and we are laughing this morning because we just love coming to work early. good morning, everyone. welcome to the earlier part of "early start." i'm ashleigh banfield. >> and i'm zoraida sambolin. very glad to be here. we're bringing you the news from "a" to "z." let's get started. >> it's such a super day. super tuesday has become super wednesday. mitt romney racking up six super states, including that classic cliff hanger in ohio. he's kind of talking like it's over, but did he land that knockout blow? >> no. >> if your support really means everything to ann and me, and i'm not going to let you down. i'm going to get this

nomination. >> while rick santorum wins three states because mitt romney still cannot convince conservatives that he's the man. we're taking a look at the exit polls. this is my favorite part actually. different numbers are revealing some big problems for the front-runner. christine romans is breaking it all down. she's going to talk about electability and the economy and what folks are saying about that. >> i'm not sure it's my favorite part because the information is so revealing or whether it's christine romans, who's my favorite person. we're going to get to her in a moment. but after taking the most states and the most delegates on super tuesday, mitt romney walking the walk and talking the talk, pretty much looking like the nominee, but all candidates are staying in the race. >> it was too close to call until very early into super wednesday, but romney was able to squeeze out the win over santorum. romney taking ohio, alaska,

idaho, massachusetts, and virginia, where neither santorum nor newt gingrich on the ballot. rick santorum taking oklahoma, tennessee, and north dakota. and newt gingrich, as he predicted, won his home state of georgia. >> mitt romney pretty much dominating in two key voting blocs in ohio. dominating in women voters, dominating in catholic voters. those two blocs helping to pro hell him to the narrow victory in ohio. >> what's the updated delegate count? romney 396, santorum 158, gingrich, 153, ron paul, 60. >> all the people behind us who you can sometimes see behind us, they work very hard at us, and it's a very difficult job. the delegate formulas are crazy. it's a moving formula. this is a moving piece. you have to keep your eye on cnn

to see how the delegate count changes. extremely long, incredibly close. that's pretty much how things played out in ohio. it's the biggest surprise, kind of. really the biggest psychological prize in the super tuesday conte contest. even before mitt romney won ohio, smiling, glad handing, this guy had already set his sights down the road to the nomination. >> i'm not going to let you down. i'm going to get this nomination. tonight we're doing some counting. we're counting up the delegates for the convention, and it looks good. and we're counting down the days until november, and that looks better. >> as for rick santorum, win or lose ohio, he didn't change his pitch as the outspent underdog overcoming the odds. >> i'm excited to win the race.

i'm outspent 12-to-1, and it's great to be in the race. >> the question now becomes where do romney and santorum go from here? and the other two guys way, way back in line. mark preston is live in atlanta. mark preston, the fact you are in atlanta this morning is a problem because i brewed a triple espresso for you because of your very long night, and i'm holding it here for you in new york. so we'll just have to pretend that you're awake. here's my question. the guy wins six states. mitt romney pulls off ohio, and he pulls off six big states in super tuesday, and still we're having this conversation that he hasn't delivered the knockout punch. why? >> because rick santorum actually came out with three big wins. and rick santorum neither has the organization nor the money right now in this race for the republican nomination. although we shouldn't underestimate the fact that mitt romney did have six wins. he did win ohio last night. had he lost ohio -- or i should

say had he lost ohio just a couple of hours ago, we would now be talking about how mitt romney would be in trouble for this republican nomination. however, we're talking about how mitt romney is going to try to go on and try to collect delegates and close out this very, very divisive fight for the republican nomination. >> divisive fight, but if you look at the delegate count, romney is a shade below 400. 396 delegate. rick santorum is a long way behind with 158, and then you've got newt and you've got ron paul. to the average guy who doesn't know the arcane and fine points of how the election works, that sort of looks like he's got all the momentum and he's on the move, and it's a fait accompli, but it isn't, is it? >> no. because you need 1,400 delegates to secure the nomination. while super tuesday is important, we're looking ahead to kansas, who is already holding caucuses, and on to next

tuesday where mississippi and alabama will be holding primaries. as we talk now, we have the candidates setting up their days to look forward to the contest. we're going to see rick santorum in kansas for an event, and he's going to move over to mississippi to try to secure support in those two states. meanwhile, newt gingrich is going to be in four events in alabama. let's not forget while newt gingrich won georgia last night, he was unable to win tennessee. he's talked about a southern strategy for his path to the nomination. who's not on the campaign trail? mitt romney. he's going to be raising money in boston. and ron paul, who has yet to win a contest, is also on the cnot campaign trail. >> i feel like raising money is on the campaign trail because you have to put on a happy face for that too. i'm still waiting to find out who the southern son is, whether it's newt gingrich or rick santorum. >> it is six minutes past the

hour. to the big prize, ohio goes to mitt romney but barely. >> a bit of a squeaker, folks. here's the final tally if you had to go to sleep before it was over. buckeye state, mitt romney with 38% of the vote. rick santorum edging in right next door with 37% of the vote. newt gingrich getting completely trounced at 15%. and ron paul was doing what ron paul does best, he comes in last a lot, but he comes in with really good statements about it and sounds real positive going forward. >> he's always fun. christine romans is breaking down the exit polling for us. how did ohio play out the way that it did? >> ladies, there's three numbers about ohio that are important. 63 delegate thes at risk. 7.9 unemployment rate. and one-quarter of all homes under water. these are the exit polls. we asked more than 20 questions of people in ohio as they were leaving. you can see from the faces on the screen who was winning what. you see a lot of romney and a

lot of santorum. talk about top candidate quality and who's the best to beat the president. we'll start with electability. who can be the president? of those who said that was the top quality, who can beat the president, 52% chose mitt romney. 27% went for santorum. let's talk about the top issue. i'm actually a little surprised by this one. of those who said the economy is the top issue, 41% said romney. 33% went for santorum. a little more narrow of a distinction than i would have thought simply because mitt romney has such a long history in business, right i want to take a look at how it broke down depending on how much money you make. what your income was and how that affected how you are likely to vote. let's pull this out in a pie chart format. like we've seen in a lot of places, the more money you make,

the more likely in ohio they were to go for mitt romney. as you go down the income ladder, rick santorum starts to appeal to people. they call these lunch bucket democrats. people who make right in the middle. now they call them sam's club republicans. this new breed of republican, middle or lower income republican who seems to be voting more for santorum. 37% for those who make less than $50,000 a year. a lot of states, ladies. sit tight. we're going to go through the numbers. >> lunch bucket. >> have you heard that? lunch bucket democrats, sam's club republicans. every election season, there's new labels, soccer moms, angry moms. >> why not costco? why sam's club? >> because the costco income is $90,000 on average. >> the things you learn. i love this, christine. >> it's sad these numbers come exploding out of my mouth like that. >> you are creepy. >> but so a costco republican would have a higher income

probably. that's interesting. thanks. >> nine minutes past the hour here. this was not the outcome the romney camp was hoping for. rivals rick santorum and newt gingrich doing more than enough to extend this race. >> we survived the national elite's effort to kill us in the summer because of you, because people who said we are not going to allow the elite to decide who we are going to nominate. >> we have won the west, the midwest, and the south, and we're ready to win across this country. >> everybody still sounding the same. let's talk to our panelists live from chicago. we have conservative commendator lenny mcallister, and live from san diego cnn.com contributor ruben navarrete. thank you, gentlemen, for joining us this morning. lenny, i'm going to start with you because you're all atwitter over our conversations. we've been talking about your predictions. you just tweeted. romney got seven states.

i'm off by one. will she give me hell about being off by one on national television? you betcha i'm going to. but i'm also going to deal with your predictions. before the election, you said, if romney won convincingly in virginia, this would be over. 60% of the vote to ron paul's 40%. this does not sound convincing, though. you say the republican establishment is biting their nails. explain. >> they're biting their nails because i feel he needed to be closer to the mid-60s in order to signal to the rest of the country that, listen, when there's two people on the ballot, the romney sentiment is a lot stronger than the non-romney send itiment. if you look at virginia, the weakest of the four got 40% over mitt romney. you still have a strong not mitt romney sentiment out there. you look at tennessee. mitt romney had the establishment behind him in tennessee. he needed that seventh state.

he needed to win a southern state to be able to signal to folks i can win in a close race. i can win a southern state other than virginia where there's only two of us on the ballot. and it signaled to the rest of the states moving westward that i am the guy. start getting behind me. that didn't happen in virginia. he wasn't even close in tennessee. and you will now see that this race will extend. if he gets a big win, the republican establishment is very happy. if he gets a loss in ohio and loses in tennessee, the republican establishment is extremely nervous. instead, the republican establishment and many republicans are probably just shaking their head and saying, wow, more malaise as we continue through the spring. >> ruben, jump in on that. >> i agree. in the one sense, it was a great night for romney because of ohio. you can't stop talking about ohio. this is a very significant win because, let's not forget, ohio is probably one of the most important states in november. it's in that purple area. it's in play. it's an important state. but in the overall, if you look at the big picture, he won in

virginia where he only faced ron paul on the ballot. romney won in vermont and his home state of massachusetts. so that's sort of the same neighborhood. this is not a very convincing performance by mitt romney. >> romney outspent santorum almost four-to-one in ohio. i know it's a win, but how do you call it a win? >> santorum can call it a wip because he came within a whisker of beating mitt romney of the that plays well with his supporters. but the argument is we're talking about electability. people are voting for mitt romney because they think he can beat barack obama. if that's the case, why don't they just nominate him and get it over with? he can't win the nomination, how can he beat barack obama? >> the jfk comment really bit him in the tail. if he doesn't make the comment about jfk, a fellow catholic, if he doesn't make the comment for president obama being a snob for wanting to go to college.

that's what people do, they work blue collar to send their kids to college to get white collar jobs for the next generation. those two comments and without having the structure to be on the ballot throughout the state of ohio was the difference of 50,000 votes that he lost by. if you can not be on the ballot throughout the state and still make the front-runner sweat, that's not good for mitt romney. yes, it's a win, but it's not a convincing win, and it doesn't reassure mitt romney that he's a strong candidate going into november. >> it says that romney is losing in the areas that republicans are likely to win in the fall, which is the rural areas, and winning in the areas that democrats are likely to win, which is urban areas. how problematic is that, lenny, as we look into the long term? >> well, this is going to be the narrative from president obama. and other candidates on the republican side have already said this. you can have obama and obama light.

if you're going to go with obama and obama light, why not keep the incumbent that's been there for four years and has four years of presidential experience. the economy is getting better. he's doing very well with foreign affairs. he's taken out osama bin laden. he's taken al qaeda and pushed them into the background a little bit. why vote for obama light? and that is becoming the narrative that a lot of conservatives are getting very nervous about, which is why you still see rick santorum without the structure, without the money winning tennessee. that's why you still see rick santorum winning oklahoma. that's why you see rick santorum winning north dakota. that's why you'll see this race continue on through march and through april and beyond. >> lenny, for a second there, i thought you were working for the other side. lenny and ruben, thanks for joining us this morning. we'll talk to you again shortly. >> at 15 minutes past 4:00 a.m. on the east coast. still ahead, why democrats say super tuesday was a great night for them. and also, we love hearing from sarah palin, especially

when she's in wa sila. these are the pictures of her out on the stump, but when she goes to vote at her own polling station, will she admit who she's voting for? and will she still jump in this race? >> anything is possible. i don't close any doors that perhaps would be open out there. >> oh, it just got better, didn't it, folks? our cnn exclusive interview with the former vice presidential nominee. >> there are lots of bunny rabbits that run through. i'm the tortoise. i just take one step at a time. golly! that is deep snow!

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president obama seems to believe he's unchecked by the constitution. he operates by command instead of by consensus. in a second term, he'd be unrestrained by the demands of re-election, and if there's one thing we cannot afford, it's four years of barack obama with no one to answer to. >> that looks like one very confident candidate. mitt romney picking up six wins on super tuesday. why is it then that the

democrats say that's just a great night for them? >> joining us now, hillary rosen, democratic strategist and cnn contributor. thank you. we know that you have been working way overtime. we really appreciate having you here. >> no problem. hi, ladies. >> what is your overall reaction to the super tuesday results? did anything there surprise you? >> i guess i was surprised that mitt romney outspending the other republicans four and five to one. didn't get in bigger margins in more states. but overall, i think it was kind of a mixed bag night for all of the candidates. >> but mitt romney still sounding very presidential. he's setting himself up as a contrast to barack obama. listen to this. >> president obama raised the national debt. i will cut, cap, and balance the budget. finally. he passed obama care. i will repeal obama care. he lost our aaa credit rating.

i will restore our aaa credit rating. >> it may not have been a decisive win for him, right? but in the ohio exit polls, romney is really trusted on the economy. are you worried about that in a battle with president obama? >> no, i guess i'm not because everything mitt romney said in that speech is wrong. actually, it's mitt romney's plan that adds $5 trillion to the deficit, and president obama's budget cuts $4 trillion. we've had 23 straight months of job growth, and when mitt romney was governor of massachusetts, they were 47 out of 50 in job creation in the state of massachusetts. >> but you really can't blame the governor for that. >> well, he said he knows how to create jobs. that's what he did when he was running a state. so, yeah, you've got to go on your record. but you know, i think that this

is kind of the democrats' dilemma right now. it's great that the republicans are all fighting with each other and this is going to go on for quite some time. the thing that might not be so great -- and some of my democratic friends disagree with me on -- is that going head to head with mitt romney for the next several months would actually be fairly good for president obama because mitt romney is going to talk down this economy. he's a pessimist about it. he doesn't really have any answers that are new, and i think that the american people wouldn't like that the longer it went on. i think that president obama could handle that conversation and debate really well. >> there's something that you said last night -- and i want to be clear again -- you're a democratic strategist. last night you were saying that democrats have a tough battle ahead of them because romney keeps having these ugly wins. could you explain that. >> the one thing about mitt romney. democrats love to talk about how weak mitt romney is as a candidate, and he is in my view.

but every time he gets counted out. santorum is raging ahead in ohio, gingrich is going to surge from south carolina. every time he's been down, he has a good organization, he has a smart campaign team. he gets up, he recovers, and he chalks up some wins. there's nothing better in a long-term campaign than somebody who can recover and win. you know, that's going to make november -- we're going to take this right down to the end. >> it's going to be a long haul. another thing you said last night that you wanted to talk about. you said internal democratic polling asked women about the race. you said that women were not paying attention before and now they are paying attention. why and what effect is that having? >> that's a really great question because not a lot of discussion about women in this campaign. virtually nothing about women from the republican candidates until we had -- >> except for the contraception issue. >> until all of a sudden we find

ways to discriminate against women in their health care coverage yet again. do you ever notice how, when men have medical issues, they're medical. but when women have medical issues, they're somehow political. >> i think i may agree with you this morning on that one. >> so what's happened, though, is women historically over the last year have paid much less attention to this election, but the republicans have actually woken women up with this crazy conversation about contraception. >> i know that mitt romney did well with women and catholics in some of the exit polls. we're going to get to that later. i appreciate your time. thank you for being with us. i think we're going to chat with you again. >> it is 24 minutes past 4:00 in the morning on the east coast. still ahead on the early, early version of "early start," super tuesday not as super as mitt romney hoped. he may look happy, but if you look behind the numbers, another story brewing. also, peyton manning, wow,

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good morning to you. 28 minutes past 4:00 a.m. you heard me. >> what happened? >> we both just woke up early and came into work. it's a mistake. no, it's early because of the super tuesday coverage. >> we've got christine romans with us. we've got you working overtime, girl. >> let's give you your super tuesday scorecard. mitt romney picking up six

states, including a big one, ohio, edging rick santorum by just one percentage point there. santorum finished strong, taking three states, including a surprise win in north dakota. newt gingrich won his home state of georgia. meantime, president obama held his first full-time news conference of the year on super tuesday. the president blasting his critics for, quote, beating the drums of war by demanding the united states take military action to deal with iran. >> the one thing we have not done is we haven't launched a war. if some of these folks think that it's time to launch a war, they should say so, and they should explain to the american people exactly why they would do that and what the consequences would be. everything else is just talk. syrian forces pounding rebel held towns overnight, blasting a bridge used by refugees who are escaping to lebanon. meantime, the u.n. humanitarian

chief arriving today to urge the government to allow relief for civilians caught in the cross fire. the suspect in the chardon high school shooting returns to juvenile court. suspect t.j. lane spoke for the first time at a preliminary hearing. lane is charged with three counts of murder. a hearing next month will determine if lane will be tried as an adult. the indianapolis colts will reportedly release peyton manning today. that official announcement expected at a news conference. the star quarterback sat out last season with a neck injury. he was due a $28 million bonus tomorrow. manning becomes perhaps the most coveted free agent in league history. speaking of football, the nfl's new orleans saints admitting to a bounty system that paid bonuses for vicious hits on opposing players n. in a joint statement, coach sean payton and mickey loomis took

full responsibility for the practice and said it wouldn't be repeated. and a big day for apple investors. the company expected to unveil the ipad 3 today in san francisco. it will come with a faster processor, a better camera, and siri. >> if anderson cooper thinks he's the only guy with breaking news, he's got nothing on us. this just in to cnn. we have a brand new delegate count. low budget, so here's your drum roll. >> right off the top. cnn political director mark preston live in atlanta, you have that for us. >> low budget, but at 4:30 in the morning, very important news in the race for the republican nomination. cnn has a new delegate estimate. we talk about the race for the republican nomination, and how do you win it? you collect delegates. we have just now added in the alaska delegates. let's take a look. >> broke 400. >> mitt romney broke 400, 404. rick santorum at 165.

newt gingrich at 106. and ron paul at 66 delegates. >> look how close santorum and gingrich are. >> they are very close. but the big question now for newt gingrich is what's going to happen on tuesday. his whole campaign is predicated on having a southern strategy. he only won georgia. he did not win oklahoma or tennessee last night. he really needs to do well in mississippi and alabama, who are voting on tuesday. >> hey, mark, i love looking at the maps. can we look at the winning states? can you tell us what the map tells you? >> yes, sure. if you want to just pull it up right here, it really shows that things are broken up last night. we expected mitt romney to do very well in the northeast, and he did. he won massachusetts and vermont. virginia, which should have been a very important state, wasn't contested very much because only mitt romney and ron paul were actual loly on the ballot.

rick santorum and newt gingrich didn't qualify. but romney hasn't won in the south. we were all talking about ohio. he needed to win in the rust belt. mitt romney did that. his next effort is to show that he can win in the south. he'll have that opportunity on tuesday. >> it's far from over. mark preston live for us. thank you. >> 4:33 on the east coast. we kept asking who's going to be able to deliver the knockout punch? can mitt deliver that punch? everybody is saying, no, not so much. here to talk about it from chicago, conservative columnist lenny mcallister. and from san diego, cnn contributor ruben navarrete. lenny, i was reading in politico a comment saying mitt has failed to claim the front-runner status here. at six states, what exactly was he supposed to do last night to be able to claim front-runner status? >> what he should have been able to do, what people wanted to see

him do was win something he wasn't expected to win. we have to remember, even with ohio, santorum had a huge lead that he lost. when you're losing that lead in ohio, the guy with the money and the structure should be able to close the gap and win. that's exactly what romney did. however, you look at a state like tennessee, you're hoping that with the structure and the establishment behind him, he can finally break into some new ground, win a southern state where it's actually a competition there, and be able to say, listen, i'm gaining momentum. i'm gaining new ground. i'm gaining new support. and thus we're able to move forward into tampa and move forward into november. that's what people wanted to see from mitt romney when it came to momentum, when it came to claiming front-runner status. that did not happen last night. that's the reason why people are still tentative. >> it sure looked like it, though, the way that guy campaigned. almost looks like a cyborg. he was made for campaigning. he gets up there, and he looks like the presidential candidate.

in ohio, told really interesting numbers about why people pulled that lever. economy on 54% of their minds. the budget deficit on 26% of their minds. then you get down to the social issues. abortion, only 12% gave a hoot. illegal immigration was almost nonexistent at 5%. if rick santorum was basing so much of his campaign, particularly in ohio, on those social issues, i'm still having a tough time figuring out how he did so well there, particularly since he was outspent in the advertising. the negative ads were just trouncing him. what the heck happened there? >> what the heck happened is that mitt romney continues to have the same liabilities he's had since we sat back here and talked about the iowa caucus. throughout every state, we've talked about the same set of liabilities. the republican base doesn't like him, doesn't believe him, doesn't trust him, and can't relate to him. other than that, he's doing fine with them, right? those are all serious problems. >> it just defies logic. other than, ruben, i will give you this.

on that little chart i showed you with economy, budget, abortion, immigration, electability wasn't on it. >> look at the polling. you've seen the polling. they'll ask a question about does he believe what he's saying? typically, what republicans say is that mitt romney will say anything to get elected. that's why they have chosen anything but romney. that's what the anything but romney campaign is about. it's always a reflection on romney's sincerity. even if you donlike what he's saying, he could sell you down the river in november. >> while we're talking about santorum who's the energizer bunny here who can do no wrong, he's done some wrong. he screwed things up in ohio. i'm not sure had he might have been able to win ohio had he gotten those congressional delegates on the ballot like he should have. i'm not so sure he could have done well in virginia. not on the ballot in virginia. if you make those kinds of

mistakes this early in the game, can't we extrapolate that he might not be as organized as he needs to be in a general election? >> well, what does organization mean? organization means money. it means people believing that he could actually win some of these contests. people were not believing that he could win. let's go back to the origin of this. july, august, september. people liked rick santorum in ohio, but they said, oh, he's not going to catch up. as recently as december, he was averaging about 2.7% in the polls. he was tied with jon huntsman. people did not expect him to be able to compete. >> are you saying his screw-ups don't matter? >> no. what i'm saying is these screw-ups a lot of times come from not having the organization or the money to get the volunteers and drive yourself onto the ballot. let's go back to the electability issue for just a second. >> hurry. >> i want to start seeing polls that ask people the question,

does electability mean that you think he can actually beat the candidate or he has the structure and money to go to november? i think people are saying the electability issue with romney because he has the structure and the money, not because he can actually beat president obama on the issues. if he did, he'd have more support now within the base. >> lenny mcallister and ruben navarrete, don't go anywhere. everybody on this team is working overtime. you do not get an escape on this one. >> lenny is actually a night owl. he's tweeting in the middle of the night. so he hasn't slept. >> you could say we are too. still ahead, mitt romney squeezing out a win in ohio really early this morning. santorum was ahead most of the night. the results are showing a huge party divide. however, this is a state with a knack for picking presidents, right? we're going to dig deeper into the numbers. we're going to see what this could mean for mitt romney and his chances in november. and cnn catches sarah palin on the wasila caucus cam. what if her name comes up on

convention night? what will she do? will it be palin for the save? >> anything's possible. i would seriously consider whatever i can do to help our country to put things back on the right track. >> well, that could be fun. a special early edition of "early start" is back after a quick break. [ male announcer ] lately, there's been a seismic shift in what passes for common sense. used to be we socked money away and expected it to grow. then the world changed...

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way too much coffee this morning, miss banfield. >> you get wired when you're up all night dealing with the delegate counts. >> we're counting delegates. that's what we're doing. >> that victory in ohio narrow, but it kept super tuesday from becoming a super disaster for mitt romney. >> here is the scorecard.

mitt romney eking out a win. how did he do it? here's cnn's john king. >> reporter: mitt romney can claim to be the biggest winner on super tuesday in part because he won the biggest contested prize, and that was the state of ohio. early on, rick santorum was ahead. then romney, then santorum, then romney, then santorum. in the end, governor romney winning. how did he do it? you can see, if you look at the map of the state of ohio, a lot of counties for rick santorum. motor vehicle of these counties smaller, rural counties. yes, senator santorum winning by a decent margin, but look at the vote count. romney won down here, southeast of the state, hamilton county, always important. look at this margin, 20 points, and about 16,000 votes in this hamilton county here. key to governor romney's victory. go to the northeast corner of the state, cuyahoga county, where cleveland is, nearly a

20-point victory for governor romney over senator santorum. add other key urban and suburban areas. romney wins in akron and the suburbs. youngstown and the suburbs, romney wins by a smaller margin but still a victory. franklin county, 10% of the population, not as big a margin as in the corners, but romney wins again. his wins in urban and suburban areas offset huge santorum gains in the rural area. so a state where santorum was ahead a few weeks ago, romney ekes out a narrow victory. it gives him the big prize on super tuesday, and most importantly, it gives him this. the moral argument he won a key battle ground state. romney had already won michigan. now he's won ohio. it helps him make this case. if this state were people, governor romney has a much harder time going forward saying i am your front-runner.

ohio the biggest prize on super tuesday. >> i think john king should be able to go to sleep now. that's my official response. 4:40 on the east coast. what a night. >> a huge night for ohio. dennis kucinich losing his bid for re-election in the republican primary. he was defeated by veteran congresswoman margie captor. the two congressmen forced to face off because of new district lines. >> that's a huge story. holy cow, dennis kucinich. and congresswoman captor is going to go head to head with the republican candidate. are you ready? >> this deserves a drum roll. >> it's joe the plumber. what you might not remember is his real name, sam wuerzelbache. he became famous in 2008 when he

challenged president obama on his economic plan. coming up, mr. sarah palin be a game changer and enter the 2012 presidential rate? guess what? she has not ruled it out. find out who she told us and who she voted for on super tuesday. here's a total right turn. a new warning from the fda, not how you want to wake up. apparently, there's mercury being found in soaps and skin cremes. you'll need to know if you're affected by this.

it is 4:49 a.m. on the east coast. we're on an hour early because we love you. welcome back to "early start." i'm ashleigh banfield. >> and i'm zoraida sambolin. time to check in for morning headlines. brand new delegate numbers for you coming in after the super tuesday contest. mitt romney now leading the pack with 404 delegates. santorum and gingrich trailing far behind in a close race for second. results have also come in now for alaska with romney winning that state and five others, including a nail biting victory in ohio. he beat rick santorum there by just one percentage point. santorum finishing strong, taking three states last night. newt gingrich won his home state of georgia. ron paul did not win any. president obama choosing super tuesday to announce his plan to lower the cost of your mortgage. the president planning to lower refinancing fees for millions of fha home loans. his administration predicts that

change could lower the average mortgage payment by about $1,000 a year for 2 million to 3 million people. detectives reveal in court that tyler clementi, the rutgers college student who killed himself after being secretly broadcast over the internet, viewed his roommate's twitter page 38 times right up until the day he died and saved screen shots of two messages posted there. clementi's roommate dharun ravi is accused of using a web cam to screen clementi's gay encounter. he posted images from the web screen on twitter. we'll hear next month whether ohio shooting suspect t.j. lane will be tried as an adult. lane is charged with three counts of aggravated murder at the chardon high shooting. he appeared in court for a pretrial hearing, telling the judge he did understand the charges against him. and a new warning from the fda. mercury discovered in anti-aging and skin lightening creams and

soaps. these products are made overseas. they're sold in the u.s., mainly in latino, african, asian, and middle eastern neighborhoods. these products claim to remove age spots, wrinkles, other blemishes. officials say, if you have a product that fits this description, you have to stop using it right now. mercury is highly toxic. exposure can cause brain and kidney damage. the winners of last month's $336.4 million powerball jackpot is an 81-year-old woman from rhode island. the ticket was sold at a stop and shop store in newport. the lump sum payment will be $210 million. whoa. usually, i say something, now be careful, plan for the long term, make sure that you really have really good estate planning. honey, you spend it. you can have whatever you want. go for it. >> get a yacht. get a mega-yacht.

she went to go get rainbow ice cream or something. that was her mission, to go get rainbow ice cream. which proves to me everyone should eat ice cream on a regular basis. thanks, christine. 53 minutes past the hour here. look who cnn found at the wasila, alaska, caucus site. yes, sarah palin. >> she's somewhere in there. >> trust me. is she right there? >> not yet. she's coming any minute now. >> there she is on the right-hand side. way over in the green jacket. >> she stopped to answer a few questions when she showed up to vote yesterday. >> and sarah palin did not shoot down any possibilities of actually running for office, big office, presidential office in 2016. and then went as far as saying wouldn't be so bad to even swoop in this year on convention night. have a look. >> if we wind up with an open convention and someone wants to place your name, throw your name into the hat, would you stop them? would you be open to that? >> as i say, anything is

possible. i don't close any doors that perhaps would be open out there. so, no, i wouldn't close that door. my plan is to be at that convention. i would seriously consider whatever i can do to help our country, to put things back on the right track, our economy, the foreign policy proposals that we have to see put forward in order to secure our homeland. and the americans especially are brave fighting men and women who are overseas right now in places that perhaps we shouldn't be right now. anything that i can do to help, i will be willing to help. >> in that legume colored green nra jacket, she first resisted our interview, but then admitted a little later on she voted for newt gingrich. we got it out of her. >> legume must be a word of the day. good gracious, really? >> it was yesterday's. i couldn't get it in the show yesterday. i've got two more to go. check our tweets. coming up, a winning

wednesday or maybe not. depends who you're talking to. super tuesday results. something for everyone. a little something something for everyone in their treat bag. primaries and caucuses adding up to delegates for all the presidential hopefuls. what about that guy? how well did he do compared to the other guys? i'm always looking out for small ways to be more healthy. like splenda® essentials™ no calorie sweeteners. this bowl of strawberries is loaded with vitamin c. and now, b vitamins to boot. coffee doesn't have fiber. unless you want it to. splenda® essentials™ are the first and only line of sweeteners with a small boost of fiber, or antioxidants, or b vitamins in every packet. mmm. same great taste with an added "way to go, me" feeling. splenda® essentials™. get more out of what you put in. i've never slept better. [ male announcer ] why not talk to one of the 6 million people who've switched to the most highly recommended bed in america?

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