here. everybody has welcomed us so warmly. we appreciate it. a thought of enthusiasm in the state of south carolina tonight, and we begin with raw paul tblgs. down to the bire. the primary, first in the south is tomorrow. newt gingrich is siurging. mitt romney is admitting that tomorrow end in defeat for him. speaker gingrich has come back, had a strong performance in a debate monday night and a strong performence last night. >> your ex-wife gave an interview with abc news. in it, she said you came to her in 1999, at a time where you were having an affair, she said you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. would you like to take time to respond to that. >> no, but i will. i think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office, and i'm appalled that you would begin tapresidential debate on a tuppic like that. >> is that all you want to say, sir? >> let me finish. >> please. >> every person in here knows personal pain. every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. to take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary, a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything i can imagine. >> last night, our david gergen called that the most dramatic moment in debate history. abc news is pushing back hard on another claim, that he offered up his friends from back then to refute the story. he said they weren't interested, but they said, quote, we would have been pleased to bring forlth anyone they brought forward. here is gary tuchman. >> on the day before the polls open in south carolina, a new tactic for newt gingrich on the question of his relationship with the second wife. >> mr. speaker, is it valid to bring up personal issues in the campaign? >> a reporter who tripped seemed to get his attention, so we asked again. >> are personal issues va s val the campaign to bring up. >> his answer is a 180 from yesterday when he was standing with his wife and was asked a question by a man attending one of his rallies. >> i have been open to mistakes i made, going to god for the secrets of conciliation. >> then thee talked about it about reporters. >> this is an issue i confront every time it comes up, and people seem to be satisfied with it. you watched the audience. >> the next president. >> during the last two days, gingrich's crowds have grown bigger and clolouder as the sta get larger. on the eve of the iowa caucuses and the new hampshire primary, but knew he wasn't going to win, but he believes victory in south carolina is within his grasp. >> if we win on saturday with your help, i believe i will become the nominee because i think south carolina in fact has an enormous impact. you picked the winner every single primary since 1980. and i believe that we will go on to win florida and then we'll go on to win the nomination. >> do you think it's critical that you win here in south carolina? >> i think it's critical you win as often as you can. this is -- the number one thing we now know is that when this becomes a two-person race, that romney has a huge problem because he's too liberal for most republican voters. >> as gingrich's poll numbers have increased, so have his sphe spirits. he's belted out the one-liners talking about president obama's visit to disney world. >> the president standing with mickey mouse on one side and gingrich on the other. >> if it doesn't have a strong performance in south carolina which neighbors his home state of georgia, he'll be increasingly unlikely to hear things like this for real. >> mr. president -- >> not yet, but with your help. >> gary tuchman, cnn, charleston, south carolina. >> joining us now, our political panelists with us, former jourj w. bush secretary, ari fleisc r fleischer, eric erickson, and roeld rolen martin. is this surge so powerful he could win tonight? >> absolutely. >> do you think he will? >> i do. i predict newt gingrich is going to win south carolina. i spoke to several leading south carolina republicans today who know the state in and out. and they thought he would win by a small margin. i spoke to a pollster who thinks he's going to win big. the ground has it started shifted monday. i think he wins. >> do you agree with the prediction, and what went wrong for romsny. >> the debate on monday and then the debate last night sealed it for him. gingrich had a huge amount of momentum. after monday, the polling shifted dramatically, and last night locked it in. this was also a proxy fight between the governor who endorsed mitt romney and the speaker who endorsed gingrich. he's fired it up to get grass roots activists to get to the polls tomorrow, and i think newt is going to win. >> if he does win, what do you think that means moving forward? >> the same thing we said on the night of the iowa caucus. this is going to be a fight to the end over a period of months. far too many journalist say he wins two, three, four, and it's over. absolutely not. perry drops out this week. what happened if santorum comes in fourth, will he stay in? ron paul is not going anywhere. this is going to go until april or may. >> ron paul is not leaving? >> at the end of the day, this is a race for delegates. this is not how many states you win. can you get to 1445. so mitt romney's focus should be on the long run. >> if santorum stays in, do you think he'll place fourth. is paul strong enough for a third? >> he is strong enough for a third. you had the eval jengelicals co out and endorse santorum. and i think you'll start seeing them rally towards gingrich against romney in florida. and florida has had its delegates cut. this is a race for delegates, not states. you're only going to have 5% of delegates selected by the end of this month. you have 95% of the delegates still out there. >> they both want to be the lone conservative standing, they're not willing to blink. >> santorum has 93 chance to blink. newt can assemble something. santorum had a great night in iowa. it is going to come down to a newt/romney race, with ron paul hanging in there. if mitt romney could have delivered the knockout punch, he would have chased everybody out of the race. >> the money will flow to gingrich in a way it didn't. and santorum could go to all 99 counties in iowa. >> you think evangelicals in florida will go to santorum. they're supporting gingricgingr. >> the issue with the ex-wife, does that turn evangelicals against him? he's beating santorum among evangelcons 2-1, and he's seen as a southern evangelical. >> after last night, we can forget the notion that the gop is a fparty of family values. if they're saying newt is okay, they're saying the stuff they have said for 30 years is irrelevant. throw that out. >> no. >> come on now, you can't say it's about morality, about character. you talk about morality, character, integrity. that tells me when you say that's the most important thing, obviously, now, it's not the most important thing. >> in a field of flawed candidates, you go with the best against barack obama. >> whatever the balance newt gets out of here is going to be a submerged balance. don't write mitt romney off in florida. this keeps going. >> this is really has been a fascinating race. everybody has been in the lead at one time or another. how far can it go? at what point will there be -- >> until somebody hits 1445. >> remember, after florida, a lot of the initial races after florida favor mitt romney. then you get into super tuesday with texas, georgia has the largest field outside of texas, which actually texas has moved beyond that, so you'll have georgia, newt's home state, dominating super tuesday. >> this will turn into what i said early on, who will do well in the west, the southwest, the southeast, the midwest. it wasn't all about one person can knock it all out. that's what it boils down to. >> on the other hand, everybody's predictions have been wrong. >> they are every year, but we keep making them. what else are we going to talk about. thanks very much. let us know what you think. we're on facebook, google plus, follow me on twitter at anderson cooper. ahead, we got word from a top gingrich adviser, predict the margin of victory tomorrow. he's predicted it. we'll tell you what he said. also tonight, we'll take a look at the tradition of dirty tricks here in south carolina. newt gingrich becoming a target of a fake e-mail sent to republican voters claiming -- we'll tell you about it after the break. >> politics down here can be very, very rough, plus a lot more on romney's eroding advantage and what may be responsible for it. >> also new developments in the cruise disaster. stunning developments about what the captain did after the ship hit the rocks. that's not all. we're keeping them honest. for a limited time, passages malibu will be giving away free copies of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. welcome back. we're here with a very large crowd on the campus of the college of charleston. one of the most beautiful college campuses i have ever seen. we have late word from the gingrich campaign tonight. in fact, you can call it boasting, really. one of his top south carolina advisers is predicting a win and predicting the margin of that win by four to six points. newt gingrich seemed to use last night as a springboard as he did the debate on monday. for mitt romney, it may have been a stumbling block. he has struggled with two perceptions, that he's out of touch with americans and he's a flip-flopper. fair or not, he's had a hard time shaking the charges and he had a hard time last night. >> back in 1969, your father set a ground breaking standard in american policy. he released his tax return. he released them not for one year but for 12 years. will you follow your father's example? >> maybe. you know, i don't know how many years i'll release. i'll take a look at what your documents are -- and i'll release a multiple years, i don't know how many years, but i'll be aphappy to do that. let me tell you, i know there are some who are anxious to see if they can't make it more difficult for a campaign to be success. i know the democrats want to go after the fact i have been successful. i'm not going to apologize for the fact i have been successful. >> the was last night. we caught up with governor romney today. >> you were booed and jeered -- >> talking about the tax return. >> from the audience, and different campaign s cheer and boo based on their campaign. >> if i could finish my question, are you concerned that the way you have answered that question might feed into the feeling that some republicans have that you are a waffler? >> no, at the very beginning, i indicated i hadn't any plans to release my tax returns. then it became clear that was of great interest to everyone. >> jim accososta joins us with gloria borger and john king. they were cruising sooteal the victory with three states, he didn't turn out to win iowa, and it's possible he could lose in south carolina. what happened? >> a number of things, number one as you discussed in the previous discussion, speaker gingrich attacking the news media, also has proven for month he's a strongest of these candidates in the debate settings. and if you looked at romney's camp, not releasing the tax returns has fed into the perception it's about mitt romney, and his debate performances haven't been as steady. romney seems a little shaky. playing it safe because they thought they had a double digit lead. i talked to a top romney campaign adviser who conceded throw the momentum was going the other way, they hoped the organization could pull out a victory, but their expectation tonight is that gingrich wins. >> i want to play a clip of mitt romney's trying to lower expectations here in south carolina. take a look. >> speaker gingrich is from a neighboring state, well known, popular in the state. i knew we would have a long road ahead of us. to be in a neck and neck race at this last moment is kind of exciting. >> it sounds like he's already trying to come up with a reason for a loss here. >> it does, anderson. you have to keep in mind during the cnn debate, he called newt gingrich a creature of washington. here he is saying he hails from a neighboring state. he's trying to clean up what looks like a loss in south caroli carolina. we should point out he has had conflicting statements all week on the tax returns. monday night, he said he might release them. tuesday, he said i'll release the 2011 returns. today, he said i'll have multiple returns later on this spring. and he's trying to turn the tables and say newt gingrich, you release the ethics report you had in the 1990s. that's already online, available online. >> and gingrich blasted mitt romney for saying, release anything, essentially, you have no business talking about releasing anything if you won't release your tax returns. >> the irony is what does mitt romney have to hide. he told people he played a 15% rate. people want to lower taxes. not raise taxes. people already know that he tithes his income to the mormon church. there doesn't seem to be anything to side, so why make it seem as if there is? the bottom line is mitt romney seems very uncomfortable in talking about his own personal wealth. that has become a problem with him because he's trying to relate to middle class voters and he hasn't managed to make that connection. >> why do you think that is? why the lack of comfort talking about it, and the question you asked last night, and you know, mentioning his father releasing 12 years of his returns, it highlighted his discomfort. >> they have known for years this was coming. it was a slielt issue, his wealth, in the last campaign. the obama campaign, before some of his republican rivals took tup, and that's where it was complicated, if it was just the democratic campaign, he could say in the republican primary, i'm not going to bow to the democrats. but santorum and perry added it on, too. why? they were looking for something that would work to stop romney's momentum. i talked to one of his top campaign advisers, and they said he has nothing to hide. he's a private person and they're having a hard time at the staff level convincing him he needs to be more transparent. he has released a financial disclosure sheet. he views this as an invasion of privacy, but they have stressed the urgency of figuring it out. >> in florida, where his race moves next, there are two debates scheduled for next week. it's amazing, the degree to which speaker gingrich has been able to use these debates to propel himself forward. >> you know, the debates for newt gingrich have been the primaries that he's on because once he sort of got on the landscape there, he is a terrific debater. he's also a knife fighter. he is very good at attack politics. he knows how to deit in a debate. you saw what happened last night in the debate. mitt romney gave him a bye on the personal allegations against him, and he went right back at mitt romney. didn't say thank you, just started getting him on the taxes. you can assume he's going to continue doing this because he want to show republicans that he's a fighter and he can go up against barack obama. mitt romney has to show that he can battle. >> mitt romney still is the one who has the organization, who has the ground forces and the money. >> that's right, and this race changes once it gets outside of south carolina. newt gingrich can claim victory and it will be a big victory. romney was mr. inevitable on monday. he's not that person anymore, but when it gets to florida, we're talking about multiple media markets where it takes lots of money to campaign, and mitt romney has the organization on the ground and the super pac that is going to flood the zone the way it has south carolina. >> inevability isn't a campaign term. >> we should mention one thing, gingrich and romney may be at the same place tomorrow on the campaign trail. they're supposed to be in tommy's ham house, sort of the ham handed way it has been handled this week. maybe not a lot of ham on hand. >> thanks very much. john as well, still ahead, raw politics. the latest dirty tricks in south carolina. a lot of heistry in the state. phony e-mails send to republicans on the eve of the primary. newt gingrich the target of the spear mootonight. >> also, disturbb new details of how long it took the crew on the cruise ship to reaction to the disaster. there's a new video where you see crew members telling people to go back to their rooms, every is under control. welcome back. we're near the college of charleston tonight in south carolina. a huge crowd here. hundreds of people, actually. a lot of people turning out. a lot of excitement in the state about what is going to happen tomorrow. we want to focus on the raw politics, dirty tricks in south carolina aimed at stopping newt gingrich's momentum. a phony e-mail that was made to look like a cnn news alert was sent to republicans in south carolina from a fake e-mail account. here's what it said, and again, this is completely fake. a source close to marianne gingrich tells cnn that former house speaker newt gingrich forced her to abert a pregnancy that preceded her marriage to gingrich. cnn didn't send this e-mail. it's not true. it's false. it comes on the heels of marianne gingrich giving the interview to abc that caused controversy. the second is newt gingrich responds to allegations. it says, i have said many times that i am not a perfect human being and i have made mistakes in my life. this is one of them. again, this is all fake. it sounds like a confession, but it's fake. wheer is what gingrich said about the e-mails today. >> i am sick of the kind of dishonest campaigns that we see. where people go out and fake someone else's material for the purpose of causing trouble 24 hours before a primary. this is not worthy of our children and grandchildren and it's not worthy of america. it's not funny. it's not a game. it undermines our capacity to govern ourselves. >> dirty politics, most definitely. surprising in south carolina? not all that surprising. here is tom foreman. >> i'm sick santorum. >> with the race steadily tightening, they're making sure south carolinians know, he went on laura ingram's show and endorsed mitt romney. >> there's only one place to go right now, and that's mitt romney. >> problem is, that was in 2008. santorum calls it another case of dirty pool in a state famous for that. >> massachusetts moderate mitt romney, he can't be trusted. >> ron paul is not a moderate republican. >> ads filled with half truths and innuendos are filling the air wave and internet. santorum's wife was attacked in a flyer about a relationship with a doctor before she met santorum. it says, did you know rick santorum's wife karen had a six-year affair with an abortionist. in 2008, fake christmas cards, supposingly from his wife and mitt romney, appeared reminding people of the mormon faith. they drew a parallel between obama's campaign and jesse jackson. and in 2000, as george w. bush battled john mccain, an anonymous rumor arose that mccain's adopted daughter was from an affair with a black woman. not true. why did things get so raw in the state? it's simple. those candidates who are leading want to knock everybody out of the race, and those who are trailing see it as the last chance to throw some punches no matter how dirty it gets. tom foreman, cnn, washington. >> a lot of mud flying around south carolina. joining me, david gergen and gloria borger. it's harkable, the history of dirty politics. >> it's always been a contact sport in south carolina. we're see aglot of it this year, but overall, i have to tell you, i think we're seeing lisz this year. there's not as much race being ejected into the campaig