In final push to woo voters, GOP candidates barnstorm Iowa

With one day to go until the Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential candidates are barnstorming the Hawkeye State in a final attempt to win support before Tuesday's influential first-in-the-nation vote.

Speaking to crowds at packed hotels, coffee shops and other sites across the state, the six major contenders fighting for supremacy in the state crisscrossed through Iowa Monday. (Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman remained in New Hampshire, where he is banking on a strong finish to stay in the race.) The candidates made last-ditch appeals in hopes of securing a victory that would translate into a major boost in momentum ahead of next week's New Hampshire primary.

Mitt Romney, who holds a narrow lead in Iowa polls, was joined by his wife and children onstage in Dubuque, where he reprised a line his wife delivered during the last presidential cycle after she fell down at a local hotel: "I fell on da butt in Dubuque!" He then went on to point to his experience in the business world.

According to a recent poll by the Des Moines Register, Romney maintains a slight edge over Ron Paul, with 24 percent support to 22 percent support. Meanwhile, Rick Santorum, who appears to be rising, earned a third-place finish with 15 percent support.

Santorum, whose campaign events have been so packed that a teenage girl passed out at one on Monday, was riding high on his recent success, telling CBS News' Scott Pelley in a Monday interview he thought his campaign would be able to keep the momentum up in future primary states.

"We've done it the old fashioned way, and it's had quite an appeal," Santorum said in an interview with "The CBS Evening News," joking that the notion that his campaign is running on shoestrings is "an insult to shoestrings."

"Being someone who's not afraid to answer the questions, make themselves available to the people in front of the cameras and be able to handle those questions."

"I feel very good that that will go well in New Hampshire where they like those kinds of politics too," he added.

(Watch a preview of the interview at left.)

Meanwhile, at a farming museum in Independence, Iowa, Newt Gingrich -- until recently considered a frontrunner in Iowa -- reflected on his recent slide in the polls. (The Register poll put Gingrich in fourth place, behind Santorum, with 12 percent support.)

"I don't think I'm going to win," the former speaker acknowledged, speaking of the caucuses.

But the candidate, who has attributed his slide to a slew of attack ads against him in the state, noted that the same poll that placed him behind Santorum showed a large number of undecided voters.

"If you look at the numbers, that volume of negativity has done enough damage," he said. "But on the other hand if the Des Moines Register was right and 41 percent potentially undecided, who knows what's going to happen."

"We are, in fact, beginning to bounce back," said the former House speaker. "I'm clearly better today than I was 10 days ago."

In Davenport, 76-year-old Ron Paul kept up a breathlessly-paced whistle stop tour with his son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who targeted his father's competitors for, as he put it, "masquerading as Republicans."

To a significant extent, the caucuses are over-hyped -- the results are representative of just a fraction of the American population, and the outcome is not known to be particularly predictive of presidential nominees. Still, the contest can make or break a candidacy: A strong performance by a second-tier candidate like Santorum or Michele Bachmann would mean a campaign-energizing boost in fundraising, while a weak performance could effectively mean the end of the road.

Bachmann, who is low in the polls in Iowa, insists that she will continue on in the race regardless of what happens tomorrow: Her campaign is signaling that she will essentially skip the New Hampshire primary one week from Tuesday and instead head to South Carolina to keep up the fight.

"My goal," Bachmann said Monday, "is to be America's iron lady."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, meanwhile, attempted to downplay his low poll numbers in Iowa by comparing the nominating process to a marathon.

"This is the first - let's say mile one of the marathon," Perry said. "I've run a marathon before and I felt great at mile one. In fact, I felt pretty great at mile 17 and 18."

But, he continued, "at mile 21 you start hitting that wall a little bit...We'll see who is still running at mile 21. I finished my marathon, and I expect to finish this marathon as well."