they ll use the caucus to organize and build enthusiasm for the general election and the president won iowa in 2008 and even if he can t count on winning the state this year, he ll make it competitive annal address them by video on tuesday night, with the true messages that appear to have brought his numbers up in recent months and republicans are more interested in keeping him from having a second term than in working for the american people and more interested in protecting tax breaks for the rich than those like the payroll tax cut that helped the vast majority of americans. his campaign has eight offices in hawaii, nearly two dozen paid staffers and hundreds of volunteers, they ll have no trouble fund raising and that will help them as will the fact that the jobless rate at several points lower than the national average. his aides expect mitt romney will probably be his challenger as the republicans who have passed romney have slipped back down again and they expect a negative cam
to participate. and it s not necessarily easy to get to a caucus location and support your candidate. they re going to have to turn out on a cold, january night this week, and say, i m here to support my particular candidate. and this is after months and months of rue viewing their issues. seeing their mailers, watching their ads and most importantly, seeing them in person. so, churches like this, schools and gymnasiums and basements. what does it take to cast one of those votes? you have to be 18 by november 6th the date of the election and a republican. and it s great for procrastinators and you can show up on the night of the caucus if you ve got the right precinct and photo i.d. you can register outside as a republican and within minutes you can be casting your on important first vote in 2012 at least in the primary season, bret. bret: shannon, thank you. megyn: that s a beautiful church, going all out for this. we re going to talk about some
candidate. how important is that ground game-wise and what did it mean for you in 2008? well, it s a big deal, because when you go and vote in the typical primary, you quietly sneak into the voting precinct and you walk into a booth and you close the curtain and mark the ballot. nobody knows who you stood for. when you go to a caucus, you re going to have to stand up and be counted. standing up with people i can making speeches, might be your child s teacher, your best friend from high school or your church pastor makes a passionate plea for a candidate. it s very, very different in terms of the dynamics of that experience than most people can comprehend and a lot of people will change their mind once they get there and hear a strong speech either from the candidate or a surrogate and that s why the surrogates and strong surrogates are very important on talking points. megyn: governor, one of the reasons you won in iowa back
this. the des moines register poll, a lot of people focus on it and it s the gold standard. and two questions really interesting in this poll. could you still be persuaded to support another candidate? you heard chris wallace mention it earlier and could be persuaded at 41%? now, the other question that caught our eye, is this your first iowa caucus? and that was, first caucus, 27%. what does that tell you about the caucus goers going into tuesday. tells me a lot of ron paul people, are out there. and they ve not participated before. that s a lot for ron paul. what about the santorum surge here. how does he have to make it real in all of these precincts? what does he have to tell the 41% to get them over the top? well, you know, the caucus is a neighborhood meeting. and it s actually a native american term for meeting of tribal leaders, so this is your friends and neighbors and they get together and santorum
shutdowns. and they worked at pella for 14 years. loretta one of nearly 200 employees shown the door in november. and tim has a job there, but with one child in college and another about to go. fiscal discipline has become issue number one. at home and caucus night. if we can find somebody who can do just exactly what my family is doing and that is to control our spending and live within their means, overall the economy here is better than most places. the town s other big employer, premier corporation, is booming. adding 100 jobs to make farming, mining adrilling equipment. and that s helped buoy up other businesses that might have suffered. smoky rose coffee is brewing up profits and the meats had the best year in decades. we ve had one company lessen and the other increase, and that helps to keep it stable around here. this is a small town, almost everyone knows someone