see the difference between somebody who's trying to help the country and somebody who is simply running a negative campaign. >> campaign insiders, do you have to play dirty to win. plus a phenomenal tim tebow. superstar even if you know nothing about football. who is he really? why his on section with 24-year-old christian quarterback. i'll talk with former nfl coach and the man who wrote the book on tebow. also kenneth brener. shakespeare, to hollywood's leading man. this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. while the rest of the country is deep in the holiday preparations, the world is buzzing over the official opening of the 2012 campaign. the first in the nation iowa caucuses are two weeks away. the stakes couldn't be higher in the republican field. latest cnn orc poll puts newt gingrich and mitt romney in a dead heat battling for the top spot. ron paul makes a surprisingly strong showing in third place. with all of this back and forth in the polls, i want to take for a clear front-runner to emerge in time to win. joining me now is tim pawlenty, national co chair of the romney campaign and kellyanne conway. seen advisor to newt gingrich. tim, start with you. clearly i would have thought a good week for your man. good debate performance. good on the attack. lacerating newt gingrich with these shocking tv ads. you've gone on the offensive and it's working. would you agree? >> it's working for a variety of reasons, pierce, but what i'd satisfy is this. you have an economy is reeling, it's hurting. you have somebody who knows how to get jobs growing. there's nobody in this field that has the private sector, entrepreneurial leadership and record of mitt romney. by the way, as a candidate and as a president he's also got a steadiness and reliability about him that i think people expect. that's why you've seen these other candidates surge for a week or month. when you get a full look at him, they can't sustain t. mitt's been at or near the top for many months in part because of his steadiness as a person and leader. >> kelley, let me bring you in. obviously newt gingrich came from a position of apparently being dead to being front-runner and the surge has temporarily hit the buffers, although he's still in joint lead with mitt romney. what's your reading of these fluctuations? >> there's durability in newt's numbers based on what you've shown. there's other polls that confirm what you've shown. mitt romney has basically been the front-runner. he's been running for five years. he's had a slight upparticular. a lot of gains have not gone to him. they've gone to ron paul, some of the former herman cain voters are looking for a comfortable place to park their votes. they're up for grabs. i think what you see is that the electability argument that was propelling the romney candidacy for years now, i can win, has been completely swept away because in these polls most voters, republican voters say that either newt or mitt could beat barak obama and that's why they've got credibility in the polls. it's disappointing though, and i'm glad you use the word lacerate. that is the best description i've heard for what's been happening to newt. we've absorbed over $9 million in paid negative advertising. $9 million. yet look at newt's poll standings. the reason he's still standing is because he talks about issues, not other zbleem let me stop you. let's play one of these negative ads to see what you're talking about and then we'll discuss it afterwards. >> newt has a ton of baggage. he was fined $300,000 for ethics violations. newt supports amnesty for illegal immigrants and teemed with nancy pelosi and al gore on global warming. >> i suppose, kellyanne, the obvious question when you see that, yes, it's negative. yes, it's brutal. yes, it's, as i said, lacerating, but it also has the benefit of being factually, correct. >> not all of it. >> would you dispute the details? >> that's not true. look, those are all sound bytes. what you need are the facts behind all of those allegations. they've been vetted beyond the comfort of somebody else's 30-second ad where they're just trying to scare the voters rather than inform them and enl gauge them. we have more faith in the voters of iowa and across this country. they're far more interested in a candidate that wants to talk about ideas and solutions, particularly in these tough economic times, than talk about other candidates. everybody knows i'm sure governor pawlenty knows that newt does not support amnesty for, quote, illegal immigrants. he gave a very specific example. if somebody's been here for 25 years and you're going to look at them in your churches, you'll look at them in the grocery store and say go back? nobody's ever had the courage to tell them to go back. it's heated political rhetoric. >> let me bring tim pawlenty back in. these are negative ads. a lot of people will be watching them going, well, they've got a point. most of this is son the money. newt gingrich by his own admission brings a lot of baggage with him. >> well, piers, a couple of things. if i'm remembering that ad correctly it was done by a third party, not the romney campaign directly. these third parties are not controlled, in fact legally can't be controlled by mitt romney or any of the individual candidates. the excerpt you played is factually accurate. the statements they made are accurate. as long as it's focused on issues and it's not overly personal, you'll have a campaign that's about the differences of vision and policy positions between candidates. we're running -- these candidates are running for president of the united states. it will be hotly contested. it points out three or four factual things in newt gingrich's record that are supported. people can make a judgment. they can look at that and say does that concern me or not? as people get re-introduced to these candidates, in this case newt gingrich, you see their numbers recede. that's what's happening now. >> kellyanne, jump in there. >> he is steady and persistent. >> governor pawlenty, romney calling newt zany on national tv is not a personal attack? that's the kind of rhetoric that you simply didn't use when you were running for president. we were all a better nation because of it. you had a very, like newt, you had a very bold muscular progrowth lower tax proentrepreneurial tax and economic plan. i would respectfully ask you to e-mail it around the campaign because it was really bold. it was about deregulation. it was about flatter taxes. you were very positive. >> let me stop this love fest between you and tim pawlenty. that's not the point. 's no longer running. let's discuss president obama whose own poll ratings are beginning to numbering up. he made a surprise appearance today at a press conference. watch what he said. >> the clock is ticking. time is running out. if the house republicans refuse to vote for the senate bill or even allow it to come up for a vote, taxes will go up in 11 days. >> that's president obama today. clearly this lockdown in washington continues. i suppose i'll go to you, tim pawlenty. do you get a sense that people in washington just do not understand how fed up the american people are of turning on their television news and hearing they're still squabbling over this stuff and can never get anything done? it seems like the whole year has been spent with people wasting time. >> well, absolutely, and that's why we need somebody to be from outside of washington as their next president. mitt romney has spent almost his entire life, save for four years as governor of massachusetts, in the private sector. he's not from washington. he's not part of that culture. he isn't a former lobbyist or advocate. he is somebody who's been in the private sector, started businesses, grown businesses, grown jobs. when people look at the experience differential, leadership differential, and frankly the difference in world views between barak obama's governmentcentric view of the world verse what is mitt romney has proposed and done cutting taxes in massachusetts, cutting spending in massachusetts, inheriting a deficit when he became governor, leaving a surplus. and, by the way, lowering the unemployment rate as governor. >> we're drifting slightly away. >> it's not even a close call. >> we're drifting slightly away from my point. kellyanne, let me bring you in here. what is newt gingrich's view of this apparently intransigent position by the republicans which is causing endless grief to anybody. >> if anybody wants to know newt's views on anything go to newt.org. i would submit to you you'll never see another candidate's name on the website. it's all about solutions. i'm glad you mentioned do these candidates understand that folks are so upset with washington? congress has an 11% approval rating. you want to talk about solutions and having done things. when newt was there as speaker we had welfare reform. that is the last major entitlement reform in our lifetimes. that was real. that was done with a democratic president bill clinton. they had a balanced budget for four straight years when newt was speaker. that's a sound bite now. it's a total elusive dream in washington, d.c. there were millions of jobs created when he was speaker. let's talk about not just a vision, let's talk about a track record. i can turn that negative awful ad around and talk about the things that newt has done as speaker. you just can't pair a chute into washington, dc, as president of the united states, as leader of the free world and pretend you'll learn your way around. you need experience. >> tim pawlenty. >> another quick thing now. mitt was the first presidential candidate on the republican side to actually call for keeping and maintaining the lower employment tax reduction. in other words, embraced the payroll tax reduction and keep it lower. >> let me ask you a wider point though, tim pawlenty, about mitt romney which is you said, look, he's been mr. reliable, mr. steady in the campaign. hasn't put much wrong. that is true, but there is another argument. the reason he's been unable to break out of the shackles of his poll ratings at a certain level is that the republican party don't find him that exciting. let me play you a clip from david letterman's top ten things that mitt romney would like to save the american people. >> isn't it time for a president who looks like a 1970s game show host? >> yes. yes, it is. >> i mean, i guess that could be a positive. isn't part of the problem for mitt romney is that people do look at him and think '70s game show host? >> well, first of all, none of these candidates are perfect. the fact that mitt would make fun of himself on david letterman, i think that shows a playful and joyful spirit. we should celebrate that, not pile on. beyond that, look, mitt romney, i like this old saying, piers, the best sermons aren't preached, they're lived. you look at his life, not just over a couple of years of this campaign but his whole life, it's a life that's been of service, leadership, character, integrity, steadiness, perseverance. those are the characteristics you want this a leader. they're certainly characteristics you want in a president of the united states. it will serve him well in a campaign. it will serve him well as president. people are looking for steadiness. you don't see that in the rest of the republican field. >> steadiness means you haven't changed your mind on really core issues. of course, that is newt gingrich. i'm glad that you showed what a comedian had to say. >> he has changed his mind. >> governor pawlenty, we really don't want to have the debate, do we, about which candidate in this field has changed their mind? >> we haven't got time for the debate. we've run out. thank you both very much for a spirited exchange. i'm sure we'll talk again soon. thank you both very much. does your crowded republican field need more candidates? i'll ask a couple of experts when we come back. everyone believes in keeping their promises once a year. but we believe in helping people take steps to keep them every single day. that's why every day we help people across the country get into their first homes. prepare for a comfortable retirement and protect the people and things that matter most. at genworth we believe every day is the right day to take a step toward tomorrow. it's not too latd. any chance we can see you making a play even after iowa, new hampshire? there's still plenty of time, governor? >> it's not too late for folks to jump in. i don't know, who knows what will happen in the future. >> that was sarah palin on follow the money from foxx business. with a crowded field do republicans need more candidates? steve deace is here with the salem radio network. he's co author of "we won't get fooled again." welcome to you, both. mary, is it too late for sarah palin? >> not technically. it hasn't been done. we haven't had a brokered convention for a couple of decades. there's a lot of cocktail chatter about a late entrant because of some of the issues you were discussing in the previous segment where no candidate's really broken above 30% or stayed above 30% consistently. more than that, we have never had on the republican side this process where the duration that's going to be demanded by a front-loaded proportional allocation of delegates. in other words, nobody can lock it up early and it stays sort of amorphous or in suspended animation as it appears to be for the moment. i don't think it's going to stay like that. that leads to conversations, and i do think they're cocktail conversations, about another entrant or brokered entrance. >> let me bring in steve deace. clearly the republican party itself is wrestling around the kind of candidate they want to get behind. they haven't decided. what do you think? is the field open or are they going to choose from what would appear to be a narrowing field? >> well, i would say this about sarah palin. if anybody could pull it off, it's probably her. she's been defying the odds, both good and bad, throughout her political career. i think mary's right that there's a lot of cynicism about the process in general. i think she's right to point to the interview you just did. i once sat in my own office building and listened to tim pawlenty look me right in the eye and tell me one on one he was running for president so that somebody like mitt romney doesn't become the nominee. here i am sitting waiting to come on your show listening to pawlenty extoll the virtues of mitt romney, the man -- tim pawlenty is the guy that coined the phrase obomnicare. if he thought mitt romney was such a great candidate, why did he put himself into debt, takes months away from his family to run for president himself? he could have saved himself and the american people a lot of time by endorsing and supporting romney from the get-go. >> steve you know iowa well. ron paul is getting a bit of traction there. newt gingrich slipping back a bit. knowing the lay of the land there, how do you see things panning out in the next couple of weeks? >> i think that we are on a collision course with a ron paul victory in the iowa caucuses. i think the only thing, piers, that's going to stop it at this point is some kind of coal lessing of conservatives, values voters, and one candidate, maybe even a team-up of candidates. i think this is so fractured now and the time is so remote and the clock is ticking that ron paul, as unconal of a candidate he is, he did the best job of setting up a conventional candidate. he has the best political organization in the state of iowa, and he's done it the right way. he has cultivated iowa for years. i think barring a coal lessing, we'll see ron paul win the iowa caucuses. it seems the crazier he gets, the more crotch chedy he gets, they love him more. they're so fed up with washington and the system, that even on the stuff paul says on foreign policy, they sort of view him as a way to hit control alt delete on the sis zblem mary, let me ask you, ron paul could win in iowa. you could see mitt romney win in new hampshire. you could see newt gingrich then win in south carolina. the way this has been structured now, this year coming up with new york and california coming much later, this process could go on for months and months and months with the leadership changing quite dramatically, couldn't it? >> that's right. or perry, depending on how he does in iowa, could make his mark in south carolina. what i don't think is going to happen, i'm loathe to make predictions in a cycle like this, is that ron paul is going to make much of a difference beyond iowa other than the parts of his message that are really relevant, the federal reserve, growth of government. he's a good message candidate in the way that several elements of the ross perfect row message was so important. long liefd. if he wins in iowa, that's not dispositive or predictive of anything else. bob dole and pat robertson beat my candidate in 1988, george herbert walker bush. reagan was forced to put bush on the ticket and the rest is history. iowa has a checkered history, it has a history of being iowa and carefully vetting candidates that make sense to it and it does clarify a lot of positions. there have been plenty of candidates who have lost iowa or won iowa, whatever the case the opposite that, did not impact the future of the nomination. >> that is completely true. it may continue to be fluid for i think quite some time. thank you both very much indeed. coming up, america is obsessed with superstar tim tebow. i'll talk to the man who wrote the book on him when we come back. you found it. wow. nice place. yeah. [ chuckles ] the family thinks i'm out shipping these. smooth move. you used priority mail flat rate boxes. if it fits, it ships for a low, flat rate. paid for postage online and arranged a free pickup. and i'm gonna track them online, too. nice. between those boxes and this place, i'm totally staying sane this year. do i smell snickerdoodles? maybe. [ timer dings ] got to go. priority mail flat rate shipping at usps.com. a simpler way to ship. for you today ? we gave people right off the street a script and had them read it. no, sorry, i can't help you with that. i'm not authorized to access that transaction. that's not in our policy. i will transfer you now. my supervisor is currently not available. would you like to hold ? that department is currently closed. have i helped you with everything you needed ? if your bank doesn't give you knowledgeable customer service 24/7, you need an ally. ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense. coming up, america is >> spins out of it. >> they're talking about tim tebow making another miraculous run. he's gotten national headlines for his play on the field and displays of faith off the field. he wrote about it through my eyes, a quarterback's journey. joining me now is tebow's co author, nathan whitaker. and tony dungy. welcome to you both. let me start with you, tony dungy. from a football point of view, it's not the football i'm massively expert in, let me put my credentials on the table right away, but i watched the game on sunday and his team didn't win. i was fascinated by the phenomenon of tim tebow. there was something extraordinarily compelling about him to watch, even if you're not a football nut. he's a fascinating character. why is that? >> i think it's really the words you used, character. he's got a ton of it, and that's what impacts people and affects them. he won a high school state championship here in florida where i lived. he won two national championships at university of florida. you get the feeling if he's on your team he's going to give you a chance to win the championship. i think that's the phenomenon. >> from a technical point of view, how good is he? what makes him special? >> well, what makes him special is his wil