online our segment with deepak chopra you'll understand everything that's wrong with donny, everything. he is a deeply disturbed, completely unself-aware, needy human being. >> and a double breasted jacket. it's not going to get him in the club. just not. willie, it's way too early. it's way too early. >> here's chuck. >> mitt romney fires back at the president from the same stage where the president knocked the republican party the day before. but for romney, it got personal. he jabbed the president again and again. it's the start of his general election strategy but also he hopes a way of finally closing the door on the primaries. he doesn't want to be the party's de facto nominee and losing primaries in may. as rick santorum, has he gotten the message? he's taking a full five days off the campaign trail for the holidays and bet to do soul-searching, too. he'd love to win his home state

of pennsylvania but really doesn't want to lose it either. and squeezed out, can a moderate republican win anywhere anymore? centrist republicans have either lost or left the party because they say they've been crowded out by the more conservative base. but does anyone in the party care? my deep dive this morning. good morning from washington, thursday, papril 5th, 2010. this is "the daily rundown." for the first time mitt romney though hesitantly is calling for his republican rivals to leave. in a q were a&a before the audience of newspaper editors romney was asked if he had spoken to rick santorum and newt gingrich to get into the race, he essentially called for them to get out without calling for them to get out? >> no, i haven't. but now that you bring it up -- actually, you know, i think people are free to make their own decision and respect their right to do so. i hope that we're able to resolve our nomination process

as soon as possible, of course, because i'd like to focus our time and attention on those key battleground states. >> pressure is building on santorum, the remaining serious challenge to pack it in. santorum is faced with the real potential of an embarrassing loss in his home state. stumping in pennsylvania yesterday he did his best to play up his local roots. >> i shot my first deer in somerset county oh about 30 years ago. barack obama four years ago referred to this area of pennsylvania, right here, as a place that holds on -- "clings to their guns and their bibles." you're damned right we do. >> but at every stop, reporters were only interested in the answer to one question. >> how important is pennsylvania? is it a must win state? >> oh, yeah, we have to win here and we plan on winning here. >> is it absolutely a must win for you, period?

>> i don't know how many times i need to say this. i say the same things over. we are going to win pennsylvania and we need to win pennsylvania. >> here's what we know this morning, santorum will be off the campaign trail for the next five days for easter and his daughter's 21st birthday, according to the campaign, but in a presidential campaign, five days is an eternity. for romney the big issue is not pennsylvania. the issue is the month of may, and may the primary caldor moves south to west virginia, arkansas, kentucky and texas. romney doesn't want to be de facto nominee and losing primaries. romney campaign has to decide whether to run another tough campaign against santorum in pennsylvania, raise santorum's negative or his own. how will they go? the pressure on santorum is building. >> it's in our interests as republicans and conservatives to coalesce, unify and focus on the fall instead of dragging out some long thing in the sum per. >> now it's clear the nominee,

most american voters will be looking at mitt romney from that viewpoint, i also hope that rick santorum would understand that it's time for a graceful exit. >> obviously he's lashing out here in the final stages of his campaign. this race for the nomination as a practical matter is over. i understand rick wanting to cling to it a little while longer. i hope that he doesn't. i hope that he sees the need to unify this party. >> and what kind of future does santorum want in republican politics? so far he's dodging the 2016 question. >> next time? you haven't talked to my wife, obviously. >> for all purposes, next time around though. >> you didn't hear what i said, you haven't talked to my wife about next time. >> next time? >> we're not -- the last thing we're think being is next time. >> meanwhile the romney campaign is beginning to staff up for the general. this morning, the campaign announced that former rnc chairman ed gillespie will take a leave of absence from the largest republican super pac we

know these days, american crossroads, to join team romney a senior adviser in particular working on the convention. in tough speeches before a group of newspaper editors in d.c. this week, both president obama and mitt romney unveiled dueling playbooks for the fall campaign. mitt romney wants to make his campaign a referendum on the president and the president a referendum on the entire republican party. romney name checked the president at every opportunity, mentioning obama or obama care 22 times. >> president obama. president obama. president obama. obama, obama, obama, obama, obama, obama. >> and romney raised questions about the president's character by suggesting he's hiding his real intentions for a second term in order to get reelected. >> he doesn't want to share his real plans before the election either with the public or with the press.

his intent is on hiding. you and i are going to have to do the seeking. he wants to us reelect him so we can find out what he'll actually do. this is not the time for president obama's hide and seek campaign. >> romney can't afford for the election to be a referendum on the damaged republican brand and tried to recriticisms of the republican budget. >> the president railed against arguments yesterday no one is making and criticized policies no one is proposing. it's one of his favorite strategies, setting up straw men to distract us from his record. >> democrats are eager to chain romney to the unpopular parts of paul ryan's budget plan hoping it will make it harder for romney to move to the center in the fall. romney is praising ryan in his speech. >> congressman paul ryan, who by the way unlike the president, has had the courage to offer serious solutions to the problems we face.

>> what does the potential running mate had v to say about an ideological fight over the role of government in the months ahead? paul ryan's message has been, he wants it, bring it on. >> do you think that this will be the defining battle of this next few months? >> yes, i think the president is getting desperate. i think he's getting more partisan. i'm happy to go to the country to give them a choice of two futures. you want the american idea, limited government, free society, with the social safety net or do you want the cradle-to-grave welfare state. >> message to paul ryan when you're running for vice president, if you are, don't say "i'm ready to go." you're supposed to talk about the potential nominee himself. back and forth over the supreme court, there are no good guys, everyone is to blame for the politicization. the president used language normally used by conservatives

to attack conserdecisions they like. >> for years we heard the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint, an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. well, there's a good example. >> on tuesday that political controversy spilled into a texas federal court, where judge jerry smith on the fifth circuit demanded that the justice department in essence refute what the president said as our court watchers point out, that was a highly unusual request. >> i'm referring to statements by the president in the past few days, to the effect, and i'm sure you've heard about them, that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed "unelected judges" to strike acts of congress.

>> now republicans tried to get as much mileage as they could out of the president's congress. minority leader mitch mcconnell circulated a list of 169 times that the supreme court struck down federal laws in part or completely and mcconnell will double down in his criticism in his speech to the rotary club of lexington, kentucky. the white house tried to walk back what the president said without admitting they were walking back, awkwardly defending what the president said on monday but rewording it. >> it is clear that the president was talking about matters like this, that involve the commerce clause, that involve congress passing legislation to deal with national economic importance, national economic matters like health insurance, which is clearly a national economic issue. >> bottom line, the courts have been politicized. that's nothing new. remember newt gingrich even in december saying the ninth circuit should be abolished and u.s. marshals could bring judges

before congress to explain unpopular decisions. don't forget the justices themselves aren't blameless. remember justice scalia's snarky tone through the health care oral arguments, griped about reading the bill, and the cruel and unusual punishment. >> mr. kneadler what happened to the eighth amendment? you really want us to go through these 2,700 pages, and do you really expect the court to do that? or do you expect us to give this function to our law clerks? >> and he used other tea party talking points at times there, talking about the cornhusker kickback. the fact as we said in the beginning, there aren't good guys here. everyone is tit-for-tat and the effect has been more of the public thinks that the court is just as politically polarized as the house, the senate, and the presidency. all right, it's the day before the big day, the march unemployment report comes out tomorrow but there are some job

numbers out today as well. we've got the ones from yesterday, becky is here. what you got? >> there are some pretty good jobs numbers we got today, 357,000 jobless claims, down 6,000 from the revised numbers from last week and once again the lowest number that we've seen in four years. you have to go back to april of 2008 to see numbers like this. it's starting to chip away at this idea that maybe this is just a temporary game. maybe this is because of the weather, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of the excuses we heard. we saw numbers from adp wednesday and has people excited what to expect tomorrow. tomorrow is the biggie, the jobs number or the jobs report, and chuck, the markets are actually closed tomorrow but we'll be here talking about things, coming in especially even though the markets are closed because you can't go away and ignore numbers like this. the jobs report has been the most important number we've been watching, like i said all the things leading, the points leading up to this have been

positive and that has the market optimistic at this point. the other thing we're getting today are numbers from retailers, same-store sales for march, better than expected numbers. we heard from target. we heard from macy's, we heard from gap, all of them with better than expected numbers, all above 7% in turns of comp. store sales and all saying the better than expected weather and just shoppers coming out in droves led to those very, very strong numbers. >> so more blaming of the weather is what you're saying but we're blaming the weather for a good thing. >> exactly. don't forget tomorrow is the big number. >> it's always the weather, we'll somehow figure that in. becky as always thank you the obama campaign has set its sights on mitt romney and the republican party. can the white house make this election on a referendum on the gop and not themselves? president obama's deputy campaign manager, stephanie cutter joins me next. plus it's hard for a moderate. another republican runs for the hill saying his party is

becoming too, in his words, radical. could the party-switching trend motivate the gop to re-think some things? we'll see. but first a look ahead, president's schedule, most interesting thing has to be the showing of "to kill a mockingbird" 50th anniversary, later this evening, president obama is hosting that screening, at 5:00 today. that's something you wouldn't want to miss. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. ♪ you are my sunshine, my only sunshine ♪ ♪ you make me happy when skies are gray ♪ [ female announcer ] you know exactly what it takes to make them feel better.

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the general election is basically under way with the

president's re-election team calling out mitt romney by name multiple times. this week the obama campaign came out with their second tv ad, blasted romney for his ties to big oil. >> under president obama, domestic oil production is at an eight-year high, so why is big oil attacking him? because he's fighting to end their tax breaks. in all these fights, mitt romney stood with big oil, for their tax breaks, attacking higher mileage standards and renewables. >> there's also a new web ad by the pro-obama superpac which mocks romney for referring to paul ryan's budget as marvelous. >> marvelous. >> absolutely marvelous! >> stephanie cutter is the deputy campaign manager for the president's re-election campaign and joins me now from chicago. stephanie, good morning.

>> good morning. >> i want to start with i guess you guys are playing political analyst here, jim messina in an e-mail sent last night marking the one-year anniversary of the start of the president's re-election campaign says the general election has basically begun. you believe mitt romney is your opponent? >> we believe mitt romney is more likely than not to be the republican nominee. i think they are doing ining a analysis themselves, how do we get santorum out of the race for the next couple of weeks. look at the recent gallonup pol romney lost ten points. it's for good reasons he's lost the support of independents. he's anxiously trying to get rick santorum out of the race before the may primaries because he doesn't want to stumble into the general election winning --

losing those primaries in early may. >> this week you guys put up a tv ad that hit mitt romney a little bit of a response but a little bit of hit on mitt romney. the. the went after him by name for the first time, was not technically a campaign speech but certainly sounded like a campaign speech. you put out a web video hitting mitt romney. is this what the campaign is going to look like from your end every day, sort of a relentless hit on mitt romney in some form? >> well, i wouldn't call it a relentless hit. i call it fact checking and holding romney accountable for things he said on the trail that don't add up or needs to be called on some of the conservative policies and consequences of them. on our energy ad we went up with a couple days ago we got attacked by the oil industry by a super pac wholly funded by the oil industry that mitt romney is taking money from, and we decided to turn that back around. if you're going to hit us and destroy our record, then we're

going to talk about our record and talk about mitt romney's record. for instance he's trying to protect $4 billion in subsidies for the oil industry, something the american people ought to know. in terms of the president's speech before the associated press, the other day, where he walked through his vision for a balanced economy, an economy that's growing and bringing everybody forward, investing in the middle class, compared to a different vision, a vision put forward by mr. ryan, in the republican budget, a republican budget that mitt romney has completely wrapped his arms around. the president made clear very factually what the consequences of that romney/ryan budget would mean. it would mean the end of medica medicare, giving millionaires and billionaires hundreds of thousands of new tax kuds paid for by seniors and the middle class. >> mitt romney went before the same audience the day before yesterday and he basically is saying, okay, we know how the president's attacking me and the republican party but we don't know what the president is going to be for.

here's what he said. >> he doesn't want to share his real plans before the election, either with the public or with the press. by flexibility, he means that what the american public doesn't know won't hurt him. >> so i guess the question to you is at what point does the president talk about what he's going to do in a second term? >> well, chuck, i'm not -- i know mitt romney was busy earlier this year, so he must not have caught the president's state of the union but you and i both did and he laid out an aggressive agenda, a blueprint to make this economy the strongest economy in the world, and invest in the american worker. and that was a pretty detailed agenda, and that's what the president has been talking about, trying to move forward, throughout the course of this year. it's pretty clear that this term's agenda and second term agenda would focus on one thing, the middle class, so there's no hide and seek there.

if you want to talk about hide and seek i would point out a couple of things in mitt romney's speech. for instance he talks about his budget. he says we're distorting the fact that he's going to have across the board cuts to get to his deficit reduction. okay, there's not across the board cuts, what is it? what are the cuts? how is he going to pay for his $5 trillion in tax cuts targeted towards millionaires and billionai billionaires. he can't tell us how he's going to pay for it because it can't be scored. he has to work with congress to score it. that's an example of hide and seek. what is his massachusetts record? he says he has unique experience as a ceo in the private sector, experience he took to massachusetts. let's look at the massachusetts record. he doesn't talk about it. 47th out of 50 in job creation, hundreds of fees on the middle class. >> i manage this is going to get litigated throughout. i want to talk about the supreme court a minute, what the president said on monday. we heard it earlier in the show. there's an interesting story in

the "new york times" democratic pollsters being quoted saying it's possible that you could galvanize democrats and even independents if the supreme court doesn't rule your way on health care. do you buy that? >> you know, chuck, i read that same story, too. we're not going to engage in hypotheticals of what the supreme court, if they don't rule that the health care law is constitutional, what that might mean, because we believe the law is constitutional. we believe the supreme court will uphold it. now, i will say that if the law is struck down, and people who are already receiving benefits from the law, you know, parents whose adult kids are now on their health care, parents whose kids have pre-existing conditions are no longer being discriminated against, women getting free mammograms, all of the benefits people are realizing if the court strikes down the law, there will be consequences to that. the american people don't want these things being taken away

from them. that's all that i would say about what might happen or might not happen when the supreme court rules. >> and very quickly since we were in wisconsin this week in that primary, we know there's a lot of attention on another election in wisconsin. how involved will the democratic party and obama for america be in the recall effort in wisconsin, if the democratic party there asks for help, will you guys assist them, considering it's a swing state in the fall? >> well it's possible. obviously there's a stake in that election, and we believe that the governor has penalized working families across that state. so it's possible. we certainly want to see a good outcome there. >> and so the president or the vice president could campaign for the democrats there? >> i'm not going to get ahead of anybody's schedule, but we are of course paying attention to wisconsin. we have a stake in the outcome of that election, and we're watching it closely.

>> stephanie cutter, deputy campaign manager, thanks for joining us this morning. >> thanks, chuck. up next, the picture that grabbed my attention this morning, and the surprise retirement on capitol hill from a guy who already had won his primary. what's really going on? first today's trivia question, who are the only mother and son to serve simultaneously in congress? tweet me the answer. the first correct answer gets a "follow thursday" from us. the capital one cash rewards card gives you a 50% annual bonus. and who doesn't want 50% more cash? ugh, the baby. huh! and then the baby bear said, "i want 50% more cash in my bed!" phhht! 50% more cash is good ri... what's that. ♪ you can spell. [ male announcer ] the capital one cash rewards card.

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some other stories i'm watching this morning, republican congressmen tim johnson of illinois will not seek re-election in 2012. the surprise decision comes a few weeks after he won the republican primary in his new district. he was redistributed out of his

old seat, best known for being that guy that calls every constituent in his district. terrorism charges were filed for the second time against da khalid sheikh mohammed. courtesy of the california department of corrections here is the latest picture of serial killer charles manson. manson is now 77, faces one of the ridiculous parole hearings he loves to theatric at april 11th. he was convicted of killing actress sharon tait and six others in a killing spree in 1969. squeezing out, are centrists and moderates no longer welcome in the gop? some of them are leaving the gop. plus are we there yet? mitt romney makes no secret he wants his primary to be over. how does he get the rest of the field to drop out or stop

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can a moderate republican find a home in the republican party anymore? that's our "deep dive" today, or has the gop moved too far to the right and conservatives are squeezing everybody else out? it is getting harder for a centrist to one in a one on one fight in republican politics. mitt romney's success is due in part to the splintered conservative choices he was up against. what is a mod rah to do? one option is leave the party. it's a bold move but comes with plenty of risk. >> i don't have a political party to rely upon anymore. i have to rely upon the people. i need them in order to win. it is going to be a tough slog. i understand that. i'm a realist, but i also understand the power of the people, and if you can tap into that and they believe you, and they know it's genuine, then it becomes unstoppable.

>> that was the problem, though, for charlie crist in florida, he never convinced voters he was genuine, it was rather political expediency. the party changed in a couple of years. crist was on the outs with republicans for literally embracing the president and the stimulus plan in 2009. he left the party after polls showed him trailing marco rubio in the nomination. arlen specter facing the prospect of losing his senate seat and the republican domination. he switched party in 2009 two weeks after pat toomey joined the race. he said the party he had been with for 44 years was no longer the same. >> i found myself increasingly at odds with the republican philosophy and more aligned with the philosophy of the democratic party. therefore, i have decided to be

a candidate for re-election in 2010 in the democratic primary. >> well that didn't work. after failing to win over republicans, specter didn't convince democrats either and he lost the democratic primary to joe sestak the following year. lincoln chaffee after losing the election bid in 2006, he jumped ship and became an independent and he was elected the first independent governor of rhode island. michael bloomberg switched from the republican party to independent, barely put a dent in his popularity, all of the decisions for political expediency in new york city. after serving two terms as the republican mayor of new york he not only switched parties and managed to change term limit laws and is a third term limit. now he keeps both parties at arm's length. >> we have to work together in the partisan bickering. there are no heroes. both sides of the aisle, both sides of pennsylvania avenue, they aren't coming together to focus on a real solution.

>> let's remember, bloomberg ran as a republican because he never thought he could ever win a democratic primary. so at the end of the day the vast majority of these decisions were as much about being personally politically practicing ma tipragmatic as they were about politics. in many cases the switch was a political move to hold or win elected office. that brings us to the san diego mayoral race. assemblyman fletcher made the risky choice of leaving the republican party. here's how he explained the decision to voters. >> in today's political environment you're expected to play the game. i've been told by many in the republican party i'm not very good at this, and there's a reason. i could care less about playing games. because i don't believe this is a game. and that's why today i'm leaving partisan politics. i'm leaving an environment that thrives on playing the game. i'm leaving behind a system that is completely dysfunctional. i'm embracing in independence.

>> joining me now is california assemblyman nathan fletcher, candidate for mayor of san diego. okay, the first thing a republican is going to e-mail or tweet me is saying, well he's just leaving because he can't win a republican primary, he can't get the support of republicans. what say you? >> well i could have won this race as a republican. i don't think i could govern as one. our environment today right to that point has evolved to one where the party insiders that control so much of the process would rather preserve a problem to campaign on it than solve one. i have a long and demonstrated track record of actually solving problems so what i'm saying to the voters of san diego it s if you want a mayor looking more at the substance of the idea, than whose idea it is, if you want a mayor who will focus on solutions and how we move forward, i'm your choice. there is a different way to do it. the way everyone's doing it now in this overly partisan environment, where it is just a

game is not serving our constituents well, not putting teachers in the classroom, not helping small business owners do it and i am a saying i believe there is a different way and that's what it's going to take to move the city of san diego forward. >> when it comes to these and i've watched this over time, it always feels good to voters at the time before an election, i think to minnesota for instance, the idea of an independent, nobody attached to a political party and when you have to move an agenda through you realize well you need that party apparatus sometimes inside this system, and you may be able to campaign as an independent but then suddenly you realize that you're trying to -- your legislative process is polarized. >> if this is what it's

going to take to move san diego

forward, we should have the role of principles versus the roles of party there sometimes just to preserve chaos. >> let me ask you a raw politics question. mitt romney has contributed money to you before. are you supporting him in the presidential race? >> i am. i am. i'm thrilled to have the support of governor romney. i think he will make a good president and nothing's changed in terms of my principles or my positions, my policies of support. i'm thrilled to have the support of democratic colleagues of mine who were supporting me before this and i'm proud to have support of donors from both parties, folks who have invested in a better future, and believe that there is a different way to do it. >> had you won the party's endorsement when you went for it, would you have stayed in the party? >> oh, i don't know. you could do a neverending kind of series of hypotheticals. we knew we'd never get that when we went through it. and the response has been interesting, chuck, because any time you're being attacked from the head of the republican party, and you're simultaneously

being attacked from the head of the democratic party and they both say you're wrong, i got to think there might be some merit. maybe we are actually right. and my track record, if you look at my colleagues i've served with, the democratic speaker of the assembly, nathan has always been an independent voice for what he believes is right. you look at the colleagues from the republican party says this is something he struggled with for a long time and we know he's doing what he believes in his heart is the right thing and we fully support and stand with him. if you look at the hundreds or thousands of comments we've gotten from regular folks, not only in san diego but across america who say we're tired of the bickering and pettiness. we want a leader to start moving us forward, i'm convinced that people are ready for this type of change. >>:o, in okay, nathan fletcher be watching your race, an interesting way to shake things up there. us as journalists we always take comfort when we get bashed on both sides on twitter these days but still uncomfortable and still ugly. thanks for coming on. >> i feel your pain.

thank you for having me. have a great day. >> all right. our political panel will be here next but first, of course, for so many of you, who love and hate this at the same time i have to say it. the white house soup of the day, what is it? it's going to be a quiet day so it's a quiet soup, tomato bisque. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. choose control. introducing gold choice. the freedom you can only get from hertz to keep the car you reserved or simply choose another. and it's free. ya know, for whoever you are that day. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. ♪ home was an airport lounge and an ipad ♪ ♪ made sure his credit score did not go bad ♪

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of the benefits of shopping small. on just one day, 100 million of us joined a movement... and main street found its might again. and main street found its fight again. and we, the locals, found delight again. that's the power of all of us. that's the power of all of us. that's the membership effect of american express. numbers don't lie. now that mitt romney is half way to the 1,144 mark he needs to officially clinch the nomination, rick santorum would have to get 0% of all the remaining delegates in order to get a shot, really more than that if you count the nonbinding delegates. it's harder and harder for santorum to find a rationization to stay in. how does romney get his opponent to stop running? joining me is msnbc contributor robe robert traynor, robert, you know

rick santorum personally, worked for him a long time ago. how does he go through, he's taken five days off the campaign trail. yes it's easter but yes it's soul searching time. who can convince him when the gig is up? >> his wife and also his conscience and his conscience is very much in sync with the catholic church. rick santorum is not just doing this to win. he's believing this is a mission of his in terms of trying to change the heart and soul of the republican party. chuck you know better than i do, he has said over and over and over again, are we going to elect a moderate as republicans or are we going to elect a conservative? he believes he is the true conservative in this race. you remember back in 19 6, it was ronald reagan versus gerald ford and a national conversation whether or not you want a moderate at the top of the ticket or conservative. rick santorum believes he's that conservative. >> mitt romney not responding frankly to what may be his

biggest achilles heel at this moment in a general election campaign. here's what he said yesterday. >> why do you think you face this gender gap? >> well, i know that our party has traditionally faced a gender gap and i think the democratic party has done an effective job of trying to mischaracterize our views. i this i that in the final analysisly win by having the support of men and women. >> you know and he was asked another question about has the republican party moved too far to the right, trying to respond to the president. he ducked both questions. he's not yet ready to "make the break." >> right, and that shows that he knows the republican primary isn't quite over, but he needs to, clearly needs to have a better response to especially the question about you know, the republican party's appeal to women and in that answer he also focused a lot on what his wife, ann, tells him about what women say. >> which is weird. basically saying i'm really not in touch. i have to use my wife. >> right, and that just you know.

>> reinforces the negative. >> he needs a different answer. >> john the issue of when does he break, and can he break? does he break? does he need to break? you have a conservative movement that has been railing that mitt romney is no conservative. so does he need a sister soldier moment from conservatives or is it about the republican brand he's got to distance himself from? >> i think if there were an issue he was going to break on it would be the idea of a deficit reduction or debt package potentially, since he's linked himself so much with paul ryan. on that issue it could be revenues, talking about raising taxes or increasing revenues through closing loopholes, one sister soldier moment where the base would not be happy about it. i don't know that he needs to make a huge break other than the brand, and some of these positions on women's issues as well. you know, i don't know how much substancely he can do. >> it's interesting, robert, to see, when you watch the obama campaign react to romney this week, it's all on one hand they're running against the

republican party and trying to tie romney to it. they put out a web video made us think maybe they're feeling defensive on one of romney's charges. here is the clip of this web video. >> the president has pledged to transform america, and he spent the last four years laying the foundation for a new government-centered society. >> i have never been somebody who believes that government can or should try to solve every problem. >> there's -- >> a little defensive? >> they are sensitive to this charge and to this growing into a stereotype. >> i think two things. one, i guess their internal polling data shows they're a little soft on this issue, hence the reason they need to define themselves or redefine themselves. secondly, i don't understand why they did this now when they have rick santorum and newt gingrich already attacking mitt romney on being a pretty much a moderate. i think it's a waste of resources and reinforces in my opinion that they're a little defensive on this.

>> in many ways, never let up, they're not letting a day go. >> they've got plenty of resources and the web videos are not that expensive to make. and you know, get an audience. you know, get an audience, 13 million or so on their e-mail list, you know. the era of big government is not over. >> he is trying to at least figure a way of adopting the sentiment. >> it is complicated. you take the healthcare law, it is not a government solution despite the rhetoric. >> he led an industry. >> still in charge. a lot of his base still to this day, you see the negative marks for healthcare law, some of them are on the left. >> when we come back, speaking of healthcare, i want to talk supreme court. stick around. trivia time. who are the only mother and son to serve simultaneously in congress? francis bolton and her son, oliver bolton, both from ohio. they served together in the '50s

and '60s. we'll be back. you're watching "the daily rundown" on msnbc. with maxwell house french roast, you let gravity do the work. [ male announcer ] maxwell house french roast. always good to the last drop. [ male announcer ] maxwell house french roast. greetings from the people here sure are friendly but some have had a hard time understanding my accent. so to make sure people get every word of the geico savings message i've been practicing how to talk like a true chicagoan. switching to geico could save you hundreds of dollars on car insurance... da bears. haha... you people sure do talk funny. geico®. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. between taking insulin, testing my blood sugar. is this part of your life? freestyle lite test strips? why, are they any beep! wow, that hardly needs any blood! yeah. and the unique zipwik tab

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let's bring back the panel. who started this politicizing of the courts, jon ward, who is to blame. obviously republicans are mad at president obama for acting like a partisan. you know, they're shocked he is a partisan democrat. >> who started it? >> i mean, exactly. it is an age old. >> i think i was a little surprised to see his comments on monday. i think a lot of times my instinct is to say well, i'll let wiser folks determine whether that was really as bad as it looked like to me, and seems like to me the consensus is in. there was a quote in "the washington post" this morning. >> lawrence stride, close to the

president, calling him out, saying that was out of bounds. >> jackie, there's this -- i guess these angry e-mails and comments from the left. >> you, too? >> that says wait a minute, the conservatives have been doing this for years. so the president critiques and second guesses them, and he's the bad guy? >> well, i mean, we've been seeing these fights for our entire careers here now. and it was interesting what he said on monday, it was like every school child who learns about margery versus madison that the court is the ultimate authority, can overturn a law. so the president misspoke. he tried to clean it up on tuesday. it made it a controversy it didn't need to be. >> that's what it seems. he raised it to a level -- >> the difference here is that it is okay for a member of congress to criticize the court, but the president, using the bully pulpit to do it, that's

when it is raised to a different level. george w. bush, ronald reagan, even bill clinton. >> shameless plug time. >> supreme court reporter did a piece on loughner, the case president obama cited. arguments last week went after lauf ner. >> jackie? >> for all the americans that missed the cherry blossoms because it peaked too soon, i wrote a piece on nytimes.com, tips how to see the cherry blossoms, what to do afterwards. >> ginger gibson from politico did a great story on romney going to my home state of pennsylvania, trying to beat rick santorum. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." see you tomorrow, jobs numbers friday. up next, kris jansing. see you later!

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