Romney Candidate News Today

Conservatives in south carolina and be the anti-mitt romney candidate. >> shepard: interesting you mention that look at these polls makes us realize that were there just one conservative candidate as opposed to a group of them the numbers would be very close with mitt romney. from your dealings with people inside the republic party are there those suggesting to the candidates to get this down to one pretty quickly so see if there is alternative to romney? >> yes. they would love that this meetin...

The huntsman campaign turned around another attack from mitt romney and the debate on saturday night, they turned that attack around into probably jon huntsman most effective moment in the entire campaign, certainly his single most effective pitch as the anti-mitt romney candidate. first here is the attack from mitt romney. >> im sorry, governor, you were the last two years implementing the policies of this administration in china. the rest of us on the stage doing our best to get republicans el...

Effective pitch as the anti-mitt romney candidate. first here is the attack from mitt romney. >> im sorry, governor, you were the last two years implementing the policies of this administration in china. the rest of us on the stage doing our best to get republicans elected across the country and stop the policies of this president from being put forward. mr. romney attacking jon huntsman for serving as americas ambassador to china under president obama. that was on saturday night. this was jon h...

Non-mitt romney candidate. number two, being a candidate seen as a long shot nobody bothered taking him serious enough to criticize him let alone vetting him before the voting started. that helped him. the third thing that was important to his good showing in iowa was shoe leather. shoe leather, spending essentially every waking hour in the state of iowa. for rick santorum, that success has not carried over, really, from iowa in new hampshire, he got a boost in the polls after doing well in iowa...

The sample is so small. this is a distorting element in any poll. lacking, another poll which has romney and paul and gingrich essentially at 17. you have santorum. and bachmann. perry all bunched up. at 11:00, 12 and 13%. that means that the margin of error here disappears. and its almost a dead heat all the way around. as the caucus goers decide, many in the last week, it

>> chris: flurry of action on the campaign trail today as the candidates crisscross iowa before tuesday night caucuses. time to bring in the panel. steve hayes from "the weekly standard." kirsten powers of the daily beast website. syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. lets start with the latest polls because they were two new polls out today. and lets put it out on the screen. the arg poll has the top four of romney, 22%. gingrich, 17%. paul at 16%. keep this in mind, folks. santorum at 11%....

Announced he is going to spend caucus night not in new hampshire but iowa. he thinks he will have a gad night. >> i think so. if you listen to what he is talking about, the way the campaign is talking makes you think they have internal polls that are telling them that they are going to win. because you -- a good campaign doesnt go out and basically say were going to do really well unless they are expecting essentially to win. i dont think at this point coming in second to paul the way they are t...

Sense of that. romney is leading in all three polls. santorum is either surging or not surging. what is going on? >> well, let me add to the confusion. people familiar with the tracking. showing results with romney pulling away. this suggests that we are seeing the conservative attempting to find somebody else to be there standard bearer as the non-mitt romney candidate. real question is, is there time for conservatives to rally to rick santorum with just five days left? >> five of those folks i...

Romney. advisers suggest that newt gingrich appears to be best-positioned to secure her support. they speak very favorably of newt and what they see as his credentials, as compared to perry and romney. one member of palins inner circle said of the former alaska governor and her husband, todd, who has long served as her unofficial chief adviser. joining me now are christina bellantoni, the associate editor for "roll call," and melissa harris perry, msnbc contributor and professor of political sci...

For "roll call," and melissa harris perry, msnbc contributor and professor of political science at tulane university. melissa, this secret meeting, which is no longer secret, and was really kind of obvious, that christian conservatives really want to find an anybody but romney candidate, arent they just kind of getting in a room and doing together in a relatively small group what all the rest of the larger republican electorate has been trying to do? >> well, yeah. thats certainly what it feels ...