i'm chris jansing. ed in end, it wasn't even close. mitt romney crushed rick santorum in illinois last night with almost 50% of the vote, a decisive victory that has the romney campaign calling him the inevitable nominee again with his sights set on president obama. >> it's time to say these words, this word -- enough. we've had enough.

we know our future. we know our future is brighter than these troubled times. we still believe in america. and we deserve a president who believes in us. and i believe in the american people. >> dave whigle and josh marshall join us. gentlemen, good morning. >> good morning. >> josh, good to have you here on set. for all intents and purposes, is the race for the republican nomination over this morning? >> yes. but it's been over for weeks. the question has only been how damaged is mitt romney going to be when he gets to tampa? and i think this holds out the possibility that he can really kind of shut this down and start taking the next few months to refocus on obama and start repairing some of the damage that this bizarre struggle with a fourth-tier candidate like rick santorum has forced him into. >> one of the things i've noticed is whoever lost, you'd never know they were losing. that's for sure. it's the third industrial

midwestern state that mitt romney has won. rick santorum acted like it was no big deal last night. let me play a little clip. >> we did very well. picked up a lot of delegates in a very tough state. no one had any expectations for us to win. we got the delegate that is we could get. we're feeling good that, again, it's very clear, it's a two-person race. now we need to get all the conservatives to line up behind us. >> well, dave, what are the chances of that? is this even still a two-person race? >> no, it's coalescing into a two-person race. the santorum campaign prepped the media yesterday for them to lose illinois handily. after they survive this had primary, they're going to problem win louisiana. they're not saying that. but all the polls point to that. then they're going to head to states where they can outperform. and texas is the end of may, which is a place where if southern states keep breaking

hard against romney, they can continue embarrassing him. >> i guess the question is, does this help to change the momentum? does it switch the narrative at all because you do have louisiana, you have texas and then santorum's been talking about, we're five weeks to pennsylvania, which is of course his home state and would be an industrial midwestern state he thinks he can win. or is it going to be this repeated pattern up until tampa, which is that romney wins, santorum wins. romney wins, santorum wins. >> there's been a series of these key races. romney had to win michigan and ohio, he had to win illinois. he won all of them. we see this basic pattern. if a state has a lot of affluent voters and doesn't have a lot of evangelicals, romney wins. it happens every time. and if rick santorum spends the week before saying he's going to take away your birth control and take away your pornography, then romney wins even more. so we get the pattern. there's going to be these races like louisiana. a lot of evangelicals, a good starm statantorum state, he'll .

but it's clear that romney is going to win where he has to win. >> we all look at the fund-raising numbers. i never cease to be amazed. february, romney, almost $12 million. there you see rick santorum with $9 million. even newt gingrich, $2.5 million. most of his super pac money coming from mr. addleson. is it enough for any of the others to really challenge? i was having a conversation before we came on with josh, if it wasn't a 10-to-1 disadvantage for rick santorum, we'd be looking at a different race. >> we would. santorum didn't compete in illinois the way that you might think somebody with momentum from the south would compete. he went there basically for two days. he spent a little bit of money. romney did his usual strategy of carpet bombing the state with -- well, not him, sorry. with "restore the future," the super pac that works to elect

him. carpet bombing the state. he managed to increase a four-point poll lead to a 12-point win. he's been able to do that in every state. but if they were an equal footing, santorum is perfectly within his rights to dream that he could win the thing. down the exit polling when voters were asked if it was a straight romney/santorum choice, it was a low single-digit race between the two of them. he's not going to get that. romney is going to continue having more money. when santorum got a little bit of a lift right before the last southern primary, there were a group of conservatives and evangelical leaders who started to pledge money to him. but it was only about $1.7 million. there's just not the money in that part of the republican party to match the established money that romney has. >> i want to bring in ben labolt. good morning, ben. >> thanks for having me on. >> the president's super pac raised just $2 million in february.

less than santorum, less than newt gingrich. obviously less than mitt romney. are you worried? is that where you're vulnerable? >> what we're focused on is what we can control, which is donations to our campaign and expanding our donor base. we've had over 1.6 million donors to our campaign. the average contribution to the campaign is $59 or less. we can go back to them over and over again throughout the campaign -- >> it's a fair argument in that you want people to believe that you are the candidate that a lot of people support. when you look at the difference between rick santorum's campaign and mitt romney's campaign and who's giving the money it's stark. you definitely have an argument there. but you have to keep up with the money, don't you, both on your side and on the super pac's side? >> there are oil donors out there who are pouring millions and millions of dollars against the president because they're trying to maintain subsidies for their oil and gas companies.

we're anticipating that. but ultimately republicans are betting they can win this thing on the air. we're betting we can win it on the ground. our supporters, reaching out to their networks in states, talking about the president's vision of building an economy that lasts where hard work and responsibility are rewarded an everybody plays by the same set of rules. >> i want to talk to you about where the president is going later today. "the washington post" has been writing about how your high-dollar donations are lagging. why and can a ground game really make up for that? >> well, the truth is, i think we've had many contributions from small-dollar donors and those who can afford to give a little bit more. i think what you're seeing on the republican side, if you look at romney's numbers and santorum's numbers are a lack of enthusiasm for the republican field. and that's echoed on the ground. turn-out's been down from 2008 in key states like nevada and florida and iowa. states that will decide the election in november. last night in illinois while he

did win a victory here, only 21% of illinois republicans said they strongly supported mitt romney. >> but for your campaign, why do you think the high-dollar donors are lagging? >> well, we have about 1.6 million donors to the campaign so far. we had 1 million donors by this point in the race the last time around. but we are asking our donors to engage now because what we're doing on the ground will provide us with the decisive edge in november. and that investment needs to happen today. >> let me talk about the president, what he's doing today. air force one is out there. he's kicking off this four-state energy tour as gas prices continue to rise. how, for example, does the president's energy plan differ from mitt romney's? >> well, the president supports on "all of the above" strategy. domestic oil and gas production has gone up each year he's been in office. we're at an eight-year high. he's also reducing our dependence on foreign oil. governor romney wants to maintain $4 billion annual

subsidies to oil and gas companies. the president wants to repeal those. governor romney has criticized raising fuel economy standards that are saving consumers at the pump. it will save consumers $8,000 per vehicle when they're fully implemented. and the president initiated that historic deal with the automakers. those standards have been doubled. drilling and drilling alone is not enough. governor romney says his strategy to bring gas prices down is to drill in the gulf. we've issued hundreds of permits. we are drilling across the gulf. but that's not enough to get us where we need to be. we need an "all of the above" energy strategy and we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil so we're not vulnerable to these spikes in the global oil market. >> a little preview of what we expect to hear from the president over the next couple of days. ben, thank you very much. let me bring our journalists back and play something that we heard last night from mitt romney. let's listen.

>> we once led the world in manufacturing and exports, investment. today we lead the world in lawsuits. you know, when we replace a law professor with a conservative businessman as president, that's going to end. >> well, that's an interesting new talking point, i think, from the president, josh. is it a good one? >> it's basically who romney's been going with all along, conservative businessman, president obama is kind of an intellectual, he's a man of action, someone who can turn the economy around. that's how he's going to brand himself. to a great extent, this is out of the hands of both men because this is going to come down to trends in the economy. what's different from what it was six months ago, it seems like the economic trend is good. gas prices remain a wild card. what people are not focusing on enough are real wild card here is what happens in the middle east over the next eight months

because if you have some sort of blow-up in the middle east, you could have a situation where gas prices double or triple. everybody in the country freaks out because they can barely fill the gas in their cars and the economy will tank. so i think that everything else is looking fairly good for president obama. but that's the wild card that is really out of everybody's control. >> let me go back over to the republican side for a minute. mitt romney -- ken pointed to one thing as this race progresses. if you ask voters, which quality matters most, 18% is that he has the right experience and romney won 64% of those voters. santorum got just 8%. i think it sort of speaks to that sort of experiential attack line we just heard from mitt romney. so i wonder in any given state, is the experience question going to be important, do you think, dave, both as we look at who's

going to win this nomination and eventually in the general election? >> i think it will. rick santorum was always a flawed anti-romney candidate because the republican base in 2012 is not that enamored of people who spent their entire lives in politics. and he has. he's found ways to talk about it. he's spent his entire career passing legislation, not really running things. ben mentioned that businessmen were going to help to steer money to the super pacs. freedom works, the big -- not actually tea party organization said they're basically going to spend more time on the congressional races, less time on the presidential. i think that's because at core, they wish it wasn't romney who was going to be their standard bearer. but it's not like they're ready to go into battle for rick santorum. romney's experience as a businessman, yes, he was only in government four years. fur all of his flaws, they like

that about him. i think when he gets to the general election, he's going to have a little more trouble selling that given his business record. but that's a better resume than spending a career in politics right now. >> dave and josh, great to have both of you on. thank you so much. there are some new tapes and more controversy over the trayvon martin killings. with pressure growing to arrest shooter george zimmerman, that's next. ben hooks owns the tyler texas-based buford media group. they are a tiny cable company serving 7,000 subscribers spread across six states. he continues to buy small rural systems that the major cable companies have abandoned. upgrading them to broadband to boost profit. carfirmation. only hertz gives you a carfirmation. hey, this is challenger. i'll be waiting for you in stall 5. it confirms your reservation and the location your car is in,

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with a ballot measure to send every k-through-12 dollar straight to our schools. to every school and every child. not to sacramento. it's the only initiative that can say all that. check out our online calculator and find out how your school would benefit. visit ourchildrenourfuture2012.com today. the latest release of audio recordings from the night an unarmed florida teen was shot and killed is escalating calls from the shooter's immediate arrest. the lawyer for the family of 17-year-old trayvon martin says the teen was on the phone with his girlfriend just moments before his fatal encounter with neighborhood watch volunteer george zimmerman. >> so she says, run.

he says, i'm not going to run, i'm just going to walk fast. at that point, she says -- she hears trayvon say, why are you following me? that's when she says she hears another voice say, what are you doing around here? >> zimmerman is claiming self-defense and has not been charged, though martin just had a can of iced tea and a bag of skittles in his hands. civil rights leaders held a peaceful rally last night calling for zimmerman arrest. alex ferrer is joining us now. we know martin was on the phone with his girlfriend just moments before the shooting. karen, what is your reaction to the girlfriend's claims that he called her and said, somebody's watching me, somebody's following me? >> i had the same reaction that i had before i found out about the girlfriend and that is that we're in america. while people want to add race to this and there probably is a very strong racial component, at the end of the day, this is about a citizen who was coming home with a bag of skittles and

an iced tea and got accosted and lost his life. in this country, that should never happen. as we fight for freedoms around the world, syria and egypt and sudan and they have this whole kony movement, in america 2012, a young man cannot go home safely. that to me is the crux of this. if we're really serious about what it means to be an american and the constitution and our inai inailable rights, that's what this conversation is about. >> martin's parents spoke with the "today" show's matt lauer today. >> i feel he needs to be arrested because a crime was committed. my son is murdered. my son is not with us no more. nothing can bring him back. >> judge, this was a controversial law when it was passed. it gives people in florida the right to protect themselves with

deadly force. does that complicate chances for an arrest and conviction here? >> it absolutely does. this is an emotional case. common sense dictates it's easy. but when you do the legal analysis, it becomes much harder because details like, he was carrying a gun, he had a permit to carry a gun and florida allows that. he didn't listen to the police when they said, don't follow him. he doesn't have to under those circumstances. the "stand your ground" law gives people the ability to defend the use of deadly force in circumstances where before the law was passed they couldn't justify it. so -- >> i don't want to get ahead of ourselves but i want to make sure i understand you. if this would go to trial -- and, again, no arrests have been made -- but if this goes to trial and common sense would tell a juror the shooter is on the phone with the police and the police say, don't pursue him and he does it anyway, he could be instructed under this law that that's irrelevant? >> more than that. first of all, the instruction from the dispatcher was, well, are you following him? yes.

we don't need you to do that. it wasn't a police order. if the police were on the scene and said, you're interrupting my investigation, stand down and he didn't, he could be arrested. but if i see somebody in my neighborhood and i think he's breaking into homes, the dispatcher can say, i don't want you to do that, but i can still do it and i'm not going to get arrested for that. all those things certainly build to make it look like this guy had a bad motive. perhaps he did. yesterday i would have say this is a very difficult case for the police to put together with the information you have because when this happens, the shooter's the only one left to give you his version and you don't have the other person available. >> that's the point made about this law, right? and it's a law in 21 states. this is data from the florida department of law enforcement, the number of justifiable homicides tripled since the law went into effect. >> but, judge, "stand your ground" applies to -- if you're being threatened.

in this case, this young man was walking home, minding his business, he was approached by zimmerman. it was at any time other way around. if you're stangd your ground, what is zimmerman standing his ground for when he's pursuing this young man? >> no question. what i'm saying is that when you come to the point of trial, you're only going to have zimmerman's version because he killed the young man. there's no question the evidence indicates the young man was not involved in anything illegal, anything improper, he was behaving completely properly. but when it comes to trial, the story you're going to hear is zimmerman's story that he was the one who yelled for help, that he confronted the young man and the young man came at him. that's the version you're going to get. we see it over and over again. it's so frustrating to judges and prosecutors that people get away with shootings because of the "stand your ground" law. yesterday we learned that in that 911 tape, or at least i heard and if it's true, changes the whole ball game. heard that there's a racial

epiteph, if that's true, it creates an animus. it creates -- >> is this going to create a bigger dialogue? >> at the end of the day, this is a fundamental right every citizen has. my dad wore a suit and tie for most of our lives. and he said, that's my bulletproof vest. in 2012, do we have to arm our children now with bulletproof vests and is that okay? trayvon martin may have been a black teen, but if you're looking at it, it could have been your child, my nephew, my brother. and if we don't start looking at these cases as if it's us, we stand to fall into the same trap we've seen over and over again. there was a priest -- mueller, and he got snatched by the nazis

and he wrote this poem, they came for me. and at the end of it, no one was left. well, we have to stand up and say, this is not going to happen anymore in this country. we're americans. citizens have the right to walk home and not lose their lives. >> important conversation and it will continue. karen hunter, thank you. judge, did you want to make one more point? >> i was just going to say, i want to make it clear, i'm not supporting what zimmerman did at all. i'm completely opposed to it. i'm saying it's difficult from a legal standpoint. and maybe some laws need to be changed. >> judge alex ferrer, thank you so much for helping us to understand that law. this case will continue to heater later today. the president of the naacp is going to be hosting an open forum in sanford, florida. and tomorrow, reverend al sharpton will hold another rally in florida. energy security and economic growth. north america actually has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. a large part of that is oil sands.

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senate majority leader harry reid and mitch mcconnell both want this to move forward. a few members were pushing for even tougher standards and wanted it to go back to committee. but reid said that would take too long. last night, ron paul aid peer appeared on "the tonight show" with jay leno. >> rumors going around that there was a secret deal between you and mitt romney. anything to that? >> something about it's very secret because we and i don't know a whole lot about it. >> should newt gingrich get out of the race? does it look like he can't -- >> well, i'm not telling him what to do. but i think the other three should just get out of the race. >> didn't he steal that line from rick santorum? i think so. and the joke going around on twitter, this is pretty r

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french police have been in a tense stand-off since early this morning with a man suspected in a series of shootings in toulouse including the deaths of three children and a rabbi at a jewish school on monday. let's get right to nbc's jim maceda who's live in toulouse with the latest. there were reports the suspect is going to surrender. any sign of that happening? >> reporter: there is no sign of

that happening yet and it's becoming extremely tense now, chris, inside that house, of course, is the gunman. he's been in there now faced off with french police for about 12 hours. an hour ago, the police said, okay, negotiations are now over, it's time for you to surrender. if you don't, we're going to storm the house. we're being told that the police here -- and they're about 200 or 300 yards away from me, are just waiting for the word from their higher-ups in paris and then they will storm that house. there are a lot of considerations, not the at least of which, are there explosives inside that house with the gunman? he's been doing a lot of talking for the last number of hours. we know his name is muhammad nara. he's 24 years old. he's from toulouse. he was trained with al qaeda in

pakistan's tribal territories. he returned to france to commit -- carrying out all the recent killings here in this toulouse area. he said he killed the french soldiers to protest against western intervention in afghanistan and that he killed the jewish children on monday at the jewish school to avenge what he called the children killed in palestine. so we're talking about an extremely hard-core -- not a lone wolf, perhaps, but certainly a home-grown terrorist, somebody that's traveled back and forth to the tribal areas. and now saying that he will surrender. but we just don't know when. chris? >> jim maceda, thank you so much. we'll keep you posted on what's going on in toulouse. meantime, residents of southern mexico are cleaning up this morning after a strong 7.4 magnitude earthquake caused damage to buildings. about a dozen people were hurt. amazingly, no deaths were reported. first daughter, malia obama is

in that region on a class service trip. but the first lady's office says she is completely safe. two new study that is show taking an aspirin a day may reduce the risk of cancer and prevent it from spreading. among the findings, people who take aspirin have a 15% lower risk of dying from cancer even after diagnosis. aspirin users have a 36% lower risk of having their cancers spread. add batten down the hatches. democrats have come out in full force against paul ryan's budget. >> this budget they're putting forward today is a budget mitt romney will love. >> i think mr. ryan's plan, like i said before, it's deja vu all over again. it's the same plan. >> it is not a plan that this president could support. >> well, republicans want to slash both medicare and the top tax rate. and the budget is shaping up as a key political issue in this election year. katherine ranpel is the economic

editor for "the new york times" and ezra kline is with "the washington post." talk down to me, feel free. this kind of stuff does make people's heads tend to want to explode when they hear it all going out. let's talk about ryan's budget first, katherine. for people who want to know, what does it mean to me, what's the headline? >> the headline is lower tax rates and a total overhaul of medicare. but the subheadline is if you believe any of those things are actually going to happen. there are a lot of assumptions that are in this plan that ryan put out that the congressional budget office, when it's trying to figure out how it will affect the deficit and the debt going forward, has to believe are true. but it's not actually clear that you could ever get congress behind the kind of medicare overhaul that ryan is proposing. >> and of course last night here's mitt romney, what he had to say about this. >> this budget deal is with entitlement reform, tax policy which is very similar to the one

that i put out. and efforts to rein in excessive spending, i applaud it. it's an excellent piece of work and very much needed. >> lower taxes, rein in excessive spending. the talking points we've been hearing all along, ezra, right? >> yes, and the budget data on medicare become closer to what romney's already put forward. but it's important to say that there is sort of the headlines that ryan likes in this budget. he's taking on medicare and doing this big tax reform. there's also what the budget actually does. medicare is not the biggest part of the budget savings. it isn't even the second biggest part of the budget savings. the biggest savings are everything that is not medicaid, medicare and social security which goes down by trillions of dollars. the second biggest savings come from essentially health care for poor people, medicaid and the affordable care act. it takes trillions of dollars in cuts, much more than you see in actual medicare. meanwhile, the defense spending goes up a little bit, by about $200 billion over ten years.

on the tax side, he's created a tax reform plan. he hasn't said how he'll pay for it. but the distance between where he says he is and where he needs to be is $2.6 trillion. it looks right now as essentially a large transfer in which largely health care for poor people is paying for tax cuts, deficit reduction and increased defense spending. >> your paper did an analysis that i think does exactly what a lot of us was hoping would get done. you talked about the real-life potential impact. for example, if the cuts were made to air traffic controllers, more flights would be canceled, delaying more than 3 million people every year. >> right. >> go ahead. >> this is my colleague, brad plumer. he did a wonderful job on this. one thing that happens in a lot of these budgets is these this bucket called nondiscretionary spending. it comes in for gigantic cuts because it's simply easier to cut. but it's where all these little

things the government does, like repairing your roads or airports actually does. >> and chris van holland previewed the democratic alternative. let me play that. >> a combination of cuts, but also additional revenue by closing a lot of tax loopholes and asking folks at the high end of the income ladder to share in reducing our deficit. >> that really is the crux of all this, isn't it, catherine? it sounds great to reduce the deficit. we talk about how the government has to start to live within its means. but how do you do that without -- >> one of his talking points is this idea that we need to broaden the base, we need to get rid of all these loopholes, get rid of the tax fraud and abuse. but exactly how that works is -- it's always kind of a mystery meat. all the loopholes that congress would have to get rid of in

order to broaden the base, in order to say that rich people are actually going to pay what the statute says they pay, they've they'd have to get rid of a lot of very popular things, including the mortgage interest deduction. it includes things like not having to pay taxes on your health care benefits. all these things that in the abstract it sounds like, oh, it's great if we fill in all of these holes. but every single one of those measures has some kind of very powerful constituency behind it. and a lot of voters love them, too. >> there aren't enough hours in the day to fight all those battles, for sure. catherine and ezra, great to have you here. thank you. rick santorum is upset. not only at the president and mitt romney but also at his own party. and the issue is, he says they favor tax breaks for higher income earners in big cities but ignore the rest of the country. on saturday, this is what he said -- look at the map of the united states, blue being the democrats, red being the republicans.

it's almost all red, except around the big cities. let's go to msnbc's richard lui. you're looking into whether or not rick santorum has a point. >> you know, santorum is right on one perspective. here are 2008 results by county. democrat strongholds are on the coast, as you can see. midwest and the rockies. the top ten cities, they're in all the blue areas for the most part. but geography does not vote, people do. what we're going to do is morph this to a map that shows population size. when we do that, we get what looks like a war shack test. this is from professor mark newman at the university of michigan. what he's done is, if there's one person in an area, the the state gets really, really small. and if there's 1 million people in it, it gets supersized. when weighted this way, it showed a balanced country, for the most part, red and blue. and santorum, in this case, would be wrong. heer here's another look by state results. looked pretty balanced. morph it to shrink states with

smaller populations. supersize those with more people. more blue is what you get. that's where santorum says mitt romney does well, blue, big, liberal cities. this year, that's what we've been seeing. in alabama, romney in the green area here won in spaces like birmingham, montgomery and mobile. in this area in springfield, santorum did well in the rural downstate parts. overall in 2012, romney's vote rises with higher populations. percent of vote on the left rises. for santorum, the opposite. with high votes in small places, lower votes in big places. one last thought for you, chris, santorum also argues big blue areas get too many tax breaks, as you were saying. but it's actually red areas taking more federal dollars than they give. seven of the top ten states taking more than they give in taxes leaning republican says

the tax foundation. the top ten states give more than they take all lean democrat. chris, back to you. >> fascinating stuff. thank you, richard lui. you can play with all that on your ipad. speaking of that, the new ipad is heating up, literally. and a sign of the improving economy, more women are heading back, yes, to the hair salon. cnbc's jackie deangelis is here with what's moving your money. 3 million ipads moved over the weekends. but i'm reading all this stuff that there's a temperature issue, right? >> reporter: good morning. that's exactly right. there is an issue. the question now is if the new ipad is too hot to handle. "consumer reports" has been investigating this. they're testing the new and improved devices to get a better handle on the issue. the tablet hit temperatures of 116 degrees after people played a video game for 45 minutes. that's about 13 degrees hotter than the ipad 2 under similar conditions. the new ipad is safe but it comes close to the 120-degree

point where laptops are considered too hot and could cause burns if they come in contact with the bare skin for a while. still however, "consumer reports" is saying the ipads are not so blazing hot as to warrant a recall. apple stock is closing above 600 mun for the first time this week, for the moment, apple seems untouchable. >> salon sales are up 5% in the last two years. i guess that's a sign of an improving economy? >> reporter: it's interesting. hair salons are becoming one of these new economic indicators. after getting back on household expenses during the recession, data is showing americans are visiting them more such and are opting for more expensive treatments. the industry has seen an uptick in business with sales rising more than 5% the past two years. this is seeming to be a good business to be in, chris. >> cnbc's jackie deangelis. your hair looks marvelous, by

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cancer than those who did not have the procedure. the procedure is better than the alternative. good morning, everybody. i'm thomas roberts. the agenda next hour, searching for justice for trayvon mornt. the sanford, florida, teen gunned down allegedly by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman. should george zimmerman be arrested? naacp leaders are meeting in the next hour. mitt romney takes illinois. so why is rick santorum still smiling? what is his secret. national press secretary for the santorum presidential campaign is my guest. and will marriage equality be repealed in new hampshire? we'll have a debate on that. chris? >> thomas, thank you. we have breaking news. jeb bush has endorsed mitt romney. of course, bush was probably the most frequently heard name, along with maybe chris christie and mitch daniels for somebody who would be a white knight who would vid into a contested convention. but here's the statement that we just got from the former florida governor.

ting chi part of it is this -- from the romney perspective, primary elections have been held in 34 states and now is the time for the republicans to unite behind governor romney. so the influential former governor jeb bush endorsing mitt romney. we'll have a lot more on that coming up. right now, the president is on his way to vegas as part of a four-state tour this week to highlight energy policies as gas prices, of course, continue to rise. the national average now $3.86 a gallon, up more than 30 cents from a year ago. the president's first stop will be at the nation's largest operating solar cell plant which uses nearly 1 million solar panels to power 17,000 homes. coral davenport is a correspondent for "national journal." good morning. >> thanks, good to be here. >> obviously as we mentioned, the president is doing this at a time when the americans are feeling the pain. you go to the grocery store and you see the prices going up because transportation prices are up. what are we expecting to hear

from him? what's his message going to be and how tough a message is it to deliver? >> it's a tough message to deliver. as long as gasoline prices can't to go up, the president will be under constant attack by his republican opponents. it's a great target. it's something, as you said, that voters feel every day. historically, we've seen that the higher gasoline prices are, the lower presidential approval ratings are. so president obama is going on the offense. as you mentioned, he's doing a number of appearances, four appearances -- four energy appearances in two days. he's not letting up on this message. so three of those appearances are in crucial 2012 battleground states. the first one will be this morning in nevada at a solar plant where, of course, he'll be talking about clean energy, trying to reinforce that clean energy jobs message, trying to push back against the criticism about the company solyndra. later today, he'll be in new mexico at an oil and gas field

showing that he also endorses drilling. tomorrow, he's got two more appearances, one in cushing, oklahoma, which is the oil pipeline center of america, sort of the oil transmission hub. so he'll be trying to there use that speech to deflect criticism about the keystone pipeline, about his rejection of the construction of the keystone pipeline. and then finally, last stop will be a clean tech facility in ohio, another crucial swing state. so each one of those is going to have a very clear, very targeted campaign message. and we should expect to see more of these as gasoline prices continue to go up. >> without a doubt. we're going to be following them all. coral davenport, thank you so much. today's tweet of the day comes from "the wall street journal's" neil king with a reminder, needing nearly twice as many delegates to clinch, obama at this point was just 130 up on clinton. romney is 300 up on santorum. we always hear about jobs leaving america. here's a chance to create jobs in america.

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peyton in, tebow out. let's go down to the wire. it's official. peyton manning is now the quarterback for the denver broncos with a five-year, $96 million contract pending physicals every year. with manning in, denver is reportedly looking to trade tebow. here's what manning said about him. >> if tim tebow is going to be here next year, he and i are going to help this team win games. >> jimmy fallon couldn't help but bring back his tebow character to bring back the issue -- ♪ ♪ but just like his messiah ♪ right now his career is dead but tebow will rise again ♪ >> okay. and that's going to wrap up this hour of "jansing & co." i'm chris jansing.

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and for healthy hair every day, try new pure renewal hair care, with balancing seaweed extract. only from aveeno. good morning. i'm thomas roberts. leading the agenda this morning, breaking news and big news for mitt romney. former florida governor jeb bush has finally decided to back mitt romney in the race to face president obama. bush has been on the sidelines, as you know, in this nomination fight for months, unwilling to link his name to a candidate, while rumors of a late entry swirled through the republican party. obviously that puts that to rest. this comes on the heels of a big victory for romney in illinois. this endorsement is an enormous shot of momentum for a campaign desperate to win the hearts and minds of conservative voters. let's start with alice stort. she is the national press secretary for the santorum presidential campaign. alice, great to have you with me. i want to talk to a