ramesh. >> it's a different feel and a different strategy. last time around romney was banking a lot more on iowa. this time he is positioned in a different place. last time remember he was running from the right of the republican field. this time he's running from the center so iowa was never going to be as important to him this time around as last time so compared to how mccain did last time in iowa -- >> he came in fourth. do you think it represents the fact that he has a ceiling problem? >> look, i think there's no question that romney has not closed the deal with republicans. but he does quite well in the those questions about, okay, if you're not supporting him, who is your number two choice? people easily assume 75% of the voighters in the republican party are against romney. they're not. they prefer other people to him. >> the thing is what this field tells us is that when high-quality likely gop candidates looked at running against president obama, they decided not to. and they decided to wait until the next round so what we end up w

ramesh, were you surprised? and i doebt n't want to write an early obituary in politics. they wrote early obituaries for hillary clinton's campaign. >> let us not compare either of those. >> yes, i agree. i'm -- i don't want to be too human being hubristic here. i think it's safe to say that his campaign has not gone well. i think it's really hard to come back after you give a speech saying i'm cancelling my campaign. i'm going onto reassess. >> that's cool. >> yeah, exactly. it occurs to me that that was really good. were you surprised by the scale of the epicness that was rick perry's flame out in the early part of this campaign? >> when he jumped in in august, he seem today be a very serious contender. and to reach the point now where he wins fewer counties than gary bower won in the year 2000 is really an amazing thing. he was not able to navigate his way from being a great candidate on paper to being a great candidate in reality, just as he wasn't able to navigate his way from the beginning of the point to the end of one. >> and i think this is actually a really posi

ramesh, were you surprised? and i doen't want to write an early obituary in politics. they wrote early obituaries for hillary clinton's campaign. >> let us not compare either of those. >> yes, i agree. i'm -- i don't want to be too human bei hubristic here. i think it's safe to say that his campaign has not gone well. i think it's really hard to come back after you give a speech saying i'm cancelling my campaign. i'm going onto reassess. >> that's cool. >> yeah, exactly. it occurs to me that that was really good. were you surprised by the scale of the epicness that was rick perry's flame out in the early part of this campaign? >> when he jumped in in august, he seem today be a very serious contender. and to reach the point now where he wins fewer counties than gary bower won in the year 2000 is really an amazing thing. he was not able to navigate his way from being a great candidate on paper to being a great candidate in reality, just as he wasn't able to navigate his way from the beginning of the point to the end of one. >> and i think this is actually a really positi

let's start with ramesh, we were part of this conversation, we basically kicked this conversation off if you will back in iowa by asking him this. look at that transformation, this is exactly i believe 30 days of -- it was i believe december 22nd when i asked him that. what are we up to, january 21st. this is his problem in a nutshell. >> i've spoken to a lot of republicans about this question for several weeks actually. and nobody can figure out what the strategy of the romney campaign is or if there is one. you've got to figure that he would be in better shape if he released it a month ago. he says he's not releasing them because he's afraid of being attacked which is a defensive post tour and being attacked for not doing it anyway. >> in your experience, when you see a candidate struggle with some issue like this, usually it's actually not a staff issue, usually it is a candidate issue, isn't it? >> i was interviewing governor zununu in south carolina. why hasn't he released it? ron paul hasn't released his and gave me a 20-second answer which actually dealt with it. you just did t

ramesh, were you surprised? and i doebt n't want to write an early obituary in politics. they wrote early obituaries for hillary clinton's campaign. >> let us not compare either of those. >> yes, i agree. i'm -- i don't want to be too human being hubristic here. i think it's safe to say that his campaign has not gone well. i think it's really hard to come back after you give a speech saying i'm cancelling my campaign. i'm going onto reassess. >> that's cool. >> yeah, exactly. it occurs to me that that was really good. were you surprised by the scale of the epicness that was rick perry's flame out in the early part of this campaign? >> when he jumped in in august, he seem today be a very serious contender. and to reach the point now where he wins fewer counties than gary bower won in the year 2000 is really an amazing thing. he was not able to navigate his way from being a great candidate on paper to being a great candidate in reality, just as he wasn't able to navigate his way from the beginning of the point to the end of one. >> and i think this is actually a really posi