good morning. i'm chris jansing and this morning the republican race is as murky as ever. a split decision on super tuesday. mitt romney taking six states, including the big prize, ohio. and, of course, he's winning the delegate count, but he can't seem to shift the perception game to send the message that he's a winner. and so the race goes on. >> 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 even better. >> romney is winning the numbers game, but rick santorum captured tennessee, oklahoma and north dakota. and what's key, came in second in ohio by just 1%. >> we're going to get at least a couple gold medals and a whole

passel full of silver medals. when they thought, okay, he's finally finished, we keep coming back. >> and don't forget, newt gingrich, who launched what he wants to be, his own comeback, winning his home state of georgia, although he couldn't manage even second in any other state. >> you just can't quite get across to them, it's all right. there are lots of bunny rabbits that run through. i'm the tortoise. >> joining me, david and michael sheerer from "the new york times." late night for everybody. david, let me start with you, not the worst news for mitt romney, it would have been if he didn't pull out ohio but howard feinman had an interesting tweet. he said the gop campaign is beginning to feel like groundhog day. every wednesday we wake up to the same story. what do do you? what does mitt romney do at this point, just slow and steady wins the race? >> i think that's what his campaign is prepared to argue

today. they'll brief reporters about the kind of matha they think he -- that he has in his favor, that he's ahead in the delegate count and it's hard to see how his challengers catch up to him. as a result, you know, despite the perception problem, despite the sort of struggles he had with ohio last night, he's going to continue on and argue that slow and steady wins. >> and when you look at the exit polls last night, he is losing, actually, middle class voters, he's losing conservative voters. nbc took a look at what he had done up until this point so far. and then compared it to last night's results. in fact, less support among people making less than $100,000. less support among the conservative base and evangelical christians. >> he's struggling with the parts of the party for which he's been struggle throughout this entire process. that's what we saw last night. when you talk about electability and best experience, that's mitt romney's core. but when you get into somebody with strong moral character or

somebody i identify with closely on the issue, that's when conservative and ivevangelical base. we're at this place now where mitt romney is on this march to the nomination. still very much the likely nominee. but he's going to have to go through the motions of this process now, through a protracted nomination process, which has not been kind to his general election prospects. the key story now is how he navigates needing to begin this general election conversation more earnestly with the president but he has to dispatch with santorum and gingrich who are hanging around. >> and spend a lot of money doing it. the narrative from the santorum campaign this morning is we got outspent like crazy again. four to one in this case, just in ohio. we don't have the ground game. no question. mitt romney has the ground game. and yet he could only beat us by a hair's breath margin. >> the real problem for the romney campaign, as david says, if you're going to try to change

this narrative the next couple weeks does not look kind to him. you have a bunch of contests where mitt romney is not looking to do well in smaller caucuses. southern states where rick santorum has proved convincingly that he can do well. you're already beginning to hear the calls from the santorum crowd for mr. gingrich to leave because if that were to happen, you'd have a much more dramatic kind of clash of candidates between santorum and romney, if there wasn't a gingrich to kind of muck up that -- >> and you mentioned the conference call later today, and earlier today mitt romney was on cnbc. let me play what he had to say this morning about all of this. >> i'm prepared to fight all the way to become the nominee. and, you know, i was pleased with our success last night. obviously, we've got a very strong lead and delegates, a very strong lead in terms of the number of people who have actually voted for our campaign. we have the time and the resources and a plan to get all the delegates. we think that will get done before the convention. but one thing i can tell you for sure is, there's not going to be a brokered convention.

>> what will there be, though? what's the worst case scenario for mitt romney? >> a brokered convention would be the worst case scenario. i agree with him, there probably wouldn't be that. he may be living through his worst case scenario right now. this is not where the mitt romney campaign envisioned they would be when they built the romney machine last year. they thought they would have this wrapped up by now. that's not the case. we've seen mitt romney sort of go through the five stages of grief. sort of dealing with the fact that this is a new nomination race than the one he designed for himself. and i thought last night in this speech up in boston that we saw acceptance. we saw it again there on cnbc this morning, that he understands he's going to have to go through this race. there's not going to be a -- >> last night really was his last best chance, wasn't it, to say, the inevidentibility clause gets back into this conversation? >> yeah, i think so. as david said, they are -- they're resigned to a long slog, but they have to try to pivot back to the president for the

next two, three, five, six, eight weeks. and you saw a little bit of that in the speech yesterday. you saw a little bit more today in that interview where he started talking again about his tax plan, focusing on the economy again. you know, again, the problem is it's going to be hard because as you talked about groundhog day, again and again we'll go over this process where we wake up and his vulnerabilities are showing. >> charlie black is an informal adviser to mitt romney. i want to bring in charlie. it is good to see you. you know, it is amazing in many ways that your candidate that you support has so many victories last night, including ohio, as tight as it was, and yet he's still getting descriptions as we saw in "the new york times" this morning of a lethargic candidacy. why can't he seal the deal, do you think? >> first of all, the republican party changed our process. they stretched out the calendar. they dictated a lot of states to be proportional as opposed to winner take all. so, no matter who was running

this year, it was going to be a longer, more drawn out process. governor romney had a huge night. won six of ten states. he won half of all the delegates available yesterday. and he now has half of all the delegates that have been awarded so far in the process. there's no way to put a bad spin on that. >> well, rick santorum tried. rick santorum tried -- let me just play what rick santorum's answer to that was last night. >> we need a fighter. we need a fighter and someone who learned what america was about by growing up in communities just like this. understanding how american neighborhoods and families work. >> understanding how american families and neighborhoods work. there is this perception out there that mitt romney has a connection problem. that the average person out there, and the polls show it, the exit polls, the people under $100,000, don't connect with him.

he won fewer of those voters last night than he had in the primaries up to this point. is that his biggest achilles heel? >> here's what happens in republican primaries. a large segment of the electorate wants to vote for the most conservative candidate, regardless of electability. that tends to be the people with lower incomes as opposed to higher incomes. but the neighborhoods and towns that rick santorum is talking about operate around jobs. mitt romney is the candidate who's going to supply more jobs, less debt, smaller government. and that message he's saying every day. he is winning in the primaries. he's won 11 of the last 15, by the way. maybe they don't want a fighter like rick santorum. the 11 of the last 15 states mitt romney has won. he will continue to prosecute the case against president obama's dismal performance on the economy, as we continue to go through these primaries. >> well, let's talk about continuing to go through the primaries because you have alabama, mississippi, kansas coming up, not states that favor

your candidate. >> well, that's next week. the week after that you have illinois, which, yes, favors my candidate. you don't have many winner take all states left. the ones that are favor romney, states like new jersey and delaware and maryland, the other states are all proportional. and even there romney will win a number of them, so what rick santorum and newt gingrich have to begin to explain is how they're going to win more states than romney and win by huge margins. rick santorum would have to get like 60% of the vote in some of these proportional states to ever catch up with commanding lead and delegates that governor romney has. no, when you have four strong candidates you don't win have state and you may not win every week but governor romney is on a winning streak and he has command of this race. >> let me ask you to stand by, if you have time for us, charlie, because -- >> sure. >> he says four strong candidates. an argument this is not a case

of barack obama versus hillary clinton. rick santorum's folks were calling last night and this morning for newt gingrich to get out of the race. is that going to happen? >> we saw no indication from newt gingrich to exit the race last night whatsoever. he said begin a new chapter tomorrow. especially because some of these southern contests are coming up, alabama, mississippi next week, kansas. newt gingrich -- >> you don't daik. >> i think newt gingrich gets out of this case because his future book deals and speeches, his hanging around diminishes his ability, that will get him out of the race. >> one thing the romney campaign has been arguing quietly for the last couple weeks is the super pacs, presence is artificially keeping this race a four-way race. >> a pretty strong argument. >> it is. if newt gingrich didn't have a super pac that was out there with millions of dollars, that could go into these southern states, he might not be able to hang around no matter what he wanted. david's right, at some point it gets to the point where it you

can't win alabama and mississippi, can't demonstrate he can win outside of his own home state, it's hard for him. >> how about rick santorum, how long can he hold on? >> i think he can hold on for quite a while now. everything charlie black says is true. romney had an overwhelmingly victorious night, delegate map is clear but rick santorum has an argument to make because he has a swath of the party, a significant swath of the party who's with him and with him a bit more passionately than mitt romney supporters are with him. and he is that fighter bite you played, that's an argument he still can make to a very open republican electorate to hearing that argument that gets excited about that argument. here's the problem. what the romney campaign needs to now demonstrate, they can make the math argument, no doubt about that. how do they straddle their mission here of re-establishing mitt romney as a viable candidate against barack obama with big general election audiences, women, independents,

hispanics, how do they start doing that while rick santorum hangs out? >> i think it's a slow process. i think one of these challenges also is to, you know, when they began this campaign, one of the arguments was we can build a machine that can go up against barack obama, who is going to have a kind of, you know, overwhelmingly large and well-organized and well-oiled kind of campaign. and what you've seen is something less than that as it's splad out in the primary. so, they also need to demonstrate, can they communicate to voters that this is the kind of campaign that can go up against barack obama organizationally in the fall? >> before that he has to get through rick santorum, so charlie let me ask you very directly, would you rather see newt gingrich out of the race? do you want to say, bring it on, we've got two strong candidates who have a good delegate count, who have won a significant amount of states, let us take on rick santorum head to head? >> governor romney's in a position to win no matter who's in and who's out. but let me tell you something, rick santorum, newt gingrich and

ron paul are strong personalities and stubborn people. they're going to be in for a while. i do believe that governor romney has already started the process of speaking to the general electorate and independent voters. you talked about his tax plan that he presented. every day on the stump he's talking about job creation. you know, more jobs, less debt, smaller government. that's what the independents care about. now, some days you guys cover it, some days you don't, i understand that. you need to cover the combat among republicans but that will become less interesting to cover as we move forward here and people understand that governor romney is in a commanding position to be the nominee. even if this went on till may, we'll have six-month general election with a very clear debate between romney and president obama. when the independents understand the respective messages, governor romney's message versus failure of president obama on the economy, failure to rein spending debt and the federal

government, we'll have a very good chance to win this race. i think you'll see a very close race in november. >> i think a lot of people would agree with that statement. we'll leave it there. charlie black, thanks for coming in. david and michael shear, fantastic conversation. thank you so much. we can't leave this without talking about the battle of two incumbents in ohio. dennis kucinich lost, beaten by another veteran marcy kaptur. kucinich, former presidential candidate. he's talked about the possibility of moving to the seattle area to run. he'd need to do it by the middle of april. after kaptur was declared the winner she called into msnbc's special coverage last night. >> this was a very intense campaign because in the way the district was drawn, we had to introduce ourselves to over 360,000 new people in eight weeks. and we had to advertise in two media markets. >> hard to imagine.

i remember him as a 23-year-old city council. anyway, she'll face off against joe the plumber who won his republican primary last night in what was another close race. an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement, if your car is totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. liberty mutual auto insurance. ah, welcome to hotels.com. i get it...guys weekend. yeah! if you're looking for a place to get together, you came to the right place. because here at hotels.com, we're only about hotels. yeah! yeah! noooo. yeah! finding you the perfect place is all we do. welcome to hotels.com to the perfect swisssh. it's about zero weight, 100% more nourishment,

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so many fascinating things about last night, but i think rachel maddow found a key one and that's of the millions of dollars spent by newt gingrich, just a fraction, and i mean a small fraction of it, was actually his money, from his campaign. most was from super pacs, and so yesterday voters in vermont were able to weigh in on super pacs. part of the efforts to overrule the citizens united supreme court decision that allows these big donations that have been driving the candidacies in this presidential election cycle,

bernie sanders joins me. good morning, senator. >> good morning. >> as i understand, more than 50 vermont towns voted on this amendment and something like 23 at least passed it. tell me what you know about the results this morning. >> no, we think about 60 towns were voting on it. we know 55 passed it. we don't know the results from some other towns. >> so, then we have in about 30 states challenges to this citizens united ruling, right? but thought is this could be a long and drawn out process. tell me how what happened last night you think fits into your overall objective. >> i'll tell you, i think the people of vermont, in fact the people of america, are totally disgusted with what they are seeing in terms of the huge amounts of money that billionaires and corporations are now throwing into the political process. look, honest people have honest disagreements about policy. what very few people, whether you're a progressive like me or a conservative, think that it's appropriate in this democratic

society where people fought and died to maintain our democracy, to see a handful of billionaires say, oh, we're going to give gingrich $10 million, we're going to give romney this amount of money, we're going to give santorum -- we're evolving into a situation where we're going to have corporations deciding who will be our president, who will be our senators and members of the house, because they will be able to pour in unlimited sums of money into campaign ads. i do not believe in vermont or around this country that that is what the american people want. and i think people are united that we need to overturn this disastrous citizens united decision that said, quite amazingly, a corporation is a person with unlimited first amendment rights, can spend as much as they want on a campaign. >> what do you do about it? what's your best way going forward? how long might that take? >> well, i think ultimately we need a constitutional amendment.

i have one. tom udall in new mexico has another one. we need a constitutional amendment to overturn citizens united. that will take us a while. we have to get through the house, the senate, three-quarters of the states. but i think short term what we can do is pass some legislation, which can significantly diminish the impact of citizens united. for example, right now, somebody is a billionaire corporate leader. he could put as much money as he wants into a campaign. he can put ads on television, come up with some phoney front group. nobody knows who's paying for the ad. you-f you do something very simple and you say that that ceo has got to have his picture on that ad saying that i, the head daf -- the ceo of this or that corporation, i approve this ad, just as any politician has to do, that in itself would go a long way to diminish these ads because they don't want to be on tv, showing the american --

>> what about congressman chris van hollins bill that would require super pacs to disclose spending and the person online? i've talked to some super pac contributors themselves who say the way to approach this is to do that. >> i think important as well. but i think most importantly short term what we have to do is get this kind of money out of the political process. i think having a ceo's picture and name on the screen would be good. i think there are other short-term things you can do. long term we do need a constitutional amendment. >> were you disappointed when the president said that, you know, look, we have to level the playing field and he told his supporters to go ahead and contribute to super pacs? >> i think he's in a very difficult position. i think what we have to do is kill, we have to -- we have to undo the citizens united, but if he's sitting there and the other side is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars -- look, karl rove right now, the coke brothers, they are

prepared to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. he could say, i think it's morally wrong, i'm not going to do it. i'm not so sure. but at the end of the day, this is a disastrous supreme court decision and it's got to be overturned. >> it's always good to have on you the program. senator, good to see you. senator bernie sanders. wisconsin's controversial new voter i.d. law is on hold this morning with the april 3rd primary coming up, a judge blocked the law which would require a photo i.d. to vote in any election. opponents say with no evidence of widespread voter fraud, the laws are made to make it hard for minority, elderly and poor to vote. this a victory for a group that recently filed lawsuits in four states against voter i.d. i love that my daughter's part fish.

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the band rush has also asked him to stop playing their music. president obama making rare comments about the 2012 race at a presidential news conference. >> what would you like to say to mr. romney? >> good luck today. >> reporter: no, really? >> really. >> and the commander in chief is pitching hollywood mega producer harvey weinstein at the fund-raiser in new york last week he recommended that he read a book -- that a book he read be made into a movie. weinstein told a british newspaper, i can't tell you the title but it was a spy novel. i sent him an e-mail back saying, he was the most overqualified book scout i've ever had. and starting today, newt gingrich is going to get secret service protection. mitt romney and rick santorum already have a detail. and sarah palin voted yesterday in alaska and in the end she went for happy.

>> to be perfectly honest with you and candid, not being political, i will let you know i voted for the cheerful one, newt gingrich, because i believe he's spot on on his energy policy, understanding that the price of a barrel of oil doesn't just affect gasoline in our car, but every petroleum product, increases costs with the price of oil going up. >> well, sarah palin aside, this is going to be yet again a year where the women voters are of key importance. we'll tell you about it. real th. nature valley trail mix bars are made with real ingredients you can see. like whole roasted nuts, chewy granola, and real fruit. nature valley trail mix bars. 100% natural. 100% delicious. why? i thought jill was your soul mate.

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prices. a decorated green beret who survived six tours of afghanistan and iraq died while trying to save his daughters from a burning home. edward and his wife escaped the fire at ft. bragg but he ran back in to save his girls, ages 6 and 4. none of them made it out. cantrell was awarded four bronze tarz and a purple heart. ohio school bus driver facing charges. she was caught on camera apparently holding down one student and encouraging a female student to hit him. investigators say the driver thought the boy was teasing the girl. fortunately, no one was hurt but the driver has reportedly quit her job. and take a look at this amazing video. a solar storm could be heading our way over the next couple of days after the sun released one of the strongest flares of the last few years. worst case scenario, nasa says a direct hit could trigger worldwide radio blackouts. much more likely, it will give us, quote, a glancing blow.

doesn't even sound possible. peyton manning no longer with the indianapolis colts? what happened to loyalty? the details when we go down to the wire in 20. now to the gender gap and critical role women voters play in mitt romney's razor thin victory in ohio. nbc exit polls show romney finished three points ahead of rick santorum among women. one point behind with men. msnbc's richard has been digging into these exit polls. >> this could be the year of the woman. nbc exit polls show they could have carried mitt romney over the ohio finish line. unmarried women favoring mitt romney by 17 percentage points over rick santorum, 45-28. the group was 12% of votes cast in the state, by the way. working women chose romney ahead of santorum. that was 43% to 35%, an eight-point difference. this group was about a fifth of ohio voters. on the issue of abortion, 59% of

suburban women said abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances, but even more suburban men, 69%, said aportion should be illegal. in some, suburban women did not distinguish themselves from gop voters generally in their motivations and attitudes. we see a large gender difference associated with views on abortion. ohio republican women voters who support legalized abortion favored romney by a wide margin, 53% to 25% over santorum. but no real difference among men who favored legalized abortion. they went 29% for romney, 20% for santorum. women voters a group front and center. >> i want to bring in kelly wallace, chief correspondent for ivillage and joined by karen hunter, msnbc contributor and pulitzer prize winning journalists. we've talked about the social gists and what it it would mean in this campaign. what's your takeaway?

>> the vast majority of women in this country are probably democrat, so only 12%. i'm not worried. but it does speak to what's been going on lately and the republicans have failed to deliver a message that resonates with all women. and they have thin-sliced this situation into abortion versus nonabortion and just kind of muddled the whole waters. >> i was going to say, we did this chat, this ivillage live chat, a lot of women participating with msnbc, but it was interesting when we asked, you know, what matters most to you -- >> economy, right? >> economy, economy. people -- >> and that's what the exit polls show. >> they weren't even talking about social issues so that's top of mind right now. >> obviously, ohio the bellwether for the entire nation. romney beating santorum by a large margin among working and single women. what does that tell us going forward? >> you know, it's -- he still has to face, if he is the presumptive nominee, barack obama. that's where he's going to run into trouble. not with santorum, who i think has proven himself over the last couple of weeks to be a very

weak candidate but yet he almost pulled it out last night, which i was amazed by. >> we were talking before the show, if santorum did better with women, right, he could have pulled it out this highohio. >> and if newt gingrich wasn't there. >> but his comments, radical feminists saying the only way women can be happy is if they work outside the home when he was talking about, you know, birth control not being part of women's rights. his comments have been polarizing for women. you saw the results in the exit polls last night for him. >> i want to bring in the former white house deputy communications director, jen, who joins me right now. jen, at his first news conference of the year yesterday, president obama tried to reach out to women, i suppose addressing people in general when he talked about rush limbaugh's comments. obviously, about that georgetown law student. let me play for you what he said about that yesterday. >> the reason i called miss fluke is because i thought about

malia and sasha and one thing i want them do to do as they get older is engage in issues they care about, even ones i may not agree with them on. >> we know people care about the economy. but in the margins, these social issues, will they work for barack obama in november? >> well, if nothing else, this has really woken up many women across the country who may not have been paying attention to the presidential race, may have thought this doesn't impact me, doesn't matter to me. i absolutely believe this is the year of the woman. especially if the republican nominee continues to talk about whomever they are, continues to talk about women's issues like birth control, like working, like is access to affordable health care in the way they do. and i think the president believes that his policies are the right thing and the right choice for women. so, you know, i expect that he'll be talking about this more as it continues to be an issue out there on the campaign trail. >> you know, another interesting thing yesterday, i was listening to david gregory in the run-up

before voting started and he said, the key issue in this campaign may end up being something that hasn't happened yet. we're watching what's going on with gas prices be the situation in iran, will israel potentially launch a strike. let us not forget how important this issue is for women because they're the ones who send their sons and daughters off to war. so, i want to play another piece of sound from the president yesterday. and he was lashing out at his republican rivals as they had been talking about this world situation. take a listen. >> what's said on the campaign trail, you know, those folks don't have a lot of responsibilities. they're not commander in chief. when i see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, i'm reminded of the costs involved in war. >> a low-key and thoughtful president there, jen. are we also going to see a

pretty feisty one when it comes to debates and one-on-one, whether it be mitt romney or rick santorum, or someone else, i suppose? >> anything's possible. he is feisty when it's an issue that he cares about. there are many, protecting our troops, who are sevening overseas is one of those. i think what's important about what he did yesterday is that it shows streve shows strength and remind people across the country that he's commander in chief. he was saying to republicans running, i know you're in the middle of a campaign. listen, i've been there, but let's be responsible about the rhetoric we're using because we are all representing the united states. you know, he in a different way than republican candidates. but it was a reminder of his strength as a leader. >> yesterday, and just piggybacking on that and getting back to the woman issue, mitt romney had his wife introduce him and throughout santorum's speech last night he kept referencing his karen which was like, hey, hey -- >> is he talking about me? >> yeah. but barack obama was able -- >> he was not.

>> he was talking about his wife? okay. but barack obama obama was able to evoke this whole emotional feeling about his daughters. he brought up michelle yesterday. while these candidates have to hide behind their women, barack obama can speak to women directly and i think he resonates more with them. >> we talked about on your show before, that i think you are going to see, and jen can probably say this is true, you are going to see the president and the first lady, they're doing it, where they're talking about -- >> getting out a lot more. >> yeah. and i think the more people see them in that personal way, a family that they can relate to, you know, this is the family that they supported and loved back in 2008, that's only going to help the president in november. >> can we also talk about strategy here? i thought it was interesting, jen, that the president choses for his first news conference since november to do it on the day of the big super tuesday republican primaries. let's see where he's done that before. >> last week. >> michigan primary. he made the speech to the uaw workers. on the night of the iowa caucuses he hold a video town

hall with iowa democrats. this is all just coincidental. >> pure coincidence. >> well, look, i think the president has some pretty smart people who surround him. they know this is a day where people -- people across the country are paying attention. they're looking for what the contrast is. so, everybody wants to know who's going to win the ohio primary, is santorum or romney? but the president has an opportunity and he took advantage of this yesterday, to lay out not just -- you know, answer questions about foreign policy but remember he also talked about housing and what he wanted to do for military families, what he wanted to do for people who are under water with their homes, and i think yesterday it was smart strategy. it was using the -- it was using the focus of politics of the day to talk about some things he cares about and lay out the contrast between him and the republican candidates. >> and let me tell you my take on it because he seems so much more fired up than he did at the end of last year. no debating that. my sense is that strategically, he and his campaign know that

probably the best thing is to ee lon gate this race, let the republicans continue to beat up on each other. but he seems to me, karen, like he's champing at the bit to get out there and respond. >> wouldn't you be? i see him doing this like, are they serious in they like tossing him softballs this big. >> we were joking about the softball, you know, about any comments responding to mitt romney's criticism of late? he's like, good luck tonight. really? he's like really, with the biggest smile on his face. >> we can't get cocky, those people who support the president. i was telling kelly, 2000 george bush was a joke and people -- i remember saying, there's no way this guy can win. you know, you don't know about hanging chads. >> it wasn't that long ago we had pretty much written off barack obama for near dead. >> absolutely. once there is a republican nominee, jen knows this, too, the environment changes. that nominee, if it's mitt romney, he's probably going to do everything he can to stay away from social issues and focus more on economic issues that independent women are going to be concerned about in

november. >> that's the key group. kelly wallace, thanks to you, karen hunter, jen it's good to see you. >> good to see you. the obama campaign is getting into the st. pad trick's day spirit by tapping into the president's distant irish roots. they unveiled two green t-shirts this week, one that says i shamrock o'bama. the other says o'bama 2012. they're listed out of stock at obama.com. weight loss programs can be expensive. so to save some money, i just got the popular girls from the local middle school to follow me around. ew. seriously? so gross. ew. seriously? that is so gross. ew. seriously? dude that is so totally gross. so gross...i know. there's an easier way to save.

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the self-described tortoise. can the gop re-gop itself in time? the republicans' messaging problem. how do they get their brand back on track if they really want the white house back in the fall? >> thank you so much, thomas. once again, apple has tech junkies worked up into a fevered pitch. there's just a little more than two hours to go until unveiling of the new ipad. coming just about a year after the late steve jobs took the wraps off the ipad 2. >> we've got something great to announce today. we're going to introduce today ipad 2. the second generation ipad. >> i'm joined by john able, new york bureau chief for wired.com. it's weird seeing him. clearly this new ipad will have his fingerprints all over it. >> absolutely. this has been baked for a long time, so, yes, maybe the last great thing that we'll see from steve jobs era. >> well, to use that, when the cake comes out of the oven, what

are we expecting highlights to be? >> everything is guesswork because everything's a huge secret. i guess we're expecting a higher resolution display. i guess we're expecting more power. i guess we're expecting a little change maybe in the shape. this is the original version, the second had a beverageled edge. a lot of people don't like that. my own personal guess is we're going to bring siri from the i phone into that. and it will be opened up to app developers the way it's not now on that it will be able to control literally anything. since the ipad and iphone control anything anyway, the sky's the limit. >> would you expect the price to change? the very base right now is like $499? >> right. apple when it releases things doesn't change the price but the older models become -- >> cheaper. >> more affordable or cheaper. >> i guess the question becomes, and we won't know until we see all the bells and whistles, is it worth the money? i've been asking this question

to people, and the people who love apple look at me like i'm crazy, of course you get the latest and crazy always, right? >> well, see, they only have 65 or so 70% market share. they'll sell a lot of these. a lot of people are selling their old ones already in anticipation of this. those are now going into the eco system. i own the original version. i haven't upgraded. . -t works just grade. you can probably pick it up for a song, the same price for a kindle or a fire or barnes & noble tablet. there's a lot of ipads in circulation. the new one will start at $500 and go up to $800. might have 4g, the next generation of speed. people need to get the new ones but there's always old ones you can get. >> 55 million ipads. that number boggles the mind. i've read estimates they could sell, what, another 45, 55 -- >> the estimates are crazy.

forester is staying by 2016 there will be unimaginable -- i mean, unimaginable number. right now, apple has a market share which is almost the equivalent of what google has in market share for search. so, if you think google is equal to search, apple is pretty much equal to tablets. >> the countdown continues. just a couple more hours and we'll know more. thank you for coming in. today's tweet of the day comes from a friend of the show, "the washington post's" jonathan capehart. i would like for the new ipad to make it possible for me to read it in the sun while wearing sunglasses. just saying. i love that my daughter's part fish. but when she got asthma, all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care.

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we're counting up delegates for convention and it looks good. counting down the days to november and that looks even better. >> we're going to win a few, we're going to lose a few, but as it looks right now, we're going to get at least a couple of gold medals and a whole passel full of silver medals. >> lots of bunny rabbits that run through. i'm the tortoise. i just take one step at a time. >> the tortoise and the hares, mitt romney holds onto his fragile front-runner status, taking six super tuesday states to santorum's three. romney narrowly clinching ohio but failing to seal the deal with conservatives in the south which means this gop battle rages on. get ready for a political death match between rick santorum and newt gingrich, each trying to

muscle the other out of the race. and touching down in the tar heel state this hour, president obama pays the critical state of north carolina another visit today where he's talking about, you guessed it, the economy. remember when we all wondered how long joe the plumber's 15 minutes' of fame would last? well, that was so 2008. the man made famous by john mccain could now end up in congress. hi, everybody, great to have you with me today, i'm thomas roberts. no knockout punch. mitt romney narrowly avoids a super tuesday catastrophe using a huge cash vault and organizational advantage to squeak past rick santorum in ohio. the buckeye state brawl lasted late into the night. romney carried that state by this narrow margin. just 38-37. in all, mitt romney racked up six victories -- ohio, massachusetts where he was governor, then virginia, vermont, idaho and alaska. rick santorum carrying the south, winnind