i like them. i'll re-tweet them. >> i found out that the greeks have air conditioned subways with flat screens. it sounds like one of those coors beer commercials. we need that in new york. >> we're done. >> it's way too early. >> see you back here tomorrow. stick around right now for chuck. mitt romney survives the weekend. he squeaked out wins in maine and won a straw poll as he mansioned to put the brakes on his his slide with conservatives. this morning the president releases his budget for the fiscal year and republican lawmakers are acting like it's doa but is anyone surpriseded that an election year budget is going nowhere? we'll give fun stats on that one. athens ablaze as greeks protest new austerity measures and we'll look at how the chaos could affect the economy at home. it's monday, february 13th,

2012. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chucked to. mitt romney eked out twin victories on saturday one at the cpac straw poll and the maine caucus winning each by a few hundred votes. he survived the weekend without solving his problems with conservative conservatives. in maine, romney scraped by ron paul by 194 totals votes winning 39% of the vote and keeping paul off 2012 winner board. the wins were enough to calm nervous supporters with a two-week hold before the next primaries on the calendar. nothing this weekend indicated that romney has figured out his severe problem with conservatives. at cpac romney used that word conservative two dozen times and sounded like he was making the case he's becoming a conservative rather than demonstrating proof he already

is one. severely. watch. >> this must be our greatest hour as conservatives. i know conservatism because i have lived conservatism. i was a severely conservative republican governor. >> immediately talkers on the right jumped on that last line. here's rush limbaugh on his show on friday. >> i have never heard anybody say i'm severely conservative. i don't want to get inundated by romney supporters. i'm just observing. i never heard it said. severe conservative. >> among the top five words it was in one column saying top five words saying after the word severely you hear illness or weather. sarah palin says she's not

convinced that romney is a constitutional conservative and he's still evolving. >> i don't think majority of gop and independent voters are convinced that's why you don't see romney get over that hump. we are not convinced. >> he's been running for five years. >> he's spent millions and millions of dollars. >> this is the yellow flashing light for romney. fact is that it's february. there's still a bunch of contests ahead in the primary season but he's defending his conservative credentials. it's a problem. he has to move to the right which takes his eye off of the ball for the general. rick santorum is already fund-raising off romney's cpac comments telling supporters in an e-mail romney described himself as being "severely conservative." a quick look at romney's record reveals he's severely mistaken. he campaigns in washington state today and idaho tomorrow before planting his flag in michigan on thursday. he says he's convinced the primary fight is now a

two-person race. >> i beat him by 30 points and able to beat him in colorado by five. i feel very good that this is a two-person race right now. that's how we're focused on it. i think michigan and arizona will show the same thing. >> newt gingrich is sort of cooperating. he's disappeared lately. santorum is not above sour grapes. he responded to defeat at cpac saying romney's staff rigged the votes. he was better organized and had more supporters there than santorum did. >> for years ron paul has won those because he trucks in a lot of people. pays for their ticket. they come in and vote and leave. i don't try to rig straw polls. you have to talk to the romney campaign on how many tickets they bought. we've heard all sorts of things. >> another guy whose campaign is complaining this morning. ron paul. >> we were a little bit disappointed last night but we were disappointed the one county we've done the best in the past and were expected to do the

past, they canceled their caucus. >> that county is washington county that didn't count because of snow. cast just eight votes for ron paul. we're not sure of the numbers. keep in mind the caucuses this year, the caucus process has not begun so well whether iowa in trouble counting votes, nevada and its trouble counting votes and turning them out in maine and another controversial this year for all advocates for trying to get rid of caulk ycus and get back to primaries ammunition this year. all white house documents are political documents and the election year budget the president rolls out today is no exception. it was delivered this morning with the usual ceremony, books, et cetera. it is probably going nowhere. in the first sunday show, round robin as white house chief of staff, jack lue defended the president's spending priorities. >> there's broad agreement that time for austerity is not today.

the challenge is how do you do two things at the same time. put money forward for payroll tax holiday and getting a jump-start of infrastructure. >> the plan calls for spending 3.8 trillion in 2013. congressional republicans are seizing on that number reminding voters the president promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of the first term and will reduce the deficit by $ 4 trillion over the next ten years. republicans say that the president's proposes is a combination of tax hikes for wealthy americans, savings from the wars in iraq and afghanistan and other cost cutting measures are more gimmicks and double counting. on the spending side, the document is a statement about the president's priorities and he leads with job training initiatives aimed at the middle class and where does he roll out

that priority? the community college. transportation projects get 476 billion. research and development and unemployment insurance gets an extension. >> senate democrats haven't passed a budget in 1,000 days even though the law requires it. i intend to offer the president's budget for him so he gets a chance to get a vote. >> will a deal get done on the payroll tax extension? public more finger pointing than negotiating is getting done. >> last year we saw an awful lot of incidents where washington's dysfunction became part of the uncertainty and the problem in the economy. congress has a challenge from now until the end of february to extend the payroll tax cut. >> i believe this will get

extended. when we make offer after offer based on policies that we know, democrats and president have supported in the past, but they still insist on not coming to agreement it's difficult to see exactly how this is going to pan out. >> 16 days. they get the extra day because it's leap year. it's the 29th. and more importantly, right now democrats believe that republicans are the ones on defensive here afraid of looking like they won't pass payroll packs cut so they seem to be trying to play the heavier hand here. we'll see how it plays out this week. outside of the political world of course the weekend's big story is the death of whitney houston. the news arrived the day before the grammy awards and last night's ceremony became a tribute to the talented but troubled singer. >> there is no way around this. we've had a death in our family. >> when truly great artists leave us, their legacy lives on. we love whitney houston. >> i just want to say to whitney

in heaven, we all love you, whitney houston. >> the award show showed a clip of houston singing in 1994. jennifer hudson closed last night's show by performing the same song in houston's honor. ♪ and i will always love you >> investigators say it may be weeks before we know how the 48-year-old singer died. jeff rossen is live in los angeles with the latest on the investigation. jeff, where do things stand this morning? >> reporter: good morning. the autopsy is now complete. we learned here at the coroner's office and in fact the medical examiner is completed with the body. the family can come pick it up whenever they like. unconfirmed reports they plan to fly the remains back to atlanta. we'll keep a close eye on that. they will not reveal the cause of death yet. the official cause of death because they are waiting as you

mentioned for that all important toxicology report which could take about six to eight weeks. they want to know the critical question. were there drugs inside of whitney houston's system at the time of her death and if so, what were those drugs? the coroner says that it was a member of whitney houston's entourage that went into the bathroom and found her in the bathtub after she had been in there for a while. according to tmz she was under water in the bathtub. paramedics arrived and performed cpr. it was too late. photos surfaced of whitney houston 48 hours before her death where some say who were there friday insiders that she was deteriorating. looked like she was under the influence of something. but the question is what really happened in those final hours, chuck, and police are now questioning every member of whitney houston's entourage to figure that out. >> what kind of investigation is this? is this a homicide investigation or not?

>> reporter: no. they've been clear about the fact, no foul play. no trauma here. they are trying to figure out whether this was somehow drug related or alcohol related or a drowning. it doesn't sound like it's a homicide investigation right now. they've ruled out foul play. >> all right. jeff rossen, heads-up investigation for the "today" show. jeff, thank you for being up early this morning. >> up next, the state of play even before the republicans picked their nominee we assume they'll pick one, the presidential race is supposed to shape up as one of the most competitive we've seen since 2000 and 2004. how much has the republican primary hurt the gop's chances against the president in the all-important electoral college? we'll take a look at the national battlefield state by state next with two of the best. plus, president obama's contraception compromise isn't quieting critics. the fight over birth control coverage is going to rage on. a look at the president's schedule.

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even without a republican nominee an early look at the battleground shows we have a tight race ahead of us. we have charlie cook and we have a contributing writing with roll call and contributing columnist to national journal to make sure everyone has it all. one of the things i feel that has gotten loss, talking more about the electoral college is the battleground map. you are doing it every week you

sort of tinker with it. charlie, i have yours up here first. you have more swing states, quite a few than stu does. yours are predictable. nevada, colorado, iowa, wisconsin, michigan. might be a little bit of surprise to people in michigan. pennsylvania, virginia, north carolina, florida. in general, the folks over in chicago would agree with but they would probably say arizona should be light pink is the argument they would make. stu, fewer swing states. more light blue on here and a few light pinks. i think the folks in chicago would be very upset to see those southern states of virginia and north carolina in light pink. ohio they secretly wouldn't be disagreeing with you. florida is a tossup and wisconsin, iowa, colorado, nevada. so let's talk about the sort of the three that i think you both seem to agree on. florida, colorado, wisconsin. there's one in each region.

>> yeah. i think florida is an age issue. there's an age problem. white older -- whites over 50 over 65, the president has had a real problem. i think it will be more uphill this time than it was last time for him in florida. >> colorado? >> well, i think this is one of those states that goes back and forth from election to election. if you look over the past 20 or 30 years, it often is a leader in showing a trend. i'm not sure where the trend is right now. the key is i would think would be in the denver suburbs. these are swing areas with moderately conservative voters who were probably dissatisfied with the economy but not sure they are ready to go back to the republicans with cultural issues and depending on what happens with the unemployment rate. >> let's talk about one of the states that you put in the tossup category, charlie, is michigan. you keep it in a democratic column. it's coming up in the republican primaries. the obama campaign will argue mitt romney has made himself

tougher to get elected with, downscale, blue collar voters in the u.s. because of his business ties. >> i think that's a very reasonable assumption. on the other hand, president obama's job approval ratings among noncollege educated whites runs around 31, 34. really, really, really low. he has never connected with those folks. and so i think there's a natural resistance that's there. so i can argue it either way. i remember we used to talk about the clinton was a goner in kentucky because of tobacco and then in '96 he won it. you know, sometimes these generalizations make a lot of sense but they're not right. >> what about this republican primary battle? mitt romney has to continue to move to his right or at least rhetorically move to his right. this is having an impact. i would say -- i look at your

map. you had a very republican leaning map two months ago. you've since really shifted it dramatically back in the president's direction. that wasn't the way you had it three months ago. >> we had romney up 275 for a while as a working number. you know, of course we move these around at the moment in time. >> we're balancing fundamentals with short-term movement. i don't think there's any doubt that the landscape has shifted just a little. i don't know whether this is a permanent shift. i've been arguing for some time that the last month and a half has been great for the president because the focus isn't on him but on the republicans and the republican party attacking each republican attacking another republican. i think to some extent there has been a bit of a shift. i think the president has an opportunity in some of these states. >> a history lesson for folks. most long-term primary fights

hurts the ones that have them. >> obama/clinton it wasn't like a race to see who could run so far to the left. for some reason, it was more. i think the problem this time for romney or for republicans is this is a race to see who can run as far and fast as they can to the right. and the longer they go, the farther they are away from the between the 40-yard line voters in the middle that will make a difference here. >> i agree. however, i think the interesting point about this race and about romney is romney -- it's not that romney is moving right. he has been right ever since he's been running. he's been running as a conser conservati conservative. the irony is nobody really believes him. it's funny. conservatives don't believe he's a conservativconservative. moderates laugh it off. >> the real romney is perfectly positioned for a general election. just couldn't win a nomination.

>> that's what he's aware of. you guys do this when you factor in your stuff, i want you to explain to viewers, when you factor in what's a toss up and what's a lean, is it in that moment in time -- i'll give you an example. missouri and arizona. i think they will be decided by less than five points. will they ever be tossups in your mind or always lean into that party direction. i'll start with you? >> i would be surprised if either state gets to tossup. >> even if it's decided by less than five points? >> it would be a hard five, no the a soft five. i mean, i think the last few -- a lot of times with high minority population states, democratic bases is artificially high. georgia, it almost looks by the numbers and then you say no. >> you know there's no hard ceiling there. >> my view is we would have to start to get close to the actual election and if we saw a number

that suggested wait a minute arizona is not behaving this time the way it behaved previously or missouri isn't behaving, that there was a fundamental shift i wasn't sure. we saw changes but we thought it was superficial. that's a tossup category. not eight months out. >> i am going by job approvals and not trial heats. job approvals are proven to be on the number. >> always fun. we'll bring you back in here when you're in town. been hard to get you guys together in town for a while. up next, the greek drama. violence in the streets of athens as greek government passes the tough new austerity package. live in athens. plus as president's wish list arrives on capitol hill, lawmakers are still fighting last year's battle over the payroll tax cut. can congress get that deal done before february 29th? which future senator scored the only touchdown for harvard when they played yale in 1955?

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greek lawmakers voted to approve a tough new austerity plan triggering the country's worst rioting in years. we've seen this before during the threatened votes on these austerity measures. this is an actual one. these protests before led to a change in government arguably. are we going to see the same thing again? >> reporter: no. unlikely. this is becoming a familiar cycle in this country as they slip toward default, they need to be bailed out by the eurozone but the eurozone says you have to do your part and take these austerity measures so they enact them and people on the street get upset. keep in mind that this country has been in a recession for five

years. unemployment is over 20%. the government is effectively saying we have to cut minimum wage. we have to cut back on the number of employees in the public sector and basically offer you more pain. people here are getting fed up with it. you hear more and more on the streets in athens that people want to get out of the eurozone all together and to some people that seems like a viable option. the government says absolutely not. that would be in addition to being humiliating, it would cause greater pain. you hear from the government officials that prime minister that said this country is a breath away from ground zero meaning bankruptcy. it would hit bankruptcy next month if it didn't get this $170 billion loan from the eu and imf and it's unchartered territory and they don't want to go there. chuck? >> and stephanie, what about -- are these protests -- they've always been in athens. will they show up in other european capitals since i know a

lot of them believe it's being forced upon greece? >> reporter: at the moment what you are seeing and hearing from people here is that this amounts to a kind of economic occupation that essentially the eurozone is imposing its will on greece and there's nothing you can do about it. if you have a country in the eurozone that starts to slip toward default as greece has and eu has to do the same thing that they've done here in other place, maybe people will hit the streets with the same kind of fury and anger that we see here. chuck? >> all right. stephanie gosk in athens for us. thank you very much. the chaos is having an impact on international markets. we're minutes away from the opening bell. cnbc is here. what are the markets going to react to more. the vote that the greek government actually agreed to, the package, or the rioting they're seeing? >> despite rioting in athens,

investors approve greece's austerity package. the u.s. futures point to a higher market open this morning after stocks had the worst close of the year on friday. the next important meeting is on wednesday when the european union will neat to discuss a bailout package that greece needs for major bond redemption in march. president obama is scheduled to release his 2013 budget to congress today. the president's budget is often ignored by congress but some of the highlights include a proposal of the buffett rule with a minimum tax rate on 30% on households making a million dollars or more. and 1992 hit single "i will always love you" went to the top of the itunes single chart. eight of houston's albums are listed on itunes top 100. back over to you. >> "the daily rundown" will be back in 30 seconds.

a few other stories making he headlines. syrian forces have started attacks on hom. it appears that russia and china will not support a peace keeping effort. the expanded expansions from the birth control mandate don't go far enough and mcconnell will vote for a bill that any organization religious or not to

opt you the of providing birth control coverage on moral grounds. gas prices are on the rise. according to aaa the price average is 3.51 up 12 cents in the past month. here comes that season. president obama sends his budget to capitol hill today but it's unlikely to get anywhere. congress passed a budget on time four times in the last 30 years. the last time they did it was in an election year was 1997 with president clinton. since the last budget passed on time, we've had five different party leaders in the senate, three republicans and two democrats. joining me now is ranking member of the senate budget committee, alabama republican jeff sessions. we put a lot of importance on today when a president rolls out his budgets but as you can see we've gone through, it's been at least three presidents, two different parties, five different senate leaders that we've got a budget on time out

of the united states senate. is this a description of a process that's broken and polarized? >> it's a process that's not working. that's for sure. that overstates the fact that almost every time previously to the last three years the leadership in the senate has moved a budget forward and at least attempted to pass it on the floor of the senate. this is the first time the majority leaders said i won't even try. the most important thing today is what the president's budget says and what it will do. it lays out his plan for the future. and it is utterly irresponsible. mr. lew's statement is totally incorrect. it counts when we have -- it eliminates the cuts approved by the sequester and replaces that with a trillion dollar tax increase. it's close to 2 trillion total.

these tax increases are shown as reducing the deficit when all it really will do is to replace new spending and to pay for the sequestered that's eliminated. >> there seems to be -- >> it's an irresponsible budget on monumental proportions and does not change the debt course set last summer with the budget control act at all. >> this is where there seems to be a fundamental disagreement of the two parties. you brought up the tax hike. the president campaigned against the bush tax cuts. one of the reasons you are hitting him from the broken promise on having the deficit he had in 2009 but at that time he assumed he would somehow get rid of the "bush tax cuts." are any sort of tax reform plans that increase revenue into the government still off the table for republicans? still off the table for you? >> what i would say to you is we need to look for tax reform

absolutely. what i would say to you on budget day is that the budget creates another $11 trillion in debt. almost exactly the same amount that the budget control act last summer did. what he's proposing does not change america's debt course. richard earlier said that next year could be greece for us. we're not changing the debt course. they are out saying the budget team will assert they are making significant changes in our debt course and it is not president. >> let me ask you this. it was interesting one of the aspects to the president's budget is this is the third straight year he's proposing cuts to the epa. it's the third straight year that he's been calling for less spending on nasa. some places that are surprising for democrats to be calling for some cuts even a freeze in the national institute of health on

some things. on biomedical research. isn't that a victory for your side that you have a democratic president three straight budgets calling for cuts in the epa? >> chuck, we are on a debt course that's going to bankrupt this country. everybody is telling us that. republicans and democrats and economists and the president's budget may cut a little here but it increasing otherwise. he's going to announce great new programs for college students to try to encourage their turnout in this election. the net result is he eliminates the trillion dollars in cuts that were part of the sequester. and he replaces it with tax increases but when the whole ten years is over, he's not made any real cuts. he may cut a little here and a little there but it's overmatched by the increase spending. >> let me ask you this. if we are to use your words -- go ahead. >> one thing that really is

important that the president lays out no plan for reform of medicaid, social security, medicare. those are just off the table and no real reform is proposed there. and if you are going to propose a plan for the future of america that puts us on a sound path, you've got to step up to the plate and lead on some of those tough issues. >> i want to go back. you referred to this as we have a debt crisis. so if we are in a crisis situation, why are tax hikes off the table? >> i would just say to you we haven't reduced spending. this proposal to increase taxes wa basically offsets new spending the president has in the plan. we're not for raising taxes to increase spending.

>> i have doubts about the wisdom of this plan for a person making 150,000 tldollars they g a $2,000 check from uncle sam, the person making 20,000 gets 10% of that. i don't know whether this is the right way to stimulate the

economy or not. i know every penny of it is borrowed. it adds to debt and adding over $2 billion to this year's debt and we really need to get away from more debt. i got to tell you. we need to stop digging deeper because every time we do that, then we have to come up with even more spending reductions in the future to try to get the country -- >> are you going to vote against this? >> i don't know what i'll doing. i'll look at it and try to be supportive. i would love to see everybody get even more tax cuts and even more reduction and really what is a pension payment. we're paying this money to your social security, medicare, retirement, pension plans that most americans have paid into and want to receive and it is a danger to those programs to systematically reduce what we pay into them. >> okay. i'll leave it there. republican senator jeff sessions

of alabama. ranking member on the senate budget committee. thank you for coming in on budget day. >> thank you. >> up next, we're kicking off the week with our political panel. we'll talk about a little contraception. conservatives and capitol hill clashes. first, the white house soup of the day. i have a feeling we are having to have a conversation with broth because you can't tell me that three of the last six days have been tomato. watching the "the daily rundown" on msnbc. and on a budget. like a ramen noodle- every-night budget. she thought allstate car insurance was out of her reach. until she heard about the value plan. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate.

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[ male announcer ] this is your moment. ♪ this is zales, the diamond store. i was strong before weight watchers, but i'm stronger with it. i believe because it works. ♪ if you want it, you got it join for free. weight watchers points plus 2012. because it works. >> all of the characters have a little bit of me in them. there's no other way of doing it. i wasn't quite as inept as charlie brown is but i know what it's like to lose a ball game when you're a kid 40-0. >> the daily flashback to this day in 2000 when charles schultz's final peanuts comic strip ran in the incident and he

died just hours before that appeared. when you are born with the name charles, and you were a kid of the '70s and '80s, all you got was charlie brown books for every single holiday. trust me. mitt romney's victories this weekend at cpac and maine do little to rally the republican base. this weekend romney still strained to sell himself as a conservative. >> i fought against long odds in a deep blue state but i was a severely conservative republican governor. [ applause ] i understand that the battles we as conservatives must fight because i've been on the front lines and expect to be on those front lines again. >> let's bring in our panel. clarence page, casey hunt and

dan. welcome. i have to start with you. you noticed the difference between 2011 romney at cpac and 2012 romney at cpac. it's a different romney. >> you know, if you look at those two speeches, it's almost as though he gave them in the wrong order. if he had come last year and talked about his conservative roots and why he is a conservative and what it is about him that makes him a conservative, he might have been able to do to deliver this gathering the speech he did last year which a focus on president obama. he might have been able to solve some of that problem. instead it represented a kind of evidence of back sliding he had to do repair work at this gathering compared to what he had done a year before. >> speaking of repair work when you have a severe head wound, you have to sometimes do repair work. listen. i want to play a couple bites here. jeff flake, arizona republican, very conservative. his response to the word severe.

>> i heard yesterday somebody compare using the word severe for a head wound. >> exactly. i'm not exactly sure what that means. >> and then sarah palin made a more important point i think about where romney's standing is inside the republican party. here's what she said yesterday. >> he still in the 30 percentile mark when it comes to approval and caucus wins. he hasn't risen above that yet because we are not convinced. >> that severe thing. another bad punch line for him frankly. >> the severely scri lly descri not in there. this line was picked up

everywhere. came directly from romney himself demonstrates a level of his own discomfort with where he stood with the audience that he was speaking to. >> clarence, when you watch this primary fight and you see a nominee, i can't figure out how he's not the nominee. every time it seems the road is getting longer for him. >> i was reminded of the scene in "the wizard of oz" and she has the house on top of her. she was not clearly dead but severely dead. this is my thought. >> i didn't expect a "wizard of oz" reference. well done. >> this came to mind because here is romney saying i'm really, really conservative. at this point in the game, he shouldn't have to sell them. dan is right. he ought to be talking about going up against obama. he can't afford to do that quite yet because he hasn't gotten -- he isn't even close to clinching yet and this shows how soft his

own base is. >> he survived this weekend. it would have been -- we don't have the story line of four losses in a row and we don't have story line of him losing the straw poll. santorum says he out organized him. >> keep in mind the romney campaign insisted they ignore the straw polls. >> they rigged this cpac before. >> this is obvious this was something they would care a lot about and spend a lot of time working on. it wasn't in that way a surprise. >> you're rick santorum. you have on one hand have to feel pretty good. clearly engaging a fight in michigan that's going to work because it will -- he's going to have to work harder in michigan. but again it's forcing romney to the right. if you're in chicago, how happy are you about the way this month is going for mitt romney? >> i assume they could not be happier. every time you talk to folks in chicago, they think the nominating process is weakening

romney for the general election and the romney people don't fully agree but i think they rolling the problems that they have run into at this point and trying to figure out how to do it. i think their belief is we'll win more than we lose and we'll win this nomination and deal with the problems that we've got and the economy is still in tough enough shape that this will be a very competitive election in the fall that they have hurt themselves. >> do you get the sense they fear a gingrich rise more than the santorum movement? >> look at the map. super tuesday you have a bunch of southern states where gingrich is probably going to come on strong but they are suddenly having to worry about this challenge from santorum in places where they didn't expect to face it. i think it's been a wake-up. >> we'll talk values after the break. contraception. trivia time. we asked which future senator scored the only touchdown for harvard when they played yale in 1955. the answer is future senator ted kennedy. kennedy played right end.

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let's bring back the panel, clarence paige, casey hunton, dan balz. one thing we're not going to talk about much is the budget, but one thing i want to talk about is this, was it a contraceptive compromise? do you call it that, clarence, number one, that the white house came out with? and does it put the issue away? >> well, it was handled so badly, first of all, that there's a new meaning circulated that the obama folks did this on purpose to show how extreme -- >> how badly this was handled? >> exactly, because now the issue's out in the open, people are talking about this and not the economy, and they're talking about how some of the bishops,

some of the catholic hierarchy still is not satisfied with -- >> but they're never going to be satisfied that wasn't the intenti intention, right? >> they never will. what's interesting is mitt romney during a debate was talking about we're not talking about legalizing contraception. well, santorum has talked about that. so this makes obama look much more like a moderate. >> this issue seems to twist -- i mean, the last thing romney people want is a conversation about social issues. >> and he's having to tie himself in knots, too, because of the question about how romney care handled this particular issue, and there's been a lot of back-and-forth between the romney campaign and democrats, both with competing versions of the story that are fairly hard to straighten out because the details are so, you know, into the weeds and from many years ago. and the reality is, he didn't particularly -- romney didn't fight on this issue when this went through in massachusetts -- >> and that's the hit, right? >> right. >> conservatives say, hey, he didn't fight it, but then he's saying, hey, i did veto it. >> right. >> so he's trying to -- >> but again, it's, a, something that's difficult to deal with in a general election, and b, it's another example of him trying to

walk this fine line and have it both ways. >> the assumption is this is going to hurt the president with catholics, particularly working class catholics in the industrial midwestern states, pennsylvania, ohio, a couple examples. is it a presidential issue? or if it pops up, you see it more on the senate level? >> well, i think it can be both. i think that the sort of ineptness of the administration's initial handling of this, their inability to actually know how to defend the original decision, why they didn't come to this second decision first, i think it was a total bobble on their part. the question is, is the debate going forward about contraception or is it about sort of religious tolerance? and i think that's the -- >> or even larger, clarence, is this show why this administration has a terrible time defending health care? they don't even like to touch the health care plan. >> well, kind of like mitt romney running away from their own plan, really, because it's been -- >> they don't talk about it and

every time they do, it's in a defensive posture. >> right, they don't talk about it at all and they have a lot to talk about. obama's got to eventually. >> my colleague andrew has a great story on romney's history of ear-marking -- >> longtime boston guy. he knows those things. >> my colleague speaks in yesterday's "washington post" about the state of the republican party. wonderful piece. >> and clarence. >> i've got to say, charles, you've got a lot of charlie brown books as a kid. i got the clarence the tv dog books. it can always be worse. >> it can always be worse. >> my shameless plug is to my cousin, abby. you did a wonderful job this weekend. welcome to a lifetime of that for you. that's this edition of "the daily rundown." see you back here tomorrow. coming up next on msnbc, "jansing & co." and then at 1:00, don't miss "andrea mitchell reports." buoy bye at now, we just eat whatever tastes good? like these sweet honey clusters... actually there's a half a day's worth of fiber in every ... why stop at cereal? bring on the pork chops and the hot fudge. fantastic.

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of pop superstar whitney houston, though police do say the autopsy is now complete and there's no sign of foul play. the key details, though, will be in toxicology reports weeks from now with some early indications that a combination of prescription drugs and alcohol may have claimed the life of the 48-year-old. nbc's miguel almaguer is live in los angeles. and miguel, good morning. bring us up to date on the investigation. >> reporter: chris, good morning to you. we certainly still don't know a lot of information, as you just mentioned. the autopsy is complete, but really, what the coroner's office is going to wait for before they can rule on the cause of death is that toxicology report, and it could take up to a month or two before we get that back. as you mentioned, there have been some preliminary reports from outside news agencies that xanax and alcohol may have been a contributing factor to whitney houston's death. here at the beverly hilton behind me. but again, that has not yet been confirmed. it will take about six to eight weeks before that happens. houston, of