and rick santorum on the sudden spotlight over his booming campaign, then the lay of the land from two influential iowan republicans, governor terry branstad and congressman steve king. fresh off the campaign trail "the washington post" dan balz "the wall street journal's" neil king give us their perspective. i'm candy crowley in des moines. and this is "state of the union". it's been a rough couple of weeks for ron paul. his top-tier seeding hs brought new scrutiny to some of his old writings. now big enough threat to draw unanimous dismissals from opponents. >> he's unelectable. >> you need to think long and hard about in casting your vote for congressman paul. >> one of the people running for president thinks it's okay for iran to have a nuclear weapon. i don't. >> ron paul is not getting the nomination. >> someone that is so out of sync with the american people that they don't need to be the president of the united states. >> could you vote for him? >> no.