GOP Candidates Square Off; Santorum's Momentum
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN ANCHOR: From CNN Center, this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING, Sunday, January 8th. It's 7:00 a.m. here in Atlanta, 6:00 a.m. in Nashville, and 5:00 a.m. in Tucson, Arizona. Good morning, everyone. I'm Gary Tuchman. Republican presidential candidates duking it out on stage again. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum engaged in a heated exchange. Rick Perry says he would send U.S. troops back into Iraq if he were president. We'll give you all the highlights if you missed the New Hampshire debate. Plus, you may not know it, but you are killing your credit score with simple things such as renting a car. We'll explain coming up. We start with politics and the race to be the Republican presidential nominee. The New Hampshire primary is now just two days away, the first in the nation primary. So, you could have expected fireworks -- you may have expected it because there's been lots of fireworks in other debates, at last night's debate in Manchester. Well, if you wanted fireworks, you might have been disappointed in this one. There were just a few shots fired. But maybe surprisingly, front-runner Mitt Romney wasn't generally the target. CNN political editor Paul Steinhauser has the highlights.</s>PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Good morning, Gary. Round one this doubleheader of debates this weekend up here in New Hampshire is over. And guess what? Front-runner Mitt Romney is still the front-runner. The former Massachusetts governor who's way ahead in polls here in New Hampshire really remained unscathed in this debate as a lot of his rivals for the Republican nomination didn't really attack him but rather went after each other. Take a listen to this exchange between Ron Paul, the congressman from Texas, and former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who's really been surging in the polls.</s>REP. RON PAUL (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's a big government person along with him being very associated with the lobbyists and taking a lot of funds. And also where did he make his living afterwards? I mean, he became a high-powered lobbyist in Washington,</s>D.C. RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's a ridiculous charge. And you should know better than to cite George Soros-like organizations to say that they're corrupt. So, that's number one. Ron, I'm a conservative, I'm not a libertarian, I believe in some government.</s>STEINHAUSER: Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is placing all his chips right here in New Hampshire. He didn't really campaign in Iowa and he's hoping for a strong finish here in Tuesday's primary. Huntsman was touting his experience as U.S. ambassador to China. But Mitt Romney had an answer.</s>JON HUNTSMAN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's nonsense to think you can slap a tariff on China the first day that you're in office as Governor Romney would like to do. You've got to sort through the issues of trade like you do with North Korea, like you do with Iran, like you do with Burma, and Pakistan, and the South China Sea. They're all interrelated. And to have a president who actually understands how that relationship works would serve the interests of the people of this country from an economic standpoint and from a security standpoint.</s>RICK ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm sorry. Governor, you were the last two years implementing the policies of this administration in China.</s>STEINHAUSER: Texas Governor Rick Perry had a disappointing fifth place finish in Iowa. He's hoping for a strong comeback. He appeared to make a little news at the debate.</s>GOV. RICK PERRY (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would send troops back in to Iraq, because I will tell you --</s>MODERATOR: Now?</s>PERRY: I think we start talking with the Iraqi individuals there. The idea that we allow the Iranians to come back into Iraq and take over that country with all of the treasure both in blood and money that we have spent in Iraq because this president wants to kowtow to his liberal leftist base and move out those men and women. He could have renegotiated that time frame. I think it is a huge error for us.</s>STEINHAUSER: Those comments sure generated a lot of buzz online and on social networks. And they were a talking point in the spin room after the debate. This debate only round one. A few hours from now, another showdown between these six candidates as we get closer and closer to Tuesday's primary -- Gary.</s>TUCHMAN: Thank you very much, Paul. We still want to talk about the debate. So, joining me live from New Hampshire's largest city of Manchester is Patricia Murphy. She's the founder and editor of "Citizen Jane Politics." Thank you very much for joining us, Patricia. We appreciate it.</s>PATRICIA MURPHY, CITIZEN JANE POLITICS: Thanks for having me.</s>STEINHAUSER: Now, Mitt Romney, the clear front-runner in New Hampshire and in South Carolina, and probably in Florida after that as of now. Did his rivals miss the mark last night by not going after him?</s>MURPHY: I think what we saw his rivals doing, they were going after whoever they thought was between them and the nomination. And at this point, Mitt Romney is not really a lot of these guys' biggest problem. There's a huge battle up here in New Hampshire for second and third. Everybody knows Mitt Romney is going to run away with this. He's lived here forever. He's been campaigning here forever. He was the governor of a neighboring state. He's going to win New Hampshire, no doubt about it. So, there's the battle for second and third. And so, you saw this sort of dog fight between everyone who wanted get ahead of each other in any way possible. So, we saw Newt Gingrich mixing it up with Ron Paul, who mixed it up with Rick Santorum. That's what they were doing. Did they miss an opportunity? I think so. If nobody goes after Mitt Romney, he's going win the whole thing. They need do something soon. We'll see if they do it this morning.</s>TUCHMAN: I mean, you raise an important point. There's a situation where you want to come in second because you want to be at just a one and two race between Mitt Romney and yourself. You think you could coalesce and get those conservative voters and them maybe beat him. But still, you would expect to hear criticism of Romney even if they weren't -- that wasn't the most important goal. You heard Rick Santorum last night come close to directly criticizing Romney. Listen.</s>SANTORUM: I'm talking about -- yes, in the case of -- you know, the manager, as you're talking about, as far as the commander-in-chief or the manager part?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The manager --</s>SANTORUM: The manager part. Yes, well, of course, I was talking about Governor Romney. I was talking about someone who brings to the table, he says, I'm going to be -- you know, I've got business experience. Well, business experience doesn't necessarily match up with being the commander-in-chief of this country. The commander-in- chief this country isn't a CEO. It's someone who has to lead. And it's also, being the president is not a CEO. You can't direct, you know, members of Congress and members of the Senate as to how you do things. You've got to lead and inspire.</s>TUCHMAN: Patricia, we knew that Santorum wasn't going to win in New Hampshire, not necessarily come close. But after the Iowa caucuses, he lost by eight votes. It he would have gotten nine more votes, he would have won the Iowa caucuses. We anticipated perhaps maybe some kind of significant jump in the polling in New Hampshire over the last few days, which we haven't seen as of yet. So, do you think he's capitalizing on his momentum?</s>MURPHY: I think he's doing everything he can to capitalize on his momentum. We know that he's raising a lot more money this week than he was last week. So, that's a good way to get started. We know also that he's going to start going into South Carolina. New Hampshire isn't really fertile territory for Rick Santorum, but he's here just to play, just to be on the field and just to finish top three. I think you're going to see Rick Santorum's biggest move come in South Carolina. That's where he needs to wrap up the conservative vote, coalesce it behind him. And then he can become the anti-Romney, try and make it a two-man race.</s>TUCHMAN: So, at this point, what does it look like as far as the two-man race scenario goes? Do you think by the time we get to Florida, we're just going to have two people left?</s>MURPHY: I think South Carolina's going to give us a huge indication of that. If Mitt Romney wins South Carolina, then he will -- he's most likely to have won the first three states. They all have a huge, diverse ideological breadth. So, if he wins one, two, three, it looks like he's going to be coming away with it in Florida. But if he doesn't win in South Carolina and if he doesn't do as well as expected in New Hampshire, it could still be anybody's race in Florida. So, look at how big the margin is Tuesday and look at what happens in South Carolina. If Mitt Romney doesn't win South Carolina, this is not his race to win because we still know that about 75 percent of Republicans are not on the Romney bandwagon yet. And South Carolina's going to give us a big sign of whether or not that's going to happen.</s>TUCHMAN: Well, Patricia Murphy, just like you advised, we will be looking and paying attention. Thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate it.</s>MURPHY: Thank you.</s>TUCHMAN: Be sure to stay with CNN for all of the news on the New Hampshire primary. Our special coverage kicks off Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Now for some other headlines: Around 100 soldiers are locked down right now at Lewis-McChord Army Air Force Base in Washington state. Commanders there are reacting to a report of missing military equipment including night lasers and gun scopes. The restricted soldiers are all part of the Fourth Brigade Second Infantry Division. Officials are telling us there is no threat to the public. Police in Denver, Colorado, trying to figure out why an area couple were the targets of a package bomb. The two people, a man and a woman, were injured when the bomb exploded in their car. It had been left at the front door. According to local reports, investigators are looking at a possible suspect, but there's been no word on a motive in the attack. Mt. Rainier National Park is now open to the public once again. The park was closed down after a park ranger was shot and killed last week. A former soldier is blamed in the shooting. He was found dead a little while later. A memorial service for the ranger who was killed, Margaret Anderson, is planned for Tuesday. A container ship grounded off the coast of New Zealand has broken into two. Big swells battered the helpless ship -- these are amazing pictures -- knocking a couple hundred containers off the deck. Only 15 containers have been recovered. Inside, one of the containers had ton of milk powder which spilled into the water. The ship has actually been stuck on a reef off northern New Zealand since October. So you're talking about three months the ship's been there. Officials say they are ready to clean up any oil that spills from the broken ship. But right now, it's nine minutes past the hour. Meteorologist Alexandra Steele has a sneak peek of your Sunday forecast -- Alexandra.</s>ALEXANDRA STEELE, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hi. Good morning, Gary. Hi, everyone, good morning to you. New York City, an April day yesterday -- feeling like it anyway -- with temperatures in the 60s. Is that heat over? And where's the rain and the fog? Talk a little Chinook action, some Santa Anas and some snow out west. All those details coming up in the full forecast in a few minutes -- Gary.</s>TUCHMAN: I love the word Chinook. And when we come back, I want to ask you, what does that mean?</s>STEELE: All right. Chinook-y.</s>TUCHMAN: OK.</s>STEELE: I'll give you a little Chinook-y.</s>TUCHMAN: A Snooki Chinook wind?</s>STEELE: You got it.</s>TUCHMAN: All right. I'm going to ask you about that shortly. Meanwhile, an iced-in Alaskan town is just months away from running out of fuel. But help is now on the way in the Bering Strait. More on the historic mission in a about minute.