rick perry s on the air here all the time but rick perry doesn t have the brains to be president. he doesn t have gingrich will get part of that vote. he doesn t have the bases we re talking metrics here. and other candidates will be splitting up that vote. what s the appeal? the appeal of rick perry? that he seems to be a decent guy, to the evangelicals, he seems to be a decent guy with his heart in the right place, even if he doesn t have upstairs. the rest of it. he s a nation senior governor of a big state. but texas. just kidding! i was going to say liberals, but that would be pushing it. anyway, thank you susan. you know these how many of these have you covered? this is my ninth caucuses. we are brigadoon characters, aren t? coming up, why don t evangelical voters get in line behind one candidate? i don t know why we re encouraging this, but if they get behind santorum instead of splitting their vote between perri, bachmann, gingrich and the re
ticket. let s stop talking about romney winning this thing. is this a rock meeting a hard place or whatever? because an unmovable force meeting an unstoppable object. here s a guy who s had a ceiling because the evangelicals don t like him. he s a moderate, he s lds, all that. whatever the factors are, he seems to be stuck at 23%, romney, nationwide and here in iowa. at the same time, they want a winner. so people are somewhat coalescing about him, somewhat. in the crowd we saw today. you re demurring here? i m demurring a little bit. talking to the romney people out there, they re genuinely worried that rick santorum will be able to consolidate all those evangelicals which could get him above the 24, 25% ceiling that romney had. i talked to one guy out there wearing a romney sticker, and i said, tell my why you re for mitt romney. and he said, well, i m not 100% for mitt romney, but he does seem to be a sane guy. there s a standard. in the clown car, one guy s
of electing people. but if you re going to be president of the united states, you have to know how to build and preside over that kind of instrument. and he just didn t know how to do it. in addition to the fact that he s been attacked mercilessly, often justifiably, for his record over the last 20 years. and newt is nothing if not an egomaniacal guy. imagine going back to your hotel room with your wife and sitting and watching television as you re trashed. and he didn t respond. he didn t have the money. let s take a look at a campaign stop in west des moines where mitt romney was joined by chris christie. i got in close and got a little bit of the conversation with both these fellas. let s watch. how s he helping your campaign, governor? he makes it real clear that we re going to bring real change to washington. would he be a good running mate? thank you. there are a number of people who d be terrific. i got a lot out of that.
politics reporter for the des moines register, the key newspaper here, and liz sidoti is the associate editor. it seems to me the guy that could have come through here without even stopping was mitt romney. he doesn t need to do better than top two or three, fine. but bachmann and perry, do they have to prove that they can hold on to some of that vote against the very strong performance now of rick santorum? those are the two that are probably the most in peril. you know, michele bachmann, this is her home state, so if she doesn t make a case here, she s going to have a hard time after she moves on. why is it her home state? she was born here. yes, native here. so, you know is that known? iowans definitely know that. she s made a very big point of that. if she can t do well in iowa, how is she going to do well elsewhere? she s still trying to inspire confidence. her crowds today in iowa were just minuscule. they were just small, disinterested crowd. no more than 30.
deep-freeze problem. oops didn t quite handle it. the saddest part of that entire thing was the other candidates whispering, helping a little child who is stumped. you know, what s interesting in that moment, is when el he got in the race, a lot of people said he s not ready for primetime, then you saw a backlash, don t underestimate this guy, he s won every election he s run. well, it turned out he wasn t ready. that moment sort of epitomized that moment he s not been ready for primetime. the sad thing is he s ready for texas. after rick perry called evolution a theory that s out there and doubts man s contribution to global warming, jon huntsman fired off this tweet to be clear, i believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. call me crazy. you know, this is part of the weird thing the republican candidates are engaming in.