*** Monday's “Daily Rundown" line-up (live from New Hampshire): A primary preview with Republican Strategist and NBC political analyst Mike Murphy and former NH Sen. John Sununu…Romney supporter Congressman Charlie Bass, Gingrich supporter former NH Sen. Bob Smith and Santorum supporter Karen Testerman…Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) on the fight going on in NH…And the latest 2012 news from the Washington Post’s Dan Balz and Karen Tumulty, and National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru.

*** Monday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing interviews former New Hampshire Sen. (and Romney supporter) Judd Gregg, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, HDNET managing editor Dan Rather, S.E. Cupp, Mother Jones’ David Corn, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, and Jon Huntsman’s daughters -- Mary Anne, Liddy & Abby.

*** Monday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up:  MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts talks with NH GOP Chair Wayne McDonald, FL GOP Chair Lenny Curry,  former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, GOP strategist Doug Heye, Kerry Kennedy, Jennifer Donahue, Politico’s Jim Vandehei, and the Washington Post’s Nia Malika Henderson.

*** Monday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, New York Magazine's John Heilemann, The Nation’s Ari Melber, MSNBC Contributor Robert Traynham, MSNBC Contributor Meghan McCain, and Jimmy Williams.

*** Monday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up (live from NH): NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviews Romney supporter Tim Pawlenty, Sen. Rand Paul, Politico’s Maggie Haberman, SC Tea Party’s Karen Martin, NBC’s David Gregory, NBC’s Ali Arouzi, and NBC’s Mike Taibbi with a preview of his Rock Center piece on Romney’s roots.

*** Monday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Paul senior adviser Doug Wead, and commentator Michael Smerconish.

The Washington Post on yesterday’s NBC/Facebook debate: “Mitt Romney’s opponents, seizing upon what could be one of their last opportunities to blunt his accelerating momentum toward the GOP presidential nomination, trained their fire on the front-runner Sunday.”

The New York Times: “In the debate, hosted by “Meet the Press” and Facebook, Newt Gingrich disputed Mr. Romney’s assertions that he was not a lifetime politician, saying, ‘Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?’ ‘You have been running consistently for years and years and years,’ Mr. Gingrich said, looking directly at his rival. He added: ‘Just level with the American people. You’ve been running for — at least since the 1990s.’” 

The Austin American-Statesman headline out of the NBC-Facebook debate: “In Sunday debate, Romney, others draw fire; Perry mostly ignored.”

“A combative Newt Gingrich accused Mitt Romney of "pious baloney" Sunday and charged him with hiding behind inaccurate attack ads aired by allies in the increasingly rancorous race for the Republican presidential nomination,” AP writes of the NBC-Facebook debate. It adds: “It was the most intense exchange of a weekend debate double header, run-up to Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.”

The Concord Monitor of the NBC-Facebook debate: “The rest of the Republican presidential field pummeled Mitt Romney during their final shared appearance before the New Hampshire primary with charges designed to undercut his identity as a conservative businessman. The debate yesterday morning at Concord's Capitol Center for the Arts was far feistier than the exchange that concluded 10 hours earlier at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. But while Romney's five Republican opponents levied some of their most pointed critiques at him, Romney seemed to take most of the jabs in stride.”

Per a CBS poll: “In the race for the nomination, 19 percent of Republican primary voters support Romney, followed by Gingrich with 15 percent, and Santorum right behind him with 14 percent. This is an increase of 11 points for Santorum since last month, but a five point decline for Gingrich.”

The New Hampshire Union Leader cites Secretary of State Bill Gardner that about 325,000 will turn out Tuesday -- 250,000 in the Republican primary, 75,000 for the Democrats. “There are 30 Republicans and 14 Democrats on the New Hampshire Primary ballot,” the paper writes. What’s at stake? “If Romney fails to secure a big victory margin, it will be viewed nationally as a loss. A big New Hampshire victory will set up Romney as the strong favorite to win his party's nomination.”

“A new Quinnipiac poll in Florida finds Mitt Romney leading the GOP presidential race with 36%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 24%, Rick Santorum at 16%, Ron Paul at 10%, Rick Perry at 5% and Jon Huntsman at 2%,” Political Wire writes.

“Gallup finds that a record-high 40% of Americans identified as political independents in 2011, while 31% said they were Democrats and 27% said they were Republicans,” Political Wire writes.

GINGRICH: “Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said Sunday that he intends to remain in the Republican presidential race for months to come,” the Boston Globe says. “He laid out a strategy that relies on being in the top tier in upcoming primaries and declared that front-runner Mitt Romney is being weakened by attacks on his ‘moderate’ gubernatorial record and his background in corporate buyouts.” Gingrich told the Globe in an interview: “Think of this like the Super Bowl. The first few minutes have gone by and we learned how the other team plays. Now we are in the next possession. You have to assume Romney will win here and the question is how big the margin is. And how well will I do in getting the message out?”

In fact, Political Wire notes: Gingrich told “David Brody that one of his goals is to keep Mitt Romney ‘from being in the position to rush the nomination.’ Said Gingrich: ‘The longer this goes on, the more clear it is how un-conservative his record is, the more difficult it will be for Romney to survive in this race.’ He added: ‘If he's under 40% in one of his three strongest states, he has a big problem about trying to communicate why he should be the nominee.’”

“At a larger-than-expected town hall event at Pinkerton Academy on Sunday evening, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich laid out his claim as the best Republican alternative to defeat President Obama,” the New Hampshire Union Leader reports.

Here’s Gingrich to the New York Times, per Political Wire: "Those of us who believe in free markets and those of us who believe that in fact the whole goal of investment is entrepreneurship and job creation, we find it pretty hard to justify rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company, leaving behind 1,700 families without a job."

HUNTSMAN: The Boston Globe points out: “After months of speaking to crowds of 10 or 20 people, Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman today had to stand atop a coffee shop counter to be heard, as close to 300 people packed BeanTowne Coffee House and spilled out into the parking lot.”

The Concord Monitor said Huntsman yesterday was “bolder and more aggressive” on the campaign trail. And he took some swings at Romney for deriding Huntsman’s service in the Obama administration as China ambassador, charging that Romney "apparently . . . doesn't believe in putting country first."

PAUL: He won’t compete in Florida. Per National Journal: "Dr. Paul will compete in Florida and do well,'' Paul spokesman Jesse Benton wrote in an e-mail on Sunday. "With the delegate penalization, Florida becoming winner-take-all with only 50 delegates, we will spend limited money and stick to largely grassroots campaigning. Our campaign will focus financial resources on South Carolina, Nevada, Maine and other states heading into Super Tuesday.''

“At a campaign event that drew more than 300 people here late Sunday afternoon, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) defended his Israel policy in response to a question from an undecided voter, an answer that included, in part, the suggestion that Israel ‘should be the Hong Kong of the Middle East,’” the Washington Post writes. He said, “’We should be friends” with Israel. “We should trade with them. I would encourage them to become the Hong Kong of the Middle East, or something like that. You know, have a really affluent society.”

PERRY: “Rick Perry returned to the presidential campaign trail on Sunday with a fire-and-brimstone rallying cry to evangelical Christians whose allegiance in the South Carolina primary will be a pivotal force in the Republican nomination race,” The L.A. Times writes, adding, “Faith in Jesus Christ, Perry told the Beacon diner crowd, was part of what led him to resume the campaign after he was trounced in the Iowa caucuses. ‘When you find that peace from God, you stop worrying about what the critics say,’ Perry said.”

ROMNEY: “For months, Mitt Romney has seldom been challenged on his claim that his leadership at Bain Capital LLC offers evidence that he knows how to create jobs. That has ended as his Republican rivals are accusing him of exploiting companies and firing workers in a quest to make millions,” Bloomberg writes.

The DNC goes up with its first video hitting Romney on job losses at Bain.

Romney’s up with is own Web video, which hits hopeful notes and urges New Hampshire voters to vote for him. It closes with this on screen, “Make history. Earn it for Mitt.”

“Anyone who has ever been to a show, play, or concert knows the producers always save the best for last,” the Boston Globe writes. “That’s why it was curious tonight when Mitt Romney, a presidential candidate, handed over the microphone to Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, to wrap up their appearance at Exeter High School. But then Christie started to speak and it became clear it was Romney who was the warm-up act for the governor, not the other way around.”

“New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie brought his ‘loud mouth’ to New Hampshire yesterday to stump for Republican front-runner Mitt Romney just days before the nation’s first presidential primary,” the New York Post writes. Romney said of Christie: “He knows how to make things happen. … He is going to make it happen tonight. He’s going to tell us how to win this election New Jersey-style.”

Burnishing his every-man credentials, Romney said this at another event: “I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re gonna get fired. There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.” (By the way, he got a pretty big crowd at that event – about 600 people, in addition to another event in which he got between 800 and 1,000.)

The New York Post: “Mitt Romney must have a target painted on his forehead.” It notes that he has dipped in the Suffolk tracking poll and, “The primary is critical for Romney, who would make history by winning both in Iowa and New Hampshire, and then head into conservative South Carolina with significant momentum — possibly on track to clinch the Republican nomination by next month. If he fails to achieve a decisive victory in New Hampshire, he likely faces a grueling battle for the nomination. The rest of the Republican field tried to make that a reality yesterday by ganging up on Romney at an NBC/Facebook-sponsored debate.”

Bloomberg: "Romney Battles New Hampshire Expectations as Foes Vie for Second."

The Post also reports in talking to voters: “Many conservative voters who backed Mitt Romney in New Hampshire’s Republican primary four years ago won’t be there for him in the voting booth tomorrow. The biggest issue, they said, are questions about his chops as a true conservative.”

But he still leads in the latest WMUR/UNH poll, which “shows Romney leading with 41%, followed by Paul at 17%, Huntsman at 11%, Santorum at 11%, Gingrich at 8%, Rick Perry at 1% and Buddy Roemer at 1%,” Political Wire writes.

And it also notes: “For the first time, the Gallup daily tracking poll shows Mitt Romney breaking through his previous ceiling of support.”

The DNC hits Romney in a video for saying in the NBC-Facebook debate that he didn’t see the Super PAC ads and then goes on to quote them.

SANTORUM: “An uncompromising gun rights organization, which previously attacked Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, is now going after his Republican rival, Rick Santorum,” the Boston Globe writes. “The National Association for Gun Rights launched robo-calls against Santorum this weekend, after publishing an anti-Santorum letter on its website last week. The group says Santorum never filled out its survey, and claims he has a ‘long history of supporting gun control.’ But William Cahill, Santorum’s New Hampshire campaign co-chair, says the campaign never received any survey.”

GREENVILLE, S.C. – Touching down in the Palmetto State for just a few hours, Rick Santorum said he wanted to get a head start on campaigning here before candidates start flooding the state on January 11th.

“I wanted to plant the flag here before New Hampshire,” Santorum told reporters before his rally at Chiefs sports bar here, where more than 200 supporters greeted him with a hero’s welcome of whooping and applause.

Santorum’s whirlwind afternoon, capped off with an endorsement from influential conservative leader Gary Bauer, was a marked departure from his trips here before he picked up steam in Iowa, said former Rep. Gresham Barrett, Santorum’s South Carolina chair.

“For the first six months, ten months, we would do an event and we’d have one person, two people, ten, you know, 25 was fantastic,” Barrett told NBC News.

“You feed off this kind of excitement and it’s indicative of what we saw in Iowa, what we’re seeing in New Hampshire and I believe how we’re going to do in South Carolina.”

Santorum made a point to emphasize the centrality of South Carolina – which has picked every Republican nominee since 1980 – to his electoral prospects.

“We cannot win without you,” he told the crowd at Chiefs, asking them to give him a win similar to that which propelled Ronald Reagan to the nomination in 1980, after he lost New Hampshire to George H.W. Bush.

“Ronald Reagan won South Carolina because South Carolina said to the country, we want stark contrasts,” Santorum said. “South Carolina can deliver that message and if you do, I guarantee you that we will have the horses available to go and run this table and you will keep your record intact.”

Santorum, who navigated the crowd with his arm around his wife Karen, added that his whole family would be in South Carolina for the run-up to the vote – even his toddler daughter Bella, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder.

“We knew that breathing some of this free air here in South Carolina would be good for her lungs,” Santorum said. “This is the first state where we’ve put everybody in place. We are going to crisscross this state between now and January 21st.”

In addition to his family, Santorum will have influential Christian conservative leader Gary Bauer in his corner. Bauer, a 2000 presidential candidate who served in both Reagan administrations, praised Santorum as “the next Ronald Reagan” while introducing him at Stax restaurant here.

“For me, Ronald Reagan has always defined what the right political prescription was for the United States,” Bauer said. “As I listened to [Santorum], I realized the next Ronald Reagan had been standing in front of me all this time and I hadn’t been paying attention.”

While Santorum said he was humbled to be compared to the conservative icon, he added that Bauer was qualified to make such a statement.

“I shrink from that to be compared with Ronald Reagan,” he said before adding, “If Gary Bauer says this is the Reagan conservative, he knows better than anyone else in this country who the Reagan conservative is.”

Santorum also urged the crowd at Stax, mostly Republicans from Greenville County, a socially conservative part of the state’s Upstate region (which had the highest voter turnout in 2008), to choose their nominee wisely.

“South Carolina has to speak clearly, particularly in the Upstate, that we do not need just a little better than what we have now; we need big change in Washington D.C.,” he said.

While Santorum urged South Carolina to vote with one voice, some influential conservatives like Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention have recently warned that too many candidates vying for the “anti-Romney” mantle might prevent South Carolina from, as Santorum put it, speaking clearly.

Bauer, however, said he would not join in with Land to encourage second-tier candidates to drop out of the race now so that conservatives could coalesce around one candidate – even if it boosted Santorum.

“I ran myself in 2000, I know what it feels like as a candidate when you’re working really hard and somebody suggests you drop out of the race so I’m not going to do that. But I do think it will naturally happen over time and probably sooner rather than later,” Bauer told NBC.

When Santorum was asked, however, whether other candidates need to drop out of the race to make room for him, he warmed, half-jokingly, to the notion. “It would be nice if everybody did,” he said as reporters chuckled. “I mean, sure, if everybody drops out and says, ‘yeah, Rick’s the guy,’ I’d take  it.”

But until that happens, Santorum will still have to contend with current frontrunner Mitt Romney, whom Santorum prodded briefly at the NBC/Facebook debate over the former Massachusetts governor’s decision not to run for re-election.

When asked by NBC News why he seemed to back off after that singular jab against Romney, Santorum responded, “I don’t go in there to beat up on another candidate.”

That didn’t stop him, however, from touting his anti-Romney offensive during his rally at Chiefs.

“I still have some blood on my sleeve from Mitt Romney after that debate,” Santorum said as the crowd burst into cheers.

Manchester, NH -- Whats the difference between Tim Pawlenty the candidate and Tim Pawlenty the surrogate?

A lot.

The former presidential candidate who frequently faced criticism for being dull and unable to connect with voters has established himself as one of Mitt Romney's top surrogates by being the exact opposite.

Whether on the trail, in the spin room after debates or speaking with voters, Pawlenty has used his new role to let his personality show in ways that rarely came through in the days leading up to the Iowa Straw Poll.

That charisma was on display Sunday night during a brief swing through Romney's New Hampshire headquarters when he spoke to volunteers working the phones.

"Go deep," he told a Romney staffer after catching a football when he walked in the door.  The former Minnesota governor wound up and failed to connect with his intended receiver, instead narrowly missing a campaign sign hanging on the adjacent wall.

He then gave a pep talk to the young volunteers making calls just two days before the first-in-nation primary, starting with a joke about the person he described as Minneapolis' most famous son, NBA player Kris Humphries.  The former Minnesota governor took a jab at the basketball player's short lived marriage to celebrity Kim Kardashian.

"Don't feel too bad for Kris Humphries. His marriage lasted longer than my presidential campaign," said Pawlenty.

After thanking the volunteers for their hard work, he asked for some advice.

"I just got one last question, I have an 18-year-old, I have a 15-year-old, they listen to all this music that's not of my generation.  Not including Lady Gaga or Katy Perry or any of that, give me something that I can go back that's new that they won't know about that I can say check out this person or band so it looks like I know what I'm talking about," he asked.

Perhaps a sign of how attune he is to popular culture, no one was able to give him a new suggestion.  He brushed off the various suggestions of top 40 artists, shaking his head and saying "that's established."

In what turned out to be the final days of his candidacy, Pawlenty barnstormed through Iowa, holding town hall after town hall, sticking around to interact with voters only briefly before racing off to his next event.  As a candidate, he could not get over the characterization that he was uninspiring, a claim passionately dismissed by those who knew him from his day in the Minnesota state legislature.

After posing for a picture with the spritely volunteers, he requested "a funny one," telling everyone to stand back-to-back with arms crossed as the camera flashed.  He then grabbed a sucker out of a bowl sitting on the table and made some calls to New Hampshire residents urging them to vote for his new boss.

Earlier in the day Pawlenty stumped with Romney, and will be on hand at the former Massachusetts governor's victory party on Tuesday.

EXETER, NH -- Under the championship wrestling banners lining the walls of a high school gym here in Exeter tonight, Mitt Romney and Chris Christie got into verbal wrestling matches of their own with three separate sets of Occupy protesters.

"This is our regular group here," Romney said drily when a small group of Occupiers began to chant "Mitt Kills Jobs" midway through his speech.

As the group was being escorted out, Romney said it was "wonderful" to live in a country where people can express their views, but that he wished they would do it with "a little bit more courtesy."

When the protesters interrupted Christie minutes later with a similar chant, he was less accommodating.

"Really?" Christie asked, when the chants of "Christie Kills Jobs" began. "You know something may go down tonight but it ain't gonna be jobs, sweetheart."

Christie was interrupted just has he began to rail against a Washington culture of division, which he said was guided by President Obama, and he used the disruption to further his argument.

"I doubt he is, but I hope the president’s watching," Christie said. "I have a message for you Mr President: This is the type of disoriented anger your cynicism and your division is causing in our country. Bring our country together stop dividing it Mr. President."

Christie's clear delight at dealing with the protesters energized a crowd that the local police estimated to be more than 800 strong. That turnout number, if accurate, would make tonight's rally one of Romney's largest of the campaign thus far. But even as he shook hands with supporters who spilled over to an overflow room, Romney was confronted by one last Occupy protester, who continued to needle about the causes of the recession, Romney even as staff attempted to guide the candidate away. Romney instead turned back to face the protester head-on.

"You know what? This president has caused a deepening recession and is responsible for 25 million Americans being out of work or stopped working or not being able to get jobs," Romney said, before walking away. "And let me tell you, this president's been a failure and that's one of the reasons I'm running is to help you get a job."

HAMPSTEAD NH—Over the past week, Jon Huntsman has said he needs a “market moving event” to perform well in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. Today might have been his exactly what he was hoping for.
Throughout the day, the self-ascribed underdog Huntsman has turned an attack by Mitt Romney into an opportunities to hit back, expressing exactly how he feels about the front-runner.

At this morning’s Meet the Press/Facebook debate, Huntsman opened with a reference to an attack from Romney at another GOP debate last night, in which the former Massachusetts governor criticized Huntsman for
serving as Obama’s ambassador to China.

"I was criticized last night by Gov. Romney for putting my country first," Huntsman said this morning on the debate stage in Concord. "He criticized me, while he was out raising money, for serving my country in China, like my two sons who are in the United States Navy … I will always put my country first. I think that's important.”

Later this afternoon, at a coffee shop miles away from the stage, Huntsman was asked if he felt that he “found his voice.”

Clad in his signature bomber jacket emblazoned with “Governor Huntsman” and an American flag, Huntsman did not politely steer away from attacking his rival as he is wont to do. For once, he capitalized on the attack and fired back.

“Let's just be honest about it. I put my country first. Apparently, Mitt Romney doesn't believe in putting country first,” Huntsman told
reporters. “He's got this bumper sticker that says ‘believe in America.’ How can you believe in America when you're not willing to
serve America? That's just phony nonsense.”

Referring to Romney’s ubiquitous blue bumper stickers and signs that far outnumber his red counterparts along New Hampshire roads, Huntsman explained a position he and his wife Mary Kaye have articulated ad nauseam at more than 160 public events across the state.

“I say I served my country, I step up when my president asked and I always will, its part of my philosophy. I know it may be hard for Mitt Romney and some people to take, but most of America is with me because in the end they want this America to be working together.”

With just over 36 hours hours to go until voting begins in the first-in-nation primary, Huntsman declared he will continue to make his case to voters until the final hour. He has told reporters he doesn’t have to come in first, but only needs to “beat market expectations.” With polls ticking up for him in recent days, Huntsman is optimistic that his decision to focus his entire campaign in the Granite State will propel him to the next stop, South Carolina.

"We're going to barnstorm this state as we have been doing for months, more so than any other candidate," Huntsman said. "We're going to remind people that the underdog is out there, the underdog that can change this country. But in order for the underdog to perform at the top, we need the help of the people."

SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- Citing his own "peace with God," Rick Perry says he's pressing forward with his battered presidential campaign because he will not "quit on the future of America."

"I've never quit a day in my life. I've never quit in the face of adversity," Perry told over 100 South Carolinians at the famed Beacon Drive-In in Spartanburg. "And I'm not just about to quit  on the future of America. I am going to stay in this race and stay in this fight because our children and our country are worth the fight."

Perry, who suffered a disappointing 5th place finish in the Iowa caucuses and appeared on the verge of dropping out last week, said that he was encouraged to stay in the race by endorser Capt. Dan Moran, a Marine who endured over 30 surgeries after surviving an IED attack in Iraq.

"He said, 'Sir, I didn't get these scars on my face to quit,'" Perry said of Moran. "That's our challenge. That we're not quitting on America. We're not quitting on this race."

The Texas governor said that his faith - which he emphasized frequently during his first stop of a long swing through the state - has guided him through the difficult days of the campaign.

"When you find that peace from God, you stop worrying about what the critics say," Perry said. "Matter of fact, you quit reading the headlines, good ones or bad ones, because they don't matter."

"I've got all the people that love me that I need. Her, (his wife) Jesus. and my family," he added during his pitch as an enemy of Washington. "I'm not going to Washington DC to make a friend."

Team Perry's last best hope lies in the Palmetto State, where they hope he can reconnect with Tea Party and evangelical voters skeptical of frontrunner Mitt Romney.

On Sunday, he painted South Carolina as a prime enemy of the Obama administration, which has recently clashed with the state government over voting and business regulations.

"There are some other states that are under assault," he said. "South Carolina, they're going to war with y'all."

Perry added that he would do away entirely with the National Labor Relations Board, a federal body particularly reviled by conservatives in the state due to its conflicts with Boeing manufacturers over labor laws.

At the famed campaign hotspot, Perry ordered a "chili cheese a'plenty" and sweet tea to go, but he renamed the heart-unhealthy concoction with a more personalized title.

"Having a Chili Cheese Delight Extra ...Governor!" he declared of his meal.

ROCHESTER, N.H. -- The lights were barely cool on the debate stage in Concord before Mitt Romney was back on the campaign trail, defending his record at Bain Capital.

"We decided to get behind a company called Staples which I knew you would know well. We decided okay you know how many people work at Staples? Ninety thousand people work at Staples today," Romney said at a rally here this afternoon. "We opened the very first store. I was there the night we opened the first store. We helped stock the shelves. Alright guess how much money we put in to get that first door open to get the computers in place and to buy the inventory to put on the shelves? It was about $5 million if my memory's correct - something in that range."

The story of Staples' success is the most common anecdote Romney uses on the trail to explain his tenure at Bain Capital, the venture capital firm he helped found, but the candidate rarely delves as far as he did into the macro numbers of jobs created and dollars spent. But as his record at Bain begins to come under increasing scrutiny -- from both sides of the aisle -- Romney may also have to defend it more aggressively, as he has done in recent days.

This morning in Concord, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, referencing a New York Times story, accused Bain of occasionally looting the companies in which it invested.

"But if you look at the New York Times article, and I think it was on Thursday -- you would certainly have to say that Bain, at times, engaged in behavior where they looted a company, leaving behind 1,700 unemployed people. That's the New York Times.  That's not me," Gingrich said.  

And this morning on ABC's This Week, President Obama's chief political adviser David Axelrod was even more blunt, calling into question whether Romney's claim of creating 100,000 jobs "net/net" while at Bain had any factual basis.

"The problem is that neither he nor his campaign can furnish any evidence to support that," Axelrod said. " He's not a job creator, he's a corporate raider."

Saturday in Manchester, Romney faced a similar question from moderator George Stephanopoulos, who asked if Romney's 100,000 jobs number included those jobs lost when companies in which Bain invested laid off workers, failed, or were pushed into bankruptcy.

"It includes the net of both. I’m a good enough numbers guy to make sure I got both sides of that," Rommey said, before listing three companies Bain helped launch whose jobs numbers alone he said put him over the 100,000 threshold: Staples, The Sports Authority and Bright Horizons Children's Center.

"Those -- those are businesses we started that continue to grow. And -- and we’re only a small part of that, by the way. We were investors to help get them going," Romney said, when asked whether some of those jobs were created after his involvement with the company ended. "But in some cases, businesses shrunk. We tried to help turn them around, sometimes successfully, sometimes not."

Romney, whose candidacy rests largely on his private sector experience, can likely be expected to continue to pound home his central message, as he did at this afternoon's rally.

"This president is a nice guy who just doesn't get it. I spent my life in the private sector," Romney said. "I'm not perfect, but I do get it, and I will use what I know to get America back to work."

AUSTIN Texas -- With two more debates under his belt, Texas Gov. Rick Perry travels to South Carolina Sunday for a campaign swing that will very likely amount to hitting his head against a political wall for 13 straight days.

"At least it will be warmer there," some on his staff darkly joke.

But Perry, who is keeping his campaign alive despite a fifth place finish in the Iowa caucuses, is a candidate who has never lost an election, a man whose voice breaks when he relates the stories of young veterans who survived brutal attacks against all odds, a dirt-poor kid whose identity is fundamentally rooted in the unlikeliness of his ascent from a chemistry-flunking country boy to the leader of the 13th largest economy in the world.

He believed there was a chance. He's taking it. Because he always has before, and why not?

Sources familiar with Perry's thinking say when his Iowa failure was unfolding, his South Carolina team reminded the governor that his campaign had the financial resources and the ground game to support a last-ditch campaign whirlwind in the Palmetto State. His family - and members of his veterans' coalition who act as an extended family for the onetime C-130 pilot - encouraged him not to give up the ghost until he'd exhausted all options. There was, Perry was told, no downside to continuing the run other than the perception - shared by all but his most ardent devotees - that he would simply be prolonging the inevitable.

But few - if any - members of his staff on the ground walked out of the West Des Moines Sheraton ballroom on Tuesday night believing that Perry would do anything but exit the race on Thursday in Austin. So when Perry rocked (or at least jiggled) the political world on Wednesday by tweeting his intention to stay in the race, confusion abounded in the ranks of staff still groggy from an emotional evening in the hotel bar swapping memories of a campaign days past.

Perry had spoken to top aide Joe Allbaugh and communications director Ray Sullivan by phone about the decision to stay in, but the message was never communicated to aides on the ground in Iowa. One staffer speculated that the governor's Twitter account had been hacked before finding out through press reports that the abandoned South Carolina barnstorm was back on.

Those close to Perry laugh off conspiracy theories that the governor's decision to stay in the presidential contest is somehow designed as a spoiler to elevate Mitt Romney. Perry's personal friction with the former Massachusetts governor's dates back to their overlap at the Republican Governors' Association, and there's no reason to suspect that the brutal last five months has soothed Perry's views of his rival as a wad of political Play-Doh. 

Apparent impulsivity - and the deployment of a political vision hazy in the eyes of everyone except for himself - has worked for the governor before.

His decision to run for re-election in 2010, which came as a seemingly off-the-cuff remark at the conclusion of a press scrum, caught his Texas allies by surprise, but Perry marched on to a staggering victory in November. Last year, Perry appeared to have shut and bolted the door on a presidential run, only to bring back his closest advisers from Newt Gingrich's then-crumbling campaign to rocket into front-runner status when he finally entered the race in August.

Perry's calculus this time is based almost completely on the past volatility of the GOP field, which has seen each of its candidates - with the exception of Romney - experience increasingly shorter half-lives at the top of the polls. A perfect storm would require the collapse of both a kamikaze Gingrich who sacrifices the appeal of his "positive campaign" in the attempt to deliver a body blow to Romney and a dizzied Santorum who withers under scrutiny.

In that scenario, Perry - who can point to his national organization and onetime impressive fundraising numbers - would play the role of Lazarus to social conservatives on the brink of despairingly supporting Romney.

The strategy will require not only luck, but also a nimble and united team to respond quickly to attacks and rally supporters for one more foray into the breach.

Which might be the variable Perry hasn't considered.

As sharply illustrated by the content and fallout from a Politico piece published just days before the Iowa caucus, the relationship between Perry's original Texas team and the outside consultants who are largely steering the campaign now is characterized by mistrust and hurt feelings.

So can he do it?

Not impossible. But it would take luck, leadership, and a Texas miracle.

Our initial takeaway from NBC/Facebook debate: GOP rivals pile on Romney… But then they later back off… Huntsman’s strong performance… Santorum starts strong then fades… And breaking down Gingrich, Paul, and Perry.

CONCORD, NH -- Talk about night and day -- or, more accurately, night and morning. At last night’s GOP presidential debate, Mitt Romney’s rivals largely took a pass at hitting the front-runner for the Republican nomination. But at this morning’s NBC/Facebook debate here, they piled on Romney in the first 30 minutes; the arrows were out from the start. As he has on the campaign trail, Newt Gingrich called Romney a “timid Massachusetts moderate.” Rick Santorum added, “If his record was so great as governor of Massachusetts why didn't he run for reelection?... We want someone who's gonna stand up and fight for the conservative principles, not bail out and not run and not run to the left of Ted Kennedy.” And Jon Huntsman took issue with Romney’s criticism of Huntsman serving as President Obama’s ambassador to China: “This nation is divided … because of attitudes like that.”

*** But the pile-on lost steam: But after those first 30 minutes, Romney’s rivals mostly stopped their criticism. In fact, the entire debate was a metaphor for the entire GOP campaign -- piling on Romney lost its steam. Collectively, the group just doesn't seem to know how to sustain the attack, and that explains why Romney is ahead now and why he is getting closer and closer to becoming a "de facto" nominee. (Romney also did a pretty good job of parrying the attacks that came his way.) The big exception to the polite second half came at the end, however, when Gingrich and Romney sparred over the Super PAC TV ads that attacked Gingrich in Iowa. Also, it was striking to us that Romney admitted that he never thought he’d be able to beat Ted Kennedy in 1994. And Romney struggled a tad in his exchange with Gingrich over his work at Bain Capital, revealing that this remains a real vulnerability for him in a general election.

*** Huntsman’s strong performance: It came during the 15^th debate of the GOP campaign, but Huntsman delivered perhaps his strongest debate performance of the cycle. He summed up the rationale for his candidacy when he said he wanted to unify the country and restore trust. We have two questions, though. One, is that message of unity and trust what Republican voters want to hear? And two, did Huntsman’s strong performance come too late?

*** Santorum starts strong then fades: Santorum also did well, too. That said, he was forced to admit that he voted for the 2003 Medicare prescription-drug law without paying for it. And he also seemed to fade a bit down the stretch. It’s not that he did anything wrong, but he seemed an afterthought, especially after his first volleys at Romney. His answer that he would love his son if he were gay could be a moment that gets played on TV in the next 24 hours, and it was a strong moment for him.

*** Breaking down the others: Gingrich was calm in the attack and seemed happy to have the fight… Paul was mostly an afterthought and didn’t get the applause lines he normally does from his supporters in the crowd... And while Perry poked fun at himself for his past “oops” moment -- he was able to name all three cabinet agencies he’d cut -- he was a bystander for much of the debate. After his disappointing fifth-place finish in Iowa, did he give a rationale why he should stay in the race? It didn’t seem that way to these pairs of eyes.

*** On the trail: After the debate, Romney (along with Tim Pawlenty) holds a rally in Rochester and then holds another rally (with Chris Christie) in Exeter… Gingrich attends town halls in Manchester and Derry… Ron Paul (with son Rand) campaigns in Meredith… And Huntsman stumps in Bedford and Keene… Meanwhile, Santorum heads to South Carolina, campaigning in Greenville… And Perry also travels to the Palmetto State, hitting Spartanburg.

Countdown to New Hampshire primary: 2 days
Countdown to South Carolina primary: 13 days
Countdown to Florida primary: 23 days
Countdown to Nevada caucuses: 27 days
Countdown to Super Tuesday: 58 days

Countdown to Election Day: 303 days

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The New York Times on last night’s debate: “A relaxed and self-assured Mitt Romney sailed above the fray at a crucial debate on Saturday night as his Republican rivals engaged in a spirited fight to determine which of them would emerge as his most formidable opponent when the party’s nominating contest moves past New Hampshire.” More: “Mr. Romney, who had been bracing for an onslaught of attacks, brushed aside a critique about job losses during his time buying and selling companies at his investment firm. He defended his record as Massachusetts governor with ease, fielding only occasional questions about the similarities between his state health care law and the national version championed by President Obama.”

The Concord Monitor: “Romney has been out in front of the field in New Hampshire from the start and has yet to be seriously challenged here.”

“When the votes are finally cast in just two days, New Hampshire will have reached the end of a unique first-in-the-nation primary campaign, a campaign marked by the flirtations of ‘celebrity politicians,’ the rise and fall of candidate after candidate, and, until the past few days, less genuine retail campaigning than in past cycles,” the New Hampshire Union-Leader’s DiStaso writes.

GINGRICH: “A Las Vegas billionaire has contributed $5 million to an independent group backing Newt Gingrich, breathing new life into the former House Speaker's struggling campaign for the GOP presidential nomination and casting renewed attention on the role of such groups in the 2012 contest,” the AP’s Fouhy reports of Sheldon Adelson’s contribution to pro-Gingrich Super PAC Winning Our Future.

HUNTSMAN: “For good or for bad, this is Mr. Huntsman’s moment. An early favorite of the pundit classes in Washington and New York — invited for cameos on ‘The Colbert Report’ and ‘Saturday Night Live’ — Mr. Huntsman, out of other options, has bet it all on New Hampshire,” the New York Times says. “Glimmers of promise appeared for him last week: an endorsement from The Boston Globe, the unveiling of his first television advertisement Friday morning, and the taste of possibility implicit in Rick Santorum’s come-from-behind showing in Iowa against Mitt Romney. But there have also been challenges, including Mr. Romney’s solid lead in polls and new strength from Mr. Santorum and Ron Paul. And he was only a secondary presence at Saturday’s night Republican debate in New Hampshire, barely attacking his rivals.”

PERRY: The L.A. Times’ headline: “Rick Perry: 'I would send troops back into Iraq'.”

ROMNEY: John Podhoretz writes in the New York Post after last night’s debate: “That’s a wrap. I’m calling this thing. Unless something terrible comes out about him in the next few weeks, Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee.”

“Mitt Romney is facing nearly four hours of debates this weekend with the Republicans trying to knock him out of the lead for the Republican presidential nomination. Halfway through, he’s still in front,” the Boston Globe’s Johnson writes, adding, “[O]verall, Romney was left free to expound wildly on his strength - his economic plans for the country - and was so unmolested by his rivals he even recited a part of his stump speech quoting patriotic tunes.”

“Mitt Romney's rivals have one more chance to bruise the front-runner ahead of Tuesday's voting during a Sunday morning faceoff just hours after he largely brushed aside their criticism in the opening round of a weekend debate doubleheader,” the AP’s Hunt writes, adding, “They met onstage in nearby Manchester less than 12 hours earlier. That Saturday night contest left Romney's rivals squabbling among themselves and unable to knock him off stride.”

Democrats are keeping their sights trained on Romney. “Mitt Romney, I think, is more of a job cremator than a job creator,” DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said in an interview with Talking Points Memo. She added: “He was a corporate buyout specialist at Bain Capital. He dismantled companies. He cut jobs. He forced companies into bankruptcy and he outsourced jobs and sent jobs overseas. That’s not a record to write home about, that’s not a record to be proud of, and it’s something voters need to know.”

NEBRASKA: “Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) ‘has decided to visit with Nebraskans next week before reaching a final decision on whether to step into the 2012 Senate race,’ the Lincoln Journal Star reports,” per Political Wire. “ ‘A number of friends and close political associates said Friday they believe Kerrey is inclined to seek the Senate seat that will be vacated by Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson at the end of the year.’”

Rick Santorum, in endorsing Paul Ryan's plan, said during the debate this morning that if implemented, Americans could get the same kind of plan members of Congress have.

That's not true, according to the Washington Post's fact checker:

"The comparison to Congress is obviously a well-crafted applause line." But… "The focus on 'a system just like members of Congress and federal employees have' suggests that this would be something better than the typical employee plan. But it will not have a key feature of the current plan — a promise that the government will pick up 75 percent of the health-care tab."

All eyes are on the GOP hopefuls who are taking the stage this morning in New Hampshire at the NBC News - Facebook debate.

The NBC political team will be live-tweeting the debate, offering minute-by-minute updates and analysis.

Tweets from NBC producers and correspondents will appear in this post as the debate begins at 9 a.m. ET

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, former Sen. Rick Santorum, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and Rep. Ron Paul, gather on the stage prior to the NBC News- Facebook Debate on 'Meet the Press' Jan. 8, 2012.

Updated at 10:40 a.m. ET

CONCORD, N.H. -- The second debate in 12 hours for the six GOP presidential hopefuls was book-ended by moments of scrutiny for Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and prohibitive favorite to win New Hampshire's Tuesday primary.

Mitt Romney found himself under fire from conservative detractors in the opening and closing moments of an NBC News-Facebook debate, broadcast on "Meet the Press" Sunday morning. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum led the charge against Romney, questioning just how conservative of a nominee he would be for Republicans.

The heat on Romney fizzled during the middle of the portion of the debate before re-emerging toward the end, when Romney and Gingrich did public battle over the negative ads run by various super PACs in Iowa and New Hampshire, which have affected the trajectory of the GOP campaign.

The scrutiny represented a last effort by the other five Republican presidential candidates to draw contrasts with Romney with just 48 hours to go until Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.

VOTE NOW: Did the NBC News-Facebook debate change your pick for president?

"If his record was so great as governor of Massachusetts, why didn't he run for re-election?" asked Santorum, who battled Romney to a virtual draw at last Tuesday's Iowa caucus. "If it was that great, why did you bail out?"

But Romney kept the focus on his own record and eschewed attacking candidates, especially Santorum and Gingrich, who are expected to pose little threat to his strong lead in advance of the primary.

"I'm very proud of my record and I think the one thing you can't fool the people of New Hampshire about is the record of a governor next door," Romney said in response to the pile-on, largely avoiding making direct attacks against his detractors.

At one point, though, when Santorum interrupted him, Romney snipped: "Rick, it's still my time."

The attacks on Romney were an element largely absent from another GOP debate Saturday night in Manchester. The rest of the Republican field is looking to draw distinctions with Romney in the remaining 48 hours before the New Hampshire primary, in which, according to polls, Romney is leading.

We live-tweeted the NBC News/Facebook debate – check out what was said

Gingrich, who had vowed to draw more stark contrasts with Romney in New Hampshire after having been assailed by ads in Iowa run by a pro-Romney super PAC, voiced criticisms of Romney similar to the ones he'd voiced while barnstorming through the Granite State this week.

"I think that a bold Reagan conservative, with a very strong economic plan, is a lot more likely to succeed in that campaign than a relatively timid, Massachusetts moderate who even the Wall Street Journal said had an economic plan so timid it resembled Obama," Gingrich said.

But the former speaker also said that he didn't think that Romney was unelectable -- backing off from the language contained in a flier distributed by the Gingrich campaign calling Romney "not electable."

Gingrich and Romney sparred again in the waning moments of the debate, in which Romney said he hoped a super PAC spending on his behalf would delete any inaccurate material from its ads about Gingrich. Those ads were particularly effective in diminishing the former speaker's support in Iowa. But Romney said the criticism of Gingrich contained in the Restore Our Future ads were largely accurate.

Special weekend First Thoughts: Rivals pile on Romney

"I'm glad, finally, on this stage, weeks later he has said, 'Gee, if they're wrong, they should take them down,'" said Gingrich, who's complained vocally about the ads.

The gathering featured a number of secondary storylines, particularly former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's bid to gain traction in New Hampshire, and the bickering between Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

Huntsman sought to make a final pitch to voters in New Hampshire, where he has concentrated his campaign on winning Tuesday's primary, but has stuggled to gain traction in the polls. He defended his service as ambassador to China for President Barack Obama, but also emphasized his fiscal plans as most in-line with conservative principles.

"The American people are tired of the partisan division. They have had enough," he said, making a pitch to independent voters. "And I say, we've had enough, and we have to change our direction in terms of coming together as Americans first and foremost and finding solutions to our problems."

And in one of the morning's undercard battles, Santorum and Paul sparred over the libertarian congressman's scant record of legislative accomplishments, and Paul's foreign policy favoring more limited international involvement.

"The problem with Congressman Paul is that all the things Republicans like about him he can't accomplish, and all the things they don't want him to do, he can do day one," Santorum said.

Paul has drawn boisterous crowds in just a handful of rallies here in New Hampshire. But he ranks second, at 22 percent, in this week's NBC News-Marist poll of likely GOP primary voters in the state.

He defended his legislative record as evidence that it's Congress that's out-of-touch.

"That demonstrates how out of touch the U.S. government and the U.S. Congress is with the American people," he said.

The gathering represented another chance for candidates to draw contrasts with each other after a Saturday night debate did little to alter the trajectory of the campaign. Romney went relatively unscathed in that outing.

New Hampshire voters head to the polls on Tuesday to vote in the nation's first primary of the 2012 cycle, and the second nominating contest following last Tuesday's Iowa caucus. Romney battled Rick Santorum to a virtual draw in the Hawkeye State, earning an 8-vote victory over the former Pennsylvania senator.

CONCORD, N.H. -- The heir to liberty may be ready to bear the torch.

On a solo outing as his father’s chief surrogate here Saturday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., left the door wide open to a presidential run in 2016 were his father, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, not to win the Republican nomination.

“First things first is that I’m here trying to help my dad,” Paul said, when asked about a possible bid. “I can’t answer any questions beyond that -- other than to say that I am interested in national debate.”

The careful remarks came during a forum held at a local restaurant Saturday morning, sponsored by the Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank. They seemed to mark a new step in the national political career of a second generation of the Paul family -- a widely expected development. 

The elder Paul, at 76 years old, is in the midst of his third run for the GOP nomination. Rand Paul, who turned 49 on Saturday, was elected to a Senate seat in Kentucky in 2010 -- and seems poised to inherit the movement his father generated inside the libertarian corner of the Republican Party.

“I am interested in long-range goals of changing the country," Rand Paul said, "having a more limited federal government, having more local control of our government. You do that by appearing in the media, speaking to groups around the country, sometimes running for national office -- or maybe, in the Senate.”

Paul’s visit here to The Draft restaurant, a regular stump spot in New Hampshire, was the first of two appearances he made on behalf of his father Saturday, three days before the New Hampshire primary. His appearances included vigorous arguments on Ron Paul’s behalf, especially in the area of foreign policy -- where other GOP candidates have sought to portray the Texas congressman as weak, or naïve.

Addressing a crowd of about 200 people at Windham High School, south of Concord, Paul fielded several questions about his father’s position on Iran.

“Others have said, ‘Well, Ron Paul doesn’t care about Iran getting a nuclear weapon.’  I think that’s an inaccurate representation of my father’s position,” Paul said.

“The question really then becomes,” he added, “if they do get a nuclear weapon, is there only one alternative? Is the only alternative war?"

Despite Paul’s effort to direct attention toward his father, audiences seemed unmistakably interested in him. Among the handful of people who showed up to the low-key forum here in Concord, few still were Ron Paul supporters -- though they were drawn in by the chance to see his son.

Spec Bowers -- a state representative from Sunapee who is supporting Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- approached Paul after the event to discuss local politics.

Asked why he came to the forum, Bowers told NBC News, "I came here to shake the hand of a future president."

Join the NBC News political team for live insights and analysis from tonight's Republican presidential debate in Manchester, N.H.

The NBC political team will be live-tweeting the debate, which is sponsored by ABC News, Yahoo and WMUR, in this post beginning at 9 p.m. ET.

WOLFEBORO,  N.H. -- Saturday evening is a big night for Newt Gingrich. Not only is it just three days before the New Hampshire primary, it also marks the first presidential debate since the barrage of negative attacks against the former House speaker in Iowa kicked into high gear.

“It’s fight night. We’re excited,” Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond told a small group of reporters following a Gingrich event here.

Standing in front of a large military tank with a fighter jet hanging from above, Gingrich wasted no time before taking a jab at GOP rival Mitt Romney.

“I look at this tank lovingly because I remember Michael Dukakis,” he said as he started his speech inside The Wright Museum on WWII history. (Dukakis was the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, who was featured in a picture riding in a tank.) “And it’s just a reminder that governors of Massachusetts don’t always make good presidential candidates.”

Gingrich gave one of his most energetic speeches on the trail Saturday afternoon before a crowd of at least 400 people. And as a historian, the museum was an ideal setting for him. This impassioned townhall performance from the former Speaker comes has he is struggling in recent polls in New Hampshire and nationally. He has to finish strong here and win South Carolina to have a chance at becoming the Republican nominee.

“We have 2 weeks to clarify in South Carolina that he [Romney] is a Massachusetts Moderate and that he has a whole series of experiences and values that are the opposite of the South Carolina Republican Party,” Gingrich told reporters following his event in the same resort town as Romney’s summer home. “If we succeed in doing that he won’t win in South Carolina.  If we don’t succeed, he might win.” 

Debates have always been a strong suit for Gingrich but the last presidential debate was more than three weeks ago on Dec. 15 in Sioux City, Iowa. Since then, he has moved far from front-runner status, finishing just fourth in the Iowa caucuses earlier this week. Potential good news for the Gingrich campaign? Two debates in 12 hours this weekend.

Gingrich told reporters after one of his largest events since his poll numbers began to drop that he will prepare for this debate as he has all along.

“Drink a diet coke, call Maggie and Robert [his grandchildren] and get their sophisticated coaching advice,” he said, adding he will try to remember the tips of “slower, smile, shorter, clearer.”

Gingrich said not to doubt his strategy of not talking to paid consultants before debates as he has “two debate coaches with a winning streak.”

Even though it’s “fight night” for the campaign, Gingrich may not directly attack Romney – at least not by the way he defines going negative on an opponent.

“I'm not going to go after Mitt Romney. I may define the reality of a Reagan conservative and a Massachusetts moderate,” he said. “I don’t think telling the truth in a happy and pleasant way comes across as negative, it may come across as the truth … may have to ask Gov. Romney how he feels describing accurately his record.”

DERRY, NH -- For once, Mitt Romney gave credit today for President Obama coming through on a campaign promise.

"Candidate Barack Obama was here speaking and he said he was going to bring big things to America," Romney said, standing in the same high school gymnasium in Derry, New Hampshire where then-Sen. Obama spoke on January 6, 2008. "Well, he did. And they came with big price tags. And they didn't work out so well. Big things. Bad things. Expensive things. He brought Obamacare. We don't want Obamacare. We don't need it, we don't want it. "

Romney repeated the mantra several times during today's rally, labeling the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill and other Democratic achievements of the past three years among President Obama's "big, bad things, expensive things."

Here in Romney's firewall state of New Hampshire -- where NBC/Marist polling conducted this week shows Romney enjoying a 20-point lead over his closest challenger -- the former Massachusetts governor cautioned the more than 900 supporters in attendance not to rest on their laurels in the final days before the primary.

"Let me tell you, don’t get too confident with those poll numbers. I've watched poll numbers come and go. Things change very quickly; it's very fluid. I need to make sure you guys get your friends to go out and you vote as well," Romney said.

And while today's crowd, warmed up by Romney-imported South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, was largely friendly, the candidate did face a brief disruption by a small but vocal group of Occupy protestors, who chanted "Mitt Kills Jobs," while the candidate looked on. As a chorus of pro-Romney chants drowned out the group, and police closed in on them, Romney smiled.

"Well we're lucky to live in a country where people are able to express their views," Romney said. "Although I do prefer when we do it with respect and civility."

Can anyone stop Romney?... We’ll find out with two debates -- including the NBC/Facebook one -- taking place in the next 24 hours… Breaking down the new NBC/Marist poll… Electability and ideology helping Romney in NH… Paul’s low ceiling and Santorum’s higher one... How Paul is hurting Huntsman… Last night’s campaign developments… And Gingrich hires two former Bachmann staffers in SC.

*** Can anyone stop Romney? With a new round of polls, including our NBC/Marist survey, showing Mitt Romney with a substantial lead in New Hampshire -- and another poll showing him up big in South Carolina -- the question becomes: Can anyone stop Romney? We’ll get an early answer to that question from the two GOP presidential debates we’ll see in the next 24 hours. At 9:00 pm ET tonight, the six remaining Republican candidates square off at an ABC/WMUR debate in Manchester. And then, at 9:00 am ET on Sunday, they’ll participate in the NBC/Meet the Press/Facebook debate moderated by NBC’s David Gregory in Concord. In case anyone has forgotten, the debates -- these next two will be Nos. 14 and 15 of the cycle, respectively -- have mattered. A lot. Indeed, the new NBC/Marist poll shows a combined 45% of likely New Hampshire voters believe the debates have helped decide their vote a “great deal” or a “good amount.” That’s compared with 10% who say the same about the results from the Iowa caucuses, and 20% who say the same about seeing the candidates in person.

*** Electability and ideology helping Romney in NH: The horserace numbers from our new NBC/Marist poll among likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters are Romney 42% (up three points from our last NH poll), Ron Paul 22% (up six), Rick Santorum 13% (up 11), Jon Huntsman (unchanged) and Newt Gingrich (down 15) at 9%, and Perry at 1% (down 1). The survey also shows that electability and the state’s ideological makeup are helping Romney in the Granite State. For instance, 65% of these voters think the former Massachusetts governor has the best chance of beating President Obama in November, and a strong majority prefers an electable nominee to a true conservative. What’s more, Romney performs better among the very conservative voters (beating Santorum among them, 30%-27%), Tea Party supporters (beating Paul 35%-25%), and evangelicals (leading Santorum, 31%-30%) than he did in Iowa. And helping him even more is the fact that there are fewer of these conservative/Tea Party/evangelical voters in New Hampshire than there were in Iowa. “New Hampshire is a very different ballgame than Iowa,” said Marist pollster Lee Miringoff.

*** Paul’s low ceiling and Santorum’s higher one: Can anyone catch Romney in New Hampshire? Well, while Paul sits in second place in our poll, he has a fairly low ceiling: 43% of likely voters find him unacceptable. That’s compared with 25% who say the same about Santorum and 16% who say that about Romney. (The most unacceptable in the poll? Perry’s at 54% and Gingrich is at 44%.) Those numbers suggest that Santorum can increase his poll position in New Hampshire. But can he overtake Paul with just three days to go until the primary?

*** How Paul is hurting Huntsman: That said, the NBC/Marist poll shows that Paul has become a thorn in Huntsman’s side, and it explains why Huntsman’s campaign has gone after the Texas congressman in recent days. Among the 38% of likely New Hampshire primary voters who identify themselves as independents -- the same folks Huntsman is trying to court -- Romney gets 35%, Paul 28%, and Huntsman 13%. And among self-described moderates and liberals, it’s Romney 46%, Paul 22%, and Huntsman 15%. In addition, the poll shows that Santorum has consolidated the “very conservative” vote, as well as evangelical Christians.

*** Last night’s developments: Here are some of the campaign stories from last night: Romney, in New Hampshire, blasted Obama over the economy and said the president doesn’t deserve credit for the improving job/unemployment numbers. “He doesn't deserve it because everything that's been done has hurt this recovery, everything done by this president." (Numbers from the Congressional Budget Office and other independent economics would disagree.)… Yesterday, Newt Gingrich slammed Mitt Romney’s gubernatorial resume (including his health-care law) during a tele-town hall, an indication of how the former House speaker may try to go after the Republican front-runner in the coming days… And Gingrich, stumping in New Hampshire, was forced to answer many questions that have been looming over his campaign (like the $1.6 million he made for Freddie Mac).

*** Gingrich hires two former Bachmann staffers in SC: NBC’s Ali Weinberg reports that the Gingrich campaign has hired two of Michele Bachmann’s South Carolina staffers. Taylor Mason, who was Bachmann’s Lowcountry field coordinator, and Gavin Smith, who was the assistant to Bachmann state chairman Sheri Few, will both serve as Lowcountry and Midlands field directors respectively. “Michele Bachmann had some very good grassroots support here in South Carolina and they built a lot of great relationships with voters here, whether they be traditional republicans or Tea Partiers,” said Gingrich South Carolina director Adam Waldeck. “With Bachmann’s campaign ending, it made sense for them to come to another conservative’s campaign and so we’re happy to have them helping out and looking forward to working with them to win on the 21st.” These additions, Weinberg says, bring Gingrich’s staff to a total of 14.

*** On the trail: It’s a busy day before tonight’s debate: Romney already held a rally in Derry (which NBC’s Garrett Haake says got interrupted by Occupy protesters)… Huntsman stumps in Littleton, North Haverhill, Plymouth, and Manchester… Paul hits Concord and Windham… Santorum holds events in Manchester, Amherst, and Hollis… And Gingrich stumps in Wolfeboro.

Countdown to New Hampshire primary: 3 days
Countdown to South Carolina primary: 14 days
Countdown to Florida primary: 24 days
Countdown to Nevada caucuses: 28 days
Countdown to Super Tuesday: 59 days
Countdown to Election Day: 304 days

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“During the past week, not one, not two, but three Republican Party presidential candidates have tied either black people, in general, or President Barack Obama, in particular, to welfare or other forms of public assistance that, the candidates say, lead to dependency, out-of-control government spending and a culture of entitlement that is harming the nation,” The State newspaper points out. “Supporters say the candidates simply are telling blunt truths about a failed presidency marked by excessive spending. Other political observers, however, say the candidates’ statements are deliberate — and effective — attempts to excite the conservative white voters who form the base of the GOP’s early-voting electorate in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, whose first-in-the-South primary is Jan. 21.”

GINGRICH: NBC’s Ali Weinberg reports that Gingrich’s campaign told NBC that it would soon run an ad in South Carolina hitting Romney over the Planned Parenthood provision in the Massachusetts health care law. And he even went after Romney on this: "He raised taxes so much that he even raised taxes on people who were blind.”

“Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich returns to South Carolina next week in advance of the state’s Jan. 21 primary. The former U.S. Speaker of the House also made a $250,000 statewide TV ad buy Friday,” The State newspaper reports.

“Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said today that he still can’t release his contract with Freddie Mac (FMCC) -- even though the mortgage finance company gave him permission to do so -- because the decision is up to his business partners in his consulting firm,” Bloomberg says. “Gingrich’s comments came after Freddie Mac told Bloomberg News yesterday that the former U.S. House speaker was cleared to make the documents public. Before that, Gingrich said the reason he couldn’t release the contract was that Freddie Mac wouldn’t waive a confidentiality agreement.”

“The Super PAC backing Mitt Romney says it’s keeping its New Hampshire radar on Newt Gingrich — revving up to unleash its newest attack ad on Monday — a move experts say suggests that, for the Romney camp, Rick Santorum’s recent surge poses no political threat,” per the Boston Herald.

PERRY: “Staking his presidential hopes on South Carolina, Gov. Rick Perry has 14 days to stage a political resurrection in a state once considered tailor-made for victory,” the Austin American-Statesman notes. “But like elsewhere, Perry's support in South Carolina has evaporated, and several Republican strategists give him little chance of mounting the comeback needed to save his campaign.”

“Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry’s visit to South Carolina on Sunday will kick off a 15-day tour of the state as the Texas governor seeks to resurrect his candidacy in the state that initially vaulted him to the forefront,” The State newspaper reports.

“Gov. Rick Perry has named embattled Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio his Arizona campaign chairman, despite a recent Obama administration report condemning alleged discriminatory practices in Arpaio's office,” The Texas Tribune reports.

ROMNEY: And the Bain scrutiny begins… Reuters profiles a Kansas City steel mill that had been operating since 1888 that Bain bought, dumped, and profited from.  “Workers were denied the severance pay and health insurance they'd been promised, and their pension benefits were cut by as much as $400 a month. What's more, a federal government insurance agency had to pony up $44 million to bail out the company's underfunded pension plan. Nevertheless, Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees… The Kansas City millworkers, meanwhile, are still fuming, after being left with no health benefits and a reduced pension check. ‘Romney cost me lots and lots of sleepless nights and lots and lots of money,’ said Ed Stanger, who worked at the plant for nearly 30 years.”

The New York Times’ Krugman wrote the other day that Romney’s “claims about the Obama record border on dishonesty, and his claims about his own record are well across that border.” Romney claimed to have created 100,000 jobs at Bain, but using only current employment figures for some of the companies that created jobs. Romney is “ignoring those that reduced their work forces or went out of business. Hey, if pluses count but minuses don’t, everyone who spends a day playing the slot machines comes out way ahead!”

And his bigger point: “The real complaint about Mr. Romney and his colleagues isn’t that they destroyed jobs, but that they destroyed good jobs. When the dust settled after the companies that Bain restructured were downsized — or, as happened all too often, went bankrupt — total U.S. employment was probably about the same as it would have been in any case. But the jobs that were lost paid more and had better benefits than the jobs that replaced them. Mr. Romney and those like him didn’t destroy jobs, but they did enrich themselves while helping to destroy the American middle class. And that reality is, of course, what all the blather and misdirection about job-creating businessmen and job-destroying Democrats is meant to obscure.”

MoveOn has an ad up highlighting Romney’s Bain years and layoffs. “He’ll raid this country the way he raided this company,” one man says in the ad, adding, “I know what he says; I also know what happened.” Greg Sargent writes: “[T]he battle to define Romney’s Bain years will be epic, as central to the general election as the war over the meaning of John Kerry’s war service was in 2004. And it’s already looking like there will be a cast of the layoff victims themselves who will be willing tell the story. Indeed, if Dems have their way, these layoff victims will be this year’s version of the Swift Boat Vets.” (Hat tip: GOP 12.)

FYI: The MoveOn ad buy is a small one, however. 

“Newt Gingrich labeled Mitt Romney’s economic plan ‘timid.’ Rick Santorum told voters not to ‘settle for less.’ And Jon Huntsman urged them not to support a ‘coronation’ of the former Massachusetts governor,” the Boston Globe writes. “But Romney felt no need to mention his rivals here yesterday, training all of his fire on President Obama. He was so confident about his standing in the Granite State that he left for a short sojourn to South Carolina.”

The Boston Globe goes to South Carolina: “If a conservative rebellion is going to stop Mitt Romney from rolling to the nomination, Republicans say it is likely to start here, in this redder-than-red battleground state in the heart of the South.”

To that point, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports that social conservatives have been on the phone since Iowa talking about how to get Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry to drop out before it is too late to stop Mitt Romney. These social conservatives will be meeting in Texas next weekend -- and he said they would be talking to Gingrich and Perry at some point about coming together behind Rick Santorum before it is too late. But they acknowledge, however, that it's unlikely they can persuade them to drop out before South Carolina, which means their effort to unite against Romney could come too late.

SANTORUM: Channeling First Read, the AP writes, “Losing his Senate seat might have been the best thing that ever happened to Rick Santorum's bank account. In 2006, the Republican presidential hopeful earned about $200,000 from his Senate salary and book royalties. From January 2010 to August 2011, he earned at least $1.3 million as he cashed in on his 16 years in Congress by working as a corporate consultant, political pundit and board member.”

“Rick Santorum is loaded for bear at the GOP presidential debates tonight and tomorrow,” the New York Post writes. “Santorum was in his element yesterday as he browsed hunting rifles and compound bows at a sportsman shop in rural New Hampshire, saying he couldn’t wait for his rivals to come gunning for him at the debates. ‘This is how I prepare for debates,’ Santorum quipped amid a crush of reporters during a campaign stop at Pelletiers Sports in Jaffrey.”

“Michelle Obama was privately fuming, not only at the president’s team, but also at her husband,” the New York Times writes of a new book out by one of its reporters. “In the days after the Democrats lost Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat in January 2010, Barack Obama was even-keeled as usual in meetings, refusing to dwell on the failure or lash out at his staff. The first lady, however, could not fathom how the White House had allowed the crucial seat, needed to help pass the president’s health care legislation and the rest of his agenda, to slip away, several current and former aides said. To her, the loss was more evidence of what she had been saying for a long time: Mr. Obama’s advisers were too insular and not strategic enough. She cherished the idea of her husband as a transformational figure, but thanks in part to the health care deals the administration had cut, many voters were beginning to view him as an ordinary politician.”

More: “The Michelle Obama of January 2012 is an expert motivator and charmer, a champion of safe causes like helping military families and ending childhood obesity, an increasingly canny political player eager to pour her popularity into her husband’s re-election campaign. But interviews with more than 30 current and former aides, as well as some of the first couple’s closest friends, conducted for “The Obamas,” a new book, show that she has been an unrecognized force in her husband’s administration and that her story has been one first of struggle, then turnaround and greater fulfillment.”

Political Wire notes this quote in the book from President Obama to former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: "I'm not accepting it [Emanuel’s resignation]. Your punishment is that you have to stay here and get this bill done. I'm not letting you off the hook."

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks to the crowd in an overflow room during a campaign stop at the Tilton School in Tilton, N.H.

TILTON, NH -- Returning to the state where the latest polling shows him holding a commanding lead over his GOP rivals, Mitt Romney chose once again on Friday night to keep his laser focus on just one man, President Barack Obama. At a dinner event here, the former Massachusetts Governor said the president would be wrong to claim credit for today's new unemployment numbers dipping to 8.5 percent.

"I'm glad it's doing a little better now. I'm sure the president will want to take credit for it -- for any improvement," Romney said. "Guess what? He doesn't deserve it because everything that's been done has hurt this recovery, everything done by this president."

In a statement released earlier this afternoon, Romney said "of course its good news" that the rate had dropped, but he would refuse to accept the "new normal" of unemployment above eight percent.

The latest NBC/Marist poll, released tonight, shows Romney leading in the Granite State by a 20-point margin over Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. Romney, who knows something about evaporating poll numbers after his eleventh-hour loss to Mike Huckabee in the 2008 Iowa caucus, urged his supporters not to grow complacent but to continue working hard on his behalf through Tuesday's primary.

"People in New Hampshire expect you to work hard, to earn it.  And we're in a real battle right now.  I know some pollsters say I'm doing real well. let me tell you, those polls, they can just disappear over night," Romney said. "What you say to a pollster is a bit like going on a date. It’s like, well, I might try this but you know, getting married, that's something else. So we need to make sure you're working real hard and I'll keep working real hard."

Friday night, working hard in New Hampshire consisted of giving a speech, taking questions from a handful of audience members here, and serving spaghetti to an overflow crowd at the Tilton school, just miles from Romney's summer home in the lakes region here. Tomorrow, Romney will hold a morning rally with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who also joined him tonight, before attending two back-to-back debates Saturday night and Sunday morning.

"Why even stop?" Rommey joked of the debates, whose start times are separated by just 12 hours. "Why not go right straight through?"

As the Iowa winner and strong front-runner here, Romney is likely to find himself the target of his opponents sharpest barbs in the upcoming debates, but tonight he suggested when the primary process is over, any damage done to "bruised egos" ought to be shaken off by the nominee - whoever he is.

"By the way I know that in the process of the primary in the primary process we’ll be going after each other, as someone said long ago politics ain’t bean bags," Romney said. "We'll be going back and forth and when this is all over we ought to be able to hug.