This is a rush transcript from "Your World," January 10, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST OF “YOUR WORLD”: Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich is taking a lot of heat today, but not from the left -- from the right for sounding too much like the left.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He’s going to have walk the country through the things that they did at Bain, because in three or four cases, they don’t look like capitalism. They look like rich guys looting.

Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money?

It’s Romney who’s spent a lot of time talking about his role as a businessman, that that was one of his credentials. So I think he owes us a press conference to explain it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: All right, Speaker Gingrich standing by those comments on our air today.

Why Herman Cain says it’s really not Newt Gingrich to blame; it’s the negative campaign against Newt Gingrich from one Mitt Romney that might have triggered all this. Herman, good to see you.

HERMAN CAIN, CEO, THE NEW VOICE: How are you, Neil? Happy to be here.

CAVUTO: So bad for bad, is that what’s happening?

CAIN: Look, this is like being in the middle of a food fight.

And one of the reasons that I have elected not to endorse anybody, I don’t want to get in the middle of a food fight, because the most important thing is the mission that I’m on. And that is to make 999 the law of the land and to help defeat Barack Obama. So, I don’t want to fragment...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: All right, so it’s positive agenda you have. This is a negative-for-negative agenda.

CAIN: Exactly.

CAVUTO: You say Newt Gingrich was, what, pushed into this?

CAIN: I believe he was pushed into it.

If you look at the amount of money that was spent in Iowa against Newt, he had no choice, other than try and retaliate with something like this. I know it’s ugly. I know it’s dirty. It shouldn’t be that way, but really he had no choice in order to be able to put together something to attack Romney on at this point.

CAVUTO: But it does sound weird, a Republican criticizing someone who did what he did through private enterprise, and not spending a dime of taxpayer cash.

CAIN: Look, these candidates have broken the Reagan rule from the beginning. Reagan’s 13th commandment, you know, don’t go negative against another Republican. But they did it anyway. And Romney wasn’t the first one to start it. Now Newt has been backed into a corner.

CAVUTO: Yes, but when I had Ron Paul here, Herman, he said -- he was criticized for a lot of negative campaigns targeting everybody.

CAIN: Yes.

CAVUTO: And he said, well, sometimes, I just go back and use their own words against them.

And so the attack you heard from Mitt Romney and all when he had to describe some of these ads, most of which he disavowed, was that, well, were they untruthful, were they lies? No.

CAIN: Well, see, I happen to believe, with all due respect by Representative Paul that was a cop-out, using their own words against them.

Neil, 13 million people are out of work. Another million people have given up. And eight million people are underemployed. That means that the real unemployment rate is 18 percent. That’s what people want to hear about.

My criticism of all of the candidate’s who’s talking about a specific positive solution to fix our most pressing domestic problem, which is the economy? You don’t hear enough about that. And the voters are getting sick of it.

CAVUTO: But they do work, these ads, right?

CAIN: Yes.

CAVUTO: Whether you call them negative or not, they do plant seeds of doubt.

CAIN: Yes.

CAVUTO: And in this case, with Newt Gingrich in Iowa, from his 37 percent approval numbers, it planted seeds about, maybe he’s not all he says he is.

CAIN: Right.

CAVUTO: Which is real, the nice Newt or now the in-your-face Newt?

CAIN: I think the in-your-face Newt brings out a side of Newt that was always there, but to his credit he was trying to hold back on doing that. But he had no choice.

CAVUTO: OK. So, now I know you’ve left the race.

CAIN: Yes.

CAVUTO: Your name is still on the ballot with 29 others, by the way.

CAIN: And I’m encouraging my supporters vote for someone that’s still in the race, because let’s not lose sight of our mission. Our mission is to defeat Barack Obama and make 999 the law of the land.

CAVUTO: Could you support any of these guys against Barack Obama?

CAIN: I could support any of the candidates that are still in the race.

But I want to encourage people to go to cainconnections.com, cainconnections.com, so we can see...

(CROSSTALK)CAVUTO: That’s harder to remember than 999.

CAIN: Oh, that’s where you’re going to find 999, the revolution, at cainconnections.com, how we are going to do that.

CAVUTO: Too much to remember that.

So, let me get a sense of where we go from here. The argument is, if Mitt Romney does well today and he goes into South Carolina, where he conceivably could do well again, even with proportional voting, he’ll be off to the races, and all conservatives who are whining about him will either have to go along or get out and divide the party.

What do you say to that?

CAIN: I believe that, if he continues his momentum in South Carolina -- I don’t know if he has to win South Carolina, Mitt Romney.

CAVUTO: Right.

CAIN: But if he does a strong showing -- and, number two, if he finishes fourth or something like that, that spells trouble.

He’s got to finish strong, one or two in Florida. And then Super Tuesday, it could be -- we could have a presumptive nominee by Super Tuesday, which is March 6. It all hinges on not what’s happening in New Hampshire, because, as you know, Mitt is expected to win. The news will be who came in second, third and fourth. That’s going to be the news, and then what happens in South Carolina in a couple weeks and what happens in Florida.

CAVUTO: Do you think that all these attacks, though -- let’s say Mitt Romney is the nominee. Right now, he’s the front-runner. And that he’s - - whoever the nominee is -- you guys were beating each other up so badly while you were in the race.

(CROSSTALK)

CAIN: I didn’t beat anybody up.

CAVUTO: Well, you know what happened, right?

(LAUGHTER) CAIN: I know what happened, yes.

CAVUTO: They were beating you up. They were beating you up.

That they’re damaged goods in the general election?

CAIN: Yes, I don’t think so.

That’s just the way – I’ve seen campaigns before where you get beat up in the primary, and then, if everybody sings kumbaya and come together, and let’s support the nominee, they have a good chance.

But let’s assume that Mitt Romney does become the nominee. He still has to do something -- quote -- "dramatic" to bring the party together.

CAVUTO: What’s dramatic?

CAIN: Dramatic is something...

CAVUTO: Put a conservative on the ticket?

CAIN: Exactly.

Well, he could put a very well-liked conservative on the ticket -- not Herman Cain.

CAVUTO: Chris Christie?

CAIN: I don’t think he’s considered a conservative.

In fact, that -- personally, I think that could backfire. He wouldn’t be a -- in my opinion, Chris Christie wouldn’t be a person for V.P. on the ticket that’s going to cause conservatives to rally around that ticket. It could do more harm than good.

But when I say something dramatic, this is an example. And this is not self-promotion. What if he adopted 999? We’ve got Senate candidates, congressional candidates all over the country that are wanting to adopt 999. Now, adoption means you adopt the concept.

We will -- we are producing the legislation. And we will go back later after they read it -- what a novel idea -- and then get a commitment. And this is how I believe we could provide some updraft to whoever is the nominee, if they do something dramatic like adopt 999.

Right now, he doesn’t have anything else as dramatic as adopting 999, the revolution.

CAVUTO: You said 999 11 times. You said Cain Connections twice -- 999 wins.

(LAUGHTER) CAIN: You taught me that in marketing class.

(LAUGHTER) CAVTO: If that were true, if that were true.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: Herman Cain, good luck coming out of your shell.

CAIN: Pleasure.

CAVUTO: Everything seems to be coming along.

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