we're getting the kind of support across the party i need to become the nominee so i'm encouraged. >> we had a good night last night but so did governor romney. that's why we have to start anew here. we have to do well here in kansas. we have to win here in kansas. and win big. >> and so the campaigning continues one day after super tuesday, which in past presidential primaries, kind of a benchmark into where we're going, coalescing often around a card date. we saw that with john mccain. all four candidates vowing to stay in the race. the next focus will be kansas this weekend. next week, two southern primaries in mississippi and alabama. welcome to hour two of "washington today" on c-span radio. mitt romney's campaign raised $11.5 million in the month of february, comparing that to about $9 million for rick santorum's efforts. you get a sense these two candidates are going to battle it out the next couple of

months. in other news today, the pentagon saying that the suggestion by senator john mccain for u.s. air strikes in syria will not work. that was the message delivered earlier today by the defense secretary leon panetta, as well as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general john dempsey. senator mccain questions how long the world should wait to prevent the slaughter of syrian civilians who have been killed. u.n. officials saying as many as 7,500 have been killed during the last 11 months. in haiti former president bill clinton urging officials to stem the cholera outbreak that's killed more than 7,000 people in haiti since the country has been dealing with the devastations of the storms that have hurt the country. bill clinton made his remarks today as he toured a new hospital outside of port-au-prince. let's focus on presidential politics. newt gingrich, the republican candidate, ignoring advice from rick santorum supporters who say he should drop out of this republican race. newt gingrich appearing on morning shows saying he is not

convinced rick santorum can defeat mitt romney in a head-to-head race. "politico" writing mitt romney viewing to fight back today. the focus has been the mat. "it would take a dramatic sea change for mitt romney to lose the republican nomination for president. that was the argument that romney's high command sought to deliver to reporters. in a background only briefing today in boston, this following a ten-state super tuesday contest in which the former massachusetts governor was able to eke out a very narrow victory in ohio but he lost contests in traditional republican states of tennessee, oklahoma, and north dakota to rick santorum. andrea soll, spokesperson for the romney campaign, did announce the campaign raising about $11.5 million in february, that by the way was the second-best fund-raising month for the romney campaign. not a lot of the campaign appearances today by candidates as they try to regroup following super tuesday.

you heard just a moment ago rick santorum on the campaign trail in kansas. mitt romney from boston appearing on cnbc's "squawk box." >> historically slow and steady wins the race. you won more states last night, more delegates last night, you got a nice lead in overall delegates. i don't know if you've seen it this morning, 89.9 for you to be the nominee. is it up or down? >> i must admit after last night i feel pretty good. we had a very strong response, everywhere from alaska to vermont. we got terrific support from some of the most conservative leaders in our party, john ashcroft, eric cantor, tom coburn. we're getting the kind of support i need to become the nominee so i'm encouraged. >> you're hearing all the murmuring. what's your plan to energize the whole party, all the different factions of the party, if you

become the nominee? we do of course have some other candidates in the race that have great qualities and are out appealing to their respective constituencies and ron paul for instance has a very strong team of people that support him. newt gingrich, and of course rick santorum. but you know, when we have a nominee, we will come together. because barack obama has organized a conservative community. let's put it that way. the community organizer has organized us in a big way. we're going to come together because we believe that he needs to be replaced, that he's over his head, that the debt he's amassed, the jobs he's not created, suggest this is a guy whose time has come for early retirement. >> from "squawk box," mitt romney taking questions on that cable program. the lawrence journal world is writing about the kansas caucuses this weekend. "now with super tuesday in the rear-view mirror, republican candidates are focusing on the kansas republican caucuses this weekend.

the stakes are high in a tight race as kansas republicans caucasian does in 96 locations around the state to vote for their preferred nominee. 40 delegates at stake. on the campaign trail today, rick santorum. >> this is an election. we have an opportunity to juxtapose what i've talked about, which is the truth about who we are as americans, and put it up against barack obama's vision of america. in the past and in the future. to do that you need someone who can make that case and someone who has a record to stand on and a vision for a fruitful, prosperous, good and safe america. i would make the argument that, given the two leading contenders at this point for the nomination, republican nomination, that person here in kansas today probably is the

better of the two to make that case. [ applause ] thank you. thank you. let me just tell you briefly why. because i want -- i don't want to focus on the difference between me and governor romney but it's important. because my guess is, if kansas is like every other state that i've had to compete in, governor romney and his super pac will be out there spending millions telling you how i'm not a conservative. and this governor of massachusetts, who signed in romney care, is. >> rick santorum, who was in kansas earlier today. on friday, ron paul campaigning in advance of the caucuses on saturday. last night we got word newt gingrich would be in kansas with a number of appearances.

but today, that changed. instead, the former house speaker is focusing efforts next week in alabama and mississippi. newt gingrich was in pell city, alabama, earlier today. >> i think senator santorum and governor romney would play the washington game just fine. i intend to change the washington game. [ applause ] and if you want to see an example of the difference in depth and experience, go to newt.org, where we have a 30-minute speech on how to fix the energy policy, based on a book i wrote called "drill here, drill now, pay less," based on a movie called "we have the power." in addition, on controlling and modernizing the judiciary and getting it back wind the constitution. there's a 54-page paper on the founding fathers and the constitution and judgeships which is a culmination of nine years of work. and i think if you look at that

stuff and say, all right, not who do you want to have run a good commercial. not who can get good talking points and their consultant. who do you want to have actually trying to fix the country and actually trying to get us back on a constitutional track of limited government, recognizing that our rights come from our creator, and that religious liberty is at the heart of the american system, and that free enterprise is the engine that creates jobs. i think i am the one candidate in this race who has a consistent background of actually changing washington, not just going along with it. [ applause ] >> with more on the results from super tuesday and the road ahead in this republican primary, we're joined on the upon by michael hirsch, chief correspondent for "national journal." his stories available online at nationaljournal.com. thanks for being with us. the headline that caught our attention, "meet mitt romney:

the independent candidate for president." what are you reporting tonight? >> i think that the results of super tuesday show that mitt romney just cannot win over the republican base. the idea that two deeply flawed candidates with their own sort of checkered histories like rick santorum and newt gingrich are still in the running, and that romney barely got a win in ohio, an absolutely must-win state, no republican has ever won the presidency without it, suggests that he is not going to be able to win over this base. and his only real chance of winning the presidency is to garner a large section of the independent and centrist voters that he's going to be battling with, with obama. and so he needs to start to do that now. obviously it's tongue in cheek

to call him an independent candidate, but because the republican base is so disaffected, even though romney is virtually certain to get the gop nomination, he has to win over this broad mass of voters that no longer really identifies with either the democratic or the republican party. >> let's take a closer look at ohio. you report this in your piece today. that mitt romney was able to do well in cleveland, cincinnati, columbus, run up the totals in those key industrial areas. but he lost 69 of ohio's 88 counties. what does that tell you about the republican primary, mitt romney, and rick santorum? >> well, first what it tells you about romney is, as i said, he does not have the support of the base. the areas that he won, those urban/suburban areas, are places that democrats traditionally win in and obama will probably win in. in november.

and so romney needs to get back those voters. but clearly they're not that enthusiastic for him. and that's, you know -- that suggests enormous weakness. and so in order to compete with obama, he is going to have to move to the center rapidly. otherwise, it spells near-certain defeat, i would say, if, you know -- if ohio goes to obama. you'll have the unprecedented situation where a republican doesn't win ohio, and as i said, has never won the presidency without that. i think those are very, very daunting results for mitt romney. >> you have been following this campaign closely and all the nuances of mitt romney has a candidate. why can't he close the deal? >> it's a really interesting question, steve. there is a lot of speculation

that romney, he's an awkward candidate, he's rich, he constantly is sticking his foot in his mouth, making comments that are intended to win over the party and yet only seem to turn people off. for example, when he was in michigan and he was talking about how his family likes to buy american cars, and mentioned that his wife has a couple of cadillacs. well, most voters of either party don't have two cadillacs. so he's an awkward candidate. because he was massachusetts governor, he's been pegged as the, you know -- as a massachusetts moderate. as newt gingrich constantly calls him. and like any candidate who's been in the public eye for, you know, a long time, more than ten years, on the republican side, he has a lot to live down. in terms of a party base that

has moved rapidly rightward. and is still evolving in that direction. and so policy positions that were once considered acceptable, like for example the individual mandate health insurance, romney care in massachusetts, which was actually recommended by a conservative think tank heritage foundation, you know, are no longer acceptable positions. i would add because he continues to fail to get a lot of the evangelical christians who make up the republican base, there are also suspicions that, although it's not something that comes out, people don't want to talk about it, there may be some serious bias against romney because he is a mormon. you hear a lot of these evangelical christians speak about the lds, about mormonism, as if it's not christianity. and that's i think somewhat damaging. so he may be suffering from that. but in any case, it does seem as

if he has failed to really win over a substantial portion of the base despite his superior organization and money. and i have to say that if he couldn't do that by super tuesday, which in the past has sort of clarified the primary contest, i think it's very unlikely he's going to be able to do it in the future. >> michael hirsch of "the national journal." looking ahead, the caucuses in kansas this saturday, next week to southern primaries alabama and mississippi, and the next big industrial state contest, march 20th in illinois. >> right. so i think, you know, what you're going to see, assuming that the romney camp does not succeed in its current campaign to try to get santorum and gingrich to drop out of the race, they published a memo today in which they -- the romney camp, that is -- in which a lead romney adviser basically said it would take an act of god

for him to lose the nomination or one of the others to get one, to get the nomination. i think there's a great deal of truth in that. because you look at the math. with about 404 delegates currently needing 1144 total. next leading contender rick santorum with 165. it's almost impossible to look at those races ahead. particularly in the eastern industrial states as well as in california and illinois, which is going to be in mid-march. it's almost impossible to imagine that someone like rick santorum, who really has not been able to broaden his appeal beyond evangelical christian base and the extreme right, it's really, really hard to imagine santorum winning the 60% or 70% of the votes in those states which tend to favor romney that santorum would need to win.

you do have very favorable math on the part of romney. which is probably why i'm arguing that he does need to continue to say the right things to appeal to the base. but since he's got a considerable momentum if he's to have any hope of winning in november, he really, really needs to go to the center. >> the work of michael hirsch available online at nationaljournal.com joining us in washington, thanks to are your time and perspective. >> thank you, steve. >> you're listening to "washington today" on c-span radio. news tonight from "the toledo blade" in ohio and ohio's ninth congressional district, one of those primary races that got a lot of attention. congressman marcie captor of toledo defeating lon-time throwing dennis kucinich in the newly redrawn ninth congressional district. each battling hard for a foothold in this new district in the northern part of ohio. in the republican nomination, it looks like samuel wur sell

bacher is going to be the republican nominee. you may not know he is but you know the name joe the plumber. he defeated steven kraus, a licensed auctioneer, for the republican nomination. last night speaking to supporters in toledo, representative captor saying "i wish to say to my congressional colleague from the cleveland area dennis kucinich, i thank him very much for his spirited campaign. he worked very hard, he wants to help our country as well and i know he will find ways to do that." this from congressman dennis kucinich." >> i would like to be able to congratulate congressman captor. but i do have to say that she ran a campaign in the cleveland media market that was utterly lacking in integrity. with false statements, half-truths, misrepresentations. i hope that is not the kind of

representation she would provide to this community. and i don't think the people of toledo have any kind of idea of the campaign that was run in the cleveland area. and my own integrity requires me to say this. that it's not all right. but moving forward, look, many of you in this room have known me for years. and you know that i've lost campaigns before. and there's always a tomorrow. you know. you know, don't cry any tears for me. i am concerned about our community. and the kind of representation it will receive. >> the comments of congressman dennis kucinich after losing his race to congressman marcie captor in ohio's new ninth congressional district. we want to turn our attention to the issue of cyber security on capitol hill. in the senate today a briefing behind closed doors led by janet

napolitano. congressman cliff sterns, congressman from florida, about the potential threat from our country and the threat around the world. century link participating, jason livinggood of comcast, the subcommittee of communications and technology took place earlier today. questions beginning with congressman sterns of florida. >> when you did your opening statement you were speaking quite eloquently, talking about malicious software, malware you talked about. you painted this picture the malware itself, you were impressed how well it was developed, put together. and you sort of alluded to the fact that it was almost -- not impenetrable but it was to the point you were respectful of it

and were not sure we were keeping up. is that my interpretation of what you said? >> that's exactly right. we're definitely not keeping up. we're trying. and think of the dizzying pace of innovation that you see in silicon valley, right? new things every day. the hacking and the malicious adversary community, they're moving at the same pace. so the job we have is we've got to keep up. and you would say, hey, guys, you better be ahead of them. not even enough to kind of keep up, you better be ab head. so we're alwaysing if to be biased -- >> you're saying you're always catching up? >> we've got to innovate, we've got to go faster. >> you think you're always catching up, then? that's what you imply saying the respect you have for this malware. >> yes. >> is true for ad ware, spy ware, all these others, also applicable to that too? >> apts are the best. apts, this exfiltration point the congressman spoke about,

that is the elite kind of attack vector in 2012. >> okay. >> spy mare, ware, maybe so the so much. >> malware, who are the people doing this specifically? can you name them? >> i can't. i'm not in law enforcement. you might have -- >> anybody on the panel? talking about this malware so respectfully and how eloquently it's put together, anybody can tell me who we're talking about? >> i think if you take a look at the most recent investigation conducted by the fbi on the dns malware, changer malware, you'll see that it was a group of individuals operating out of estonia that basically sent malware to individuals in various forms and e-mails. you clicked on it and it infected your computer in a way that it directed you when you went out to do a dns type search, you were looking for amazon.com or some other company, you really went to their servers. and their own servers were

actually embedded in various locations in the united states. so these are organizationed groups, they figured out how to capital i'd on the money you can make with the malware. >> are these people, for example, in esstone yeah are they part of a mafia, underground, an organization that's larger than just estonia, without you revealing any -- >> these are no longer just individual hackers. individual hackers are out there. but now they've actually formed themselves into types of federations to work together. >> across the world? >> you can do it across the world, there are certain hacking groups you can join and be a member from different countries. >> it's like a fraternity? i'm a member of the estonia hacking group? >> estonia just seems to be a hotbed right now because of how the economy is run over there. >> anyone else? >> if i could add to that. it's pretty interesting. this is a very large and very well organized underground economy. they are specialized so you have

some people that write tools. other people that rent access to bot networks. you can rent bot nets by the hour. tell them where you want the bots to be, what kind of computers. payment network mechanisms between these parties. so it's very sophisticated. and if you think about from a criminal standpoint, it's a lot easier to do, like get a return on investment, this type of thing, than to do physically oriented crimes. the scale is so much larger. these are folks that operate across borders, internationally. and there is just an enormous amount of economic incentive for them to do it. unlike apt, in some respects, this is primarily an economic crime. apt is focused on intellectual property. this is all about the money. >> well, i guess mr. may hon, is there a possibility we have terrorists involved with this, that are part of this estonia -- the terrorists could go to this group or this federation across and are using them?

is that a probability? >> terrorists use these types of schemes for funding. they need funding for their operations. number two, they use it as a communications system. they know they're being looked at. the ways they need to communicate are surreptitiously in a matter they can't be intercepted. so they use these types of technologies to communicate with one another. they have to fund their operations. >> from today's house subcommittee on communications and technology led by the chair of that committee, congressman cliff sterns, republican of florida. and talking about a number of key issues dealing with cyber security. congressman sterns has been concerned about what you heard just a moment ago. also a crippling cyber attack, the impact it could have in the u.s., some back-ground, many electrical networks operate on what are called smart grid technology that relies on computers to determine electrical needs. the technology is more energy efficient but makes the systems vulnerable to cyber attacks. we don't know what happened in

the u.s. senate but we know there was a closed door meeting led by the department of homeland security secretary janet napolitano in which this topic generally was discussed to members of the u.s. senate. what you heard just a moment ago was a house hearing that took place earlier in the day. we deal with cyber security issis issues and communication issues every week on "the communicators" saturdays at 6:30 eastern, mondays at 8:00 a.m. and p.m. on c-span 2. coming up a conversation with senator joe lieberman of connecticut, senator susan collins of maine, working through legislation in the house and senate on cyber security. >> what is the goal of the cyber security legislation that you have introduced? >> well, the goal simply stated is to protect all that we americans of that in cyberspace from being stolen and from being attacked. and the theft is going on

thousands of times every day. most of which people are not aware of. that is to say, people from -- some from inside, mostly from outside the country, actually going into the internet systems, computer systems of countries, and stealing industrial, intellectual property, taking it and building the stuff that american companies spent millions or billions of dollars to develop. it also takes a lot of jobs from america. the other thing, the name of the legislation is to protect all of the cyber structure in america that's privately owned from becoming targets of an enemy wanting to attack us. what am i talking about in the electric power grid, the transportation systems, the financial systems. so this is all very vulnerable now and probably, if there was a major conflict, an enemy would come at us first by cyber attack. and we're simply not adequately

defended. >> along with government assets, you are looking to protect private assets as well? >> that's correct. the fact is 85% of what we call critical infrastructure is in private hands. it's not government-owned. and that's why you have to have a cyber security bill that isn't limited just to government systems or government computers, but protects that critical, privately owned infrastructure on which all of us rely every single day, for electricity, for transportation, for clean water. it's absolutely essential to our security. in the year 2010, the estimate is that there were 3 billion cyber attacks on private and

government computer systems. 3 billion. so this is a threat that is growing exponentially. and that we simply must address. >> our interview with senator susan collins of maine and senator joe lieberman of connecticut, part of c-span's "communicators" program every saturday at 6:30 eastern, monday morning at 8:00 a.m. on c-span 2 and 8:00 p.m. on c-span 2. this is "washington today" on c-span radio. more in a moment. first, other news. on wall street, the dow gained 78. final close 12,837. nasdaq was up 25. s&p was up 9. the treasury department is launching a sale of common stock it holds in insurance giant aig. the sale is $6 billion of the $42 billion of that stock.

aig received the biggest bailout in the financial crisis in 2008. this is a step the government is taking towards disentangling itself from aig. the government owns 77% of the company's common stock. a recent supreme court ruling forcing the fbi to take some action, deactivating its gps tracking devices in some investigations. the fbi director robert muller telling the congressional panel the fbi has turned off a substantial number of gps units and is using surveillance by agents instead. muller saying putting a surveillance team out with six, eight, 12 persons extremely time intensive saying the court will inhibit our ability to use this in a number of surveillances where it's been tremendously individual. the court unanimously agreed to bar police from installing technology to track suspects without a judge's approval. in virginia a controversial bill dealing with abortion is now law. it's a