COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- He's back for the home stretch. And did he mention he's "an outsider"?

After a four-day break for the Christmas holiday, Gov. Rick Perry pushed his credentials as an enemy of Washington Tuesday at the first of at least 19 Iowa campaign events in the sprint toward the Jan. 3 caucuses.

Speaking to a standing-room-only audience at a cafe in Council Bluffs, Perry's remarks were notably more concise and brief than at events before the holiday hiatus that were characterized by lengthy tangents into energy policy and his efforts to create jobs in Texas.

"Ask yourself," he urged the crowd at the Main Street Cafe, "If we replace a Democratic insider with a Republican insider, you think we're really going to change Washington, D.C.? No way."

The governor, who was running behind schedule for his first event of the day, spoke forcefully while glancing often at prepared remarks during his less-than-10-minute speech. He took no questions from voters.

Without directly naming his rivals, Perry took aim at Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney as "Republican insiders" who would maintain the status quo, and he slammed Ron Paul's foreign policy as one that could result in the destruction of the United States.

"You don't have to settle for Washington and Wall Street insiders who supported the Wall Street bailout and the Obamacare individual mandate," he said. "You don't have to resign yourself to voting for the wasteful Washington spending culture of earmarks and of deficits and this ever-rising debt that we've got. You don't have to vote for a candidate, who would allow Iran to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth and then ultimately America.

"You don't have to stand for that. You don't have to settle for that," he told applauding voters.

Perry is joined Tuesday and Wednesday by controversial Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who endorsed Perry last month and previously campaigned with him in New Hampshire.

Arpaio alluded to recent action taken against him by the Department of Justice, which accused the sheriff of violating the constitutional rights of Latinos in his efforts to curb illegal immigration.

"I had a sneak attack last week by the Obama administration," Arpaio said. "The Justice Department went after me, took away my authority. However we still have state laws, and I know the governor believes in state laws. So we need him in Washington. Please caucus and vote for Gov. Perry on Jan. 3rd."

First Read has confirmed, per a high-ranking Democratic source, that Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson (D) will NOT seek re-election in 2012.

Due to some tough polling numbers for Nelson, Democrats already had a pretty good chance of losing this seat next year. But Nelson's decision not to seek re-election makes it harder to keep the seat in the red state of Nebraska.

*** UPDATE *** That is, if the Democrats can't find a top-notch recruit. The same high-ranking Democratic source tells NBC News that former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey (D) is considering a run with Nelson's seat open.

And the source sends this shot at the conservative Nelson, who often voted with Republicans: "He will be the least missed member of the Democratic caucus next year."

DUBUQUE, Iowa -- Mitt Romney’s stance on abortion is being called into question a week out from the Iowa caucuses.

Republicans in Iowa received a text message to their cell phones very early Tuesday morning questioning Romney's anti-abortion credentials.

“Romney exposed at 2012 caucuses. Romney pro life??” the text one Iowan received at 4:00 am CST reads.

Upon calling the 515 area-code number the text message lists, an automated message on the other end includes hearing Romney’s answer during a debate when he ran for U.S. Senate 17 years ago.

“Mitt Romney on life,” an unidentified man’s voice says as the automated message begins.

“As a nation, we recognize the right of all people to believe as they want and not to impose our beliefs on other people,” Romney’s voice is heard saying next –- this comes from an Oct. 25, 1994 Massachusetts senate debate.

“I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country,” Romney continues. “I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years that we should sustain and support it. And I sustain and support that law and the right of a women to make that choice.”

In 2005, Romney changed his position from supporting abortion rights to opposing them.

Neither the text message nor the automated message gives any indication who sent or paid for the messages.

The abortion issue plays very big with conservatives in Iowa. 2008 Iowa caucus winner, Mike Huckabee, even held a forum and movie premiere in Des Moines this month focusing on abortion. Romney did not attend, although Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry did.

Here is video from C-Span from that '94 Massachusetts Senate debate where the response from Romney originates.

*** UPDATE *** Per NBC's Michelle Perry, Romney Communications Director Gail Gitcho responded on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" to these text messages questioning Romney's abortion stance.

Gitcho said abortion is the one substantial issue he has admitted he has changed his position. He is now pro-life, she said -- not something he is going to change his position on.

Video edited by NBC's Morgan Parmet.

A pro-Gingrich Super PAC, Winning our Future, has purchased $256,000 of airtime in Iowa from Dec. 28 thru Jan. 3, according to NBC's ad-tracking sources.

But that $256,000 pales in comparison to the nearly $3 million that the pro-Romney Super PAC, Restore Our Future, has spent in the Hawkeye State so far.

A 2006 memo penned by Newt Gingrich praised the health reform law Mitt Romney piloted as governor of Massachusetts, and threatens to undercut the former House speaker's criticism of that plan.

A memo (first unearthed Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal) distributed through Gingrich's Center for Health Transformation credits Romney and his state's health reform law as a positive development.

"The most exciting development of the past few weeks is what has been happening up in Massachusetts. The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system," Gingrich wrote. "We agree entirely with Governor Romney and Massachusetts legislators that our goal should be 100 percent insurance coverage for all Americans."

That would seemingly temper Gingrich's criticism of the Massachusetts plan as the "forerunner of Obamacare."

Gingrich has similarly criticized the individual mandate contained both in Romney and President Obama's health reforms, despite having supported a similar model for health reform in the 1990s. He's since disavowed such a plan.

Thanks to Chris, Dorr, MI for the question!

Edited and produced by NBC's Lauren Selsky.

LONDONDERRY, N.H. -- Mitt Romney sought to thread the expectations needle about how he must perform in Iowa's caucuses during his return to the campaign trail Tuesday morning.

The former Massachusetts governor downplayed expectations for his campaign's performance in the Jan. 3 caucuses, saying it wasn't a "must-win" contest, all while hinting that he'll be setting up shop in Iowa over the next week.

"You always want to do well in every state. I don't think there's any must win state for anybody," a relaxed Romney said at a cafe in southern N.H. "But for me, I want to do well in all the states and get a good start but I really can't set expectations. A couple of weeks ago I was a distant third in Iowa and you just don't know what's going to happen in this process."

Romney's sought to tamp down expectations about his viability in Iowa throughout the primary cycle. He skipped the Ames straw poll and several other key candidate gatherings in the state. But, with caucus-goers seemingly unable to rally behind a single conservative candidate, Romney's campaign has made a late push in the state, spending more time on the ground, and going on the air with television advertising.

But the Romney campaign has also been careful to hedge its bets in Iowa, mindful of the way Romney's candidacy was burned in 2008 by a poor showing in the caucuses after having invested a great deal of time and resources there. But a win or strong finish there, paired with a victory in New Hampshire, where Romney's campaign has been more intently focused and he leads in the polls, could come close to clinching the nomination early for Romney.

"Of course you want to do well in every state, you'd like to win in every state but that's not gonna happen. I hope to do well enough to 1,150 delegates. So I'm looking at a good start and an even better finish," Romney said of the overall race.

But in perhaps a sly hint of where he'll be spending the next week, he told Granite Staters as he left this morning's event: "See you January 4!"

Where things stand one week before the Iowa caucuses… Why Gingrich’s inability to get on Virginia’s ballot matters… New Romney and Perry TV ads (and Gingrich goes after “Moderate Mitt”)… Breaking down the ad spending in Iowa… Fast facts about Iowa and the caucuses… And Obama (in terms of his approval rating) pretty much ends the year where he began it.

*** One week to go: Here’s where things stand in the GOP presidential race after the Christmas holiday and exactly one week until the Iowa caucuses: Mitt Romney remains the overall on-again/off-again front-runner, yet he’s vulnerable in Iowa if -- and it’s a big IF -- conservatives coalesce around one anti-Romney candidate. (“I don’t see any scenario where we’re not the nominee,” a senior Romney strategist told New York magazine.)… Newt Gingrich’s stock as the Romney alternative has nosedived, especially after his campaign was unable to get on Virginia’s ballot (the consequences of which we explain below)… Last week, Ron Paul emerged as the new Iowa front-runner, but racially charged newsletters bearing his name that appeared decades ago have recently dogged his campaign. (Don’t miss this New York Times headline from yesterday: “Paul Disowns Extremists’ Views but Doesn’t Disavow the Support.”)… And the latest Republican who appears to gaining momentum in Iowa is Rick Santorum.

*** Why Virginia matters: While Virginia awards only 49 delegates in the GOP presidential contest, Newt Gingrich’s inability to get on the ballot there -- despite holding events in the state to do just that and despite living there (!!!) -- was a huge blow to his campaign. Why? Because it reinforced this narrative that Team Romney has been trying to build for the last few weeks: that the Gingrich campaign isn’t built to go the distance with Romney (or even President Obama). What’s more, that particular news was the only political development over a slow Christmas holiday, which means that PLENTY of people heard about it. Meanwhile, Politico reports that a Richmond lawyer who used to serve as the Virginia Democratic Party chair is helping a conservative group challenge Gingrich’s exclusion from the Virginia ballot. 

*** New Romney and Perry ads: Heading into the final stretch in Iowa, Romney is up with a new TV ad in the Hawkeye State that highlights his conservative bona fides. That ad, per NBC’s Alex Moe, forced the Gingrich camp to respond with a press release – entitled “About Moderate Mitt’s Latest Ad” – noting a clip from Romney’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign in which he called himself “moderate” and “progressive.” Meanwhile, Rick Perry has a new TV ad, too, and it digs Michele Bachmann, Gingrich, Paul, and Santorum for their service in Congress. NBC’s Carrie Dann reports that controversial Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio will join Perry on his bus tour through Iowa today and tomorrow.

*** The ad-spending race in Iowa: By the way, here are the latest ad-spending totals for Iowa: Perry $4.4 million, Restore Our Future PAC (pro-Romney) $2.8 million, Ron Paul: $2.3 million, Make Us Great Again PAC (pro-Perry): $1.6 million, Romney $1.1 million, Gingrich $475,000, Citizens for a Working America (pro-Romney) $461,000, Red White and Blue Fund (pro-Santorum) $329,000, Citizens United (pro-Gingrich) $196,000, and Bachmann $166,000 (but hasn’t spent since August).

*** Fast facts about the Iowa caucuses: With the Iowa caucuses just a week away, we’re going to spend the next several days detailing key information about the contest. Today it’s a list of key fast facts:
-- In the modern caucus/primary system (post-1972), only one Republican non-incumbent candidate has won Iowa and gone on to win the presidency: George W. Bush (2000). When you add Democrats to the mix, only three candidates have won Iowa and the presidency – Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama.
-- But John McCain, in 2008, was the only Republican to finish outside the top three in Iowa and still win the Republican nomination.
-- In Iowa’s 2008 campaign, Mitt Romney outspent all other Republicans combined (some $10 million), but still lost to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee by almost 10 percentage points, 34% to 25%.
-- Iowa is one of only two states that has switched parties in three-straight presidential elections: The Hawkeye State voted for Gore in 2000, Bush in 2004, and Obama in 2008. The other state to do this is New Mexico.

*** On the 2012 trail: As you might expect with just a week until the Iowa caucuses, it’s a busy day in the Hawkeye State: Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry, Romney, and Santorum all campaign in Iowa… And Romney has two events in New Hampshire before heading to the Hawkeye State.

*** Obama pretty much ends his year where he began it: While we never put much stock in the latest up and downs of the Gallup Daily Tracking poll (“live by the Gallup Daily Tracking, die by the Gallup Daily Tracking”), its latest numbers showing Obama’s approval rating above water confirm what the other national polls (WaPo/ABC, CNN) have recently shown. And these numbers suggest two things: 1) Obama ends the year pretty much where he started it, in the high 40s (before the Tucson shootings), and 2) he’s firmly out of the hole he found himself in after the bruising debt-ceiling debate.

Countdown to Iowa caucuses: 7 days
Countdown to New Hampshire primary: 14 days
Countdown to South Carolina primary: 25 days
Countdown to Florida primary: 35 days
Countdown to Nevada caucuses: 39 days
Countdown to Super Tuesday: 70 days
Countdown to Election Day: 317 days

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*** Tuesday’s “Daily Rundown” line-up (with guest host Chris Cillizza): Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) on what kind of deal Congress can cut in 2012 once the 60-day extension runs out… Countdown to Iowa with NBC’s Peter Alexander and one of us (!!!)… The Nation’s Greg Mitchell on his book “Campaign of the Century”… And more 2012 news with TIME’s Michael Scherer, Democratic strategist Steve McMahon and msnbc’s Michelle Bernard.

*** Tuesday’s NOW with Alex Wagner: Alex Wagner’s guests include former PA Gov. Ed Rendell, The Nation’s Ari Melber, Politico’s Ben White, Comcast Network’s Robert Traynham, and author Sloane Crosley.

*** Tuesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: Guest host Chris Cillizza interviews Romney Communications Director Gail Gitcho, Rep. Bob Walker with the Gingrich campaign, NBC’s Peter Alexander, the Des Moines Register’s Rick Green, Politico’s Roger Simon, strategists Tad Devine and Kevin Madden (Romney supporter), the Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut, and CNBC’s John Harwood and Ron Insana.

The New York Times on the final sprint to Iowa: “Mitt Romney and his allies are making an assertive final push this week to increase his chances of a strong finish in the Iowa caucuses, the outcome of which could help determine the length of the Republican presidential nominating battle. Any questions about whether Mr. Romney is playing to win in Iowa will be dispelled in the closing days of campaigning here. He introduced a new TV commercial on Monday, promoting his economic vision and his family values — a message that is fortified by a hard-hitting punch from a well-financed outside group attacking two of his rivals.”

“An Iowa caucus campaign that has cycled through several Republican presidential front-runners entered its final week Monday, as unpredictable as the day conservatives began competing to emerge as Mitt Romney's chief rival,” the AP’s Beaumont writes.

Politico asks: Who will survive Iowa?

“Iowans might be more likely to have seen Ron Paul, Rick Perry or Mitt Romney on their television screens this December than to have seen Santa,” the Des Moines Register writes. “GOP presidential candidates and the political action committees that back them have together spent more than $10 million in advertising on television and radio in Iowa this month alone, a grand slam of advertising that outpaces amounts of previous years.”

And turning to New Hampshire… “Newt Gingrich’s surge has slowed and Ron Paul has gained momentum, but Mitt Romney remains the clear front-runner in New Hampshire with a little more than two weeks until the nation’s first primary, according to a new Boston Globe poll,” the Globe writes. Romney leads with 39%, Paul and Gingrich are tied for second with 17%, Jon Huntsman gets 11%.

BACHMANN: “Speaking to reporters in Chariton, the Minnesota congresswoman called the House deal to extend the payroll tax break a ‘mistake,’ because it will reduce the flow of money into the Social Security trust fund,” the Boston Globe says, adding, “Asked about the $40 average Americans would lose on their paychecks without an extension, Bachmann said good fiscal managers must prioritize.”

GINGRICH: He went after Romney with a mailer in Iowa describing him as a “moderate.” But NBC’s Ali Weinberg reported that Gingrich on Friday denied that the “moderate” moniker was a jab at Romney. “How could you think that was a criticism?” he asked NBC News. “I think it’s an accurate description of who he is.”

Gingrich didn’t make it onto the Virginia ballot. Political Wire notes, “While it was embarrassing for Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry not to qualify the Virginia primary ballot, Richard Winger notes it was actually the first time petition signatures were actually checked.” Winger of Ballot-Access.org writes, “The only reason the Virginia Republican Party checked the signatures for validity for the current primary is that in October 2011, an independent candidate for the legislature, Michael Osborne, sued the Virginia Republican Party because it did not check petitions for its own members, when they submitted primary petitions.”

The Wall Street Journal digs up this quote from Gingrich praising Romney’s health-care plan from 2006: "The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system." (Hat tip: Political Wire.)

The New York Times: “New court documents that have emerged seem to contradict Newt Gingrich’s account of how his first marriage ended. On his campaign Web site, under the heading ‘Answering the Attacks,’ the Gingrich campaign maintains that it was his first wife, Jackie Battley Gingrich, the mother of the couple’s two daughters, who sought a divorce in 1980.”

PAUL: The New York Times writes about white supremacists who are backing Ron Paul’s presidential bid. “Mr. Paul’s surprising surge in polls is creating excitement within a part of his political base that has been behind him for decades but overshadowed by his newer fans on college campuses and in some liberal precincts who are taken with his antiwar, anti-drug-laws messages. The white supremacists, survivalists and anti-Zionists who have rallied behind his candidacy have not exactly been warmly welcomed. ‘I wouldn’t be happy with that,’ Mr. Paul said in an interview Friday when asked about getting help from volunteers with anti-Jewish or antiblack views.”

“But he did not disavow their support. ‘If they want to endorse me, they’re endorsing what I do or say — it has nothing to do with endorsing what they say,’ said Mr. Paul, who is now running strong in Iowa for the Republican nomination.” 

The Washington Post fact-checker on Paul’s racially tinged newsletters: “Paul offers implausible explanations for why so many derogatory statements made it into his publications, insisting he knew nothing about them. It’s hard to believe that a man who wants to oversee the entire U.S. government — albeit a smaller version — would provide zero oversight of his publications, or even bother to read them from time to time.

The Texas congressman has to take responsibility for the newsletters that bear his name, or at least acknowledge negligence as the former head of the company that produced them.”

PERRY: “Texas Governor Rick Perry is playing up his status as a ‘Washington outsider’ in a new TV ad released [yesterday], which will air on broadcast and cable TV in Iowa,” the Boston Globe notes. In it, Perry targets former Sen. Rick Santorum, Reps. Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul, as well as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. “Among them, they’ve spent 63 years in Congress,” an announcer says.

“A sharp reader notes that an image of Mike Huckabee and Rick Perry flashes by in Perry's newest Iowa TV ad,” GOP 12 notes.

And what’s Rick Perry doing in his family’s Christmas card?

ROMNEY: He released an ad called “Conservative Agenda,” which shows him “speaking on the stump and meeting with voters, as he makes a series of commitments. ‘I am going to do something to government. I’m going to make it ‘Simpler, and Smaller, and Smarter,’’ Romney says. ‘Getting rid of programs, turning programs back to states, and finally making government itself more efficient,’” the Boston Globe writes. In it, he vows to repeal “ObamaCare,” and he strikes Tea Party notes, saying, “It is a moral imperative for America to stop spending more than we take in.” The ad ends with the words on the screen, “Balance the budget.”

“In the week running up to the caucuses, Philip Rucker reports that Romney will unleash Chris Christie in Iowa (popular in any state), John Thune (whose Midwestern and social conservative appeal is clear), Norm Coleman (represented neighboring state), Jim Talent (represented a neighboring state), Jason Chaffetz (Utah Senator who knocked out a tea party target), and of course Romney and his family itself,” GOP 12 notes. “Romney will speak in Davenport today; then kick off a three-day bus tour in the state.”

SANTORUM: With few others campaigning yesterday, Santorum got some attention: The Boston Globe: “Rick Santorum, topped with NRA cap, shoots for conservative vote in Iowa.”

Here’s what Santorum said about the expectations game yesterday, per NBC’s Matt Loffman: “I think expectations, exceeding expectations, I always said there's really three primaries going on here. There's the libertarian primary, which Ron Paul's going to win. And then you've got the moderate primary, which Gingrich and Romney are scrumming for.  And you've got three folks running as strong conservatives. I think if we win that primary we're in very good shape as the non-Newt-Romney.” (Translation: His goal is to beat Perry and Bachmann.) 

And Santorum has an ad out that seems to channel VH1’s Pop-up video.

“[T]he financial gap between Americans and their representatives in Congress has widened considerably since then, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by The Washington Post. Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, excluding home ­equity. Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the comparable median figure sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.”

MASSACHUSETTS: “Outside groups on both sides are spending millions of dollars on the race, highlighting the national prominence of the fight over the seat held for nearly 50 years by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. But the level of spending also foreshadows the role that such groups, including special political action committees, will play in many of next fall's big political matchups,” the AP says. “The flood of money and ads from outside the state is expected to surge as the Warren-Brown race intensifies.”

Richard Ellis / Getty Images file

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich speaks to supporters on Friday in Columbia, South Carolina.

DES MOINES, Iowa – It appears Newt Gingrich isn’t playing nice anymore.

The Gingrich campaign is out with its first opposition email directly hitting none other than GOP rival Mitt Romney -- a move that signals a departure from the positive-only campaign Gingrich himself promised to run.

“Can we trust a Massachusetts Moderate to enact a conservative agenda?," Gingrich Communications Director Joe DeSantis writes in the email sent out Monday evening. "Our campaign might have plenty of things to say about that, but the best response certainly comes from Mitt Romney himself: 'I think people recognize that I am not a partisan Republican. That I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.'"

The email, labeled “FACT SHEET: MITT THE MASSACHUSETTS MODERATE,” makes fun of Romney’s new television ad running in Iowa during which the former Massachusetts Governor portrays himself as a "conservative businessman.” It quotes what people have said about Romney and a few things Romney has said in the past.

Ironically, the former House Speaker is currently running a TV ad in Iowa himself, during which he says: “Others seem to be more focused on attacks, rather than moving the country forward. That's up to them.” 

Joshua Lott / Reuters

Rick Santorum looks on during pheasant hunting in Adel.

By NBC's Alex Moe

ADEL, Iowa – For the second time in as many months, Rick Santorum went pheasant hunting with one of Iowa’s most prominent conservatives but with no news of an endorsement.

With just about a week out from the Jan. 3^rd Iowa caucuses, Iowa Congressman Steve King joined Santorum for a day of hunting near Des Moines.

“Well it's the day after Christmas -- not a particularly great day to go and do a whole lot of town hall meetings,” Santorum told reporters following a roughly three-hour hunt. “I just thought we'd do something that is fun, something that I enjoy doing and I know the folks here in Iowa enjoy doing also and doing with some good friends.”

Many GOP presidential candidates have been trying to court Rep. King to publicly back them, but none have been successful – not even pheasant hunts have changed his mind, including two with Santorum and one with Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

"I want my head and my heart to come together,” Rep. King said about a pending endorsement and noted there may still be one before the caucus.

Santorum, who hunted pheasants, quail and chukars while wearing a bright orange vest and hat,  told reporters that his campaign is the one with “momentum” going into the first-in-the-nation caucus next week.

“I feel very, very good that all the work that we've done, all the groundwork we've done, the foundation we've laid, is coming and working just perfectly,” the former Pennsylvania senator said. “We feel very good. We have a lot of energy on the ground. Our campaign is clearly the one that is rising right now and has the momentum.”

Santorum, who is still polling in the single digits depsite having visited all 99 counties and spent more time in Iowa than any other candidate, believes there are actually three primaries going on: Libertarian (Ron Paul), moderate (Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney), and conservative (Santorum, Perry and Michele Bachmann).

“You've got three folks running as strong conservatives, I think if we win that primary we're in very good shape as the non-Newt-Romney,” the former Senator said.

The one prediction Santorum had for reporters: “We're going to surprise a lot of people with how well we do on caucus night.”

On the last day of campaigning in Iowa before spending Christmas in Texas, Congressman Ron Paul seemed delighted to share with supporters the 2012 Ron Paul Family Cookbook, which was given to everyone in attendance.

“There’s a little pamphlet on your seats, I believe, and it comes from my wife; it’s called a cookbook,” Paul told the crowd at the beginning of his speech in Cedar Rapids on Thursday. “Now what in the world would you need a cookbook for? It’s just tradition, I’ve been using it in campaigns before. … We guarantee that the recipes are good. But we don’t count calories that carefully when we send out the cookbooks. It’s to enjoy.”

Dr. Paul also gave this warning to those watching their waistlines at an earlier event in Dubuque.

“As a physician and also as a member of the family, I don’t vouch for all the perfect nutrition of every recipe in that book," Paul said, "but a lot of stuff is very good.”

Here are a couple of samples of recipes from the book:

King Ranch Chicken

1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 large bag, Nacho Cheese Doritos
1 chicken (boiled and deboned)
2 cups grated Cheddar cheese
1 can mushroom soup
1 can chicken stock (save from the boiled chicken)
1 can Rotel tomatoes & green chilies
½ tsp. garlic salt

Crush the chips and put in the bottom of large greased casserole dish. Put some chicken mix on top of chips and layer chicken mix, chips and cheese. Finish with a layer of grated cheese. Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes.

Original Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cream
1 cup Crisco
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla (It is important to put the vanilla in now.)

Dissolve: 1 tsp. baking soda in 1 tbsp. hot water and mix alternately with:

2 ¼ cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 cup chopped nuts
1 large bag chocolate chips

Drop by teaspoon on cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes

After completing examination of the nominating petitions filed by Newt Gingrich, the Virginia GOP determined that Gingrich submitted fewer than the 10,000 signatures required, the party said in a press release.

Gingrich has failed to qualify for the ballot and will not be included in the state's March 6 primary.

James Novogrod / NBC News

Tamara Scott and former Iowa state Rep. Danny Carroll, increasingly visible surrogates for Michele Bachmann, speaking at an Ottumwa, Iowa, restaurant Thursday night.

By NBC's James Novogrod

BLOOMFIELD, Iowa -- Michele Bachmann’s 99-county bus tour reached the eight-day mark Friday, and the candidate was losing her voice.  In a whisper she circulated tables at the Oasis Coffee House, greeting voters, autographing yard signs and posing for photos.

While the grueling schedule left Bachmann quieter than usual, a group of surrogates raised the volume this week on a message the campaign hopes will resonate among Iowa’s evangelical voters, in the run-up to the Jan. 3 caucus.

“Do you know that the qualifications for public office are found in the Bible?” asked Danny Carroll, a former state representative, during a visit to a restaurant in Albia on Thursday.

Carroll was citing a passage in Exodus in which Moses is counseled to trust those who "feared God, were capable, and hated dishonest gain."

“I believe that Michele Bachmann fits all of those qualifications,” he added.

Carroll, who has supported Bachmann since the summer, has hosted her at his farm in Grinnell – but had rarely joined her for public events around the state.  His presence, the campaign says, sends a signal to Iowan social conservatives.

“He has a tremendous amount of credibility in that state, and people look to his opinion,” says campaign spokeswoman Alice Stewart.

After a 12-year career in the Iowa statehouse, Carroll was chairman of the board of the Iowa Family Policy Center, a group that was later spun into the Family Leader, one of Iowa’s most high-profile evangelical groups.

Carroll's message seems designed in part to punch back at the Family Leader's current CEO, Bob Vander Plaats, who earlier this week endorsed one of Bachmann's chief rivals for the evangelical vote: Rick Santorum.

The endorsement directed unwelcome attention on the Bachmann campaign, after Politico reported that Vander Plaats had tried to influence the race more directly, by calling Bachmann to urge her to drop out.

Bachmann acknowledges the call happened, but disputes the account of the discussion.  (A source close to the telephone call tells NBC News that Vander Plaats called to ask that she merge her ticket with Santorum, or with Rick Perry. Bachmann, according to the source, declined.)

Since the endorsement, the Bachmann camp’s pushback has been polite but sharp. 

A second surrogate, Tamara Scott – the Iowa director of a conservative women's group, Concerned Women for America – called out the Family Leader and Santorum by name Thursday, during a stop in Ottumwa.

"The Iowa Family Leader had a series of meetings, and the papers said it was to make sure [Mitt] Romney was not the nominee," Scott said.

"Bob Vander Plaats turned around and endorsed Santorum, who had endorsed Romney in the last election.  I just don’t understand those kinds of politics," Scott said.

In an interview with NBC, Scott stressed that she is not speaking on behalf of Concerned Women for America, and added that Bachmann was the only candidate she felt comfortable endorsing.

“Her integrity is intact,” Scott said.

The effect of the campaign’s effort is unclear so far, but the bus tour itself has seemed to win points in rural counties.  Voters in small restaurants and bakeries often said they appreciated Bachmann’s attention.

“She stands for Iowa,” said caucus-goer Kay Rouch, in Keosauqua, on Wednesday.  “This is where her roots are, her beginnings, and I think that she basically has a real concern for the people in the Midwest.”

Alex Moe/NBC News

Newt Gingrich headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- It may be nearly Christmas Eve, but its also just 11 days before the Iowa caucuses - an event that may make or break a candidacy for some of the Republican candidates seeking their party’s nomination.

So what are their campaigns doing while many other Americans are preparing for the holidays? Working.

At the campaign headquarters of each campaign in the Hawkeye State on Friday, it was hard to tell Christmas was just two days away.  It wasn’t  just the worker bees laboring away trying to reach caucus goers, the big bosses of the state operations were present as well.

The only candidate in the state on Friday was Michele Bachmann, who wrapped up the first leg of her 99-county bus tour. Her campaign headquarters in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale was still bustling with workers miles from where the bus tour was taking place.

Eight paid staffers including Bachmann’s Iowa campaign manager, Eric Woolson, were inside the office space making calls to their county chairs and finalizing her upcoming Iowa schedule.

“You have a very finite deadline and there are only so many hours left,” Woolson told NBC News about working this close to the holidays. “We are really at the point where every minute counts. We want to respect folks around the holidays - but we also want to make sure we get our ducks in a row.”

Ron Paul’s headquarters in Ankeny – just outside of Des Moines – also seemed to be utilizing every last minute until the Jan. 3^rd caucuses. They had at least 10 workers doing “typical campaign stuff” according to the man who opened the door but was not allowed to speak with or let media inside. The Paul office had a wreath on the door, a Christmas tree near by and a menorah sitting in the window.

The Newt Gingrich campaign was not only busy working at the headquarters in Urbandale where 8 staffers were seen on conference calls and working on computers, but the campaign also opened it’s 4^th office in the state today – out in Blackhawk County.

“We’re 11 days from caucus - it’s all hands on deck. The country runs 365 days a year,” Gingrich Iowa staffer, April Linder, told NBC News. “We’re not taking anything for granted - were going to work to get every voter out for Newt.”

It was Rick Santorum’s office that appeared to have the most hands-on work going on mid-day Friday. A large Christmas tree with cards to the staff and the former Pennsylvania Senator greeted people as they entered the office just a couple buildings over from the Gingrich campaign. Nine people were at work making phone calls to Iowans and putting together mail packets for caucus precinct captains in various rooms inside. Another handful of volunteers was expected at the office in the early afternoon to help, as well.

Alex Moe/NBC News

Workers at the Rick Santorum headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa.

Mitt Romney’s Iowa team in downtown Des Moines was also typing away at computers into the later hours of the afternoon Friday. Seven people could be seen inside the former Blockbuster video that now serves as the campaign’s headquarters.

Rick Perry’s headquarters in West Des Moines only had two people (plus one who was out at lunch) inside working as large tables with letters and envelopes to be stuffed sat empty.

Romney and Gingrich held events today in the other early states of New Hampshire and South Carolina. Both return to Iowa next week for bus tours across the state, along with Perry and Bachmann.

Less than two weeks to go before the first votes of 2012 are cast, the candidates blanket Iowa. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Edited by Domenico Montanaro

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Shopping at a mall here on Wednesday night, Scott Robertson, a 48-year-old pastor from nearby Lexington, said he just wasn’t that into the South Carolina primary election.

Not yet, at least.

“I just think I’m too busy,” he said. “As it gets closer, I’ll probably pay a lot more attention to it as I hear more about it.”

While the first-in-the-South primary is less than a month away, some South Carolina political observers say voters like Robertson are the norm and won’t get seriously engaged in picking a candidate until voting in the two earlier states begins.

“Frankly, people are still worrying about all the Christmas presents they’re going to have to give,” Republican consultant Chip Felkel said. “South Carolinians will probably start paying attention to it the day after the Iowa caucuses.”

Despite the relative lack of enthusiasm here (a recent NBC/Marist poll found 57% of likely voters did not strongly support a candidate), campaigns have been preparing for the Jan. 21 primary for months. While some have tapped into the state’s traditional grassroots groups and consultants, others are staying relatively under the radar with occasional bursts of activity.

The variety of ground games here underscores this cycle’s uncertainty -- especially given the roller-coaster rise and fall of several candidates. And in a state that has picked every eventual GOP nominee since 1980, some Republicans are wondering whether it’s still necessary to invest in a long ground game here, or simply wait until all eyes are on South Carolina to flood the state.

Traditional routes
A few campaigns are organizing the kind of large campaign infrastructure that has helped candidates in the past. For example, Rick Perry -- who has 13 staffers here -- lined up endorsements from big donors and more than 20 state legislators shortly after announcing his presidential bid in Charleston in August. At the same time, he is tapping into the state’s large veteran base and evangelical voters.

Perry’s state chair Katon Dawson, who worked for George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, said he expects to activate such boots-on-the-ground operations during the “72-hour program,” in which campaigns engage their network of supporters in the final stretch.

“We’re probably not going to have a feel for this vote, in all honesty, until a couple days before. And then the get out the vote program starts working,” said Dawson, a former South Carolina Republican Party chairman.
 
Perry’s efforts have and will be bolstered by large ad buys in the state’s four major media markets, Greenville, Columbia, Charleston, and Myrtle Beach. The pro-Perry Super PAC Make Us Great Again has already spent $1.8 million in TV advertising here -- the most by far of any campaign.
 
But Perry’s high-profile supporters and media pushes have not paid off here -- at least so far. He sat at 6% in the latest NBC/Marist poll, reflective of his numbers in other key states.

The traditional route also has not worked for Jon Huntsman, who hired Richard Quinn, John McCain’s former campaign adviser, and racked up early endorsements from high-profile politicians. But the former Utah governor sits at 3% in the NBC/Marist poll.

And while Rick Santorum touts that he’s visited South Carolina the most, he has not made inroads here, getting 2% in the poll. But Santorum did recently announce a long list of county chairmen throughout 41 of the state’s 46 counties.

Felkel said that grassroots coalitions matter less now than they have in previous years -- a dynamic that first appeared in 2002, during then-Rep. Mark Sanford’s first run for office.

“He never had what you would call a grassroots campaign. It was all media,” Felkel said.

Mini-Newts and online headquarters
While Newt Gingrich started small here, his staff here has grown with his poll numbers. His campaign here began with two former American Solutions employees, to which five more were added in November. And there are now 12.

While all other campaigns are based in Columbia, Gingrich’s headquarters are in the Upstate city of Greenville. But he has four other offices throughout the state in North Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Columbia and Bluffton (near Hilton Head).

As his popularity grew, Gingrich quickly pulled together a list of 40 county co-chairs in 26 of the 46 counties, as well as the endorsements of at least two full Tea Party groups (Myrtle Beach and Laurens) and many individual members.

Leslie Gaines, Gingrich’s state co-chair, said his original two staffers (Adam Waldek and Vince Haley) have done Tea Party outreach here for years on behalf of American Solutions, so Gingrich already had a natural base in the state.

“It helps to have mini-Newts” on the ground, Gaines said, adding that Gingrich will be doing a bus tour of the state beginning Jan. 11, the day after the New Hampshire primary.

Michele Bachmann’s campaign has also been consolidating Tea Party support, putting together a 56-member Tea Party coalition with whom senior advisor Wesley Donehue says he communicates through Facebook and emails.

Donehue heads a seven-member staff that operates without a central office, and says he sends marching orders to more than 1,200 supporters every day. On Wednesday, supporters were asked to make phone calls to Iowa, where the Bachmann campaign’s initial fate rests.

Donehue said he seeks to capitalize on Bachmann’s post-Iowa momentum in South Carolina -– something Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 but lost to McCain in South Carolina, failed to do.
 
“He came out of Iowa with all that momentum and then got into South Carolina, where he should have had a strong game but he had no way to catch that momentum.”

Also looking to capitalize on a strong Iowa showing is Ron Paul, who has almost no presence here, despite a steady stream of large direct mail pieces and a devoted corps of supporters who hold "sign bombs" for him throughout the state.

But the two preceding contests are not always indicative of South Carolina’s outcome. Of the five contested primaries over the last three decades, Palmetto State Republicans have only aligned with Iowa twice, in 1996 (Dole) and 2000 (Bush), and New Hampshire three times, in 1980 (Reagan), 1988 (H.W. Bush) and 2008 (McCain).

“These are the guys who in 1860 decided to fire on Fort Sumter, OK?” joked Clemson politics professor and Republican consultant David Woodard. He added that voters here “like somebody that they think can win,” noting the Christian Coalition-backed Pat Robertson, who won Iowa in 1988 and was expected to win here but lost to George H.W. Bush.

“They take seriously the responsibilities of picking the winner of the primary here for 30 years and they’re a little more in the middle of the bell curve than sometimes the press gives them credit for,” Woodard said.

Late blitz
Perhaps no campaign is betting more on South Carolina taking their role seriously but tuning in later this year than Mitt Romney’s. The former Massachusetts governor, who came in fourth here in 2008, has three staffers and one headquarters in a nondescript building in West Columbia -- away from the other campaign offices across the Congaree River in downtown Columbia.

While volunteers are phone-banking within the headquarters, perhaps a telling sign of Romney’s ground game lies in the experience of David Root, an Air Force veteran who was invited to participate in a Veterans’ Day roundtable with the candidate in November.

While he gave his contact information at the event, Root said he received no follow-up contact from the Romney camp. “That was it,” he said, adding that he was “surprised and disappointed” that the campaign hadn’t reached out to him (although he said he wouldn’t vote for Romney anyway).

But Romney has been giving South Carolina voters incremental tastes of his campaign’s capabilities, holding several high-production events that got major play on local evening news -- one thing the average voter might catch from time to time this early out. 

And just recently, the campaign got a big boost when Romney got the endorsement of Gov. Nikki Haley, a national Tea Party darling despite low statewide approval; purchased more than $85,000 in cable ad time; and was received warmly from voters across the state.

“We have a strong ground game in South Carolina. And in the closing weeks before the primary, our team and volunteers will continue to reach out to voters across the state and make the case that Mitt Romney is the best candidate to beat Barack Obama,” Romney spokesman Amanda Hennenberg said in an email.

That saturation is the type of late blitz the Romney campaign could deploy here after New Hampshire if they think it will work this time, unlike in 2008. But with the campaign currently trailing Newt Gingrich by double digits, that might be a gamble, said Felkel.

“The roll of the dice is, can you win [the primary] without a grassroots game? And I think Romney will prove that that may be the case if he’s able to come from behind,” he said.
 
“Going through the motions”
Grassroots activists aside, the lack of enthusiasm this time around is palpable to Brad Warthen, former editorial page editor at The State newspaper, who characterized campaigns’ presence here as “going through the motions.”

By this time in 2008, Warthen said, several candidates had come to The State for editorial board meetings. But this cycle, only Huntsman has sat with the editorial board so far. 

“What I’m accustomed to in the past is by this time everybody would have been pretty excited for months,” Warthen said. “It’s just a weird year.”

But while Warthen and others might characterize this cycle as unusual, the eventual winner of the South Carolina primary will likely tout the state’s perfect record of picking presidents as he or she looks to add one more name to the state’s 30-year roster of nominees. 

After all, the winner will likely say, it’s not for nothing that the motto of the South Carolina Republican Party is, “We pick presidents.”

The payroll tax-cut fight. Romney vs. Gingrich. And Paul now leads in Iowa.

Video edited by NBC's Matt Loffman

The U.S. House of Representatives just passed the two-month payroll tax holiday extension by a procedural motion called Unanimous Consent. No one flew to D.C. to object to the motion.

The bill will now go to President Obama's desk to be signed into law.

This morning, the Senate has passed the two-month payroll tax holiday extension by a procedural motion called Unanimous Consent. That means senators were able to stay home and didn't have to fly to D.C. to vote.

The session lasted a total of 1 minute and 29 seconds.

The attention now turns to the House, and we are watching to see if an angry Tea Party member comes out an objects, throwing a wrench into this whole process and requiring the House to come back next week to have a full vote with all members.