The frenzy of campaign events, holes, forums, debates, and media interviews. On the democratic side, front runner Hillary Clinton saw her lead shrink in recent weeks Bernie Sanders is sticking with the theme of hope and change and optimism, as seen in his latest and last highway tv commercial. We have it for you here first. Take a look. There are those who say we cannot defeat a corrupt political system and fix everything economy. Lift our we need to vision above the obstacles in place and look to the american horizon. To a nation where every child cannot only dream of going to college, but attend one. Where Quality Health care will be a birthright of every citizen. Where are good job is not a wish, but a reality. Where women receive equal pay and a living wage for all. After aica where lifetime of labor, there is the time for rest and grandchildren. A nation that offends our people and our values, but no longer carries so much of that burden alone. Thatw we can create america if we look into our heart, in that journey begins here in iowa. Of a bigt ad is part iowa buy that included the examining Garfinkel Simon and garfunkel ad we saw last week. Mark another smart ad. They took the emotion from the addedand garfunkel ad and the policy proposals Bernie Sanders has been pushing that have caught the attention and some would say caught fire with iowa voters. Another strong ad. Finally, it is optimistic it wouldve been nice if he smiled at the end but it is optimistic and that is the key to winning elections america, and the clintons know that. John i think optimistic, and the other word would be visionary. There is an implicit critique politics. Intonian bernie is a it is ok to dream the it is ok to reach for stars. We dont need to compromise all the time, we dont need to capitulate all the time come we dont want half measures and incrementalism. That is what we have gotten from the clones and gotten in some sense from barack obama. We want more. That is a powerful message for the democratic base. Mark it is coming back at Hillary Clinton, who effectively saying that Bernie Sanders is unrealistic and the things he is advocating couldnt happen. He is saying to his supporters that they can happen. These are things popular with the democratic base. The clintons, the ball is in their court to respond to this ad. A very effective at that the Sanders Campaign is bullish on. Hillary clinton has been trying. O solve the berniementum she says she is the realistic candidate who can get things done in washington. , like the her allies Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, continue to good size anders criticize sanders record on things like back in full. Clicking seems to be backing off on what had been a policy of going after sanders on her own. Why did she change her approach and hold back from criticizing centers for a couple days and where does that leave her campaign in these final days . John i have three words for you, mark. Nice. St two are iowa werehird is surrogates, outsourcing, if you will. These are timehonored tactics where the candidate broadcasts a positive message while the surrogates to the dirty work. We are back to the traditional path. This is a state that likes up, positive, optimistic. Hillary clinton did not want to close on a down note but she is making sure the people who support her are taking to me axe stillng the meat to Bernie Sanders. Mark if she loses in iowa, it compounds the loss. Better to let the surrogates do with the surrogates do, and if she does lose, save the ability to go negative down the road in South Carolina, where there is no such thing as South Carolina nice. John right, where there is a bigger appetite for negative politics. The president of the Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence hit bernie as hard as he could hit him, saying his record on guns was disgraceful, dangerously in line with the gun lobby. The Sanders Campaign disputes that. It shows you that although the clintons are playing nice now in front of the cameras, as i said before, theyve got plenty other people out there who will be hitting sanders hard. That is one example today. Mark let me for not the first last time say that the clintons are held to a double standard right now. Sanders is going to give, in some ways personally negative, clinton, something he said he wouldnt do, and is not being held by the media at all. John i agree with that. And i think theres anything wrong with him just noting it is happening good just when you thought there would be no more democratic debates before the iowa caucuses, cnn is holding a lastminute forum at Drake University in des moines. Bernie sanders, martin omalley, and Hillary Clinton will all be speaking in that order. They will take questions from audience members and cnn anchor chris cuomo. What do you expect to see the, and will it matter . Mark Bernie Sanders did some gotts with voters and emotional interactions with them. Even though they wont be on the stage at the same time, this is the last opportunity that we know of, less something gets again, for a big audience in iowa, though there is a big game that a lot of iowans will be watching. It is a high risk thing for all three of them, and also an opportunity. John yes, for sure. I want to take this opportunity to point out what a total mess this debate situation has been in the democratic party. It should be a debate, regular old debate. Last week before the iowa caucuses, we should have a final democratic debate in iowa. Instead, we have this jerryrigged candidate forum. Better than nothing, but no reason it shouldnt be a regular debate. The dnc screwed this up start to finish. Mark the question is what the audiences asked, put together by cnn, i understand it. Interesting to see how much of a rolet westerners and journalist role the questioners and journalists play confirming this. The stakes are high. It is the last big event. After this, it is all tv ads and campaigning and surrogates. After the break, the race for the republican nomination and the latest drama between frontrunners donald trump and ted cruz, with his word from our sponsors. Mark it is a distant memory now, those boring days when donald trump and ted cruz had their peace accord. The two republican frontrunners have been sniping at each other pretty much every opportunity they get. The latest is this new antitrump tv ad in South Carolina paid for by keep the promise, one of the main ted cruzbacking super pacs. Donald trump is not a conservative because he is extreme on abortion. Would President Trump ban partialbirth abortion . Mr. Trump im very choice. You would not ban it . No, im prochoice in every respect. Does this sound conservative . Mr. Trump i am prochoice in every respect. I am prochoice in every respect. Mark today, in what appeared to be something of a response to that cruz team attack, donald trump went on the web with this video. Thetrump the establishment, the media and what the donors, they are all against me. Im so funding my campaign. Anybodyowe anything. They are really trying to stop me. Everybody knows it, everybody sees it. Were going to win it for the people, when it for our country. Trump did an interview with cnn today, part of which aired this afternoon. He called cruz a nasty guy and a whack job. Getserception is that cruz the worst of the backandforth with donald trump. Does he fare any better in this exchange . John i think he handled it relatively well but i wish we could tv it from what we have ted cruzfew days, but on his back foot, donald trump ruz on front foot, c defense, not where he wants to be. Mark if this is super pac ad does not break through, if iowa voters dont look differently will get him. Ad it is well produced. We will see if it works. But with the backandforth between the two candidates, trump is still doing pretty well. Is strongink the ad but i continue to ask there is a reason we call him the teflon don. A lot of the information is not new information. Theay be new to voters, but things about ideological consistency, i dont think those will put a dent in donald trump. Mark the other thing is that cruz got rick perrys endorsement today. That is a big deal, a lot of media for that. John important in iowa, where rick perry had a little bit of a following and it could matter. Their grubby, tenderloin thumbs on the scales anyway . Yes, they have. I will governor kerry b iowa says he Terry Brandstad does not have the temperament to be president. Appearedor joni ernst with marco rubio in des moines. I dont think any castration took place. Why are these influential Iowa Republicans making these nonendorsement endorsements . Mark they all say they dont want to endorse because that could interfere with people participating and candidates coming to iowa, but all of them want to put their thumb on the scale. There is a question about whether voters can tell the difference between a nonendorsement endorsement and an endorsement. Ive no idea whether they can or not. I do know that joni ernst has been close to marco rubio for a while, and Charles Grassley and the governor would like to see trump beat cruz in the end. John i think, look, a nonendorsement endorsement could be as good as an endorsement if it brought with it fundraising, if it brought with it going around the state and doing a number of events, crowd building, get out the vote efforts. Onet is just one event, week out from the caucuses, or one of news media comment or something, taking a shot at a candidate, i dont think those things matter very much, because they dont stick. You can imagine a situation where the nonendorsement endorsement matters a lot but im not sure this is it. Mark i think at least one of them does, but i wont say which. This weekend, the New York Times reported that Michael Bloomberg am a former new york , is weighing a bid for the white house this year. He is considering a run if donald trump or ted cruz get the republican omniscient and Bernie Sanders wins the democratic contest. Of course, is to bloomberg is our boss, he owns the company we work for, but the editorial positions here are controlled by our editors. By whicha scenario there is a realistic path for Michael Bloomberg to run for president and win . John well, i think there is a realistic scenario but i dont think it is very likely. You and i have both covered my withbergs dalliances running for president on two successive cycles already. 2008 and 2012. The one thing i learned about it is he is a rationalist, he would only run if you could win. You can imagine a scenario if donald trump and ted cruz or Bernie Sanders were the nominees. I think even if you crunch the numbers, there is some chance you would come to the conclusion that it is not very likely, impossible to win, and probably in the end mayor bloomberg will end up not in this race. Mark very difficult for any independent to get 270 electoral votes. He has made clear he will only run if he can win. He is not interested in affecting the great or being a spoiler in any way. He wants a good chance to be president and there is a possibility with certain configurations the could happen. He set the deadline for march could it is possible we wont know who the nominees would be then and the clock might run out for him. It will take quite a constellation the stars and moons aligning for this to be a reality and i think those things are unlikely. Not impossible. John hard to imagine a scenario bernie we know sanders will be the democratic nominee by march. When we come back, Philip Rucker and Kathie Obradovich. John joining us now are phil rucker, correspondent for the washington post, and cap you brad lidge of Kathie Obradovich of the Des Moines Register. Want to talk about the democratic race, leading to phils at a store, but give us a sense of where things stand between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Kathie i dont think it could possibly be any closer. Apartre couple points and people are still making up their minds. Everything is going to matter. Do endorsements matter . Usually they dont, but this town hall tonight, no one can afford to make a step out of line. John you dont dispute the notion, though, that there is a large and easy as some gap between the sanders Enthusiasm Gap between the sanders forces and clinton forces . Which may not be decisive, but there is a gap. Weatherif we have bad and some people think, oh, well, i dont need to go but in a close race everybody gets enthusiastic and everybody thinks that their vote matters. John phil, you have a piece today with your colleague philip john wagner. John you have so many colleagues over there that i forget who is who. Wagner did the interview and you helped him write it up. It was striking, he was negative. Talkrs said he wanted to about certain policy. He is now as negative as Hillary Clinton is. Philip he has become a more traditionally combative candidate. He sees a chance to win and he sees the candidates coming his way from Hillary Clinton and he wants to fight back but he is initiating some of his own. He went after her speaking fees from Goldman Sachs and he told the john and interview that he thinks clinton is running a Desperate Campaign and there no sign of any enthusiasm or energy for her. That is not true. I was at her rally last night and there was a very big crowd. John used the word desperation at me a week ago and it has popped up again. I want to go to my friend Mark Halperin to take the interview in his own direction. Mark, where are you . Looking at then schedules of secretary clinton, senator sanders, the kinds of talking to, what is a tell you about the demography or geography in the last week . Kathie well, i think Hillary Clinton is making a hard pitch to younger women. I think we are seeing that with some of the groups she is meeting with and talking to, which is interesting. Young women are not necessarily really heavy voters. They are not reliable in getting their. Ying to push i think what Bernie Sanders is doing and needs to do is make sure that people see him around the state, not just in college towns. We got him, for example, on the east coast of iowa, and clinton in places like that. That is important. You cant afford to run the board in a college town. You have to have support statewide. Hil, as you talk to people i deal with people in both candidates, i wonder if you are sensing anything in the body language. Are the equally relaxed completely confident, equally upset . How would you compare the mood of the campaigns at this point . Philip they do seem equally confident. They both have pretty strong ground games. I think they are hoping for that. Certainly the Clinton Campaign is concerned about the surge from sanders and they are getting aggressive in how they fight back against him and we will have to see how these ground games work. Mark john . John guys, problems with our being in 2 separate cities. Talk to me about trumpcruz. Kathie we talked about whether iowa politicians are putting their thumb on the scale, and i think Terry Branstad put his elbow on the scale also. John that is not an image i wish to contemplate. Kathie the question i have is will republicans be able to come back together after this . This is not just a thumb in the eye of ted cruz but the evangelicals and the christian right supporting him. The bad feeling doesnt go away when the caucuses go away. This might be a lingering issue here in iowa politics. John this i keep asking about elbow on the scale, some in the eye thumb in the eye. Kathie political twister. John we know that trump and cruz, very clear they are the toptier for a long time. Do you imagine there is a surprise in the bronze medal race . Review is kind of established, according to the polling, as the thirdplace guy, but i keep thinking one of these other guys might surprise us. Philip rubio just got the Des Moines Register endorsement over the weekend and has got big crowds. For see a chance to contend a solid thirdplace and distance himself from the other establishment candidates to Chris Christie will be working this state hard. There is a debate on thursday. Maybe jeb bush will have a good night and a little bit of energy, too. John do you think if you look at the others, bush, kasich , really not in play at all, but lets say bush and christie. Who might be the breakthrough of those two . Kathie if Chris Christie breaks through it will surprise people and you get the beating expectation factor as well. It which mainstream candidate is going to beat jeb bush . It has sort of been bush and everybody else and right now it looks like rubio is the guy who can beat jeb bush. Kasey kahne Christie Hefner made little more of an effort to christie is the 1 john i hate at this moment after we just arrived in iowa to think about anything beyond the caucuses, but i will in this one instance, phil, ask you this question. Traditionally in church is not care about what happens in iowa traditionally New Hampshire does not care about what happens in iowa. If marco rubio finishes third in iowa welcome does that turn into anything in New Hampshire . Phili