elections center. it is on to south carolina for the republicans who would be president with mitt romney looking to run his win streak to three and to use his dramatic momentum to raise millions more this month. the texas governor rick perry is among those vowing to stop romney in south carolina. he's right here to answer republicans who say attacks on the frontrunner's business record are over the line. just wait until you see governor perry's backdrop. a plot worthy of a spy model. a bomb attached to the car of an iranian nuclear scientist who's dead tonight and nobody knows who did it. the fight for the republican nomination roared into south carolina today, and with its full cast of characters. mitt romney's easy win last night in new hampshire didn't convince any of his rivals to drop out. instead they now insist south carolina is january 21st primary will be a real race, not a coronation. cnn's jim acosta caught up with rick santorum in south carolina. >> this is a long process. half the people who voted yesterday weren't even republicans. so the idea that he's wrapped up the republican nomination because he won by eight votes in iowa and he won his home state is just silly. >> are you going to challenge his record down here? >> we're going to challenge everything. >> team romney knows those challenges are coming. their hope keep the candidate above the fray and let the tv ads and the surrogates deal with the back and forth. south carolina takes pride in settling gop nomination contests. it also has a history of rather bruising campaigns. peter's in the south carolina state capitol tonight. peter, if he starts 3-0 he's almost impossible to stop. what's the line of attack in south carolina? >> well, we've been hearing the line over the last few days. we heard newt gingrich sort of back off today. spending five years down here talking to voters, the fundamental issue with mitt romney is trust. even the voters who are for mitt romney are voting for him because they think they can beat barack obama not because they believe he will be a conservative who will appeal obama care who will appoint their kind of judges to the supreme court. so i can tell you there's at least one campaign a very tough mail piece that's going to be hitting mailboxes very soon. whatever these guys can do to soften up mitt romney whether it's on social issues or he's an out of touch elitist or he's flip flopped, any of these things can work over the next 10 days. >> so peter, governor romney lived this four years ago and he ex or sides his ghosts in iowa and demons in new hampshire. he was in strong position early on in south carolina four years ago. those attacks the same type of attacks worked. is hi prepared this time? does he have a better infrastructure and team in place to rebut them? >> he has a much smaller team in place but he's much more confident here. the same reason he was confident in iowa. he didn't try to talk to those voters that care about abortion and same-sex marriage. they might not even be with him in the first place. he's talking to business-minded voters, moderates, people who are concerned about electability. yes, 60% of voters here are born again or evangelical. but guess what? 40% aren't. and he's still leading among evangelical voters. he's confident he can talk about the economy in a state where the unemployment rate is almost 10%. i talked to a county chair who said he can even win up here in the evangelical upstate because the number one concern here is jobs. and mitt romney knows that. as long as he keeps talking about it he's going to be okay or at least near the front of the pack in the polls, john. >> interesting ten days ahead. peter, thank you. jon huntsman insists his third place showing in new hampshire will give his campaign new life. but south carolina's voters are more conservative. and the former utah governor today began courting them. >> you have creative destruction in capitalism, which has always been a part of capitalism. it becomes a little disingenuous to take on bank capital. i think it's more instructive to look at governor romney's record as governor. he was elected to represent his people for four years. what did he do for the economy? he didn't deliver any big, bold economic proposals. i delivered the largest tax cut in the history of my state, a flat tax as well. >> ron paul now fresh off a second place showing in new hampshire. his campaign officials telling cnn they will spend about $1 million down in south carolina paying for television, radio ads, a bill direct mail operation and appearances by the congressman like this one today. >> what we want to do is reverse the trend of this country for not only a few years or a few elections, it's a reversal of probably 100 years of slipping and sliding away from our constitution. >> and while governor romney is campaigning, his team is trying to add ann exclamation point to his strong start. i'm told when his finance team met today in boston they set a goal of raising at least $5 million more by the end of this month, the month of january. with his business record more and more under fire, mitt romney's come up with a line designed to prove it's an asset, not a liability. with an eye on the general election he started telling people he's created more jobs than president obama. here's how he put it this morning on abc. >> every time we have had a reduction in unemployment it was designed to try and make the business more successful and ultimately to grow it. and tens of thousands of jobs created by virtue of the work that we were doing. i'm pretty proud of that record. a heck of a lot better than the president's record. he lost almost 2 million jobs during his tenure. >> he tried a slightly different variation on cnbc. >> i'm pretty happy to show my record of job creation. actually my job creation record in the private sector has created more jobs than president obama has created in the entire country. so i'll be happy to post up against him. >> chief business correspondent alley velshi, let's leave the posting up for the basketball for later. can governor romney back up that claim that in the private sector he created more jobs than president obama has created in the entire economy the past three years? >> no and no. first of all, president obama in his tenure in office which started in january of 2009, the number of jobs lost in that time has been 4.3 million. okay? so if you look at the raw numbers, he's lost a lot of jobs have been lost under president obama's tenure. you can hold him responsible or not. here's the thing. two-thirds of those jobs have been recovered. so president obama can also talk about job creation. raw numbers he's created more jobs than mitt romney did. how many jobs did mitt romney create? he claims 100,000 while he was the head of bane capital. bane doesn't keep figures on these. these are from major companies like staples that hired people. they don't know what the numbers are. so a, we don't know how many mitt romney created. b, let me just remind you, president obama, two-thirds have come back. at the pace of job creation that we're on that we've been polling economists it's entirely possible that president obama could make up the entire 4.3 million job deficit by november. so the trend is not mitt romney's friend right now. i don't know whether he's right or wrong but the trend isn't with him. >> and he knows that the obama campaign if he is the nominee, let's underscore that if, but if he's the nominee he knows they're going to say bane like some of the republicans are saying bane was heartless. ripped profits out of this company and laid the workers off, zested the employment situation. governor romney says president obama has first-hand experience at that, too. let's listen. >> by the way, in the general election i'll be pointing out that the president took the reins of general motors and chrysler, closed factories, closed dealerships, laid off thousands and thousands of workers. he did it to try and save the business. we also had on occasion to do things that are tough to try to save a business. >> fair comparison? >> absolutely a fair comparison. in fact, the people that the government put into place when they took over general motors were people from the private equity world. that is exactly how the private equity world works. it's like burning a forest to enrich the soil kind of thing. it is what they do. there's a valid argument as to whether there should be companies that profit from taking other companies and closing parts down and selling them off for profit. but that is what private equity does. so until we decide that's either wrong, immoral or illegal it is what they do. it is what bane did and what mitt romney did. and it is as he described what the government of the united states did when it took over general motors. >> we're going to be doing a lot over the next ten months to keep all the candidates accountable on this economy. ali, appreciate your time tonight. now a look ahead at the path ahead in the race for 2012. our chief political analyst gloria borgers, one of the questions people are asking what are we learning so far? only two states but some people say is there enough republican intensity? we go back to the iowa caucuses in -- in 2012 republicans beat that number. so republicans said not great but not so bad. i would remind you george w. bush did not win iowa this year. democrats won again in 2008. we'll see. iowa's a swing state this time. now let's move over to the state of new hampshire. again democrats are crowing. they say this isn't all that impressive if you're going to beat the incumbent president, 2000, 2008, this is our ballpark number. 248,000 for 2012. do you read anything into this? is there any evidence of pro or con intensity gap? >> the secretary of state predicted 250,000. so they're kind of on target for that. but when you think about the overall turnout and you think that almost half of those people were actually independents, that could be a problem for the republican party. because there is enthusiasm to get rid of barack obama as president of the united states. is there as much enthusiasm for their candidates? now, the polls that we looked at, the exit polls last night showed that 61% of the people said, you know, if romney were the nominee that's fine. over 60% said, you know, we're satisfied. pretty satisfied with our candidates. but is it overwhelming at this point? maybe not. >> at this point maybe not. so let's look at our next battle ground, south carolina. if governor romney can go 3-0, most people think he's very hard to stop. let's take a look at some of the questions here. number one, the darker the area here the higher the percentage of people who self-identify as evangelicals. in our poll before new hampshire, governor romney was leading among south carolina evangelicals. if he can break even there, he wins the state. but the question is, do they decide to rally around one candidate? >> well, it's interesting listening to what peter was saying to you earlier, evangelicals don't vote on just one issue. yes, they're skeptical about mitt romney because he's a mormon. they believe that he's not totally dependable on social issues such as abortion. but evangelical voters vote on the economy. and if mitt romney's message on the economy gets through, he could very well win with evangelicals. we just don't know. >> the next test of republican intensity, republican unity in the great state of south carolina. gloria borger, thank you. still to come here, a pilot explain as video now going viral on the internet. he says despite how this looks it isn't really that unsafe. okay. plus some conservatives would prefer one or two candidates quit. so there's one challenger on mitt romney's right. rick perry joins us next. if you think he'd consider stepping aside, wealthy again. -- well, think again. >> i'm sure there's some supernatural occurrence that could occur but i can't think of anything in the natural world that would cause me to drop out of the race. guin: ..row. lile cbby one to yell row! guineaig: ro's kof strange. guinig: row...row. such a simple word... row. anncr: t an easierayof strange. save. get online. go to geico.com. get a quote. e u 15% or more on car insurance. . rick perry almost quit the republican presidential race after losing in the iowa caucuses. to be fair governor perry didn't compete in new hampshire in the past week to make a stand in south carolina. he joins us this evening from the gun rack in aiken, south carolina. governor looking at that backdrop i get the impression i'd better be on my best behavior in this interview here. >> this is just a great example of our constitution and the second amendment, john. so it's a lot of people in south carolina and many other states are great believers in that second amendment. as a matter of fact, i think we've had two of the best gun sale years in american history. >> i assume that will be one of the issues in the week ahead. speaker gingrich said last night, south carolina is a must win state for him. for rick perry is it win or go home? >> well, we're here to win. i mean, that's the purpose that we're in the race. so i think the south carolina voter really resonates with the leadership that we talk about, about getting this country back on track from the standpoint or who is it that's got the record of creating jobs. who is it that knows how to cut taxes and cut regulations, get america working again. and i'm it. the question is, do you think if you change one insider that's at the white house now with another insider that it's going to make any difference? and the answer is no. >> as you try to make that case, sir, as you know a big group of conservatives, evangelical and other conservatives are meeting this weekend. as you know many of them share your concerns about governor romney as the nominee. if they come out of that meeting and many of them are big-time, long-time supporters of rick perry. if they come out of that meeting and say conservatives should coalesce around somebody else, say senator santorum, are there any circumstances under which you would bow out before the south carolina primary? >> i'm sure there's some sort of supernatural occurrence but i can't think of anything in the natural world that would cause me to drop out of the race. we're running on our record. we're running as a leader that is overhaul washington, d.c. and i'm taking my message to the people of south carolina, not a small group of individuals, certainly not the media, not a group of establishment republicans that say here's who needs to be our nominee. i think the american people and south carolinians in particular are smart enough to figure out who they want as the next president of the united states. and i think they want someone with a track record and someone that will stand up and make the hard decisions and the tough decisions, but get america back working again, someone that shares their values whether it's the standpoint of the judeo-christian values that our foungd fathers established this country on. that's what south carolina voters are going to be looking for. >> you've been very tough in recent days about mitt romney's tenure as the ceo of bane capital suggesting, my words not yours that he was heartless and greedy and that this company went in not looking to rescue companies but to pull out money and make profits fans the workers lost their jobs so be it. i want you to listen to your own tough language. >> they're just vultures. they're vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick. and then they swoop in. they eat the carcass. they leave with that. and they leave the skeleton. >> ronald reagan used to say "thou shalt not speak ill of another republican." what are you trying to say about governor romney's character here? >> americans are looking for leadership and for somebody that understands how to create jobs, not somebody that is in the business of destroying jobs. >> as you know, much of the republican establishment is cringing at these attacks on mitt romney. you mentioned wall street. i want to read you from the editorial page of the "wall street journal" today. it is hardly a liberal mouth piece, sir. very conservative newspaper "about the best that can be said about republican attacks on mitt romney's record on bayne capital is that president obama is going to do the same eventually so gop might voters might as well know what's coming. yet that hardly absolves newt gingrich, rick perry and others -- these candidates are desperate but do they have to sound like mike michael moore?" how would you respond to that. >> i disagree with their characterization that we're not just telling the truth. the fact is the obama administration will use this and we do need to get it out now and talk about it. it doesn't sound like michael moore. what it sounds like is the people from gaffney, south carolina or georgetown, south carolina who lost their jobs. the fact is you can create jobs without destroying a company. and that's what i'm talking about is i think americans are really tired of these wall streeters that take advantage of americans. >> an interesting ten days ahead in south carolina. governor rick perry of texas, appreciate your time tonight. >> thank you, john. so long. governor perry isn't the only one complaining republican establishments pressuring candidates to tone down the attacks on governor romney. in a few minutes we'll ask the party's chairman if it's true and if he's eager for things to be settled quickly. but next check this out. a veteran pilot will explain to us why landing in a cross wind may look scary but he insists it really isn't so bad. n i grow up, i want to fix up old houses. ♪ [ woman ] when i grow up, i want to take him on his first flight. i want to run a marathon. i'm going to own my own restaurant. when i grow up, i'm going to start a band. 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