tuesday. that's why floridians are about to get a fresh bombardment. sounds like a horror movie or a trailer from a horror movie. it's a tram trailer for another of those superpack -- what's almost certain is that it's designed to damage governor romney both now and further down the road. despite romney's momentum in florida, the gallup's national polling says the fight could rage on. gingrich has a hefty lead over romney. that eight-point gap is the widest it's been since polling began earlier this month. for now they give the gingrich camp reason to continue, whatever happens in florida, whatever happened last night. what's happening now in florida is the gingrich-romney brawl. it erupted in last night's debate. >> we discovered to our surprise, that governor romney owns shares in fannie mae and freddie mac. maybe governor romney in the spirit of openness how much minute he has made on households that have been foreclosed. >> the investments that we made, have been in mutual funds and bonds. i don't own stock in either fannie mae or freddie mac have you checked your own investments? you also have mutual funds that invest in fannie mae and freddie mac. >> speaker gingrich, you'll remember was a paid contractor for freddie mac to the tune of about $1.7 million for his group. he answered directly to freddie's chief lobbyist and former lawmakers say that gingrich did in fact lobby them. governor romney says that his shares were in a mutual fund which he has no control over. right there on page 7, it shows holdings by the w. mitt romney ira, which is not a blind trust of $100,000 to a quarter million dollars in bonds from fhlmc, that's freddie mac. and there's a similar investment in fnma, that's fannie mae. last night romney spoke of his blind trust saying it's almost a virtue saying it allowed him to avoid any conflicts of interest. >> the blind trust is an age old ruse if you will, which is to say, you can always tell a blind trust what it can and cannot do. you give a blind trust rules. >> getting back to today, speaker gingrich also has some consistency problems. turning to last night, he was trying to avoid any debate that didn't allow audience members to cheer or boo or applause. >> i wish i would have protested when brian williams took them out of it. because the immediate where is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidate against the media. and we're going to serve notice on future debates, we're not going to allow that to happen. that's wrong, the media doesn't control free speech people ought to be able to applaud if they want to. >> gingrich's campaign is complaining about the audience. the romney campaign definitely packed the room. keep in mind, there's simply no evidence of that. first both governor romney and speaker gingrich got plenty of cheers. here's a romney moment. >> it's simply the kind of over the top rhetoric that has characterized american politics for too long. i'm glad you were called out for it and i think it's recognized that having differences of opinion on issues does not justify labeling people with highly charges epithets. >> now here's a gingrich moment. >> i want to control the border, i want english to be the official language of government. >> as for packing the audience, here's how it worked. each campaign got 25 seats. the university got 100. the other roughly 1,000 seats were allocated by florida's republican party which is not aligned with any one candidate. it distributed tickets to registered republican voters who are not known to be supporters of any candidate. digging deep now, let's go to john king. >> 25 delegates in iowa, the biggs prize is florida, it votes on tuesday, 50 delegates at stake there. if you look at the polling, the latest polling shows governor romney with 18 points over speaker gingrich. where we go next is nevada, 28 delegates at stake when nevada inform holds it caucuses on february 4. the asterisk here because missouri has a primary on this day, the delegates will actually be awarded a bit later in the process. then maine, ron paul was inin maine today. 21 delegates at stake. two big primaries in the month, arizona and michigan. this gets you through the end of february. if the race is then going on, wow, march is a huge month. 17 states, plus some u.s. territories, 755 delegates total at play in the month of march. so we're going to end january in florida, arizona in michigan and then february. and if the races on, a very very consequential march. >> david david, gingrich's performance last night has played to the narrative, when he's good, he's very, very good, and when he's not, he's not. >> it was one of the great mysteries last night, anderson and cnn pollsters have been doing some polling and one of the things he did yesterday was he held three events and romney held one and rested and prepared for the debate. from all aechss, newt gingrich walked in unprepared thinking he would wing it. and romney's team did a little better preparing him. there's a number of people telling him to cool it. don't be so hot. all of that played into the newt gingrich in south carolina who lost both debates and has contributed to an overwhelming sense now that it's romney's to lose on tuesday in florida and it's a hugely consequential primary. >> i heard gloria gingrich on the campaign trail saying that he was sort of quieter last night because he was so stunned at the misinformation, the incorrect things that romney was saying he kind of wanted to fact check it and he was kind of looking down at his feet at times. >> i think that's a pretty goods explanation and spin from newt gingrich. i have covered newt gingrich for a really long time. i coffvered him when he was speaker of the house. one thing about gingrich is he's much more comfortable as a back bencher when he's throwing the bombs, than when he has to take a leadership position. he went into this debate essentially with a lot of momentum from south carolina, he's very good at this, he wanted the audience, he wanted to play to the audience and he was getting the kind of advice, which is okay, now you're at the front-runner, you have to start amealing to a wider swathe, because if you're going to be the nominee, you're going to have to take it the entire way. i think he didn't have much of a strategy and i think he was uncomfortable for the first time. he seemed really uncomfortable to me. and also don't forget, hmitt romney was flummoxed most of the time. >> when romney stood up to him, to kind of turn things on the elite media, as he has done in ever debate. and governor romney also stepped in and i thought that was also kind of interesting and sort of flummoxed him. but can he turn it around, david? >> i don't think he can turn it around in the next few days. romney has three to one for beginning rip. >> for him to show up tired and then to come last night and to be flat, you know, and rather than having a strategy as gloria points out, sort of come inivel style. it's one of the great mysteries of life. mitt romney by contrast, a good organization change changed his debate codes this week an clearly benefits from it. >> if gingrich doesn't win florida, is there a space on the calendar in the weeks ahead for him to come back into the game. >> it's very difficult, it will be very difficult. first of all it's going to be more difficult to raise them all. >> this is a guy that has come back from the dead multiple times. >> i know, exactly. but, you know, the states that are coming up that john king pointed out like nevada, michigan are very positive towards mitt romney. he'll be heading into supertuesday with the deficit. and it does get harder to raise money when you're not succeeding on the campaign trail. and i think that it would be difficult for him. there is the superpac as i said. but i do think what gingrich has to do is convince tea party voters that he is the conservative who can represent them. and i think santorum, even though he's not going to win in florida still stands in his way as he saw in the debate the other night and he also has to convince people that he's the anti-establishment candidate and that gets more and more difficult when people realize that he cement the last few decades in washington a. >> david, gloria, thank you very much. let us know what you think on facebook. up next, the hunt for a killer who earned his release by getting to know mississippi's former governor haley barbour. the governor is speaking out to try to justify pardoning this guy. he's on the loose, no one knows where he is and authorityings would like to. later we get a rare up close look inside the battle for syria. opposition forces getting remarkably close to damascus. this thing is spiraling out of control very quickly. >> we have got a follow-up of the italian cruise ship disaster you will not believe. remember the cruise line offered a discount on their next cruise. and here's what they're offering for a settlement. 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>> only osmond's family seem to know what he's doing now. but on a december night in 1992, he and his friends planned to rob the convenience store to get some christmas store. this is joseph osmond's confession, he admits coming in this store with a friend. when his friend walked in, he immediately shot ricky montgomery. and he saw ricky montgomery crawling on the floor and he shot him again. he did all of this so his take in this crime could be between $50 and $60. >> my son was begging for help. we can't imagine how that feels. >> reporter: he was begging ozmond? >> and then to shoot him in the head, to know that he was all alone. that's the worst thing that you know can't help someone you love. >> he pled guilty right up on the second floor there. >> reporter: ozmond was -- they spared him from the death penalty in exchange for his system. >> ozmond already proved he can't live in our society by our rules and he committed the ultimate act by taking someone's life, so, no, he should never get out. >> reporter: the last time mississippi authorities saw joseph ozmond, he walked off the grounds of the governor's mansion, his mother picked him up and drove off. they believe he's hiding on these country roads. >> he's avoiding service. his mother knows it, all of their relatives know. we have been there knocking on doors. >> are they cooperating? >> reporter: according to the attorney general they have been able to make contact with several of the relatives and they haven't been able to get anywhere with that part of the search. and obviously people around here in northwest mississippi have their eyes out for him. they have heard so much about this case over the last three weeks. we got a lead on what we believe was a relative of joseph osment, and we knocked on the door and nobody came to the door. when somebody says look, this person's got a piece of paper staying he's a pardoned prisoner, he could travel all over the world. the situation is getting worse, the death toll surging. what a cnn crew found when it traveled just a short distance today. carnival cruise line makes a settlement offer to the people who survived the ship's accident. an accident doesn't have to slow you down... with better car replacement, available only from liberty mutual insurance, if your car is totaled, we give you the money to buy a car that's one model-year newer... with 15,000 fewer miles on it. there's no other auto insurance product like it. better car replacement, available only from liberty mutual. it's a better policy that gets you a better car. call... or visit one of our local offices today, and we'll provide the coverage you need at the right price. liberty mutual auto insurance, responsibility -- what's your policy? in syria, disturbing signs that things could be spinning out of control. 12 people have been killed in the last two days. we can't confirm the report and we can't verify the video you're about to see either. this video is extremely hard to look at. members of the same family were killed. all but three of them were children. you can see six of the bodies in body bags. the violence in syria has become so wide spread and hard to track, the united nations has stopped counting the dead. it's last official death toll more than 5,000. our cnn crew drove to central damascus. it wasn't manned by the syrian military, it was manned by the free syrian army. >> reporter: follow us, the armed and masked men say. they are members of the free syrian army. a group of us journalists had banded together to see how far we could get. we had heard of a funeral in the neighborhood. few expected the syrian army to also control this much territory around it. we're hardly a 15-minute drive from the heart of damascus, and you can see the scene here. no one's stopped us on our way and this group seems to be part of the free syrian army. the activist in our car points out the syrian fighting positions. at the main square amid calls for the regime and basha's execution, the three syrian army fighters are hailed as heroes. we are getting stopped by people who want to show us the various bullet holes in the ceiling. this man says up there a rocket hit and they have managed to repair that for now. but everybody's coming, really wanting to get the story out, wanting their perspective to be seen and heard and for people to understand what it is they're going through, because they say all they're asking for is freedom. all of a sudden, chaos. rumor that the security forces are coming causes mass panic. everyone here knows firsthand what a that means. it was a false alarm but we heard the government forces had the city surrounded. is there anything up ahead? these men ask us at a check point. they point us in another direction. that way is also blocked. we could hear gunshots in the distance. a small group of activists takes us down back routes. the government may control the heart of damascus but it's losing more by the day. >> are you shocked to see check points run by the syrian army. these are defectors from asaad's forces so close to damascus. >> reporter: we were quite surprised that it was literally less than a minute after we came off the main highway that we came across the checkpoint. the free army seems to be growing and gaining more and more territory. they are not perhaps in full control of these particular areas, but then again, neither, it seems, is the government. when we were in the city with the governor a few days ago, there was only one neighborhood that they felt was safe enough for us to get out of the car and start filming it. >> how strong is the syrian army. because a few months ago it was just a random group of defectors here and there. and where do they get their numbers from? >> reporter: they are made up mostly of defectors but the group we came across today, they had civilians amongst them as well that decided to pick up and join the free syrian army's ranks. everyone here had military experience because everyone has to go through a few years of obligatory military duty. sometimes they're able to take weapons with them. sometimes they're able to buy weapons off of other soldiers. and they say when clashes take place, the syrian forces leave weapons behind and then you have the guns being smuggled into the country. >> some say that a jeanie has been let out of the bottle, explain that. >> reporter: the great concern is that neither side really has full control over the situation. the government is trying to maintain this firm stance, but we keep seeing chunks of territory spiraling out of control. the street which is the engine behind this entire movement operates independently of the organizations that are outside of the country, like the syrian national council. add to that, even the street level activists do not really operate as one cohesive factor. you have these undertones of sectarian violence. when you look at this entire picture, it most certainly seems as if the country is on a collision course toward some sort of sectarian or civil war. >> dangerous and difficult days ahead, no doubt. ahead on the program tonight, outrage over all the animals left behind in the wake of japan's nuclear disaster. they have been fending for themselves in this no man's land. it was evacuated almost a year ago. our correspondent goes in to see how the animals are doing. anderson, some of the passengers that were in the cruise ship that crashed off the coast have filed lawsuits against the cruise line. costa cruise is offering $45,000. a federal judge sentenced colton -- barefoot bandit. harris moore is already serving more than seven years on charges in washington state. the sentences will run concurrently. a routes group is trying to get the industrial canal -- and the 17th street levee broke in the storm's aftermath. and, anderson, it is time to get your cocoa fix on. it is national chocolate cake day. we thought that every day chocolate cake day, but apparently we stand corrected. >> every day should be chocolate cake day. time now for the shot. on my daytime talk show, we did something called the anderson's mystery guest. i have to guest who's behind the s