welcome back to msnbc's coverage of the iowa caucuses. i'm rachel maddow here in new york. the doors have just opened at caucus sites in iowa's 1,774 precincts. now what happens is the doors have opened now, and in an hour those doors will close, and the voting will then begin behind those closed doors. chris matthews is at the pope county convention center in des moines. hi again, chris. >> thanks, you rachel. well, sometimes analysis creates news itself. tonight lawrence o'donnell posed a question to the counsel for

mitt romney, and he said why doesn't mitt romney clear the air of the campaigning by calling on all unaffiliated super committees to stop all negative ads and ben ginsberg answered with something his own candidate hasn't been saying. ginsberg said a candidate can't tell an unaffiliated pac. let's hear what he said on "fox & friends." >> there's coordination rules and you're not allowed to coordinate. i am sure i can go out and say please don't do anything negative. >> well, i have to go back to lawrence and pass it back to him, rachel, because he started

this little kerfuffle. turns out ben ginsberg has not checked with his candidate. his candidate believes he has the right to stop this by simply calling up his own political action committee associated with him and say stop doing this. ben says he couldn't do that legally. i think we just heard the candidate say he could. >> he did do that, chris, and he could make it more general if necessary to satisfy attorney ginsberg's technical reading of this law enforcement he would just say i don't want any negative advertising in the campaign. i hope there's no negative advertising in the campaign. people shouldn't use those tactics. he doesn't have to specify and say this particular pac should not do negative advertising. i think that does skirt possibly too close to the lines in the law, but ben ginsberg was pretending that these candidates have completely surrendered their first amendment rights as to discussing any of the nature of advertising in these campaigns. >> what seems interesting to me is the question of -- sorry, just to jump in there, chris.

seems interesting to meet question of whether or not that would make any difference. i mean, we did see newt gingrich attempt at least for a hot second to build his iowa campaign on the idea that there would be no negative campaigning coming from him. it may just be a reflection of indiscipline on the part of mr. gingrich but he himself is out there on cbs calling mitt romney point blank a liar which is pretty negative. do we think the guys would stop going negative and the pacs would stop going negative? >> my skern not that they call names to each other, but we can see their mouth doing it. i just want a campaign where the voters have some transparency here and can actually see who is trashing each other. if you can win a campaign by running a total trash the opponent campaign and never see how the voters see you do it, who is not going to do it? that will become modern campaigning. smile, recite the verses from "america the beautiful" which is what mitt has been doing for

several days while under the tv is traffic your opponent. reminds me again, i'll say it again, "the godfather," "the untouchables" with de niro attending the opera while his guy was gunning down jimmy the police officer. it's become that dr. jekyll and mr. hyde. i think the voters ought to know who they are investigate for. if they are investigate for a guy who is destroying his opponent, fine. if they are voting for a guy who looks like he's got clean hands and would never do something like that, then we're really into a difficult stealth kind of campaigning here. howard wants to get in here. >> i would just point out that mitt romney has showed to me already a penchant for trying to belittle the guts or even the manhood of the people he's running against. keeps comparing barack obama to marie antoinette and talks about lucy in the kitchen hand now here's he's saying if you can't stand the heat in this little kitchen then you should get out. on the one hand mitt romney is

trying to portray himself as a nice guy, a real nice guy, but he's proud of the fact, he's almost saying i'm proud of the fact that i can operate in this system, that i can operate in this way. this is what it takes to win, and this is such a cold-blooded argument to be making to republican voters, and republican voters frankly aren't really buying it. aren't really fwig. >> let's remember the brave mitt romney is hiding behind a super pac and doing this advertising for him. >> exactly. >> and chris' point, we're never going to get rid of negative campaigning and negative ads. i don't know if we'll end up reducing them, but the point is what's important about it is everything we can do we should do, both the campaigns should do this and we in the media should do it, link the negative ads to the campaign that's actually doing them because as steve can tell us, that's one of the things that really killed romney when he went last time. his negative ads were being run by the romney campaign, and when you run negative ads out of your campaign, yes, you hurt the

target of the ad and you always hurt yourself. >> but i also think part of this, lawrence, is the fact that just because it's called campaign finance reform, and we all believe that the system needs to be reformed, doesn't mean that it's a good law. in the first amendment is the fixed variable here. as ben pointed out correctly for 36 years all. reform attempts have been aimed at the candidates in the political parties, and as a result now the money has gone out to the ideological groups chiefly with undisclosed donations and increasingly you're going to see in american politics in, any congressional race, any given u.s. senate race, that it's the outside groups, these ideological groups, that have the biggest voice in the race with undisclosed dollars. >> steve, you're wrong. you're wrong. >> you need to have full disclosure and transparency. let the candidates rates money. >> you're wrong. >> let them raise unlimited money manned let them disclose it. >> steve, this money is affiliated with mitt romney.

not some ideological campaign. it's running 100% targeted campaign against the only opponent that mitt romney fears, newt gingrich. this isn't some wild group out there just pushing an i'd l ideological dream. they are trying to get romney electing president by destroyinging his only real opponent, newt gingrich, so it doesn't fit the category you're talking about here. >> there's no question that mitt romney benefits from it, but the super pakz -- >> it's his group. >> that's the result of the supreme court decision and the result of the unconstitutional campaign finance reform and all of this is derivative of trying to take money and trying to take the candidate's voice away. i just think it has had disastrous consequences for the system. this is the net effect of campaign finance reform, a bad effect. >> the problem is campaign finance reform ended up having -- ended up having huge loopholes in it. the campaign finance reform designed to take the influence, especially the influence of money out of money so that people could have an honest debate about what was going on

and a fair debate about what is what was going on in the country has devolved because of this tide of supreme court decisions against campaign finance reform so we've got this huge loophole which the candidates themselves are use. it's not just -- i think chris is right, it's not some freelance group out there that's deciding to trash newt gingrich. it's for the benefit of a candidate. >> chris is absolutely right because if you remember when ginsberg and i went through the exchange with lawrence, he said to me that they cannot come out against their pac, that gingrich can can go -- because he didn't have a pac, he all but admitted to me it was their pac which is chris' point. that's what ginsberg literally said on this show doesn't. we can't do it because we're affiliated with a pac which is exactly what they are not supposed to be. >> let's take a look at what we are talking about. we've got a quick montage of anti-gingrich ads run by the restore our future super pac, and then i'll go to howard.

>> newt has a ton of baggage. he was fined $300,000 for ethics violations and took 1.6 million from freddie mac before it helped cause the economic meltdown. newt supports amnesty for illegal immigrants and teamed with nancy pelosi and al gore on global warming. ever notice how some people make a lot of mistakes? >> probably a mistake. >> i made a mistake. >> i've made mistakes at time. >> oops. >> you know what makes barack obama happy, newt gingrich's baggage. newt has more baggage than the airlines. as conservative "national review" says his weakness for half-baked and not especially conservative ideas made him a poor speaker of the house. he appears unable to transform or even govern himself. newt gingrich too much baggage. restore our future is responsible for the content of this message. >> those ads being run not technically by mitt romney but by a group that might possibly have a feeling that maybe mitt romney would be a good president. howard fineman, before the break you were trying to jump n.let me

let you get in on that >> i spent a lot of time with romney people last night. they are in a good move, and they love this. they love the rough and tumble of it. they are proud of it, and they want to create this environment where this type of spending is their advertisement for the type of campaign they want to run against barack obama. in other words, what they are saying to republican insiders here is look at how tough we are with these -- with this independent spending. this is the kind of thing that you're going to see on our nominee's behalf against barack obama. leave out fact that most people don't particularly like mitt romney. mitt romney is offering his machine as much as he's offering himself, and the people running the romney campaign i think are quite unabashed about that, even if they technically have no legal tie to the people doing it. >> i also think as far as negative ads go, there wasn't one thing in that ad that wasn't true. >> that's right. >> there's not one thing that was mentioned in that ad about speaker gingrich that isn't true, that isn't fair, and that's why they have been so

devastating. >> what makes barack obama happy, newt gingrich's baggage? you're going to call that true. question test the president's happiness. that's potentially a slam >> i think it is fair to say that president barack obama would be very happy with the notion of newt gingrich as the republican nominee because of all of his baggage, and i think that newt gingrich was evaluated singularly through the prism of these excellent debate perfo performanc performances, and republican voters had this collective amnesia about his record and the dissonance between things that he says and things that he's done and i think it was a fair part of this process. the ads were not lo blow. >> why didn't mitt romney put his name on them? >> because he doesn't have to. that's not system works. the point that i made earlier, the system is set up today as a function of the supreme court rules on unconstitutional campaign finance reform and as long as the reform focus is trying to take money out of system away from the parties and away from the candidates, then

you're going to have this broken system. the only reform that will work is if you do what chris is saying, and that is to have unlimited contributions to the candidates. that's all the responsibility, all the transparency on the candidates. >> or decide that the money isn't speech. decide that money isn't speech and have publicly financed elections. let me have chris jump in here. >> that couldn't have been said better. thanks for the business we have chosen. nobody chose this political process. it was the courts that did it. anyway, on sunday, gingrich had some he had been romney boated, a reference to the swift boat attacks on john kerry back in 2004 so i asked the former speak fer this is the future of politics. the lofty rhetoric on the trail and then the nasty super pac ads from some front group. here's our exchange. >> no, no more than it has been in the past. >> but you won all these debates and you come in here and all i watch on television is these

restore our future ads that are legal now with no i paid for this ad by mitt romney and he comes out looking like a million bucs how great he has, with a beautiful family and his ads are trashing you constantly. >> right. so part of question you have to ask yourself he's assuming the american people are stupid. i don't think the american people are stupid. >> well, the polls show that they are responding though. the polls are reacting to this? >> i'm sure within a few weeks every american will know -- >> took you from the 30s down to the teens with this strategy. it's working. >> of course he did. >> and why doesn't he do it in 50 states? >> it will guarantee that some other conservative emerged and didn't help romney at all. >> he's not afraid that have conservative. he's afraid of you. he got rid of the guy he wanted to get rid of in. >> he just slowed me down. >> what do you want to achieve during the rest of the campaign? >> we'll make it increasingly clear these are his ads. >> there's no tag line? >> you have to list his former staff and his donors and he can

go around the country all he wants to and say he's not responsible for this. it makes him -- here's my simple tag line. somebody who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to you when they are president. >> you didn't have any problem with citizens united no, problem with big donors spending tons of money -- >> no. >> -- attack you. >> no ads are being run by any of my friends attacking anybody. >> his friends. >> my solution to eliminate all the election laws and allow people to give unlimited personal money after tax and file every night. >> put their names ton. >> let the candidates runt campaigns and have the candidate be responsible. i think the current mess is a disgrace. i think it debill tastes politics. i think it strengthens millionaires and it weakens middle class candidates. >> rachel, the problem is that newt gingrich agreed to that citizens united court decision. he applauded it, and there he is the first big victim of it, so

there is a personal justice here. my concern is someone like all of us who care about a democracy being as good as it can can be, as democratic as it can be, of course, never going to be perfect because there's always money involved, that this kind of sewer of spending of money, we can can run the money underground and attack your opponent without your fingers ever getting soiled by it and you can walk around with your beautiful family and recite from "america the beautiful" and the voter doesn't see the connection. newt's wrong. they don't see the connection because iowans don't like negative nasty campaigning. i don't mind it. i don't mind if a guy takes a shot at another candidate because he does it face to face, but this is sewer campaigning. it goes underground. it smells, and you walk above ground looking like a million bucs like you never touched your fingers with it and that's my concern, and newt is the first victim of something he approved of. >> when we come back, we'll talking with a man who knows the iowa caucuses very well. 2004 caucus candidate, former democratic party chairman howard

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welcome back to msnbc's coverage of the republican caucuses in iowa. tonight this key race, 25 delegates at stake and the top tier of candidates based on polling heading into tonight's caucuses. the top-tier candidates are mitt romney, ron paul and rick santorum. other candidates are on the ballots, but polling shows these three bunched at the top in terms of the polling heading into tonight so they will have the most attention as results start to come in. doors will close in the iowa calk yeses at 8:00 p.m. eastern, 7:00 p.m. local time, and the voting will begin. first results will presumably start to come in not long therefore, but nobody knows how long a night this is going to be.

it depends on the pace of reporting and the margin of victory. i'm rachel maddow here in new york city. msnbc hq. we're joined by matt schultz, iowa's secretary of state and a declared supporter of former pennsylvania senator rick santorum. mr. secretary of state, thank you very much for being with us. >> good evening, thank you. >> you and iowa republicans in the state legislature have fought hard this year to try to change iowa law so that people can't vote unless they show documentation they have never had to show before in iowa. >> that's right. >> and not all iowans have. why when the republican party of iowa had the chance to set its own rules for its own republican caucuses tonight did they not impose that same requirement on their own voters? >> that's a good question. as you know, i'm the secretary of state, and this is a caucus, not a primary so i have no say in this, and neither did the ledge lernlgs but, you know, if i had it my way, everybody would show an i.d., have to show an

i.d. getting on an airplane, opening a checking account and buying beer. should be no different to vote? >> voting is our constitutional right. there shouldn't be in my view either prejudicial or bureaucratic barriers to exercising that right and there are thousands of iowans who are eligible voters who don't have government-issued i.d.s right now. why make it harder for them? >> we'll be proposing a bill a model for the country. i put five democratic county auditors and five republican county auditors and i said why don't you like this bill and we sat down and tried to hammer out solutions of of those problems so that we could have a bill that didn't disenfranchise voters but still allowed for the security by showing afnn i.d.? >> have you ever prosecuted a caves voter i.d. that would have been prevented by having a voter show an i.d.? >> looking into it. seen it in other parts of

country. at this time we don't have one. what we're trying to do is close a loophole. doesn't mean it doesn't happen and what we want to do is make sure that we have integrity and honesty in our elections. we don't want it to happen. just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't and we want to make sure that we have an i.d. bill, to make sure that students and elderly people and people without i.d.s will still have an opportunity to vote and still provide that security by helping them get i.d.s and by helping them in those situations in which they can't get one. >> are you concerned at all though about the balance between a theoretical loophole that's never been shown to be an actual problem in iowa versus the real bureaucratic regulatory barrier that you will put between thousands of iowans and their right to cast a ballot? i mean, when you think about those things just as -- just as a citizen, how do you justify coming down on the theoretical loophole side that have balance rather than on preventing a real harm to thousands of iowans, many of them who rell -- who are

elderly and don't have many options getting around a hurdle you're putting in their way? >> i'm not putting out a hurdle. you haven't seen our bill. i believe our bill will be a model to the country where we can provide security without disenfranchising voters and i'm looking forward to working with the legislation without passing that legislation. this could be a bipartisan legislation. that's the way i went about it by putting together an election advisory board and put county auditors, the ones with the boots on the ground and count the votes, so to speak so i'm looking forward to introducing this bill this coming session, and i believe it will be a mold for the country and i'd love to talk to you more about it once we get it out there because i think you'll see that we've solved these problems you're talking about. >> iowa secretary of state and declared rick santorum supporter. >> thank you.

>> former vermont governor howard dean competed in the democratic caucuses in 2004 where he came in third and chairman. democratic national committee. good evening, governor dean. nice to see you. >> nice to be on, thanks. >> what do you think the most important stakes are looking at these republican caucuses in iowa? >> i think that, believe it or not, you could have something that happened in 2004 on the democratic side. could you have, if mitt romney is the winner, the nomination be over tonight. if ron paul is the winner, i think the nomination is over tonight. romney is going to get it, but if santorum is the winner, which i think is going to happen, then romney has a little tougher road, a genuine conservative. 75% of the republicans do prefer not to vote for mitt romney and santorum will give him a real battle in some of the conservative sglats governor dean, this is ed y.do you think rick santorum is going to win this tonight? >> same reason we talked about last night, ed. he's got tremendous momentum in the last two days. when i was running john kerry

developed that kind of momentum. doesn't show up in the polls except for the people like the fellow from "the des moines register" had you on last night who can see the inside number in the polls and the last two days it was a big surge. remember, mitt romney has not gotten above 25% at any time in the last year. he's best fnsd, best order, been through it before, 75% of the people in the state simply don't want to vote for mitt romney unless they have to and santorum is a viable alternative after having gone through everybody else. >> governor dean, this is al sharpton. you and i did iowa together and here we are again. >> yes. >> if rick santorum wins tonight and loses new hampshire, do you think he will get enough momentum, if he won tonight, to where new hampshire doesn't matter and he goes south into south carolina and florida and becomes unstoppable? >> i think that's going to be tough. the problem with rick santorum is the same problem that everybody else with the exception that rick perry has h.they are underfinanced and

underorganized. this is the most peek yar republican primary i've ever seen because you've had a new front-runner every couple of weeks. none of whom have had organizations and rick perry had a big bunch of money and he fell on his face so santorum has to catch up for -- somehow he's got to catch up after romney's been out there organized for six years running. that's going to be a tall order, but i do think that rick santorum can give romney -- probably the only one who can give romney a run for his money and he'll have to win tonight to do it. >> what about this strategy? let's say rick santorum wins tonight and goes right to south carolina and cashes in on all the disgruntled conservatives who will never buy a mormon and never buy mitt romney as their nominee. this is a very unique opening here for rick santorum and can he put it together fast enough in south carolina? >> here's -- not that rick santorum were to listen to me tonight. if i were to win tonight and we don't know what will happen the

next few house, can't do anything to any other state, would i go to gingrich and some of the other folks and get their endorsement and go into south carolina where i think he'll win and go in florida and take romney on directly. florida is a big problem because he's -- he takes an enormous. a money, and he can't raise the money that fast, i don't think. but if he's got some other people behind him, michelle bachmann and gingrich all decide to get together and support santorum, then i think he can beat romney in some big states, and then you could go all the way to the convention. >> governor dean, put -- imagine you're david plouffe or david axelrod or you're the president himself, barack obama, and you've watching all this like we're all watching. they all pretend they are not watching, especially the president but they are watching, what do you want to happen? do you want santorum to do really well tonight, even win tonight to just scramble this thing up? >> absolutely. >> go ahead then. >> absolutely. that's exactly what you want,

chris. you want santorum to win. hopefully he'll win by five or six points which i think he could do, and then go on to south carolina and win that one. you want this thing to go to the convention, if you can help it. >> well, governor dean, why don't you and i endorse mitt romney and help santorum out tonight. >> that would be a big help. let's do that tomorrow, al. >> what kind of turnout do you think is going to be out there, howard? everybody is saying not real enthusiastic and -- and who benefits from a good turnout? >> my own -- you know, you guys know this better than me. my own view is it will be a good turnout for the republicans but won't approach what happened four years ago with barack obama and hillary clinton. when al and i ran against each other we had a very good turnout. the obama/clinton race almost doubled that, extraordinary. a couple hundred thousand people i don't think we're going to see that again for a long time, but as republican caucuses are generally smaller than ours are. i think it will be a good number for the republicans. i'm not sure. you all can do a better job

putting a number on that than i could. >> former vermont governor and former dnc chairman howard dean, good to see you. >> thank you. >> next up from iowa, we'll speak with nbc's tom brokaw and talk and join one of the 1,700 caucus sites across iowa tonight. please stay with us. it, i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money ? if your bank takes more money than a stranger, you need an ally. ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense. c'mon, michael! get in the game! [ male announcer ] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies? lost your appetite for romance?

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>> opportunity to make the down payment on that promise. >> michelle bachmann speaking live right now at one caucus site in black hawk county in iowa. >> and iowans are rejoicing tonight because of that opportunity to reclaim our republic. we will do that and standing with me is the woman who gave me life right here in black hawk county 55 years ago, and the as i think of her and as i think of the sacrifices that she laid down and made in my own life, i

think to myself that we don't stand here alone. we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses of generations who have gone on before. going back to the time of william penn who came to this country to bring the truth of the gospel of jesus christ, to the time of the pilgrims who came here also to share the gospel of jesus christ, who stated that they willingly laid down their lives, literally as stepping stones, so that the next generation would pros pes and know religious liberty. generation after generation has sacrificed for us, including our military, including our veterans. my father signed up to serve honorably in the united states air force here in black hawk county. it is for them, it is for their memory that we are here tonight because we are here to reclaim the greatness of this country.

we are unwilling to allow barack obama to implement socialism in the united states of america. that will happen on our watch! we won't threat. >> minnesota congresswoman michelle bachmann making what amounts to her closing argument tonight to one caucus in black hawk county, speaking in cedar falls at the university of northern iowa calling the president a socialist, standing there with her mom, so it's sort of a mom and apple pie and also doomsday close argument that she's make together voters of iowa. mmm, mmm bachmann, probably the hardest working republican candidate in iowa, vying with rick strump for that title, been to all 99 counties. she has county by county support in iowa that's almost unpair leltd. won the ames iowa straw poll and seen her fortunes since dim. hoping for a surprise showing but at this point we're just

waiting to get our first results. caucus-goers are arriving at caucus sites across iowa. the doors will be closing in about 25 minutes, and the voting will begin at that point. nbc's ron mott is in johnston just outside of des moines. how are things going here? >> reporter: you can see the crowd filing in behind me. one of the interesting things about this particular site, one of the largest caucus sites around iowa. i asked one of the gentlemen setting the chairs, how many chairs they had for this woman, this is the caf ferrara. 400 chairs and in this precinct alone they could see as many as 800 to 1,000 people here. may have a raw cause caucus. you heard michelle bachmann talking to hopefully supporters of hers. we'll see some surrogates for campaigns as well. josh romney is here just behind me. i'm not sure you can can see him on cameras, stumping for his father, former congressman from oklahoma j.c. watts will be here

stumping for newt gingrich trying to turn out vote in this precinct for former speaker gingrich and the wife of rick perry, anita perry, will say some things about her husband's campaign to get the undecided voters to come to his side. one thing that's interesting, so many voters were leaving their options open coming into caucus night because they want to heart final pitches from the campaigns. after all that time, all that money and all the tv ads, they were leaving themselves open to hearing the final pitch to see if these candidates could earn their votes. about 41% still undecided coming into the weekend. going to be a real interesting night. can you seat crowd filing. in may have standing room only by the time this is all said and done. rachel? >> nbc's ron mott in johnston, iowa. i'm jealous. i can tell this is going to be a fun night for you. we'll talk to you soon. thank you. >> interesting to see the breadth of the different caucuses, the smallest to the very large ones. nbc's tom brokaw joins us now from des moines. he's been on the ground in iowa reporting and observing about

what's happening in the lead up to the caucuses. great to be here with us. >> glad to be here, rachel. >> what are you noticing in terms of the tone that you are hearing from voters and contrast with previous years caucuses that you might be able to talk about. >> well, i think that this year is kind of unique because it's been so intense for so long and such a crowded field, and we've had so much surges. we've had michelle bachmann surging and rick santorum surging and mitt romney, 24%, 25%. how that will play before the end of the evening, we'll find out. i've been intrigued that iowa is a battleground state again. lost one electoral vote, president obama wouldn't state easily four years ago. it's not going to be that's for him this time. there was a big republican sweep in '10 so i've been talking to voters about what their expectations are for the fall. i spent the last couple of days in perry, iowa, and you get

mixed readings. the christian conservatives are trying to decide who they like in this group. two of them told me today they couldn't vote for romney because he is a mormon. there were others who were obviously very critical of president obama, especially on foreign policy. that seemed to rise to the floor because of rick santorum and the emphasis he put on it this week. on the other hand, democratic mayor in per, iowa, who became a democrat when he calk ewes yeses for obama for you years ago after investigate for both bushes, george 41 and george 43 in the past, you know, said washington can learn a lot from small town america. republicans and democrats, tough budget issues and we'll get the job done and by the way, a point great civic pride is the new community college. we built that with a lot of help from the federal government and the stimulus program that was initiated by president obama, so it's those kinds of things that i'm trying to keep my eye on going into the fall and where the traps are and where the

opportunities are for both sides. >> nbc's tom brokaw, thank you, tom. imagine we'll checking with you as frequently as we can. appreciate it. when we come back, we'll be speak with representatives from the bachmann and perry campaigns. i believe -- do we have right now half the coverage of newt gingrich addressing caucus-goers. newt gingrich making his closing argument to voters in black hawk county. >> went on in taking the reagan playbook and in the 1990s reformed well fair, cut taxes, brought unemployment down to 4.2%, helped create 11 million new jobs and balanced the budget for four years. this is not a time for another amateur. we've had three years of an amateur. washington is too complicated. the problems are too hard. second, i ask you to consider who can stand up to obama's billion dollar campaign, meet

him in debate in october and decisively repudiate his policies, his principles, his values and his ideas and win despite every smear, every attack and every distortion which you know their billion dollar campaign will launch, and i suggest to you given the debates you've seen i would come far closer to being able to decisively outline who he is and defeat him. third, we have run a relentlessly positive campaign. we've done -- our ads have been positive. the speeches have been positive. [ applause ] you are have a chance tonight to send a signal to america that the consultant-driven viciously negative campaigns are totally

wrong for this year when america is in these kind of problems, and you can do that by refusing to vote for anyone who has run negative ads, and you kin sift on voting for someone who has been positive. finally, the conservative movement has an opportunity to take advantage of all of obama's weaknesses and win one of the great historic victories of the 21st century. with your help, we will try to lead that movement to a desaves change in washington for our children, our grandchildren and the future of our country. thank you very, very much. [ applause ] >> newt gingrich speaking in black hawk county at university of northern iowa in cedar falls, one of the largest caucus sites tonight in iowa. some caucus sites in iowa, just a handful of people some of them have up to 1,000 people and some very large.

this is one of the larger sites which is why you're seeing the candidates themselves, michelle bachmann and newt gingrich speaking, including high-profile surrogates. nbc's ron mott is in johnston just outside des moines, another large caucus site and they just told me where ron moth, is they have just seen candidate rick santorum arrive at that caucus site. at some of these larger caucus sites you're seeing the candidates themself, famous and/or big name surrogates appear on their behalf. i'm here with al sharpton and lawrence o'donnell and ed schultz and steve schmidt here in new york. just responding, listening to that newt gingrich sort of closing argument, the tone contrast with michelle bachmann sort of pounding the podium, going fire and brimstone and newt gingrich going full professor newt there is one distinct contrast, but also make the case that people ought to vote against people who run negative ads, vote against mitt romney because he's run negative ads against me.

steve, how do you assess that? >> i think he has a couple of problems going forward. he's going to be campaigning in the future in states like south carolina and florida that have unemployment rates of nearly 10%, and i thinks formulation for the election is the biggest problem facing the country, someone is running negative ads against me newt gingrich, and i think it's a problem. voters, when you look at country as a whole, the tough times that people are in, are overly sympathetic to politicians complaining about negative ads. at the end of the day, the election is about the voters. that's not about the politicians, and the woe is me routine from the person who is more responsible than any other person in america for the terrible tone in american politics over the last, you know, over the last two decades, i think is a real hard sell. >> he is the guy that put together the sheet back in the '90s this is how you vilify democrats, and now here he is crying about. is newt gingrich willing to tell the american people, you know, if i would have had the same amount of people as mitt romney has in the super pac, i wouldn't

be running any negative ads as all. this is as much about resource as it is legality. if newt gingrich had the kind of resource and the kind of backing, he'd be doing the same thing that romney is doing. it's about wing, and when he talked about going positive is when he was in great shape, saying he was going to get the nomination, he was doing it at 26%. felt good in iowa and then the negative ads came around and he didn't have the money to counter it so now he's complaining about it. where were all the republicans and all the critics when president obama at the state of the union talked about citizens united? president obama was vilified big time by a lot of people on the right by saying, hey, you went after the supreme court, you shouldn't have done it. you politicized it. he said, look, basically this is coming. this is what's happening. the president of the united states called everybody out on this ruling and this is where we're going toned up, and lo and behold, almost poet imjustice that it's newt gingrich. >> newt supported citizens united. newt not only didn't have the money and doesn't have the

ground troops which is the name of the game with caucus es and began the night still feeling that willard romney will pill it out and i'm edge iing over ther with ed about santorum because any time i hear you say that there may be standing room only but you only put 400 chairs down where 800 could go, the less turnout, the better it's going to be for santorum. newt and them do not have the army and santorum and ron paul may have it, and if one of the biggest places only has half the amount of chairs as the preacher that knows about how you make a room look good, they are trying to make a room look good. >> thank you, al. thank you, steve. thank you, ed, thank you, lawrence. the doors will be closing soon. 15 minutes at caucus sites throughout iowa at top of the hour. that's important because that's when the polling begins. this is getting very exciting. you're watching msnbc's coverage of the iowa caucuses. stay with us.

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but defeating barack obama -- >> rick santorum speaking live at an iowa caucus. >> to make our country strong so our enemies respect us and our allies trust us, someone who has a vision to get this economy going, not just for some, but

for all, including small town and rural america and blue collar america. that's why i focused so much on manufacturing and cutting taxes and cutting taxes and putting a pro growth plan but also to reduce the scale and size of the federal government. so we need to repeal obama care and i proposed a balanced budget in five years with $5 trillion of deficit reduction including the entitlement reform. i put the bold plans but i have the track record to back it up. that's why i would encourage to not just look at what people say they're going to do. look what they've done. finally, the candidate's been out here talking about the important role. yes for our culture but also for our economy. that the family is in america. we need strong families not just because it's good for our society but it is good for our economy. the family, the word economy comes to the word home in greek. it is the first economy, the family. it is the first hospital, the

first school. if we don't have strong families and a president willing to go out and talk about it, you know, there's three things that people can do if they want to stay out of poverty in america. number one, work. obviously. but the two that we don't talk about, graduate from high school, get married before you have children. we have a president of the united states who actually tells recipients of federal funds they can't talk about marriage if they're in a program counseling teenagers about how not to have children outside of wedlock they can't talk about marriage under federal law because it is only one of a variety of lifestyles and we can't promote it over others even though we know it can keep people out of poverty and enrich our society. we need a president who shares our values. we need a president who can stand up and unite america around a common set of values. hopefully the people of iowa after all those meetings have

seen that i'm sincere about all of this and i've got a track record to back it up. i hope tonight as you make this tough decision i know it will be that you'd give us an opportunity in iowa to speak, be bold, lead, put who's out there that will really make the changes that are necessary throughout our country from the family to the economy to our national security and i hope you choose me. thank you and god bless you. >> former pennsylvania senator rick santorum making his closing argument tonight to the voters of pope county, iowa, in johnston just outside of des moines one of the larger caucus sites of the more than 1700 caucus sites in iowa they range from just a few people to big, crowded rooms like the one you saw rick santorum addressing there. the candidate not exactly giving a barn burner of a closing speech but, clearly speaking from the heart and hitting his core issues, which are and pretty much have always been family values. regardless of which candidate wins the republican nomination,

the obama campaign will reportedly attempt to tie that candidate to specifically the tea party and to the unpopularity of the current congress. nbc's luke russert is in washington with more on that strategic aspect of 2012 politics. >> how you doing? >> good. >> well, it's interesting, rachel. we're going to see i think the biggest untold story coming out of iowa tonight is whoever the winner is as they move forward it's really going to have to deal with the legislation that was passed out of the house republican congress over this last year and the future legislation they will pass in 2012. now, nobody talks about this because it's not the horse race but actually the real legislative policies but the house gops passed things like the ryan budget which passed 235-189 that got no democratic votes only four republicans vote add gens it, in essence to some degree privatizes medicare, would cut funding to head start,

deregulate a lot of the epa. there was even a lot of abortion bills voted through the house gop that would have in one instance allowed a hospital if they had religious, moral feelings to not perform an abortion on a woman who is near death. so there's a lot of these bills that passed through the house that a lot of democrats feel are going to be thrown around the neck of the nominee, whoever comes out tonight and in the whole process tan's the untold story right now and is very interesting because as the house gop has gone to the right and gotten more conservative and as these folks tried to run into the general direction it's going to be asked, would you support the ryan budget? all out. mitt romney has doubled down on that. as the scrutiny gets more and more it will be interesting to see how much this legislation passed out of the house really affects these candidates. one last thing. mitt romney has been very much supportive of a balanced budget amendment, rachel. that's something economists from both sides say would be just absolutely horrific to the economy because it doesn't allow for that of a recession to show. that's something that was voted

down in the house. that's going to get a lot of play. while we talk about the horse race in iowa and the states further -- look at the actual legislative achievements through the house, gop, congress that were going to happen over 2012. that is an awful lot of fodder for a democratic campaign operation, rachel. >> nbc's luke russert in washington. thanks. we will be checking back with you. looking at the closing argument from rick santorum hearing what the democratic strategy is going to be you do have to wonder how successful the democrats are going to be at trying to make the primary running to the right tactics that you were talking about, al, hang around the necks of the candidate in the general election. >> well, when you -- i think luke just raised some of the ways it can happen. when you look at the fact that you look at ryan's bill and all of the things that it takes away, then you talk about you need jobs, well, you cannot argue let's give us the pipe line, the keystone pipe line to

provide jobs which are really about 6500 jobs. all the president and democrats have to say, well, if we just upgraded some of the power plants, if we dealt with retro fixing residential and commercial space we create more jobs. so when you get past the rhetoric and deal with job creation, what the entitlements really mean to grandma, i think they lose. and rick santorum cannot run family against the obama family. he loses that one. >> all right. coming up the doors will close at the caucus sites across iowa. the voting will begin and we will have our first characterization of the race in iowa tonight. that is right after this. you're watching msnbc's coverage of the iowa caucuses. ♪ that's good morning, veggie style. hmmm [ male announcer ] for half the calories -- plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. plus veggie nutrition. when bp made a commitment to the gulf, we knew it would take time, but we were determined to see it through.

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