old people. stop it and tell the truth. >> facts are facts at this point. ben jealous, thank you for joining us tonight. we'll follow this story. i'm ed schultz. the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> thank you joining us this hour. the best show on television this whole past year has just come to an end, which is very sad. and like any character driven show, part of what kept it exciting over the course of the season is that some characters, even characters that you might have grown really attached to, some of the most charismatic characters of all got axed from the show unexpectedly. even if you love them, they had to go. remember back to the season premiere of the republican debate show? this is who was on the very first episode of the republican debate show. ron paul. obviously. rick santorum. who knew how it would work out for him by the end of the season, right? tim pawlenty was there on episode one. yeah. just last year that tim pawlenty was running for president.

seems like a lifetime ago. herman cain the breakout child star that fell into obscurity and now we worry about him and now this guy, the situation, gary johnson. by the second episode gary johnson was gone. we got new characters by the second episode. introduction of newt gingrich. the only female character, michele bachmann. some guy named mitt romney. by the fourth debate tim pawlenty was gone and then by the fourth debate we got a new character. new guy. rick perry. by december in the debate show we had lost herman cain. after iowa, we lost michele bachmann. after south carolina we lost rick perry and by the season finale, by the season finale last night of the republican debate show, by number 20, we were used to just seeing these four remaining characters.

the whole cast narrowed down to these four. throughout this show, throughout the whole season, the most interesting and most unpredictable and most outrageous character of all of them for the entire series of this show has been this character. this character. the audience. >> in 2010 when i was deployed to iraq, i had to lie about who i was because i'm a gay soldier and i didn't want to lose my job. my question is under one of your presidencies do you intend to circumvent the progress made for gays and lesbian in the military. >> boo. that was debate number six when they booed at an american soldier deployed to iraq. they booed at him because he was gay. for most of these debates the sound coming out of the audience told you more about republican politics in 2012 right now than the sound coming out of any of

the characters on the stage itself. >> your state has executed 234 death row inmates more than any other governor in modern times. have you -- [ applause ] have you struggled to sleep at night? >> are you suggesting that heroin and prostitution are an exercise of liberty? >> up until this past century for over 100 years they were legal. what you're inferring is you know what? if we legalize heroin tomorrow, everybody is going to use heroin. how many people here would use heroin if it were legal? no one would. yeah. i need the government to take care of me. i don't want to use heroin so i need these laws. >> the healthy 30 year old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what, i'm not going to spend $200 a month for health insurance because i'm healthy. i don't need it. something terrible happens. all of a sudden he needs it. >> my advice to him would have a major medical policy -- >> he doesn't have that. he doesn't have that.

he needs intensive care for six months. who pays? >> that's what freedom is all about. taking your own risk. this whole idea -- [ applause ] that you have to compare and take care of everybody. >> congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die? >> no. >> if i were president, i would be willing to use waterboarding. i think it was very effective. it gained information for our country. >> yeah! the republican debate show audience has been everybody's favorite character in this amazing show this year. last night we got the republican debate show audience booing birth control. >> since birth control is the latest hot topic, which candidate believes in birth control and if not, why? it's possible that the debate audience is booing contraception. it's possible also that the debate audience is booing the fact that there is a question

about contraception that's being asked at the debate. and that seems to be how it was interpreted by the guy from cnn who was last night's debate moderator. >> as you can see it's a very popular question in the audience as we can see. we're not going to spend a ton of time on this. >> cnn's john king saying we're not going to spend a ton of time on this. saying that candidates don't have to spend too much time on the issue of birth control and would be happy to move things around and touch on this and get onto other things that won't go booed. for all of the audience booing, and the characters on stage, when given the chance to talk about birth control, boy, did these guys have a lot to say. if you exclude the big voice announcer guy introducing the whole debate and exclude the commercial breaks, we counted today. there were a total of 89 minutes in this debate. given the chance to talk about birth control, the candidates

held subject for 13.5 minutes. roughly one out of every seven minutes in the grand finale in the debate last night, one out of every seven minutes, the candidates wanted to talk about contraception. specifically the evil and immorality of contraception. >> i've dealt with control pills and contraception for a long time. sort of along the line of pills creating immorality. i don't see it that way. it creates the problem of wanting to use the pills. >> health care insurance that would include birth control, sterilization and the morning after pill. unbelievable. >> the public health department was prepared to give a waiver to catholic hospitals about a morning after abortion pill and that the governor's office issued explicit instructions saying they believed it wasn't possible. >> when you were campaigning in iowa, you told an evangelical blog if elected you will talk about what no president has talked about before. the dangers of contraception.

why? >> what i was talking about is we have a society, charles murray just wrote a book about this. it's on the front page of "the new york times" two days ago, which is the increasing number of children being born out of wedlock in america, teens that are sexually active. >> citing the guy that wrote "the bell curve" which is black people being inferior to white people when it comes to intelligence. citing that guy and the new book to make his case if there was less birth control in america, take birth control away there will be fewer pregnancies out of wedlock. i don't -- it is a conspiracy theory on the right right now that democrats have brought up this contraception issue as a trap for the republicans. this is what the rush limbaugh show is about right now. democrats are the ones who raised the issue of contraception. democrats are the ones who decided to politicize birth control to make republicans look bad and distract them from their core message which has nothing

to do with this. as a liberal personally would democrats make republicans talk about things they don't want to talk about in this case it's republicans bringing it up. that came down in the middle of january. it sat there for weeks unmolested by national politics until newt gingrich started trying to make anti-birth control hay over that decision. he brought it up on the campaign trail and thereby the national outcry erupted. republicans are the ones who decided that birth control itself as evil is what they wanted to campaign on. you cannot blame liberals for this. i wish you could. as a liberal, i wish you could but you cannot. it's not just the campaign against contraception. it isn't only happening on the republican presidential campaign trail this year. since republicans won governorships and control of

state legislatures across the country in 2010, it's been abortion and contraception palooza in the united states when it comes to state policy. wherever republicans are in control, these are issues they have prioritized. in the great state of virginia in ten years before 2011, there were 19 votes over ten years on abortion in the general assembly. that's an average of less than two a year. after republicans took control of the house in 2011, there were 34 votes on abortion in one year. 34 votes on abortion just in 2011. in virginia, representing a national trend. a flood of new anti-abortion restrictions in state legislatures across the country and they are being passed. this is a chart of the number of anti-abortion bills enacted by states through 2010. look at what happens in 2011. hello. a record number of anti-abortion bills enacted by the states last year after the republicans had their huge year in 2010 election.

80 new abortion restrictions courtesy of republican state lawmakers. more than double the previous american record of 34. but here's the thing. what happens when you start having steam rolling legislative success like that? i think it tends to make you cocky and sloppy. and so in virginia flushed with their own power, virginia republicans proposed their own version of a forced ultrasound bill, like seven other states have enacted, but in virginia they are very excited about their own power and they overreach. they overreach almost literally. they mandate the forced ultrasound must reach inside your body. the forced vaginal probe ultrasound which gets everyone in the country's attention. takes a couple days but it does get everyone's attention. now virginia republicans are frankly in chaos. there was another day of protests outside of the capitol in virginia. this one was not a silent protest like the one organized earlier this week and also protest inside the building

where a committee was passing a forced ultrasound bill and fertilized egg as a person bill that would ban all abortion in the state and hormonal birth control as well. this is the kind of chaos the sponsor of the personhood bill encountered as trying to address the media outside of the room. one woman had to be physically restrained by police while conducting this interview. after all of the drama surrounding today's hearings in the senate on that bill, in the virginia senate, something surprising happened. virginia senate republicans decided to not take a vote on that personhood bill that fertilized egg as a person bill and decided to not take a vote on it in the full senate. went along with a democratic motion to send the bill back to committee and a move that means the bill is dead for the rest of the year. personhood bill dead in virginia. the mandatory forced ultrasound

bill on the other hand passed a senate committee today and is moving forward. there wasn't a vote on it in the full senate today. now that the whole nation is sort of awake to the horror of state ordered vaginal probing which was in the original bill that bob mcdonnell said he would originally sign, i wonder if it is sinking into virginia senate republicans that state probing of any kind vaginal or otherwise is seen by americans as legislators playing doctor. as this resonates from a hearing room to a state legislature to a governor who really, really, really wants to be vice president, to the national stage, republican political chaos on the issue of abortion and contraception and what they supposedly think of as limited government, republican political chaos on this issue is spreading. >> obama care, which is the biggest issue in this case of government control of your lives. >> you move toward tyranny because the government has the power of force.

>> there was a collision course in republican politics right now. bob mcdonnell after amending the forced vaginal ultrasound bill still wants to force doctors to do things to you even if it's against their judgment and against your will and he wants to make you pay for the privilege. that's the revised bill from bob mcdonnell. not forced vaginal ultrasound bill. you can tell your doctor to shut up and you too. take it. across the country nobody in the beltway media noticed until now it has been the republican agenda both federally and at the state level to have the government control this part of the practice of medicine telling you what to do, forcing you to do things you do not want done to your body. telling your doctor what to do all because the government knows best. medical judgment doesn't matter. your will doesn't matter. the chaos in virginia today is coming to the national stage. because you can be the party that tries to scare people about

a phantom government takeover of health care when you rant about what you call obama care, right? you can be the party that rants about a phantom takeover of health care or be the party that is really trying to take over women's health care. you can be one of those things or you can be the other. you cannot be both of those things. joining us now is a democratic legislator fighting back anti-abortion rules by way of legislative satire. yasmin neal, thank you so much for joining us tonight. i appreciate you being here. >> thank you for having me. >> let me ask you if you would explain both what your vasectomy bill would do and why you decided to proposal it. >> men cannot get vasectomies unless they are trying to avert a death or serious bodily injury and it originated due to the fact that when we started the

abortion debate i noticed that the number one thing that was missing in the conversation was women. how women feel and what we want to do with our bodies. granted we don't want to act like there's no sympathy for a fetus but what a fetus is and when life starts is at the discretion of each individual family and your belief system and we don't feel that the georgia house of representatives should legislate that. >> what would be the consequences of your introducing this? how has it been greeted in the state legislature? >> it hasn't had bad reviews at all. even the author of the abortion bill himself hasn't been nasty or rude or anything of that nature. the opposing republican party have not been rude at all. some think it is quite funny. at the same time the democratic party has been supportive as well. i don't see anything really

happening as far as historically bad. i don't see any problem with anything moving forward as far as any repercussions after the bill has been introduced. i'm just interested to see what happens with the bill. >> when you look at not just what's happening in georgia but what's happening nationwide, as a state legislator, somebody who is in the midst of this in your own state, what do you think? why do you think the issue of contraception and abortion rights has risen to the very top of the political agenda in state legislatures, nation's capital and the presidential campaign trail. why do you think it's made such a priority by republicans? >> that's the number one question that all women are trying to answer themselves. maybe it's the irony of it being an election year. maybe it's convenient to put a political campaign on the backs

of women. i don't really know considering there are many georgians and many americans that are trying to decide between if they'll put food on the table or if they'll pay the light bill when some of our school systems are in shambles and we're trying our hardest to compete with international students that are far exceeding us in all of the areas scholastically. i don't know. that's the question we're trying to answer. so many georgians and americans need help with so many other topics and areas, why are we focusing on this? >> thank you for being here tonight. a lot of national attention since you introduced this and you've been willing to explain to us is a kindness to us. thank you, ma'am. >> thank you. given what mitt romney has said about immigration and immigration law, stuff like arizona's papers please law should be a model for the

nation, given his positions on this stuff this year, you would think that mitt romney had some big plan to try to dealienate latino voters. if his plan everyone thinks is his plan than his plan is going. that story is next.

last night's presidential debate perhaps the last presidential debate in the republican nomination process. it happened in arizona. the land of these kind of politics.

>> i do not know what an illegal immigrant looks like. i can tell you i think there are people in arizona that assume they know what an illegal immigrant looks like. >> that was arizona's republican governor jen brewer expending great effort to not fend off very well questions about her state's papers please law. papers please law in its original form required arizona police officers to demand papers on the spot from anyone they thought looked like he or she might be an illegal immigrant. last night in arizona, the home of papers please, mitt romney was asked about his vision for the nation for good immigration policy. >> you know, i think you see a model here in arizona. >> papers please for the whole country. that means now reporters can start asking that same jan brewer question to mitt romney.

do i look illegal to you, mr. romney? he is running for office in case he runs away from you at speed once you say that. the polls in at least one of mitt romney home states, michigan, are heading in mitt romney's direction. he has six days to make up the lead on him in michigan. that happens next tuesday. based on movement in these polls and overall state of the race, it looks like mitt romney is the likeliest candidate to win the republican nomination. that said this campaign has shown up a lot of weaknesses in mitt romney. he's struggling against newt gingrich and rick santorum for pete's sake. nothing personal but barack obama is going to be a lot harder to beat than michele bachmann. if mitt romney is going to be the nominee, the biggest thing he can do to make up for his deficiencies as a candidate is probably the one decision a nominee gets to make before they're elected. that's a presidential caliber decision and that presidential caliber decision is picking a vice president. after this week in virginia, clearly it's not going to be bob

mcdonnell. to be fair, bob mcdonnell has never been photographed holding a transvaginal ultrasound probe as seen here one emerging theory about the hints mitt romney is dropping now about who he might pick for his vp focuses on mr. romney's hard right turn on immigration. >> if i were elected and congress were to pass the dream act, would i veto it? the answer is yes. amnesty is a magnet. what we have had in the past, programs that say people that come here legally will get to stay legally for the rest of their life will encourage more people to come here illegally. >> we went to the company and said you can't have illegals works on our property. i'm running for office for pete's sake. i can't have illegals. >> being super anti-immigrant is not that weird.

it does represent a hard right turn for mitt romney even for this particular field of candidates. mitt romney used to be for the dream act. it was a republican idea after all. now he says he would veto the dream act. mitt romney used to speak favorably about the bill to give a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. now no mercy. papers for the whole nation. self-deportation. mitt romney sought out endorsement of a guy named pete wilson. does that name ring a bell? you remember the only thing pete wilson is famous for. as an otherwise totally forgettable republican governor, the own thing pete wilson is famous for is that he tried to make california a place where if you got hit by a bus and got brought to a hospital, they would have to dump you on the street and let you die without treatment unless they could verify your citizenship. that's all pete wilson is remembered for. trying and failing to do that to california. mitt romney dug that guy out of obscurity to get his endorsement

for president. why? latinos are the fastest growing block in america. you cannot win a national election if you have alienated every latino voter in the country. mitt romney has so alienated latinos that i kid you not more men latinos are now organizing against mitt romney. the mormon latinos are against mitt romney. how can this be the strategy of somebody who wants to be elected president? the only way this makes sense is if mitt romney does something equally big in his presidency that will see so pro-latino that it will overshadow all this other stuff. hello marco rubio. he's been a united states senator for one year and a couple weeks. mr. rubio has done nothing in federal politics at all. to be fair combing through his legislative record today, he's done one thing. he personally championed and got passed through the senate this important piece of legislation.

a resolution designating september 2011 as national spinal cord injury awareness month. marco rubio, everybody. that's the sum total of his legislative accomplishments. marco rubio ran for his senate seat as a fiscal conservative. do you remember his proposed budget plan as a senate candidate? he put forward a budget plan to add $3.5 trillion to the deficit. marco rubio is not a particularly serious guy in terms of what he has done in his senate life or even as a senate candidate but his biography as a young conservative latino senator in some ways makes him perfect, right? unless spinal cord injury awareness is a much bigger political deal than i as a liberal can possibly understand in republican politics, i think it is marco rubio's biography and not legislative accomplishments that make him as a potential vice presidential pick.as imperative of attractin

latino vote have created more and more and more of a focus on whether or not marco rubio might be able to save the republicans chances, the focus on marco rubio's biography has turned up unexpectedly complicated stuff. remember when univision would host a debate for republican candidates and it didn't happen? it got canceled. all of the republican candidates except ron paul boycotted that debate as a favor to marco rubio. marco rubio was in a personal fight with the univision cable company because of a story on a relative of his gone to prison for being part of a drug ring. a presidential debate got called off out of deference to marco rubio wanting to keep that story out of print. then today, buzz feed ran a story about how any idea that mitt romney's mormon religion

might be balanced by having a catholic vice president like marco rubio and anyone who thought that now has to factor in that marco rubio himself used to be a mormon. marco rubio's family during his childhood and during teenage years was enthusiastically mormon and then the biggest bombshell of all, "the washington post" revealed in october that marco rubio's family history didn't line up with the facts. he said his family had fled cuba once fidel castro came to power. they were exiles from communism. that claim central to his rise in power in florida was disrupted by reporting from "the washington post" that actually marco rubio's parents immigrated to america more than 2 1/2 years before fidel castro took power in cuba.

what that does to vice presidential politics for the republicans when we come back.

>> what we have known about senator marco rubio's life story has made him a potential candidate for number two spot on the republican presidential ticket. the problem is what we have been told about his life story is not the real story about his life story. as republican problems with latino voters are front paged,

now comes the part where vice presidential prospects of marco rubio are getting attention beyond the surface level. joining us is the author of an upcoming book on marco rubio that comes out in july which is right on time. thank you for taking time to talk to us tonight. >> happy to be with you. >> let me talk about today's news reported by buzz feed. mr. rubio as a child and teenager was a mormon baptized into the mormon church. do you see the news complicating the issue of whether or not he's selected as vice presidential nominee? >> i think there are two things to look at. one, does it matter he had connection with the mormon faith at one time in his life when he was young? and, two, will this bring attention to the complexity of his religious life and his faith, you know.

the first part, does it matter that he was mormon at one time? i think that it's been established through polls, particularly by pew that mitt romney wouldn't be hurt in a general election by the fact that he's mormon. that being said, there are people who have questions about the mormon faith and interesting when you look at the research that pew did, they asked people what is the one word that comes to mind when you think of a mormon? and in that study while a majority of people had positive things to say, family values, et cetera, some of the most commonly referenced words were cult, different, polygamy. cult was number one. that says there is still some questions about the mormon faith that exist in the united states.

the second question about the complexity of marco rubio's religious life is a very interesting one because besides having had some connection to the mormon faith when he was young in las vegas, he also has participated and identified himself as a catholic and at the same time has attended services of an evangelical church in the miami area that's associated with the southern baptist convention. it becomes a much more complicated thing than simply saying i'm catholic, i'm evangelical, i'm mormon. >> there's no religious test for office in this country and it's not the sort of thing that should affect whether a person is elected or if they're popular. i wonder when you look at marco rubio as somebody who has a rise in national republican politics, are issues of religion important to that at all? when republicans assess him as a potential national leader, when

they consider him for a job like vp or higher profile national roll, does religion matter at all? >> i think it absolutely matters. it matters in part because senator rubio has made religion and faith an important part of the narrative that he has communicated to the public. he talks about religion a lot. he mentions god a lot in his talks. i'm thinking of his farewell speech when he was leaving the florida legislature. he ended on a note in which he said that he wanted to tell everyone who was sitting there something very important and what he wanted to say was that god is real. and he repeated that phrase. god is real. and it's clearly something that is central to the way he identifies himself. it's clearly something that is central to the way that people perceive him and i think that

his faith and his religion will continue to be an absolutely fundamental element of any assessment of marco rubio whether it be for a national ticket as either a vice presidential candidate or even at some point as a presidential candidate or an analysis of him as a political figure in washington that has risen quickly and developed a large following. >> back of the envelope calculation has to do with the idea that he would increase support among latino voters for republican candidate who chose him. what is mr. rubio's support among latino voters like? could he be counted on to bring latino voters on board despite mitt romney's stance on things like the dream act and e-verify and we should have a papers please law for the whole country? >> it's a good question. it absolutely remains unanswered at this point at a national

level. in florida he did well in a three-way senate race. and in florida as you know, there's a large percentage of cuban americans. in the united states at large, cuban americans represent a small percentage of the overall number of latinos. the overall number of latinos are mexicans and central americans primarily. so the question becomes then how is marco rubio going to do with those folks? and clearly he has been attempting in recent weeks, months, to communicate a message to all people, latinos also, that the republican party should be changing its rhetoric on immigration. at the same time, he has had some problems with criticism because he hasn't supported the dream act and because he has

supported e-verify which is an electronic way of testing whether someone is legal and has been criticized by a fair number of latino groups. >> that's really important to remember that as an open question. the diversity of the latino vote in this country and how these things may not translate by being latino yourself. the new book about marco rubio coming out in july. thank you for your time. great to have you here. >> it's been a pleasure. >> is a supporter still a supporter if he keeps saying in public that you are wrong about really important things? mitt romney and the hazards of honest surgettes coming up.

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thesis number one about mitt romney's path toward the presidential candidate, he's being made a tougher, more nimble candidate by this intramural brawling. he'll be ready for rumbling by the fall.

thesis number two, dude, nobody likes this guy. not even the people who have endorsed him. fresh data in support ofths number two coming up.

yesterday at the end of the show we reported on a demonstration in the syrian city of holms. these are people in a city

that's been attacked for three straight weeks by the military of its own country holding a demonstration in honor of foreign journalists who died trying to cover what was going on there. the pieces of paper they are holding up to the camera say we will not forget you. a third journalist was also honored at that same demonstration. a syrian man. this is a picture of him with his infant daughter. he was one of the reasons the world had any idea what was happening he was a digital journalist. his videos, many of them too disturbing to show on tv were uploaded to a youtube channel that showed almost unbelievable atrocities in syria and that he died because of injuries received during bombing of a neighborhood. this message was posted online shortly before he died. facing genocide right now. our hearts will be with those who risk their life for our freedom.

we need campaigns everywhere inside syria. in a few hours there will be no place called baba amr and no one will forgive you for those who talked and didn't act. this woman was wounded in the same bombardment. she is speaking in french and the video she's explaining that her femur has been fractured and she needs surgery not available in the makeshift clinic where she is inside this city that's being attacked every day all day by syria's military. this young journalist is there with a french colleague and someone we presume is a doctor maybe and a couple other syrian men trying to help her and her colleague. the person filming her appeal is the only one who speaks english. you can hear what we guess is an explosion toward the end of this plea for help.

>> asked the french government and the red cross for help and to evacuate the injured people and take their responsibility off our shoulders he kept up a live stream of the bombing there. >> today a group of investigators from the united nations reported that the highest levels of the syrian government are guilty of crimes against humanity, that bashar assad's government is killing anyone and everyone with military force and impunity. hillary clinton also said the opposition forces should be recognized as the legitimate representatives of the syrian people, not assad's government but rather the opposition. states along with the european nations met today to start drafting what's called the ultimatum to syria.

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heading into the 2012 election, mitt romney's strength was that he was the helping guy, right? the numbers of how many people disliked him clocked in at 47 today, which is, believe it or not, an improvement. but what mitt romney lacked in the race he could maybe make up for with billion-dollar donors, right? he is the establishment guy. and that's one way to run an

modern campaign, with money and money to burn. you hopefully also bring along the supporters of those stars that express their support for you. it helps when those politics stars are not embarrassing. for instance, a young buck working hard for the romney campaign until he turned up in the "new york times" denying allegations about his campaign fund raising. he is not a mitt romney surrogate any more. or there is babeu, who recently had been a leading surrogate for mr. romney in arizona. republican stud until he turned up as just stud boy 1 on a dating web site with a secret mexican boyfriend who threatened to deport him if he told anybody

about their closet relationship. so they ended up in the discard pile from mitt romney. but it also helps if these people you rely on to bring the voters your message actually agree with your message. romney said the foreclosure crisis, the answer was to let the whole thing run its course until it hit bottom. congressman joe hecht was trying to be a leading surrogate for the romney campaign. how do you feel, mr. hecht, on mr. romney's position on letting housing hit the bottom? >> mitt romney and i don't agree on every issue and certainly housing is it one of them. when you look at what's on in here in southern nevada, you can't say you got to let the housing market hit bottom. we have been bouncing along the bottom for years. and the fact is we've got to do possible to one, keep people in their homes, and two, get people who r out of their homes back

into their homes. mitt romney famously argued that the federal government shouldn't offer the automobile industry a hand. let detroit go bankrupt. now that we didn't let that happen and detroit is back and they paid off the government bailout and they're posting huge profits, michigan congressman fred upton is stumping for mitt romney in michigan. just don't ask fred upton about the auto bailout. >> i guess on this particular issue, there is a fundamental disagreement between the two of us. >> in other words, i, mitt romney surrogate of michigan, think mitt romney was wrong about michigan. but vote for him, anyway, michigan, okay? so mr. romney has tons of endorsements, he has tons of

surrogates. that's part of what it means to be the establishment candidate. but these surrogates are not what you would expect, not helping mitt romney. another example, major romney surrogate. telling cnn this week, quote, santorum connects with people. unfortunately, my guy has had a hard time doing that. my guy needs to come out and connect with the people and just lay it out there. i know he can do it, he just has to make the effort. i think he can, i think he can. or new jersey government chris christie. a crowd pleaser willing to beat the bushes for mitt romney. hey, i know he seems reserved, but he's got passion, i know he does. except for chris christie jumping all over mitt romney for being slow to release his tax returns. >> i've released my tax returns every year as soon as i file them. i released them historically when i ran for governor. i just think get the stuff out there, so if governor romney were to ask for my advice, i would just say get the stuff out there. if they're interested in it, let the people see it.

>> i hate to say it, but with friends like these -- there's more. utah governor john huntsman had looked like the other mitt romney, the other establishment good guy to beat, but when he threw his support to mitt romney, that was a feather in his cap. another romney supporter for the long, long lists of romney supporters. check out john huntsman on this network earlier today when he was asked about last night's republican debate. >> gone are the days when the republican party used to put forward big, bold, visionary stuff. i see zero evidence of people getting out there and addressing the economic deficit, which is a national security problem, for heaven's sake, in addressing the trust step. i think we're going to have problems until we get some sort of third party movement or an alternative voice that can put forward new ideas.