long we should -- as many as 7500 have been killed in the last 11 months. in haiti tonight, former president bill clinton urging officials to stem the caller -- that killed more than 7,000 people in that haitian country 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 just outside of port-au-prince. let's focus on presidential politics. newt gingrich the republican candidate ignoring advice from rick santorum supporters who say that he should drop out of this republican race. newt gingrich appearing on morning shows saying that he is not convinced that rick santorum can defeat mitt romney in a head to head race. politico writing that mitt romney vowing to fight back today. the focus on the romney campaign has been the math. writing from boston saying it would take a dramatic change for mitt romney to lose the nomination for president. that was the argument that

romney's high command delivered in a briefing today. this following a ten-state super tuesday contest in which the former massachusetts governor was able to eek 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 sul a spokesman for the romney campaign announced that the campaign raising about $11.5 million in february. that was the second best fundraising month for the romney campaign. not a lot of appearance today by the candidate as they try to regroup following super tuesday. you heard a moment ago rick santorum on the campaign trail in kansas. mitt romney from boston appearing on cnbc's "squawk box" this morning. >> historically slow and teddy wins the race. you won more states again last night, more delegates. you got a nice lead in overall delegates. i don't know if you've seen it this morning, governor, 89/9 for

you to be the nominee. what's your level of confidence? is it 90 up or down from 89.9? >> i don't apply percentages to it. i must admit after last night, i feel pretty darn good. we had a strong response across the country. from alaska to vermont. we got terrific support from some of the most conservative leaders, john ashcroft, eric cant cantor, we're getting the support i need to become the nominee. 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 do become the nominee? >> well, we do, of course, have other candidates in the race that have great qualities and are appealing to their respective constituent sis. ron paul has a strong team of people that support him and 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 put it that way. the community organizer has organized us in a big way. we'll come together because we believe he needs to be replaced, he's over his head. that the debt he's amassed, the jobs he has not created suggest that this is a guy whose time has come for early retirement. >> from cnbc's "squawk box," mitt romney taking questions on that cable program. well, the lawrence journal world is writing about the kansas caucuses this weekend. "with super tuesday in the rearview mirror, republican candidates are focusing on the republican caucuses this weekend. the stakes are high in a tight rice as kansas republicans caucus 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 lead contenders at this point for the nomination, republican nomination, that the 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 differences 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 spending millions of dollars telling you how i'm not a conservative. and this governor of massachusetts who signed in romney care is. >> rick santorum who was in le next a, kansas earlier today. ron paul campaigned in advance of the caucuses on saturday. last night we got word that newt gingrich would be in kansas with a number of appearances but today that changed. instead, the former house speaker is focusing his efforts in alabama and mississippi. newt gingrich was in pell city, alabama earlier today. >> i think that senator santorum and governor romney would play the washington game just fine. i intend to change the washington game.

[ applause ] if you want to see an example of the difference in depth and experience, go to newt.org. we have a 30-minute speech on how to fix the energy policy based on a bookie wrote four years ago. and based on a movie -- called we have the power. in addition, on controlling and modernizing the judiciary and getting it back within 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. i just think, if you look at that stuff and you say all right, not who do you want to have run a good commercial, not who can get good talking points, but who do you want to have actually trying to fik 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 it. [ applause ] >> with more on the results from super tuesday and the road ahead in this republican primary, we're joined on the phone by michael her shall, the chief correspondent for national journal. you can go to national journal.com. thanks for being with us. >> happy to be here. the headline that caught our a attention today, meet mitt romney the independent candidate for president. what are you reporting tonight? >> well, 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 candidate with their own sort of

checkered histories, like rick santorum and newt gingrich are still in the running and that romney barely eeked out 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 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 a little 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 and 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 tells you about romney is, as i said, he does not have the support of the base. the areas that he won, the urban suburban areas are places that democrats traditionally win in and that obama will probably win in. in november. so if -- romney needs to get back those voters, but clearly, they're not that enthusiastic for him. and that suggests enormous weakness. 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 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. those are very, very daunting results for mitt romney. >> you have been following this campaign closely and all of the nuances of mitt romney as a candidate. why can't he close the deal? >> you know, 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, he was talking about how his family likes to buy

american cars and mentioned that his wife has a couple of cadillacs. well, that most voters of either party don't have two cadillacs. he's an awkward candidate because he was massachusetts governor. he's been pegged as the -- as massachusetts moderate. as newt gingrich constantly calls him. like any candidate who has been in the public eye for 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. 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 conservative think tank heritage foundation, 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 evangelical christians speak about the lds, about mormonism as if it's almost not christianity. i think that's somewhat damaging. he may be suffering from that. 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. i have to say if he couldn't do that by super tuesday which in the past is sort of clarified the primary contest. i think it's very unlikely he's going to be able to do it in the

future. >> we're talking with michael hirsch of the journal. looking ahead, the caucuses in saturday, this week alabama, and mississippi and the next big industrial state contest, march 20th in illinois. >> right. so i 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've published a memo today in which they -- the romney in which a lead romney adviser basically said it would take an act of god for him to lose the nomination. one of the others to get one. to get the nomination and 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 and with his leading, next lead contender, rick santorum

with only 165. it's almost impossible to look at the 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 really has not been able to broaden his appeal beyond the evangelical christian base and the extreme right, it's really hard to imagine santorum winning the 60 or 70% of the vote 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 partly why i'm arcing that he does need to continue to say the right things to appeal the debates. since he's got a considerable momentum. if he's to have any hope of winning in november, he really needs to go to the center. >> the work of michael hirsch available online at national journal.com.

joining us here in washington. thanks as always for 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 mars i capture of toledo winning her first contest ever. defeating democratic congressman dennis kucinich in the newly redrawn district. each battling hard for a foothold in the northern part of ohio. we should point out in the republican nomination, it looks like samuel wurzelbacher will be the republican nominee. you may not know him but you know the name he came by in 2008. joe the plumber. he defeated steven kraus a licensed auctioneer. last night speaking to supporters, representative kaptur said i wish to say to dennis kucinich, i thank him

very much for his spirited campaign. he worked hard and wants to help our country as well and i noelle find ways to do that. meanwhile, in cleveland, this from congressman dennis kucinich. >> now, i would like to be able to congratulate congresswoman kaptur, but i do have to say she ran a campaign in the 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 idea of the kind of campaign run here in the cleveland area. and my own integrity requires me to just 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, don't cry any tears for me. i am concerned about our community and the kind of representation that we'll receive. >> the comments of congressman dennis kucinich after losing his race to congressman march si kaptur. we want to turn to cyber security on capitol hill. a briefing behind closed doors led by the secretary of homeland security, janet napolitano. talking about the potential threat we have in the country and around the world to edward a.m. row so of at&t and david ma hone with century link also participating, jason living good of comcast. this before the house subcommittee on communications in technology.

it took place today. questions beginning with congressman stearns of florida. >> doctor, when you did your opening statement, you were speaking eloquently, talking about malicious software, malware you talked about. you painted this picture that 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 unpenetratable. 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. think of the dizzying pace 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. like not even enough to kind of keep up. you better be ahead. we're always going to be sort of biased. you're always catching up. >> faster. we we've got to innovate and go faster. >> do you think you're always catching up then? >> that's -- >> you implied about the respectability you had for this mal way. is this true for ad ware, gray ware. all the others. is it applicable to that too? >> apt's are the best, right? this ex filtration point that the congressman spoke about. that is the elite kind of attack vector in 2012. spyware maybe not so much. >> with the malware, who are these people that are doing this specifically? can you name them? >> i can't. i'm not in law enforcement. you might -- >> is there anybody on the panel? >> when the doctor talked 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 malwail, it was a group of individuals operating out after stona that basically sent malware to individuals in various forms and e-mails and you clicked on it and it infected your computer in a way that directed you when you went tout 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 imbedded in various locations in the united states. so these are organized groups. they figured out how to capitalize on the money you can make with the malware. >> are these people, for example, in astonia, are they part of a mafia? underground? an organization that is larger than astonia without you revealing --

>> these are no longer individual hackers. they're out there. but now they've actually formed themselves into types of federations to work together. >> across the world? >> can you do it across the world. there are certain hacking groups you can join and be a member from different countries. >> so it's like a fraternity. you say i'm a member of the astonia hacking -- >> it just seems to be a hot bed now. i think because of how the economy is run over there. anyone else? >> if i could add to that, i think it's actually pretty interesting. this is a very large and very well organized underground economy. they're specialized. you have some people that write tools. other people that rent access to networks. you can lrent them by the hour. you can tell them what box you want and computers, payment network mechanisms. so it's very sophisticated. if you think about it from a criminal standpoint, it's a lot easier to do -- get a return investment this type of thing

than to go out and do physically oriented sort of crimes. the scale is so much larger. these are folks that operate across borders internationally and there is just enormous amount of economic incentive for them to do it. it's primarily unlike apt, this is primarily an economic crime. apt is focused certainly on economics but more intellectual property or embarrassing companies. this is all about the money. >> well, i guess is there a possibility we have terrorists involved with this that are part of this astonia? terrorists could go to this group or this federation and using them? is that a probability? >> terrorists use these type of schemes for funding. they need funding for their operations. and number two, they use it just as a communication system. they know they're being looked at. so the ways that they need to communicate are surreptitiously and a matter they can't be intercepted. so they use these type of technologies to communicate with one another. but they have to fund their

operations. >> from today's house subcommittee on communications and technology led by the chair of that committee, congressman cliff sternz, republican of florida. and talking about a number of key issues dealing with cyber security. congressman stearns is concerned about what you heard a moment ago and also a crippling siper attack, the impact it could have on the u.s. many electrical networks operate on smart grid technology. that relies on computers to determine electrical needs, technology is more energy efficient. but makes the systems vulnerable to cyber attacks. we don't know exactly what happened in the u.s. senate. we do know there is a closed door meeting led by the department of homeland security january innapolitano in which ts topic generally was discussed to members of the u.s. senate. what you heard a moment ago was from a house hearing that took place earlier in the day. we deal with cyber security issues and other communication issues every week on the communicators. it airs saturdays at 6:30 p.m.

eastern time. coming up on "communicators, a conversation with joe leberman of connecticut, susan collins of maine working through legislation in the house and the 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 have in cyberspace from being stolen an from being attacked. and the theft is going on thousands of time every day, most of which people are not aware of. that is to say, people from -- some from inside, mostly outside the country actually going into the internet systems and computer systems of companies and stealing industrial, intellectual property and then taking it and building the stuff

that american companies spend millions or billions of dollars to develop which also takes a lot of jobs from america. the other thing the legislation is to protect all of the cyber structureded america that is privately owned from becoming targets of an enemy wanting to attack us. what am i talking with? 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. >> so along with government assets, you're looking to protect private assets as well? >> that's correct. the fact is that 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 three billion cyber attacks on private and government computer systems. three billion. so this is a threat that is growing and that we simply must address. >> our interview with susan collins of maine and senator joe leberman of connecticut part of c-span's communicators program. you can watch it every saturday at 6:30 eastern.

it also reairs monday morning at 8:00 a.m. on c-span2 and 8:00 p.m. also on c-span2. this is washington today on c-span radio. . >> and more in a moment. first some other news on wall street. the dow gained 78. final close was 12,837. nasdaq was up 25 and s&p 500 was up nine. the treasury department is launching a sale of common stock it holes in insurance giant aig. the sale is $6 billion of the $42 billion of that stock. aig received the biggest bailout of the financial crisis in 2008. this is a step the government is taking from disentangling itself from aig. the government still owns 77% of the company's common stock. a recent supreme court ruling forcing the fbi to take action and deactivating the gps tracking devices in some

investigations. the fbi director telling a congressional panel today that the bureau turned off a substantial number of gps units and is using surveillance by agents instead. muller saying that putting a physical surveillance team out with six, eight, 12 persons is extremely time intensive and the court ruling will inhikt our ability to use this in a number of surveillances where it's been beneficial. in january, the court unanimously agreed to bar police from installing that gps technology to track suspects without first getting a judge's approval. in virginia, a controversial bill dealing with abortion is now a law. it requires a woman to undergo ultrasound exams before having an abortion. lawmakers did drop a contentious provision in an earlier version. it would have required exams to be invasive. and backers including governor mcdonald say they will change that and they were lampooned by comments who criticized them for

that. and finally, district of columbia mayor vincent gray holding a news conference saying he was unaware of any wrongdoing or illegal acts committing during his 2010 campaign for mayor. he defended himself amid reports of a federal raid at the home and office of a major fund-raiser for him and other d.c. politicians. heed is he never handled any money orders or cash. "the washington post" reporting last summer that gray's campaign accepted cash donations above the legal limit and that campaign workers then improperly exchanged contributions for money orders. federal authorities have been investigating the campaign irregularities in gray's mayoral bid. back in a moment with more "washington today." get the c-span app, book tv, american history tv and t