today, ron paul on the perils and promise of the efforts here and rick santorum on the sudden spotlight over his booming campaign, then the lay of the land from two influential iowan republicans, governor terry branstad and congressman steve king. fresh off the campaign trail "the washington post" dan balz "the wall street journal's" neil king give us their perspective. i'm candy crowley in des moines. and this is "state of the union". it's been a rough couple of weeks for ron paul. his top-tier seeding hs brought new scrutiny to some of his old writings. now big enough threat to draw unanimous dismissals from opponents. >> he's unelectable. >> you need to think long and hard about in casting your vote for congressman paul. >> one of the people running for president thinks it's okay for iran to have a nuclear weapon. i don't. >> ron paul is not getting the nomination. >> someone that is so out of sync with the american people that they don't need to be the president of the united states. >> could you vote for him? >> no. >> reporter: through it all paul's fervent support in iowa has not wavered. he is marching on dropping major cash for ads in new hampshire and south carolina, and he's confident enough about iowa to spend this weekend at home in texas. i spoke to the congressman earlier this morning. congressman paul, thank you so much for joining us this morning. a new "des moines register" poll is out. it shows you in second place very close to mitt romney at this point. another figure that caught our eye goes back to what so many of your colleagues on the campaign trail have been saying about you this weekend, that is, that you are unelectable. that has been quite the word when they talked about you this week. in this poll, 29% of likely iowa republican caucusgoers also found you the least electable of all the candidates. why is that? >> well, maybe it's not true. i've been pretty electable. i was elected 12 times once people got to know me in my own congressional district. i think that might be more propaganda than anything else. so we'll wait and see. we will know a lot more about how the election goes tomorrow. >> being elected among folks that know you in a small district in texas is somewhat of a less daunting task than across the country, and there is the feeling -- and i'm sure you heard your colleagues say he's not electable, he's too outside the mainstream, his views on foreign policy, et cetera, et cetera. i wanted you to respond again to that, but i want you to listen. you've been very tough on newt gingrich, calling him a serial hypocrite, et cetera, et cetera. he replied in kind. i want you to take a listen to what he had to say. >> i think as a protest, he's a very reasonable candidate. as a potential president, a person who thinks the united states was responsible for 9/11, a person who believes -- who wrote in his newsletter that the world trade center bombing in '93 might have been a cia plot, a perp who believes it doesn't matter if the iranians have a nuclear weapon. look at ron paul's systemic avoidance of reality and you look at his newsletters and his ads, his ads are about as accurate as his newsletters. >> congressman paul, you have denounced these newsletters that he's talking about. but again, the idea that your views are outside the mainstream about 9/11 and so many other things. your reaction. >> well, that's a gross distortion, and you could spend a long time trying to dispute what he's saying but it's gross distortion. the bigger question is why are the rallies going so well for him? why are the crowds getting bigger and bigger? why is it that 70% of the american people want us to get out of afghanistan? why do about 85% of the people want us to rein in the federal reserve? why do so many, especially conservative republicans, want us to cut back and nobody is offering any cuts? so i would say that i'm pretty mainstream. i think that people who are attacking me now are the ones who can't defend their records and they've been all over the place. they've been flip-flopping and they can't defend themselves. they're having a little trouble finding any flip-flops on me so they have to go and dig up and distort and demagogue issues. but if you look at the real issues that count, i wish we would concentrate on that, and that is the foreign policy, the spending, the monetary policy, personal liberties that i talk about all the time, and with those conditions, this is where i get the support. and not only is it with republicans, but these views are really, really, you know, attractive to the independents and the democrats. so the rally, it is true, people say, oh, well, he's going to have some independents come in. well, that's the name of the game. you get people. you bring coalitions together. you get the frustrated progressive, the independents, the republicans who truly want spending cuts and all of a sudden i'm mainstream. they're looking for things. they're struggling. and they're demagoguing the issue. >> let me ask you. you have addressed a lot of these complaints about past writings that were at least under your name but you said you had no knowledge of and didn't write. one thing that caught my eye when i was looking through some of the briefing books. it was something that was in the congressional record, that you inserted into the congressional record from june of 2004. i wanted to talk to you about it. you said, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the civil rights act of 1964, the act did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. instead, the forced integration dictated by the civil rights act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty. my question to you is, whose individual liberty did it diminish, and do you think the country would have been better off in terms of race relations without the civil rights act of 1964? >> we could have done it a better way. the jim crow laws, we're all better off for that. that is an important issue. i strongly supported that. what you don't want to do is undermine the concept of liberty in that process. and what they did in that bill was they destroyed the principle of private property and private choices. so if you do this, all civil liberties are protected by private property rights, whether it's a tv station or newspaper or a church billing building or the bedroom. civil liberties are not divorced from property. if you try to improve a relationship by forcing and people and telling people what they can't do and you ignore and undermine the principles of liberty then the government can come into our bedrooms. that's exactly what has happened. look at what's happened to the patriot act, they can come into our bedrooms our businesses, the private property has been in their mind. it started back then. they can't twist that and say i was against or favored jim crow laws or anything else. it's the government that causes so much of the racial tensions when you look at anything from slavery on down to segregation in the military and jim crow laws. and right now, the real problem we face today is the discrimination in our court system. the war on drugs. think of how biased that is against the minorities. they go into prison much way out of proportion to their numbers. they get the death penalty out of proportion with their numbers. if you look at what the minorities suffer in ordinary wars, whether it's draft or no draft, they suffer much more out of proprgs. those are the kinds of things of discrimination that have to be dealt with, but you don't ever want to undermine the principles of private property and private choices in order to fix some of these problems. you need to repeal the laws over the centuries because it is the government so often that institutionalized segregation and slavery and all the other things. the understanding of private property would solve our problems, and we indeed need to look at the war on drugs if anybody cares about the -- about the abuse of our civil liberties and the abuse of minorities in the court system. >> congressman, stick with me a minute. after the break, more with ron paul on his republican rivals and the never-ending rumors about a third party bid. but, i have to support my family, so how do i go back to school? university of phoenix made it doable. a lot of my instructors were principals in my district. i wouldn't be where i am without that degree. my name is dr. carrie buck. i helped turn an at-risk school into an award winning school, and i am a phoenix. [ male announcer ] find your program at phoenix.edu. when i'm out with my kids, my daughter's like, "mom, wait up!" and i'm thinking, "shouldn't you have more energy than me? you're, like, eight!" [ male announcer ] for every 2 pounds you lose through diet and exercise alli can help you lose one more by blocking some of the fat you eat. simple. effective. advantage: mom. let's fight fat with alli ♪ back with republican presidential candidate ron paul. congressman, on iran. a lot of your colleagues on the campaign trail have said this idea that it's okay for iran to require -- to acquire nuclear power, which you have -- they say you have suggested is no big deal, is one of the huge things that they hit you on. we're now learning that scientists in iran have produced the country's first nuclear fuel rod, this according to iran itself. does nothing give you pause about a country like iran, which is an enemy of the united states, basically, acquiring nuclear weaponry? >> sure, it does. and those words you were trying to put in my mouth just aren't true. i'm very concerned about it. as a matter of fact, i would like to see a lot less nuclear weapons. at least iran is in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. so i would say that's a step. and they do have inspections. the aeie did not find any evidence that they are on the verge of a weapon. you know, even the head of the mossad in israel are saying well, you know, even if p they had a weapon they are not an existential threat. so i think we need to get this in the balance. i don't want them to have a weapon. we have to be careful. we have to contain them if they do get one. but even israel's top leaders are saying they would not be an existential threat, we say go easy. as a matter of fact, dagan said in bombing those sites right now would be stupid. so i would say that we just need to be more cautious. i think if we overreact and participate in bombing iran, we're looking for a lot more trouble. we went into iraq carelessly. we don't need a war in iran carelessly. this is my argument. but to say that i don't care is not fair. >> okay. let me move you on to politics since we're kind of in the political world right now here in iowa. you have not precisely ruled out a third-party bid. i'm wondering if some of these attacks on you that have been out there for the past ten days have given you any pause about staying inside the republican party. >> i haven't even thought about it except when people like you keep asking me about it because i have a race going. i'm essentially tied for first place, and why would i even consider doing anything like that? so -- but i don't like absolutes. i don't want to say i will never do so-and-so. but i have no plans in doing it. we're doing very, very well. and people should just be a little bit patient, you know. on tuesday we're going to find out a lot more about the future of this election. >> and you have also said that your support of any colleague that might beat you and become the republican nominee would depend on how close they came to your views on certain things. if particular, does that include oversight of the fed, or what in particular are you talking about? and who comes closest, do you think, of being a candidate you could support right now should they beat you? >> well, i think they all fit the status quo. none of them really challenges foreign policy. they don't challenge the spending. nobody has proposed any real cuts. nobody challenges the federal reserve. i think it's going to shift. a few of them have said something about auditing the fed and others at times have hinted that maybe we ought to be a little more cautious and a little more diplomatic with our foreign policy. i'd have to wait and see, you know, what the platform looks like. >> one of the interesting things, i think, about "the des moines register" poll today is that it was a three-day poll. but if you take just the last two days, rick santorum overtakes you and goes into second place, showing that he is gathering up some momentum. what do you think the appeal is there with rick santorum? why has he suddenly become kind of the person to watch? >> well, maybe it's the people who just got frustrated with the other ones and are just shifting their views. that's one thing you can't say about my supporters. they don't shift their views. once they understand what the foreign policy and monetary policy is all about, they don't leave. they're up and down. i think it's part of that. >> one of the other things that the poll showed is when they talked to your supporters, 56% of them said they were definitely going. that is lower than the number of romney supporters who said they would go and lower than the number of santorum supporters who said they would be going. what do you think has happened here? we so often say ron paul has the best turnout operation. he is the one that is really working on the ground, and yet 56% of the supporters they sear definitely going. >> definitely what? >> definitely going to go caucus. 56% of people, of likely caucusgoers only will say that they're definitely going. so, in other words, 44% they say may not go. >> i wouldn't bet money on that type of statistic. we have the names and telephone numbers. only tuesday is going to tell you how that's going to work out. we are optimistic about getting our people there. >> give me a prediction here in our last 30 seconds, congressman. are you going to pull this out in iowa, and if you do, what does it mean for the future of your campaign? >> i have no idea what's going to happen. i may come in first, i may come in second. i doubt i'll come in third or fourth. and the future of the campaign for liberty will always be ongoing. i think we're doing to have a good showing. we ler have. we're doing quite well in new hampshire, so i would say the momentum for the cause of freedom in this country and restoration of the constitution, sensible foreign policy, i would say azreszing the federal reserve and our economic crisis and spending, i would say the people are with me on this and the momentum is going to continue regardless of exactly what happened and what place i am on tuesday night. >> congressman ron paul, thanks for joining us. we will see you a little later here in iowa. up next, some know him as the iowa kingmaker, so why hasn't congressman steve king made an endorsement? [ female announcer ] splenda® no calorie sweetener is sweet... and more. if you replace 3 tablespoons of sugar a day with splenda®, you'll save 100 calories a day. that could help you lose up to 10 pounds in a year. and now get even more with splenda® essentials, the only line of sweeteners with a small boost of fiber, or antioxidants, or b vitamins in every packet. just another reason why you get more... when you sweeten with splenda®. ♪ yeah, our low prices are even lower. we need to teach her how to walk. she is taking up valuable cart space. aren't you, honey? [ male announcer ] it's our biggest clearance event of the year where our prices are even lower. save money. live better. walmart. nyquil tylenol: we are?ylenol. you know we're kinda like twins. nyquil (stuffy): yeah, we both relieve coughs, sneezing, aches, fevers. tylenol: and i relieve nasal congestion. nyquil (stuffy): overachiever. anncr vo: tylenol cold multi-symptom nighttime relieves nasal congestion... nyquil cold & flu doesn't. you can't be an iowa to too long without hearing the name steve king, republican congressman's endorsement is well quoted by some of the presidential candidates stomping through this state. but so far they've come up empty handed. that's including one of his good friends michele bachmann. steve king joins me here in des moines. congressman, thanks for being here. i wanted to remind you the last time we were together which was in august right after the ames straw poll won by your good friend michele bachmann. >> i, like everyone, needs to measure who would make the best president of the united states. i already know who would make the best friend. but i want to sit back for a while and get into september and see how these candidates conduct themselves. >> not only are we into september, we're actually into january now. we have two more days, two more days until the caucuses. who is your choice here? >> i tell you first i was wearing the same tie so i need to go out and buy some ties. it was my choice. and, you know, this is just a very tough decision. and -- >> why is it so tough though? >> it's tough because of a whole series of things. more than one friend in this race, for one thing. and those things do weigh into this, although it should be and needs to be about who will make the best president of the united states, who will best match up against barack obama, who carries the principles best, who has emerged through this crucible. which this is a gauntlet in iowa and an even tougher gauntlet going through new hampshire and south carolina and beyond. one of the things that holds me back and it's in an article in the des moines register day before yesterday that jim demint and i wrote, but to have that vision of how the budget situation that we are in has changed since august. it's gotten worse. and it's clear to me that the leadership doesn't exist or at least it's not deployed in congress, in the house or the senate to lead us out of this and get us to the point where we can pay the first net dollar off our national debt. that's part of -- i want to hear that. i want to know they believe it and they can lead america where we need to go to get us back from the abyss of a fiscal calamity. that's part of it. i haven't seen that with the clarity that i want to see. if me holding back on there helps get the case before the american people, i may have to do that. >> the power of your endorsement is greatest here in iowa. you are a social conservative. certainly, if you look at the slate of candidates you would have to say rick santorum comes closest to you in terms of the social issues. am i correct? >> i don't know about that. he's very, very strong. his reputation, has activities in it, very strong. michele bachmann has a strong set of beliefs that matchup with rick santorum. >> let me rephrase. those of now look like they may come out of iowa with one of the three tickets, between rick santorum, ron paul, and mitt romney. >> closer on the social issues of rick santorum of those three, without question. perry needs to have a nod of where he stands. he's very solid, too. but go ahead. >> does that -- is that paramount to you, or is now electability something that comes into play? >> i think it's three things. yes, i'm a social conservative, but i'm also a fiscal conservative. and i'm a full-spectrum conservative. it's always been that way. i've always gone where i thought the greatest urgency existed for us to weigh in on these issues. it's the bread though, the fiscal issues meeting a balanced budget amendment. someone who understands that and will get that done. someone who stand on the issues of life and marriage and then to take a look at the electability and having a foreign policy and the vision for where america needs to go to take us upwards to the next level of our destiny. i am still looking for that. if that instant comes and i'm convinced that one will do a significant better job than the other