increased 145% since the start of this year. and in terms of internet traffic, pinterest ranks 17th. that is more popular than the web sites of the "new york times," pay pal, netflix and espn.com, among others. and thanks for joining us. i'm lisa sylvester in for wolf blitzer in "the situation room." the news continues next on cnn. good evening. i'm john king. tonight president obama tries to head off anger over higher gas prices, insisting there's no silver bullet to get us back to $2 a gal. also mitt romney rushes from cnn's arizona debate to his home state of michigan, desperately trying to build momentum and overtake rick santorum in a must-win contest. and what will they think of next? this high tech ad can tell whether you're a man or a woman. see what happens after it see what happens after it decides. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com we begin this evening with what you're paying at the pump. more.

gasoline prices jumped 3 cents a gal just overnight to a national average now of $3.61. that makes 16 straight days of higher prices. and experts say we're heading for $4 a gal gas by summer if not sooner. president obama seized the political warning signs and knows the attack's already coming. this afternoon in florida he tried to stay ahead of the curve. >> since it's an election year, they're already dusting off their three-point plan for $2 gas. and i'll save you the suspense. step one is to drill and step two is to drill. and then step three is to keep drilling. anybody who tells you that we can drill our way out of this problem doesn't know what they're talking about, or just isn't telling you the truth. >> let's take a closer look at the problem. our chief business correspondent ali velsshey. oil. >> increase of oil prices up

$1.53 a barrel to end at $107.83. that's for the oil that we buy here in the united states. that's not a huge increase. opeq has sort of said they want to keep oil at about $100 a barrel. but what we've seen is a faster than normal increase in the price of gasoline. now, what's that got to do with? a lot of things. the threat from iran, the fact that iran has stopped selling its oil. europe has stopped buying its oil. what could happen to the strait of hormuz. it has to do with demand in the world, with supply. but it's a bunch of different culprits. what it's doing is causing gas to go up faster than oil. that is threatening this economic recovery that we're in the middle of, john. >> in terms of the political debate, ali, anything that the president or congress or the politicians can do to lower gas prices short term? >> not really short term. you've seen the president release oil from the strategic petroleum preserves. it helps for a short amount of time. this is a supply problem and

demand problem in the long term in the united states. we also have all sorts of regulatory issues that prevent us from getting more drilling done. that's something that the republicans are going to talk about. but a claim that you can bring oil -- a campaign promise to bring oil down to $2 a gallon doesn't seem to be something that's within the reach of most presidents unless they're able to trigger a recession. that will do it. that will bring gas down to $2 a gallon or lower. >> ali, thanks. let's take a closer look at what he's talking about here. number one we show you the region where the tensions with iran. 1/5 of the daily oil trade comes through the straits of hormuz. one of the reasons prices are going up. tensions in the region here. how does that play off back home? that's what we were talking about here. take a look at oil prices. $3.61 a gallon average. up three cents just from yesterday, up 10% this year. go back and look at the price of gas during the obama presidency the when president too many office we were below $2 a gal. $1.60 a gallon. there was a steady climb, steady

climb. then you see the arab spring here and it spiked way up. gas prices had been coming down. back up to $3.61. this can depend on where you live in the country. let me turn this graph off. there you go. where you live in the country depends a lot on how you pay because of state gas taxes, transportation costs and like. darker the state, the higher the costs. $4.25 in california, in new york state. in some states you have to drive longer distances to get to work. some states people are poorer. if you see the orange or red states those are states where people spend 10% or more of their income just on gas. a big toll there economically. we'll watch this play out from a policy standpoint and in the politics in the weeks ahead. moving to more politics, rick santorum was the target early and often in our big republican debate last night. >> our gains were successful. but while i was fighting to save the olympics you were fighting to save the bridge to nowhere. >> governor romney got some help making his case santorum is no fiscal conservative. >> congressman paul, you've

questioned the fiscal conservative credentials of all these gentlemen. but particularly this week on? santorum. you have a new television ad that labels him a fake. why? >> because he's a fake. [ laughter ] >> i'm real. i'm real. >> so did the debates stop of slow the santorum surge? voters in michigan and arizona will give us the biggest clue on tuesday. in a new poll today we should note taken before last night's feisty debate suggests a tight and tense struggle for michigan. rick santorum 38% to 34% over governor romney. within the poll's margin of error 4 percentage points. with us to talk about the campaign, deputy washington bureau chief michael crowley. did the debate change anything fundamentally in the race? >> not fundamentally but it blunted rick santorum's momentum. it's hard to run for president as a senator. you cast a lot of votes on capitol hill that become hard to defend when taken out of context. when you're talking the inside language of parliamentary

procedure. he got into that last night. i think mitt romney was kind of able to slow him down and bring out some of the negative side of him voters may not be familiar with. not a great night. >> at a time when he is leading a very tight race in michigan. the romney people would say they've been down more a week ago. they're making steady progress in the polls. how important is michigan to rick santorum? we talked about important it is to mitt romney. if mitt romney gets two wins on tuesday they'll think they have stability back. if santorum comes away with nothing on tuesday what does that mean? >> it's tough. presidential politics always is about this kind of strange expectations game that might seem odd for a distance, but the reality is the expectations got so high for romney that it looked as though he was in deep trouble. but now we're seeing a situation where they got kind of high for santorum. romney is starting to make a comeback. if he can be the comeback kid as one of his supporters said the other day, it's a nice little boost for him. here's the caveat to that, john. super tuesday is not a very friendly terrain for mitt romney. you've got a lot of southern

states. you're going to have a conservative electorate. georgia voting which is newt gingrich's home state. not a lot of easy plays there for romney. i think there is a chance that romney could come out strong in michigan and arizona but then things get muddled up again on super tuesday. that said it would be nice for romney to win one or both states, particularly michigan. i think the picture's brightening especially after last night's debate. >> anybody else jump out? santorum's surge blunted. gingrich get anything back? ron paul distinguish himself? >> gingrich did a good job. quite sedate and muted in one of those debates previously where he grabbed a moment. he didn't have those youtube viral lines, no conflicts with the debate moderator for instance. ron paul the interesting thing about that is the way he was going after santorum. a ron paul-romney alliance. ron paul has money to spend on advertising. he's targeting santorum.

mitt romney appreciates that. >> thank you for helping us out. today we got our first look at the scene of a deadly helicopter crash in an arizona marine base. seven marines died when a pair of helicopters collided over the desert in arizona last night. routine training operation as the marines prepared for deployment to afghanistan. cnn's reporter miguel marquez is there in yuma. miguel, what do we know about this awful accident? >> reporter: we do know there was a collision at 10:30 eastern time last night between two work horses or the marine corps, cobra helicopter, a close in attack helicopter and an huey. we also know there was a highly trained, highly experienced training pilot in that huey in one of the seats. we don't actually know who was in command or in control of that huey at the time of the crash. he may have been assisting a lesser experienced pilot or they may have been training on a new weapons program. it's just not clear. investigators are on the scene. everyone there has been identified.

all the dead have beenfied fired. six of them are from camp pendleton in california and one of them that trainer here from yuma. john? >> such a horrible event in arizona. miguel, thanks so much on your reporting there. a man wearing an afghan army uniform killed two u.s. troops today amid a growing storm of violent protests after nato forces confiscated and burned some detainee's qurans and other relicious materials. students paraded and burned an effigy of president obama. in an effort to sooth the anger, president obama took the extraordinary step of writing an apology calling the quran burning inadvertent and an era. >> reporter: two american soldiers shot dead on a base east of where i'm standing by a man in afghan army uniform. apparently an act connected to the protests happening outside that same base which themselves turned violent two protesters

shot dead, seven injured. protests popping up around the country in the past three days and deep concerns that tomorrow around friday prayers religious leaders may stir afghan crowds by talking about this. we could see yet further unrest. america is doing its best to apologize as much as it can but there's no one more senior left to apologize since today president obama had his ambassador here hand deliver a letter to the afghan president saying they'd hold rebels behind this accountable and hope it would never happen again. afghan authorities are rushing forward their investigation into how this happened, saying today they'd like to see restraint from afghans but also suggesting they might like to see a trial for the u.s. soldier who was behind this obvious unintentional mistake. that's going to cause a huge headache for u.s. officials if afghans insist upon that. the question still remaining how on earth did this happen. i understand from a military official this was religious texts in a detention facility being used to pass what they

refer to as extremist messages. they were gathered, handed up, meant to be disposed of differently but ended up being sent to the conventional incinerator they use on the base. local afghans saw this, and then spread the word causing these protests. but really now there's no real sign the violence is going to slow. and this is exactly what nato does not need as it tries to push this message of security here so it can begin to withdraw its troops and hand over to afghan security forces a country on edge really for tomorrow. john? >> cnn's nick payton walsh there in afghanistan. within the past hour in spokane, washington newt gingrich slammed the president for making any kind of an apology. >> the president apologized for the burning. but i haven't seen the president demand that the government of afghanistan apologize for the killing of two young americans. there seems to be nothing that radical islamists can do to get barack obama's attention in a

negative way. and he has consistently apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the president of the united states period. [ cheers and applause ] >> last hour coming up here the united states formally support the opposition against the syrian president bashar al assad. plus new details in the man accused of engineering the biggest leak of classified information in u.s. history. for a limited time, passages malibu

will be giving away free copies of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. . disturbing new images from syria where reports say -- united nations report identifies syrian commanders and high-ranking officials who the u.n. says bear responsibility for gross violations of human rights. in another important development just today, secretary of state hillary clinton signalled the united states may now throw its support behind the opposition of president bashar al assad despite misgivings about that situation. >> it's a fluid situation. but if i was a betting person

for the medium term and certainly the long term, i would be betting against assad. >> let's get some perspective from cnn's fareed zakaria. the secretary of state says the united states should lean toward this opposition, be prepared now to embrace this opposition. i want to listen here to what general martin dempsey the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff told you the other day. he seems quite worried about that. >> there's indications that al qaeda is involved and that they're interested in supporting the opposition. there's a number of players, all of whom are trying to reinforce their particular side of this issue. and until we're a lot clearer about who they are and what they are, i think it would be premature to talk about arming them. >> now general dempsey's talking about arming them. what about the idea of embracing them? is there a split and should there be caution on that front? >> i think that's a very smart question, john. everyone has assumed that the only way that we can support the

syrian opposition is to arm them. and of course that is the most effective way we could do it and of course that's probably what they want. but there are many things we can do short of that. because that involves us in what has essentially become a civil war. and we're not sure we understand it well enough to take that jump. but perhaps what we could be doing is trying to support them, help them organize, figure out who they are so that some of general dempsey's concerns can be address zbld arwa damon is one of our brave cnn reporters who has been going into syria, risking her life. listen to this account for help from a father of two in syria. >> reporter: if there is an outside interference it will be an ocean of blood, an ocean of blood if this situation continues like this. people will explode. they won't be able to take it anymore. they won't respond to us. it will be a cycle of your attacking me so i have to attack you. >> when you hear these ominous accounts mixed with appeals for help, fareed, and then you see

the international community is having a hard time coming up with a consensus upon what to do, what does that tell you? >> well, the truth of the matter is that syria has some backing. that is why international support is so difficult to muster for the opposition. they have russia, china in the security council, iran next door. and so when that gentleman says, if you don't get involved there will be oceans of blood, unfortunately the tragedy is that if we would get involved there would perhaps be even more blood. because there would be activism on all sides. already syria is turning into a kind of cockpit where there is a cold war between iran on the one side supporting the syrian government, saudi arabia on the other side supporting increasingly these militants who are either in syria or coming into syria. so when we talk about bloodshed, there will be a lot more bloodshed. that's not a reason not to support the opposition.

because at the end of the day we want to do the right thing both politically and morally. but let's face it. getting more involved in iraq or getting more involved in afghanistan did not produce less bloodshed. it produced more. it wide, the war. >> it certainly would. i want you to listen here. i asked the republican candidates for president last night what they would do differently from the current president. here's what mitt romney said. >> with assad in trouble, we need to communicate to the ail alowites to say you have a future if you abandon that guy assad. we need to work with saudi arabia and turkey to say you guys provide the kind of weaponry that's needed to help the rebels inside syria. this is a critical time for us. if we can turn syria and lebanon away from iran we finally have the capacity to get iran to pull back. >> a reasonable answer? >> yes, i thought it was actually a very intelligent answer. you're used to hearing such frankly nonsense on the campaign

trail because people make wild accusations. that was a sensible, thoughtful, sophisticated answer. in an odd sense, of course, what mitt romney is suggesting is a version of barack obama's strategy in libya. in libya we let the europeans take the lead and we said we will support what you do but you guys have to be out in front. what he's suggesting is turkey and saudi arabia should take the lead and we would support it. i'm sure he's not going to call it leading from behind but that's sort of what he's suggesting. >> i was just going to close on that point if you didn't. i'll bet everything i have in my pocket governor romney is not going to call that leading from behind. fareed zakaria, thanks as always. >> a pleasure. coming up a tight race on governor romney's home turf. new details about how the battle for michigan is shaping up. and harry potter fans get excited. here's j. k. rowling writing a new book. this one for adults. in fact, i'm already seeing your best friend, justin. ♪ i would've appreciated a proactive update on the status of our relationship. who do you think i am, tim? quicken loans?

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welcome back. here's kate bolduan with the latest news you need to know right now. >> reporter: hello to you, actually. this is what the bureau looks like. >> fly back from phoenix to beautiful washington. >> reporter: you're back. good evening, everyone. news to catch you up on. the court-martial of army private bradley manning is under way. the 24-year-old private was formally charged in military court today with the connection with the wikileaks scandal, large in history. it will be april before former university of virginia lacrosse player george huguely

finds out how much time he'll be spending in jail. a jury recommended 26 years after convicting him of second degree murder in the 2010 death of his girlfriend. at his april 16th sentencing the judge can accept or reduce the jury's recommendations. in a big win for privacy advocates on the internet, some of the largest web companies including google have reversed course and have now agreed to support a do not track button to be embedded in most web browsers. the move will give users greater control over their personal data collected about them as they go online. and now that harry potter and jenny was ely are parents, j. k. rowling is ready to write her first series for adults. unfortunately rowling is keeping the details of the new series secret until later in the year. the harry potter has sold more than 400 million copies worldwide and turned into a

blockbuster film. >> did you read the series? >> i read the earlier ones alongside my son. then as he got older and took less interest i flipped through. but i have seen the movies. >> more interested in other things. >> we'll just leave it one right there. kate will be back in a bit. a surprising revelation today about senator marco rubio who a lot of republicans are mentioning as a possible vice-presidential candidate. turns out for a short time he was a mormon. details next. so what do you think? basic.

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in this half hour, we fact check newt gingrich's inflammatory allegation that barack obama once voted for infanticide. also did rick santorum help or hurt himself in last night's debate? we dig deeper into the truth about santorum's performance. a new high-tech sign bases its message on who you are because it can tell whether you're a man or a woman. after last night's cnn arizona republican debate mitt romney's staff were confident he would win next tuesday's primaries in arizona and michigan. a new michigan poll out today shows governor romney's home state is more of a tossup than a sure thing. rick santorum has a 38% to 34% lead. that's within the sampling error of 4 percentage points. governor romney will be campaigning just outside of detroit. senior correspondent joe johns is there.

joe, you hear the confidence in arizona after the debate they will win michigan, the romney people. do you feel that on the ground? >> reporter: you know, john, frankly you do know, this predictions in politics can be very dangerous things. and you have a guy in the spin room in arizona saying, we will win michigan. well, today i reached out to the campaign to try to get somebody some of the message people to sort of back that up or expand on that. and i pretty much got radio silence throughout the day. nonetheless, i can tell you that the romney people do feel as though santorum's performance in the debate last night actually helped the romney case. they do like the way he tried to defend his votes on capitol hill. they very much liked the notion that this is a guy who would actually go out and say he took one for the team because they think that plays into the story they've been telling about santorum, which is that he is a washington insider. so they've been hoping to expand

on that. romney talked about it a little bit in arizona before he left to come here to michigan. and we're likely to hear more of that when he gives the speech before this group of tea partiers here in milford, michigan, john. >> and you say speaking of tea partiers i think that's quite significant. you have a few days left and michigan is a huge battle ground state. what shall we look for in these final days? >> reporter: the think the first thing we have to look for is tomorrow morning in detroit he's expected to give a speech before the detroit economics club. this is a speech that's been very much anticipated because romney has been told that if he is in fact the sort of economic fix-it guy he needs to come before an audience here in michigan and lay out his case. take all the pieces of the puzzle that he's been delivering around the country and put them out there for the consumers in this state, which was hit so hard by the country's economic problems.

that's what he's planning to do. and from there on as you know, it's game on as we start the sprint to the finish line, john. >> joe johns out in michigan. joe, thanks so much. we'll keep in touch. a surprising revelation today about republican senator marco rubio of florida. the miami herald revealed that rubio was eight years old and his family lived in las vegas, they joined the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. mort mons. the family moved back to florida when rubio was 11 and they rejoined the catholic church. this comment by newt gingrich last night may have caught some people by surprise. >> i just want to point out. you did not once in the 2008 campaign, not once did anybody in the elite media ask why barack obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide. okay? >> what's all that about? our chief white house correspondent jessica yellin did some fact checking for us. jess, before we start this is not the first we've film we've

heard that. rick santorum from last year. >> think about that. any child born prematurely according to the president and his words can be killed. now, who's the extremist in the abortion debate? >> so jess, take us through what's going on here. >> reporter: okay. this dates back to the president's time in the illinois state senate when he was presented with a born alive bill three times. one time he voted present, two times he voted against it. here's what the bill said. a live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law." at the time, john, then state senator obama opposed those bills. he said once "essentially this would bar abortions, because the equal protection clause already does not allow somebody to kill a child." later he said that unlike a federal version of this same law, the state measure lacked federal language clarifying that it would not be used to

undermine rowe versus wade. the federal born alive act was voted in in 2002 and there's some dispute over how different the two bills were. >> we heard rick santorum arguing any child born prematurely can be killed. >> reporter: there was already a law in illinois that protected born alive fetuses, if you want to call it that. that law required that doctors give life-saving care if they thought there was any chance of survival after a botched abortion. now, i read some of the record from those days, and then senator obama said, and this is a quote, "i have confidence that if these children that are being born alive, that the doctor who is in the room will make sure that they will be looked after." so the group determined he did not stand for killing prematurely-born infants. >> a tough issue to talk about. jess, what about newt gingrich's

claim that the mainstream media, i think he said the elite mainstream media didn't pursue this back in 2008. >> we have video. actually cnn covered this in 2008 several different times. roll video proof. and also the christian broadcast network's david brody asked president obama about this issue. prody was a cnn contributor then. and we played part of his interview on cnn. john? >> always good to check the facts after the big debates. jess, thanks so much. if you don't like president obama's healthcare reform law, well mitt romney says you should blame his republican rival, rick santorum. during our debate last night here on cnn, romney pointed to senator santorum's support for then fellow pennsylvania senator arlen specter. >> the reason we have obama care is ball the senator you supported over pat toomey in pennsylvania, arlen specter, the pro-choice senator of pennsylvania that you supported

and endorsed in a race over pat toomey, he voted for obama care. if you had not supported him, if we had said no to arlen specter we would not have obama care. so don't look at me, take a look in the mirror. >> former senator specter now gives us his perspective. senator good to see you again. for our viewers who don't understand what happened, you were the republican incumbent senator. pat toomey challenged you, mounted a conservative challenge to you in the republican primary. and rick santorum did support arlen specter. let's listen to what he said last night, senator. he said he supported you only after a conversation in which you made a promise. let's listen. >> arlen specter as chairman of the judiciary committee, we had a conversation. he asked me to support him. i said will you support the president's nominees? we had a 51-49 margin in the senate. he said i'll support the president's nominees in the senate. >> speaking about president bush's nominees for supreme court. did you have that conversation? did you make that promise? >> no. >> no. never happened? >> i made no promise about

supporting anybody. i wouldn't do it. it would be wrong to make a promise in advance of knowing who the nominee was and what the qualifications were. >> he says that you asked for his support. he ultimately gave you his support. he says you had the conversation. is he making that up last night? is he misunderstanding something? >> i'm telling you what the facts are. i'm not going to undertake any characterizations. when senator santorum backed me for re-election of a primary in 2004, so did president bush. when it came time to use the commercials it was president bush. there was never any discussion at all between senator santorum and me about support. it was just assumed that he would support me like i had supported him when he had a very tough election back in 1994. >> so then what went through

your mind when you heard of this exchange? he says "arlen specter chairman of the judiciary committee we had a conversation. i said will you support the president's nominees? he said i'll support the president's nominees. you say it never happened. what do you make of hearing this? >> well, it may be politically expedient for him to make that response. but i can't read his mind. you can draw inferences as well as i can. what i can tell you are the facts. >> do you have a candidate in this presidential election? are you supporting president obama? are you looking at these republicans? >> i am not impressed with any of the republican candidates. i think president obama is in the driver's seat at the moment. but a campaign is a long process. and what i intend to do is to follow it closely. and when the time comes to cast a ballot, they call it a secret ballot. >> the former pennsylvania senator arlen specter.

they do indeed call it a secret ballot. sir appreciate your time today. >> nice talking to you. coming up, the truth about rick santorum's debate performance and how it might impact the gop race. and sacha baron cohen is not banned from sunday night's academy awards but the academy would like him to ban a certain costume of his red carpet wardrobe. in the works package, we change the oil we change the filter... tire rotation, suspension, we make suspension checks... what we have here is the multi-point inspection. every time a vehicle comes into a ford dealership you'll be presented with one of these. we check the belts, hoses... brakes. tires and the pressures... battery, all your fluids... exhaust system, transmission... we inspect your air filter... it gets done,it gets done quickly and it gets done correctly. the works. oil change, tire rotation and more: $29.95 or less after rebate - at your ford dealer. you're a doctor... you're a car doctor. maybe a car doctor...

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it's a dangerous business to try to score a debate. each viewer, each voter sees the

thing through their own accomplice cal prism. if you liked ron paul you most likely cheered him. some say mitt romney helped his cause in the nomination battle. a lot of democrats are betting this romney comment on immigration will be a losing general election position if romney gets that nomination. >> if you see a model here in arizona. they passed a law here that says that people who come here and try and find work, that the employer is required to look them up on e. verify. you do that. and just as arizona is finding out. you can stop illegal immigration. it's time we finally did it. >> a lot of this is subjective. still tonight's truth is a judgment we can make. it was rick santorum's moment to raise his game but he came up short, sounding more like a senator than a president. >> when abuse happened i said we should stop the earmarking process. but i did say there were good earmarks and bad earmarks. i have to admit i voted for

that. it was against the principals i believed. in but when you're part of the team sometimes you take one for the team for the leader and i made a mistake. >> did he hurt his effort? well, the voters in michigan and arizona and beyond can answer that starting tuesday. but he had an opportunity to help himself. and like others before him, didn't make the most of his first chance at debate center stage. it was clear, for example, that governor romney got under his skin. >> you're entitled to your opinions, mitt. >> i've heard that line before. >> you're not entitled to misrepresent the facts. you're misrepresenting the facts. you don't know what you're talking about. >> herman cain knows how it feel toss claim and then yield center stage. so does rick perry. it's important to note that santorum has something cain and perry didn't have, wins. but here's something santorum does not have, another debate on the calendar. last night was not his strongest performance. and there may not be a take 21.

here to talk truth tonight, republican strategist rich galen and john theory and cnn contributor mia cardona. >> i didn't realize how short i was. >> we have seen this before in this volatile race where sort of who's the alternative? was this bachmann, perry, cain, this was santorum's moment. what happened? >> well, you know, it's a tough position especially if you've never done it before. but rick santorum has never been in this position. when we started in iowa it seems like 17 years ago but it was really only about eight weeks ago he was at 3%, kind of bumping along. then he did very well, turned out he won but who knew? so he's never been at the position at center stage as frontrunner with everybody aiming their arrow at him. he found it just a little tougher than i think he thought it might be. >> john, preparing for one of these debates. before lower in the polls, had

to fight to get into the debate conversation. he can make his key points. he had to know his record, his votes were going to be center stage because he was the one surging in the polls. >> title x, title 20r. anytime you have that in the debate you're losing. he sounded like a senator. when you're a senator -- you got to be an executive in these debates. he sounded like a senator. he was caught up in earmarks. good and bad earmarks. it was a disaster for rick santorum. he was on center stage. the other thing is he didn't have a strategy for going after mitt romney. and i think it showed. >> john makes an important point there. look you all counsel politicians. one of the things that drives people in my business crazy you ask them the color of the sky. maybe they say it for a second and they pivot. that's what you say senator santorum didn't do. he wanted to counter romney as opposed to saying you can talk about that but this is more important. why? how do you teach a candidate don't get so personal. don't get it under your skin. make the pivot.

>> practice practice practice, john. that to me was the most telling thing. he clearly didn't practice for this. we have what we call murder boards where you practice debate, especially when you know you're the one who's going to have the bull's eye on your back. you go through and have either your closest advisers or your friends if you can't pay advisers really go through the questions, you practice the pivots. romney did it beautifully. he was asked very pointed questions and he pivoted back. his staff had given him the research. santorum had nothing and he didn't use it. >> we saw last night in governor romney like it or not, whether you think it's all attack and no vision, very clearly disciplined candidate with a very good opposition research team. >> what they did i thought last night we were just talking about this before is on the obama care stuff, romney cut them off with the santorum business and everything early in the debate. it was a little bit like a professional basketball team cutting off the lane driving into from the left. whatever that team is going to

have to take outside shots from the left-hand side for the rest of the debate. i thought as a debate tactic it was very well done. >> how much does it matter? you have bad debates. every candidate has had bad debates. ron paul probably less than the others. they've had time to recover. they know there's another one coming. you might have a primary in between, take a lump in between. no more on the books right now. >> rick santorum has been talking about contraception, all these things that are off his major message which is how you get manufacturing jobs back in the united states? that's what he needs to win michigan. he's off that message. and i think that after 21 debates you'd get used to things. but maria is right. he didn't have a way to get back the debate at hand which is how you get manufacturing jobs back in america? >> the one thing that i think really hurt him was when he actually said that he voted against his principles. up until now his whole narrative was that he was the principled person in this field. and that i think really hurt him. he could have said, look, i

thought the law was going to do something different than it did. i no regret it. i could have changed it. but to say i voted against my principles. >> ideology take one for the team. stay put. we'll be back to our group in a minute. erin burnett is here you're speaking to another guy with a lot of experience. rudy julian. >> he's very passionate about one of the key issues on the table and also going to talk about the gop field. he's coming up top of the hour and also, a a man who played one for the super bowl for the new york giants and the chicago bears killed himself a year ago. his family now filing suit saying they have proof his brain was injured and they know how in playing football. we're going to talk to his family tonight. back to you. >> horrible, horrible story. thanks so much. coming up, nancy pelosi strikes a deal with an unlikely supporter and he's a republican. sort of. we'll show you that in our

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and respecting wildlife. america's natural gas... domestic, abundant, clean energy to power our lives... that's smarter power today. continuing our conversation about last night, rich galen, john feehery, maria cardona still with us. there was a question from the audience and talking about as president how they should address this issue, listen to mitt romney calling the arizona law a model for the nation. >> you see a model here in arizona. they passed a law here that says

that people who come here and try and find work, that the employer is required to look them up. you do that and just as arizona is finding out, you can stop illegal immigration. it's time we finally did it. >> now, you think as the democrat, and a latino democrat, people say essentially thank you, governor romney, if you win the nomination, we'll see you in november. why? >> because right now, the numbers say that republicans, this comes from matthew dowd, cannot win ad viner of president bush. cannot win the white house without at least 40% of the latino vote. that was according to numbers in 2004. that has got to have jumped at least to 45% with the growth in the latino vote. right now, mitt romney doesn't even get to 25% against president obama and all of the others are less than that. and right now, the way he's talking about immigration in

term of the law, the dream act with majority of latino voters support, he's already said he would veto that. there's no way he's going to be able to pivot credible to any sort of sensible solution. >> you buy that? >> the latino vote the very good. he's got to come wup a strategy. there's a lot of ways to do that. family values is another way and maybe putting marco rubio on the third one. maria's using primary numbers to try to generate a general election scenario and it doesn't work. we'll see what happens assuming romney's the nominee. >> i'm going to try something here. get ready. we did this with the candidates, a great suggestion from somebody b online. describe yourself in one word. let's hear. congressman paul. >> consistent.

>> senator santorum? >> courage. >> governor? >> resolute. >> mr. speaker. >> cheerful. >> cheerful was my favorite. rich galen, one word. >> tall. >> john feehery. >> happy. >> maria. >> woman. >> woman. happy and tall. thanks for coming in today. we'll see you again, soon. >> how about you, john? >> curious. kate bolduan's back with the latest news you need to know now. >> that was very, very fun. catching up on some news. sarah palin's top advisers haven't seen the movie, but they're already condemning "game change." julienne moore plays governor palin. based ton the trailers for the film, a one-time aide calls it

quote a false portrait cobbled together by a bunch of people who simply weren't there and sacha baron cohen is welcome to attend the oscars afterall. it had been reported he was banned, but apparently, it was all a misunderstanding. they just don't want him to show up a as his latest character, the dictator, and hijack the red carpet. the oscars air sunday night. a new, high-tech billboard being tested in london uses facial recognition software to determine whether a man or woman is watching and shows different content. if i were in london, i could see a 40 second video promoting women's education in developing countries, but a man would be referred to the organization's website. a little terrifying. >> the point is so that mean understand sometimes that men are denied opportunities, something as opposed to understand that it happened to women before? >> it's called revenge. i'm kidding.

>> i want that now, i can. was a little uncertain. now i get it. sometimes revenge is sweet. sometimes, funny. it is one word, that's true. kate's one word tonight is revenge. finally, last night's debate, moments you may have missed because it wasn't part of our cnn republican debate, but a debate between the house democratic leader nancy pelosi and steven colbert. they actually came to an agreement. watch. >> well, of course you want to own the presidency because if you keep the receipt, you can exchange him for a new president if you don't like him. that's just logical. that's business. i say let the free market decide who represents us. >> well, that's interesting for the free market and i support the free market, but i also support free election. >> so is that a de