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In south carolina, romney holds a lead but santorum and gingrich are not so far behind. bottom line is it's his to lose. i'm joined by bill burton, cofounder of priorities usa, and former deputy press secretary for president obama. and e.j. dionne with us tonight, senior fellow at the brookings institution and columnist for the "washington post." fellows, here's the bottom line. romney is anywhere from 41% to 35% in the polls. his lead is 15% to 24% in the polls. my question to both of you tonight is what does second place mean? because if romney wins, everybody else is 0-2 and it's tough to r...

Earlier. there are places where if romney's one-on-one in the race, it does get more interesting. but no one expects any dropouts before then, except for perhaps jon huntsman if he doesn't perform up to the market, the math is very good for mitt romney. he has to have, as you suggested, someone challenge him for the more centrist part of the party and right now they're not. they're all challenging in their own pool. >> and mark, we'll ask you -- from what you've heard from team romney, what do they need to do? and what do they not want to happen? >> they've probably got to be north of 38% to h...

Getting a real nice bump heading into new hampshire. we'll see how long that continues and we'll see whether or not he can overtake ron paul. that would be huge for santorum. jon: the media headlines will be important coming out of new hampshire. >> very much so. much like iowa it's an expectations game. you look at mitt romney, if he scores at or above 40 percent, that's a convincing win for him, will help him move along in the process, slidfy his standing as a nominee. if he scores below 40 percent n. the 35-40 range, it will be little iffy for him and if he scores below one third of the vot...

It does get more interesting. but no one expects any dropouts before then, except for perhaps jon huntsman if he doesn't perform up to the market, the math is very good for mitt romney. he has to have, as you suggested, someone challenge him for the more centrist part of the party and right now they're not. they're all challenging in their own pool. >> and mark, we'll ask you -- from what you've heard from team romney, what do they need to do? and what do they not want to happen? >> they've probably got to be north of 38% to have no problem at all in the expectations game. below that will depe...

Expectations game. let's go to 1968, mccarthy drives lbj out of the race. 1992, pat buchanan, he really wasn't that close to bush 41, but the expectations game were such that even the fact he got in the low 40s and lost by what? 15, 16 points, that was considered a loss for bush. we've got the makings for that again. and mike, let's remember tom brokaw reminded us of this, the polls showed barack obama winning by 13%, 14%, 15 percentage points the night before new hampshire voters took the election back and said, no, you know what? we're going to divide who wins our state, not you guys in the ...