plan of any candidate, what you'll really see that I have a very old fashioned model. The same model that Ronald Reagan had. The reason is simple, I helped develop it. In the 1970s, I worked with Art Lafer (ph), Jude Wineski (ph), Richard Ron (ph), Larry Kudlow (ph), Jack Kemp (ph) and developed a concept called Supply Side Economics.
And it basically says, if you incentivize people to create more production to build more factories to invent more new ideas, you will create wealth and you will mop up inflation by the sheer production capacity. In a sense, American agriculture is the perfect example of the supply side, because if you look at American productivity over the last 100 years on the farm, it's astonishing -- go back 150 years, it's astonishing how much more productive we are. Well, in a sense, that's the whole supply side model. And so what I propose is the same old thing.
But here's what it comes down to. Here's the heart of it. And here's the core of the difference with Barack Obama. I believe that we should incentivize the work ethic. I believe we should incentivize invention, innovation, entrepreneurship. I believe we should incentivize saving and investing.
And there's a practical reason. I believe a world in which people get up every morning and go to work is a better world. A world where people get up every day to create a new job is a better world. A world where people are constantly inventing things is a better world. We were, yesterday morning, at the Agribition building. I don't know if any of you have been there, in Independence. But it's a collection of tractors and other farm implements going back to the early 19th century. And you see all -- you know, for example, a steam powered tractor. And you see all of different ways people tried to invent farm implements. All the companies that don't exist anymore that once upon a time had an idea.
I was down in Vermeer in probably (ph) about a couple of weeks ago for manufacturing and I went to the museum at Vermeer. Vermeer starts with three guys and one simple idea to modestly improve one piece of equipment. And it has grown now to a worldwide company.
But that's been the history of America. And so you either have a system where you say, I want to encourage people to do this, or you have a system where you think life is static and you say, no, I need to take away from everybody who's successful to give to everybody who's failed. Because, after all, we can't -- we can't bake any bigger pies. We can't bake bigger --
MALVEAUX: Burlington, Iowa. Newt Gingrich. You've been listening and watching him. This is before the important night of the Iowa caucuses. Tonight on CNN live, "America's Choice 2012," coverage of the Iowa caucuses beginning tonight at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
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MALVEAUX: You've been responding to our "Talk Back" segment. Who do you think is going to win the Iowa caucuses and why?
Will says, "I think it will be Romney. I also believe that he will put Chris Christie as his VP. That's a Republican power ticket - so to battle that, I don't think Obama will win unless he makes Hillary Clinton his VP. That would be an incredible election to watch."
Dominic writes, "Ron Paul because the younger generations are hungry for consistency, answers and the courage to speak the truth, and older generations are hungry for traditional values."
Lonnie says, "Rick Santorum appears to be the flavor of the day. At the end of the electoral process though Obama will take it."
And finally, Arthur says, "the 1 percent."
Keep the conversation going at facebook.com/suzannecnn.
CNN NEWSROOM with Randi Kaye starts in just one minute.
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