at the top of the show we asked you why are you awake? we have the answers. >> stephen on at which timer. i'm up getting dressed for work. awesome suit. do you get to wear whatever you want or does the wardrobe department decide for you? >> listen, gale, none of your business. i'm kidding. no, i goat wear what i want. there is no wardrobe department. besides, if there were a wardrobe department, they wouldn't tell me what to do and i wouldn't listen to them. they're not the boss of me. thanks. "morning joe" starts right now. i hope you watched the debate last night. it was kind of fun. i enjoyed it. we -- it was kind of an interesting night. i didn't expect what happened.

what happened was we saw in this case senator santorum explain most of the night why he did or voted for things he disagreed with. and he talked about this as being taking one for the team. i wonder which team he was taking it for. all right. my team is the american people. not the insiders in washington. and i'll fight for the people of america, not special interests. >> you said at the debate last night, i'm going to take one for the team. how can we be sure you won't take one for the team again on something this bad? >> because i'll be the team leader, not a team member. you know? president of the united states is the team leader. and when you're responsible for leading the team as a president, i think you're clear. you look at the agenda i put forward. this is something the president of the united states ran on. george bush ran on reforming the education system. this is one of his signature issues in the campaign.

>> okay. good morning. it is friday. >> what's that? >> it's friday. >> february 24th. welcome to "morning joe." >> things are going to get better because it's miserable. i'm okay. look at jonathan. let's get a shot of jonathan. look at how good john ratner looks. >> and then look at joe. >> good morning, everybody. >> and then look at me. so can you teach me how to put one of those -- i know i have to have a pocket first. >> it wouldn't work for you. >> would that not work for me? >> no. >> it would work for you. >> is that a dog hair? >> no. >> would it work for him? >> yes, it would. >> we need to get lewis to follow jonathan and me out around the city and you're going -- are you going to dress? why don't you shop together. >> that will be great. >> he's going to take me around. you know, i know it's hard to believe but i have very

distinctive taste. >> all right. welcome to "morning joe." >> it might be a little difficult. we'll do it. some day. >> for two days now you guys have been the girls. >> what are you talking about? >> with us on set, we have the executive editor of -- force. >> can i ask you a question? >> yes? >> is there a sexual connecticut o connotation of taking one for the team? >> what's wrong with you? why are you asking me that? >> jonathan? yes or no? come on. >> you're asking the wrong guy. >> is there, yes or no? >> a little bit. there, is right? there is. i'm just saying. this whole sexual revolution thing has gone away. you have a mormon leading the republican party talking about taking one for the team. and then saying i wonder what team he's taking it for. i'm wondering if we have to get chris christy back here and have

that talk all over. wasn't that an amazing talk yesterday? >> yes, it was. thank you again for letting me have that conversation with the governor. even though we fundamentally disagree with each other on this, i do think it's an important conversation to have. it's one that's happening around dinner tables and around water coolers all around the country. it's a difficult issue for people to understand. but i do think that when you boil it down to its simplest elements, the issue of fairness and equity and equal protection under the law, i think most americans would look at it in a different view and say hey, my neighbor, my co-worker, my niece or nephew, they're not being treated fairly by the same laws that govern me. >> now you say the president is evolving on this issue. >> the president says that. >> do you think the president's evolving on an issue like he is evolving on keystone and that evolution will be complete the day after he's re-elected?

>> okay. >> if you don't want to answer that -- let me ask you the next question. can you think of any issue at all, i mean study it really hard, can you think of any issue at all where you think i'm evolving? >> where you're evolving? the answer is no. >> oh, you're evolving. so steve ratner has a great piece in the "new york times" today. it is calls "delusions about the detroit bailouts." we'll be talking about that coming up. the president's going to be pushing an alternative energy agenda on the road today. we can talk about that. >> oh, that's exciting. i'd love to. >> the new poll is out. >> i'm going to be doing this now. >> come on. >> all right. >> what are you talking about? >> about energy. okay. the michigan -- everyone be quiet. the michigan primary is four days away. and new polls show rick santorum

and mitt romney in a statistical tie. santorum has a slight lead. romney is still within the margin of error. newt gingrich and ron paul trail the front runners with 12% and 7% support respectively. the latest mitchell-row seta stone poll has mitt romney ahead. and a poll out of pennsylvania shows rick santorum with an overwhelming lead among republicans in his home state with 45% support. the former senator is 29 points ahead of mitt romney. the pennsylvania primary is not until the end of april though. when it comes to the general election, proesident obama lead by eight points. >> what do you make of this neck and neck situation with mitt romney and santorum? >> mitt wins by a vote, then they're going to take that as a win.

a swin a wwin is a win is a win. if mitt lose business a vote, then i suspect all hell is going to break loose and we may have the first contested convention since 1976. what do you think? >> i think it's kansas city, which is good. it's not bad for the party. people argue that it's somehow another bad for the republicans or the chaos is not good. i think it shows certain amount of vigor. that's the best possible scenario. one question i have and this is a high dork game so you'll love this. >> doshrks of the world unite. >> if santorum is going to be nominated, is he a goldwater figure or a mcgovern figure? is he the first gasp of a movement or the last of the dying ideology? >> well -- the debate that

santorum seems to be having in the national press right now is a debate that was resolved in 1965 when the beatles were playing shea stadium. we are talking more and more about contraception. i have seen some good moves, though. the past couple of days in virginia especially, steve ratner a couple days ago, they moved off the state sanctioned vaginal probes. yesterday, they moved off another controversial element which suggests that people like bob mcdonald are saying to state legislators, we're going to calm down because this is an election year. and we're going to do our best not to scare 99% of the voting population. santorum, though, on contraception -- he hasn't had that moment where he comes out and says, guys, you have nothing to worry about. my beliefs are my beliefs. but contraception is okay as

president of the united states. i'm going to do absolutely nothing to stand in a woman's way of having contraception. >> no, he hasn't said that yet. although i agree with john in the sense that if santorum is the nominee, which i don't believe he will be, i do believe romney is going to win michigan, but if he were the nominee, i think the election would not just be about contraception. i think it's about a bunch of very fundamental conservative views he has which i believe are out of step with the american people. >> which ones? >> let people decide. like taxes, like the role of government. you know, things like that. i like a woman's right to choose. forget about what happened in virginia but just fundamental question of the woman's right to choose. he's in a different place from i think the rest of the country, majority of the country. >> jonathan, it's so fascinating. i always said americans are not ideological. a lot of us on tv, a lot of people in washington are. americans are not. take the two most contentious

social issues of our time, abortion and gay marriage. on gay marriage, americans are moving the direction progressives want them to move. you can look at any poll. this is just a matter of numbers. look at the numbers. they're moving. on abortion, it's going the opposite direction. people are becoming more pro-life. and, of course, the reasons why -- science, medicine, you have 3-d imaging now where parents with get inside the womb and see their child very life like. so it's not -- you know, for rick santorum to be scaring pro-life voters off is not an indictment against the pro-life movement so much as it is his own view which is i think extreme by modern american political standards on contraception. >> very extreme. and when you get to a point

where someone like me who has no dog in this fight at all listening to him but concerned about the impact of what he's saying being uncomfortable by what rick santorum is saying, hearing what you have been saying about your wife and republican women you just backed out of the kitchen to listen to them to talk about what republicans are saying and doing on contraception and abortion issues and just being completely uncomfortable by the tone and tenor of what rick santorum is saying. >> right. and jonathan, rick santorum, but i'm not talking about that, i'm talking about gas prices. i'm talking about this and that. part of what makes a candidate great is a candidate that can define the issues and shape the issues and control the narrative. and we saw this with mitt romney four years ago an mormonism and the president on race. at some point this guy's going to have to step forward and talk about how his -- i have a lot of personal beliefs that i don't -- that i didn't let go over into

my political beliefs. >> what's interesting, you brought up romney and mormonism, the president and race, those were two big speeches they each gave. are you saying that rick santorum needs to once and for all come forward and give his view on all these issues and give us a road map of how he would behave as president? >> because, yes, because the knock on rick santorum is he too rod call radical issues. this is a knock from republicans. whether it's from my wife, whether it's from my former chief of staff, whether it's from my 24-year-old son who is a republican's republican but he is more of a ron paul republican. and my son will still say, can you believe the stuff this guy has said about gays and lesbians? and, you know, my son is not --

i mean he's not an enlitened left winger. i mean he is a -- but there is a growing libertarian trend in america where people are saying i want you out of my wallet. i want you out of my bedroom. rick santorum has to give that speech to tell people i'm staying out of your bedroom. >> yeah, but what you're saying is that rick santorum's views on a range of issues are more conservative and radical than what your wife, son and former chief of staff are comfortable with. it may upset even more of those people who are conservatives but not in his camp. >> well, i think barack obama. i think it's fair to say. i think bill clinton and ronal reagan. they all had beliefs that were more outside the mainstream, on certain issues. i think we all do. but they understood that if they're going to be elected president, they're going to represent 300 million people. they had to let them know. we're going to keep it in the

middle. i think he can say, as i have heard him say in previous speeches, yes, i have my personal views on contraception. but i voted for title ten. i never let my personal views get in the way of a woman's right to contraception. >> thattish sue hurting him at this point. >> it's not in the republican primaries. but it's going to kill him -- look at the pennsylvania numbers. he's way ahead in pennsylvania among republicans. he's getting blasted in the general election. look at michigan. he's doing well in michigan. but he loses by 25 points in the general election. >> it's just interesting. when the whole hhs controversy came up, your analysis was it's bad for the president, bad timing. but ultimately it will hurt a republican on this. and it appears to be. >> if the republicans take the bait. and they took the bait. >> yeah, they did. >> before that friday, it was about freedom of religion.

>> yeah. >> and republicans won that every day. i will still say i think the president's decision was a mistake. and he now agrees. he agreed that he should have listened to some other advisors. but the day it went forward, republicans should have dropped it and gone to gas prices. they should have dropped it and gone to gas prices. and we said that in real time. they didn't do it. it's killing them. >> i'm going to drop it and go to gas prices right now. >> i love it. >> gas prices are becoming a major issue in the 2012 campaign. the president is trading new attacks with republicans over the economic implications. in a speech from miami, the president insisted there are no quick fixes to solving america's energy challenges despite what his opponents are saying on the trail. >> only in politics do people root for bad news. they greet bad news so enthusiastically. you pay more, they're licking

their chops. you can bet that they're dusting off their three-point plan for $2 gas. anybody who tells you that we can drill our way out of this problem doesn't know what they're talking about or just isn't telling you the truth. now it's the easiest thing in the world to make phoney election year promises about gas prices. it is hard to make a commitment to tackle a problem. we're not going to overnight solve the problem of world oil markets. there is no silver bullet. there never has been. and part of the problem is when politicians pretend there is, then we put off making the tough choices to develop new energy sources and become more energy efficient. >> the president called for all of the above in terms of response to rising gas prices including increasing oil production, developing alternative energy resources and enforcing stricter fuel efficiency standards. according to aaa, gas prices have jumped another 3.3 cents from wednesday to thursday bringing the national average to

$3.61 a gallon. the president's re-election team is now airing a 30-second ad in michigan painting the president as a champion of the auto industry while taking a jab at the candidane candidates hopinge him. >> it's more than a slogan, it's a way of life. but when a million jobs are on the line, every candidate turned their back, they even said let detroit go bankrupt. not him. now, a retooled, restructured industry is back because of the grit and sacrifice of michigan workers. >> don't bet against the american worker. i'm about a robarack obama and this ad. >> you can put a check mark by the president in michigan.

i think it will help him in the midwest. let's go back to the oil issue and the gas prices. steve ratner, the president talked about generally supporting an all of the above approach. which i agree. i read about it several years ago. we need to do everything. i mean nuclear, when you do alternative energy, we need to drill, we need to go natural gas. but his own environmental base is preventing him from moving forward on the keystone pipeline. his own environmental base is making him hold back on fracking and going after natural gas reserves that we have here. his own environmental base is stopping him from drilling as aggressively, as most presidents would drill in the position that we're in now where we need to bring domestic consumption up. is that going to solve all the problem? no. would it help some? steve? >> yeah. everything you say is true. but it's at the margin. the world uses 80 million

barrels of oil a day. there are three or four million barrels of spare capacity in the world. virtually all of it is in saudi arabia. when you have threats to the straits and people worry about oil being able to get through, there is no margin of error. there is no freedom of movement. when you have the economy getting a little bit stronger around the world and people using a little more gas, there is no margin of error. this is a problem that has been building up for 20, 30, 40 years. this is not a problem that occurred the last three years because we haven't drilled some place off the florida panhandle. there is more we can do on all those fronts. we can debate what did he or didn't do on keystone pipelines and so on. that oil is going to get produced whether we pump it across our territory or whether it goes across canada and gets exported. that hasn't changed the world oil dynamic. >> is that a good idea for the president to support that? >> on balance, i think it's good to find a way to build that pipeline. i think we need jobs.

we need oil. but it doesn't change the fact that oil is going to get pumped somewhere. >> yeah, do you support this? >> do you not read polls? >> no. >> this is fascinating news. the question was put to the american people -- >> i'm reading steve's op-ed. >> this question was asked, do you support the construction of the keystone pipeline? 63% say yes. 23% say no. one of the things, though, that is driven me crazy about the energy debate through the years has been the fact that when you talk to the left they say, you know, it won't help to build nuclear plants. it will take too long. it won't help to drill. it's on the margins. it won't help to do this keystone pipeline. and then on the right, oh, come on. we're not going to -- there is not enough wind. there's not enough sun. there's not enough this.

we need to drill. so both sides are talking past each other. and they all are pushing it down the road, literally. >> nothing gets done. >> we had this discussion on nuclear for 20 years while the french fueled 75% of their energy through nuclear plants. >> because they made a decision and went with it. >> they went with it. but left and the right, the extremes of both sides keep talking past each other instead of truly doing an all of the above. and the president is in the camp of the people who were not doing all of above as are the republicans and the house and the senate. >> right. >> the energy question is a little like the fiscal federal problem, don't you think? if you immerse yourself in the facts of it, you -- one tends to come to a position where an all of the above kind of moderate position makes sense. if you don't immerse yourself in the facts of it, it's very easy

to be, as you say, pushed this way or that way by an extreme left or right wind. so to speak. without really engaging the facts of the matter. and i think that there's -- this is -- the fiscal crisis, i think energy is really where if you actually learn what you're talking about, you do end up in a place where you want a nonextreme answer. >> steve, since jimmy carter ran for president and was talking about energy policy, we've had people -- actually since opec, since the opec embargo in '74, we've been talking about needing to develop an energy policy. jimmy carter came the closest. nobody else has developed a policy. why not? >> jimmy carter was the first to develop an energy policy. to john's point, it is so politically divisive. people don't do what john just said and come to the realization

that we need all of the above. they get dug in their trenches and saying i only want nuclear, i only want drilling or i want this or. that the result is it's just like everything else in washington, nothing gets done. >> gosh. okay. we are going to get to your op-ed though. we're going to get that done today. good i promise we won't put any more polls up. >> you promise? >> if we do, i'll read them. >> promise? i don't want to put them up at all. >> i can't promise that you. >> okay. coming up, former presidential candidate tim pawlenty will be on the set and we get a preview of "meet the press" with david gregory and we'll bring in kelly o'donnell. up next, mike allen with a look at the political playbook. but first, bill karnz. >> he is adorable. >> awe. >> bill? >> that doesn't make up for

anything. good morning, everyone. we woke up to a little snow this morning in areas of chicago. we want to take a little peek in. we have areas of chicago that have already picked up two to three inches. you'll get an additional one to three inches as we go throughout the morning. we also had a little surprise snow in connecticut, northern portions of just northern new york city and west chester also picked up snow. and there are school delays in those areas. that snow is moving out. definitely driving in connecticut or rhode island, it is a little bit of a surprise to people. it's going to be a slow drive. here's the snow in areas of michigan. detroit looks like only two to four inches for you to day. northern michigan and central michigan will do more. we want to take a peek in. this is what chicago looks like. this is our weather channel friend there. he has no idea that we're taking a picture of him. we want to show you how the snow is coming down there. that is your morning drive around chicago, especially northern i will sill where we're seeing the heaviest of that snow. we'll pick up an additional one to three in chicago during the day. there is the radar out of that area. milwaukee is also getting some snow. the forecast, northern new england, you're going to get a lot of snow.

on the east coast, windy conditions, especially as we go throughout tonight and tomorrow. new york city could see wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour. so the weekend is dry but it's cold and windy. is it fast? it's got 10 speeds, my friend.

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last night's republican debate. take a look at this. >> without caveats or explanations, define yourself using one word and one word only. congressman paul? >> gangster. >> senator santorum? >> pass. >> governor? >> mashugina.

>> mr. speaker? >> doughy. >> you were on dave last night. >> i was. it was great. >> did you have fun? >> i had a great time. oerve talks about dave, he's cold and this and that. he's not. he's a very likeable guy. in fact, we really hit it off. afterward we talked for about 30 minutes. and just personal stuff. then we went out and had a couple drinks. >> did you? >> no. i'm lying. he is still -- there are very few things that i'm excited about these days. you wake up at 3:00 a.m. long enough, as you know, nothing's exciting. >> sorry. >> john lennon is over central park in a flying saucer. tell him i'll be there tomorrow. >> yeah. >> but i was really excited about this. >> that was cool. >> it was great. >> did you a very, very good job. we should show the highlights. >> no. >> why don't we? >> i'd like to see them. >> he was so good. >> show the highlights. >> let's take a look at the morning papers.

it is expected to be released in october, senator marco rubio reveals he was first baptized as a mormon at the age of 8 before converting to the catholic church a few years later. and washington rubio is said he attends daily mass. >> all right. financial times, new poll out of russia shows prime minist steis putin is poised to win the russian presidential election next month. it shows putin taking up to 66% of the vote. the next closest challenger tops out at 15%. >> it's very interesting the way they conduct those polls. >> yeah. >> they open the door and they put a gun in their face and they go we have a couple questions to ask you. speak into the gun. >> that's not that funny. >> academy awards are this weekend. sunday's parade magazine offers 45 unique facts about the show. >> which leads us to a very unique, so unique, with us now

chief white house correspondent for "politico" unique michael enwith the morning playbook. mike? >> happy friday! >> there you go, baby. >> there you are. the lead story this morning says mitt romney is waging a gaotcha campaign. explain. >> well, joe, you tipped off this issue in your blog on "politico" a couple days ago. you talked about the romney campaign is skilled if the dark of opposition research. you talked about how things from rick santorum's past magically resurfaced and race across the internet on conservative news sites. we talked to people in romney world. they pulled back the curtain a little bit on how this happened. the most recent example was in the debate when all mitt romney had to do was say two words, arlen specter to throw rick santorum totally off his game, pushed him to a 262-word

explanation that was no good. the romney campaign is doing this going back to rick perry when he started to threaten. they went after him on immigration. we say that the devastating hit has been a hallmark of the romney campaign. no campaign does it as consistently as ruthlessly as gleefully. one romney adviser told us in football, when you have a play that works, you keep running it. >> there's another fascinating story in "politico" and rick santorum. he complained that google would not organize the searches the way they do if they weren't progressives. and there's always been a general feeling that most of the tech companies lean left because most of the tech companies lean left. but google's made fascinating move in washington, d.c., appointing an old friend of mine to run for office. >> that's right, joe. this is first time politico and

first time that rick santorum has a google problem. i'm not sure that it has to do with who is running their washington office. but it is a google problem. it persisted. yesterday google announced that running the washington office will be one of washington's best liked, best connected inside players and a republican, a member of the house republican leadership from new york. >> wow, that's something. any background on why they decided to go in that direction with a democratic president? >> yeah, well, google is saying this they need to amp up the washington presence there where walmart was a decade ago. you have this fantastically successful company that neglected washington. going is rushing in. there are tons of policy people in washington now in the growing office. this is a way for them to

connect with both parties, someone that is both skilled in working the capitol and also a great communicator. susan malinari has been an anchor woman. >> happy weekend. >> you, too. >> coming up, the knicks -- all right, they're going to south beach. >> they head to south beach for a showdown with the miami heat. we'll have highlights. in the works package, we change the oil we change the filter... tire rotation, suspension, we make suspension checks... what we have here is the multi-point inspection. every time a vehicle comes into a ford dealership you'll be presented with one of these. we check the belts, hoses... brakes. tires and the pressures... battery, all your fluids...

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we have a quick question. jonathan, let me ask you a question. >> what? >> what team does ryan brown play for? >> the minimum walwaukee brewer. >> i cannot fake it. >> jonathan -- >> you can't fake it. >> you need to do this with a little more flair. >> okay. >> anyway, good news for national league mvp ryan brawn yesterday. he became the first major league player to successfully appeal a

positive drug test suspension. a three-man panel upheld his suspension after he tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone. >> that's not a good thing. >> after the decision, ryan braun said i'm very pleased and relieved by today's decision. it is the first step in restoring my good name and reputation. we were able to get through this because i'm innocent and the truth is always best. according to sources close to the situation, however, braun's side doesn't dispute the results of the test. instead he appealed the procedures that the mlb used to process the results. now according to espn, the test collector was supposed to take braun's sample to fedex and thought it was closed because it was late on a saturday as has occurred in other instances. the collector took the sample home and kept it refrigerated. it is supposed to go to fedex as

soon as possible. >> this is much like a president's hhs. >> whatever. buckle up. here we go. >> to the nba. >> buckle up? wow. >> insanity. the heat setting the tone on their first possession. dwyane wade hits lebron james for the alley-oop. they claim defense on win. coal comes up for the steal and takes it for the breakaway dunk. later in the second quarter, lyn loses the ball again. lebron in transition goes in for the two-handed slam. those were two of lebron's 20 points on the night. and spike wasn't too happy about. that. >> no. >> fourth quarter, wade hits lebron again on the long pass. miami wins it -- wins its eighth straight game 102-83. >> what? >> don't go to milwaukee. >> wait?

they use hands? >> this is how they do it. >> i see what you're saying. >> oh, really? look, wait a minute this tells me to do it with flair. you know, i'm doing -- look, i have to be me. >> that's right. >> i got to be me. >> that's right. >> you're damn right. >> i can't wait to see you during fashion week doing that roundup. >> i'm going to follow you around. >> i'm tired. >> i'll do it. >> up next -- >> y'all? coming up next, the must read opinion pages. you're watching "morning joe."

today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online.

attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers.

44 past the hour. time for the must read opinion

pages. >> hold on. hold on. listen to this song for a moment. this is a great one, too. do you know who is singing this? carl carlton. a little known fact here. pensacola, florida. >> really? that's kind of cool. >> that is very cool. >> we're going to do steve ratner's piece in the "new york times" today, delusions about the detroit bailout. then we'll get to steve's charts plchlt romney evidently hasn't felt the need to be consistent or specific as to what should have been done to address the collapse of the auto industry starting in late 2008. but the gist is that the government should have staid on the sidelines and allowed the company to go through managed bankruptcies financed by private capital. that sounds like a wonderfully sensible approach except that it is utter fantasy and you go on to challenge him to come up with specific names of willing investors of which there are how

many? >> exactly zero. >> yeah. >> and this is the problem that not only romney but a number of the opponents of what president obama tried to do on the auto bailouts don't understand. there are really only two choices in the spring of 2009 and for that matter during president bush's administration fall of 2008. one is for the government to provide money under some set of circumstances and we debate those. the others is for those companies to close their doors, liquidate, lay off all the workers and go out of business. those are the only two choices. >> do they get any sense from bush administration officials how they felt on the auto bailout? >> yeah, i spent an enormous amount of time reporting for my book. i began my book with the bush period. and we saw it almost the same way. paulsen had a conversation with the white house. paulsen was in favor of the secretary of the treasury of helping the auto companies across the -- across this bridge. and somebody in the white house said to him well, you know, it's a difficult decision. and paulson said it's an unpleasant decision but it's not an difficult decision. >> and george w. bush who didn't

like the bank bailout but felt like it had to be done supposedly felt the same way about the auto bailout? >> exactly. george bush for whatever else you want to say about him deserves a lot of provides for how he handled the bank bailout and auto bailout. >> so given we're looking to michigan here, how do you think romney should be handling this issue? what could he do to -- >> i think he's handling the wait he needs to handle it to win the primary, to stay consistent. he's against the bailout. there is no need to flip-flop back. it's going to gain him no traction and n. michigan and the general election. he's down already by 20, 25 points. i would be shocked, absolutely shocked if michigan was winning the republican column this fall. i would even say 45 states could fall for republicans before

michigan. you talk to people in michigan, they believe not republicans but the general electorate believe that this bailout saved the car companies, saved their cities, saved their state. >> and for that matter, joe, the -- on a national basis, support for the bailout has got enmuch, much higher as people have seen the progress of it. when it first happened, as a country people were opposed to the bailout. but when you look at the latest national polls, there is a lot more support for what the president did on all of those. >> steve, really quickly and then i want to go to great charts you have here. so the bank bailout, the federal government actually made money. made more money on that bank bailout than any other thing they've done in a long time. they made money. what about the auto bailouts? how much was invested? how much have they gotten back? how much do you expect them to recover moving forward? >> $82 billion went in. i don't know exactly how much went back. but they'll lose $10 billion to $15 billion is my estimate when

the dust settles depending on when they sell the general motors stock. >> so $10 to $15 billion. let's get the columns right here. so $10 to $15 billion on the $82 billion loan directly. >> correct. >> but then, of course, being the numbers guy that you are, there are other columns about the people that stayed in the jobs, that paid taxes to the locals, to the state, to the federal government that didn't go on unemployment, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. those numbers probably add up over time to $15 billion, do they not? >> a lot more. and you gave my response for me. but the fact is it's been studied. it would have been something like 1.4 million jobs lost across the midwest if the car companies had gone. it's not just the car companies. it's the suppliers. ford would have had to shut down. they wouldn't have been able to get parts. all the local service providers, whether it's the bar around the corner, messenger service, they all would have had the business affected. >> john, how does this -- i mean

what's happened with the bailouts? it's fascinating that the bailouts caused -- actually, the bailouts created the tea parties, i think, at the end of the day. and, yet, middle america -- i mean we got so many different things going. do you think we're going to get possibly a fundamental realignment in politics over the next couple years? >> i think it's -- these two parties as a clinical matter, these are coalition that's don't make a heck of a lot of sense when you think about it. and they're not that different which we talked about before. it is really one establishment party with two wings. >> they are, though, very different on what they want to do with corporate taxes. because republicans want corporate taxes at 25%. and president obama wants corporate taxes at 28%. >> i know it's huge. >> sisn't that funny? you would think that republicans want to apolish tbolish the cor

tax. >> what steve said is revealing, i think. this began under a republican president. it was carried out by a democratic president. and, you know, as president bush said, it is really fascinating. if you're it issing there and you have all the experts in the world telling you the world is going to end, you're going to abandon your ideology. >> there is that. there is that. >> and by the way, we talk about edmond burke. >> yep. >> not enough. >> i didn't support the bailout, the bank bailouts. it was a burkian thing of george w. bush to do to say i'm going to put my world view to the side and do what i have to do right now to make sure people can get money out of the atms. >> although, on the auto bailouts, dig chenai dick clany didn't want to put his ideology to the side. whether it is jefferson buying

louisiana or fdr saying destroyers to britain, great presidents, great moments have happened with people. but i think we need to talk about the social conservatives. i have a feeling that, again, if the santorum surge conditions, you have the chance of having a more fiscally conservative socially libertarian realignment. >> that should be interesting. should we end this block with a little peggy noonan? >> peggy noonan says this in "the wall street journal." obama supporters are beginning to feel more confident or at least less embarrassed. a year ago, even three months ago, they were thinking, what a confounding, confusing, lose they are man is. they didn't bother defending him, never mind advancing him. but now they're starting to get friskier. they believe there is a new lay to the land. the economy is coming back, at least for now and at least a little. the republican nominee will emerge so bloodied his victory will hardly be worth having. republicans are delving into areas so extreme and off point that by the end mr. obama will

look like the moderate." okay. >> and she nails it. donnie deutsche and i always talked about this three, four months ago, even in manhattan, you could not find anybody to defend the president. at dinner parties, at other events, at breakfast, now they are. >> yeah. >> they're feeling pretty darn good. >> all right. >> you know what? he's got republicans. he's got my party to thank for that. >> he really does. still ahead, former presidential candidate tim pawlenty will be on set. the employee of the month isss... the new spark card from capital one. spark miles gives me the most rewards of any small business credit card. the spark card earns double miles... so we really had to up our game. with spark, the boss earns double miles on every purchase, every day. that's setting the bar pretty high. owning my own business has never been more rewarding. coming through! [ male announcer ] introducing spark the small business credit cards from capital one.

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only in ballistics do people root for bad news. they greet bad news to enthusiastically. you pay more, they're licking their chops. and you can bet that since it's an election year, they're already dusting off their three point plan for $2 gasment anybo. anybody who tells you we can drill our way out of this problem, doesn't know what they're talking about or just isn't telling you the truth. the easiest thing in the world to make phoney election year decisions. what is harder is to make a decision to tackle a problem. we're not going to overnight solve the problem of world oil markets. there is no silver bullet. there never has been. and part of the problem is when politicians pretend there is, then we put off making the tough choices to become more energy efficient. >> welcome back to "morning

joe." joining its table, editor in chief of "u.s. news and world report" and publisher of "the new york daily news" mort zuckerman. >> mort actually got you to gasp. >> i was gasping. i got chills. >> mort gave you chills this morning. >> yes. >> do you want to explain? >> you're ahead -- >> the former cop who caught the baby falling from the window. he jumped. >> baby jumped. a 2-year-old jumped and caught by a former cop. >> all right. >> only in gotham, my friend. and only in the daily news. you heard the president and gas prices, obviously, going to be a big issue. or it's going to be made to be a big issue. >> it's not going to be made to be. >> look at this. >> bill clinton understood politics better than any modern president other than reagan.

and the one number that bill clinton always looked at was this number. gas prices. when gas prices started going up, bill clinton got to action. and whether it was a speech or whether it was a proposal, even if it was something that wasn't going to move gas prices down, he wanted americans to know i feel your pain. >> yes. >> he wanted them to know that he understood. that is -- gas prices are so important. i remember back four years ago. my friend rich had a diesel truck and gas prices kept going up. he just one day came to me and said i'm going to vote for a democrat. we have to do something to get the gas prices down. it is one of those things that hit the middle class more than so many other things that

politicians talked about. this matters. that's why the usa today, forget all the headlines that we're talking about today this headline in the usa today, not about daytona 500, is what they're going to look at. >> yes. it affects everybody. it affects their willingness to stand in other ways because it takes money out of their disposable income. it has a compounding effect. and there is absolutely nothing that president can do about it in the short term. it is going to be what it is over the next year and root for -- >> it's smart of him to address it saying he wants to take all of the above and apply it to dealing with the issue. at least he's on message, no? >> he's on message with all of the above. but i think republicans have a great count cher is oer which i really? why aren't we drilling here? why are we getting in the way of, you know, going after the natural gas reserve that's we

have? why didn't do you keystone pipeline? as steve said, that oil is going to get into the world market anyway and will eventually drive prices down. but he's right now being held back by his environmental base. and it puts nipphim in a very difficult position. there are not a lot of sources of energy that environmentalists like. >> this is the -- >> other than get granola and grinding it up and hoping that sparks will come off the granola and create fusion. >> no, that's not fair. there is also solar and wind. >> will is solar and wind. >> thank you. >> that's insignificant in terms of the context of the problem. >> the shredded tote bags. >> shredded tote bags. >> yes. >> what is he talking about? >> he's talking about a movement out of touch with the realities of working class americans. that's what he's talking about. also, "the new york times" -- and i really -- this is a heartbreaking picture for any father or mother to see. but "the new york times" has

been showing pictures like this over the past couple of days. i'm glad they have. the hell that is going on in syria continues. and i wonder where all those voices are today that were saying that we had a moral responsibility as a nation to go in to libya. where are they today? do we not have a moral responsibility to stop assad from continuing to kill? and by the way, i'm not a big interventionist. and i kept saying we can't just go into libya for "moral reasons." why aren't we going into syria when syria is killing children, killing grandmothers, shelling cities. i mean the death toll from what assad is doing in syria is much higher than what gadhafi did before he was killed.

>> the last story on the air was narrating pictures of a baby dying, little boy breathing his last breath, literally. >> you know what the syrians did to her? they targeted her and killed her. and where is, again, where is the outrage from the people that said we have a moral responsibility to go into libya? >> as you say, it's not just a moral responsibility. we have a national interest there. syria is the outpost of iran. they're one of the most destabilizing regions in the country and the worst regimes because it is a majority that is suppressing the people of syria. they are at a home base for terrorists all around that part of the world. and the killing is just absolutely gruesome and awful. and we are not doing anything. and the world isn't doing anything. >> no, they're not. >> we're following that story. we're also following the political landscape, the

michigan primary is just four day as way. a new poll shows rick santorum and mitt romney in a statistical tie. at the top of the gop field. according to american research group, santorum has a slight lead but romney is still within the margin of error. newt gingrich and ron paul trail the front runners with 12% and 7% support respectively. the latest mitchell-row seta stone poll has romney up four points on santorum in michigan. and looking at pennsylvania, franklin & marshal pole, santorum with an overwhelming lead among republicans in his home state with 45% support. the former senator is 29 points ahead of rival mitt romney. the pennsylvania primary is not until the end of april though. but when it comes to the general election, president obama leads both rick santorum and mitt romney by eight points in pennsylvania. >> isn't that something? that's amazing. >> you know, mort, there is so many republicans who believe this was our year. then luyou look at the field an

boy, more and more conservatives i talk to, more and more in the republican establishment i talk to, are quietly hoping that romney loses michigan and we go to if not a broker convention, a contested convention because they're still dreaming of jeb bush, mitch daniel. yesterday, in fact, jim demint was talking about the possibility of mitch daniel coming in. of course, we always talk about our friend chris christie and paul ryan. real conservatives. tough conservatives that a lot of us wish would have jumped in this race from the beginning. >> you lead a rich fantasy life. >> yes. >> none of these guys are running. you're stuck with whom you have in the primaries. and of them all, you have to decide who is the most lektable if you want to splesend mr. oba home. by and large, people think it is romney. i suspect that's the way -- >> if it's romney-obama -- >> see, the numbers are

misleading. romney has come back dramatically in michigan. he was way, way behind. i suspect he's going to end up in michigan. if he lost michigan, it would have been game over. and now that he's -- >> so you're saying i have a rich fantasy life. there is not any smoke filled room? >> no. >> mitch daniels isn't running. chris christie isn't running. they're terrific candidates but they ain't ron paul. >> john mech yum, what the hell ever happened to the smoke filled back room? we need it bad. we need them bad. >> we're talking about '76. and, you know, clark reed agreeing with mississippi deciding basically for ford to be the nominee. it was 100 delegates, i think. >> right. >> they could make the decision. and, you know, we all act as though it's really far back. that's not that far back. that's modern political history. >> right. >> and not in my lifetime. >> that's right. that's right. i don't want to bring you into

this group. you said a really interesting thing a second ago. republicans are saying this is our year. who's our? i mean that's, to me, that is the most interesting thing about the party at the moment. there really is characteristic of the republican party with one exception the last half century to fall in line pretty quickly. and '64 being the exception. and it's just not happening. and one distinction i think, obama and hillary were fighting and no one said anything. obama and senator clinton in '08 were clearly both plausible at least strong nominees. right? i think that battle made them stronger. it's unclear to me that the fact that romney can't close the deal against someone like santorum. i think that is making him weaker for the fall, not stronger. and i think that's, again, a real question the republican party in so far as there is a

republican party, which i don't think is -- >> no. but the republican party are the people and i hear it every day. not just from people who write about it in the washington and in new york or on radio and tv. but, you know, the republican party, people that vote in primaries, people that vote in general elections looking up saying who am i going to support? who am i going to vote for? a strong candidate, a top tier candidate just hasn't stepped forward. >> i'm going to say a name that's going to, well, you heard john huntsman yesterday talking about the party. and that's kind of an extreme example. but some republicans would say their immediate reaction to hearing his comments is instead of saying maybe we need to be introspective and figure out how to get everyone to fit into the same tenlt, they're going to say well he's not a republican. and that's just -- that's a problem because there are many kinds are there not?

>> i have a different view of it. it's the primary season. that's what happens during the primary. once you get the nominee settl s settled, the republicans are going join together whether you like the candidate or not. they're going to join together and basically are going to choose do we want our candidate or do we want obama? that's going to really unite the republican party. >> that's fine for the republicans. but we all know that this election is going to come down to 10,000 swing voters in a couple of counties. right now the republican argument is not one that is making independents think this is a party we should trust the country with. >> but what's going to happen in my judgment is you're going to have an even weaker economy at that point than you're going to have today. and that's going to be the issue that's going to unite the moderates and the centrists behind a republican just because it will be an alternative. >> do you think a generic republican beats obama in november? >> no. >> no. >> no. >> and nor is the economy -- >> and six months ago who would have said that? three months ago who would have

said that? but now right now it's advantage president obama. steve, one of the big problems is the fact that if let's say jeb or mitch daniels or paul ryan or chris christie were running, i would say okay, great. i may not agree with them on all issues. but they're going to tackle the one issue that i'm obsessed about and that is the national debt. because i -- i think that -- i think that richard hoss is right. i think one, two years from now, it's the united states and the dollar on the front line and this debt crisis explodes very quickly here. so if there were a republican that i was convinced was going to be disciplined on the debt, then i would already be supporting him. and i'm sure my family would be giving them money. there's not. and there's been a study by a centrist group comparing what republicans are doing on the debt in the long term with the

white house. >> yeah, i don't think you're going to be enthusiastic about that. but let's go through them. the committee for responsible federal budget which is a nonpartisan group has done an analysis all three candidates have had plans come out recently, president obama's budget, mitt romney's speech on wednesday and again another speech today at the detroit economic club and rick santorum. so let's just look quickly at the three pieces of the budget. the first is the revenue side. and obama's budget provides for some tax increases as we all know. he wants to increase taxes on the wealthy. keep the bush tax cuts for those below the top 2% or so. but for everybody above, raise the taxes a couple different ways. so that would be $1.4 trillion over the next ten years. romney, until two days ago, had a fairly modest tax cutting proposal that mostly involved keeping the bush tax cuts and adding a few other things for $1.1 trillion. now under pressure from the right, two days ago, as you know, he stepped forward and basically said, i'm going to be

reagan. i'm going to cut all the tax rates by 20%. and so now he is showing a revenue loss of $3.7 trillion. >> and then rick santorum. >> but just on romney, they're going to make that up with other stuff. until they do, the right way to score it is not that. rick santorum has even more aggression. he wants two tax rates, 10% and 25%. so a $6 trillion revenue loss from his proposal. if you go to -- >> and newt gingrich is -- >> newt gingrich is off the field for the moment. >> off the field. it's even more than. that so let's talk about spending. we're cutting taxes. i'm sure they're cutting spending as well. >> yeah. so obama gets credit. the base lines are complicated. give credit for $200 billion of net spending cuts. romney proposed $1.1 trillion of net spending cuts. and santorum, $1.5 trillion. and santorum, you will like, has actually embraced the ryan medicare plan and romney has, too. that is the biggest part of it.

so these look like pretty big numbers in terms of actually cutting spending. but if you combine them -- >> what's it mean? >> if you combine them together to look at the deficit, what you see, in fact, is that obama who does not have a primary contest sant actually proposed reducing the deficit by $1.6 trillion. romney is proposed increasing the deficit by somewhere between 0 and $2.6 trillion depending on whether he comes forward with a specific spending cuts and revenue enhancement that he's promised but has yet to actually specify. and santorum says he's got another $6 trillion of spending cuts but nobody knows what they are. >> this is over what time? >> ten years. >> over ten years. so this -- so, look, we need to cut -- hold on a second. looking at this chart, it would look like the president is doing pretty damn well on deficit reduction over the next decade. he's not. the deficit is exploding. it's going to be over $20 trillion. it is an absolute nightmare. but let's put that chart back up

there. an absolute nightmare the spending over the next decade. it's unsustainable. but the take away from this chart is that as bad as the president's deficits are in the future, to a degree, the republicans proposed budget plans make that -- makes that terrible situation even worse. >> correct. and, look, the republicans have said they're going to do more. romney says he's going to cut spending to 20% of gdp which will be a massive cut in spending. he hasn't done it. >> where are the cuts? >> that's the point. he hasn't said. he hasn't said where they're going to be. he just said he's going to do it. there is one last point worth making. the difference in vision between the democrats and the republicans. obama wants to increase taxes a bit in order to protect a lot of programs. the republicans want to cut taxes massively and imply they're going to have to cut social programs massively. there is a very different vision here as well as a lack of specificity from the republicans. >> mort zuckerman, the deficit just keeps exploding.

four years in a row of trillion dollar plus deficits. you look again over the next five, six, seven, eight years. the numbers are unsustainable. talking about fantasy. the united states government is not going to be able to spend this much money. we're not going to be able to run the deficits we're running. we're not going to be able to pile up more national debt. these politicians from obama to mitt romney to rick santorum to newt gingrich are living in the past. we've run out of money. and are the international markets not going to start beating the hell out of us very soon if we don't clean up our act? >> if we don't do something about that and these plans do not indicate that we will and, frankly, neither has obama done very much of that, we are going to be italy in the next five years. you're going to have a collapse of confidence in the u.s. dollars. nobody knows when that collapse starts. it's something that is always intangible. something will trigger it and then we're going to be in a very

deep problem. no matter who is the presiden i don't care who is the president, they're going to have to address it. otherwise, they're just living fantasies. >> and so i want to really quickly just so people know, people will debate these issues. this is really about math. it's simple math. so just at home, if you have a pencil, you can write this down on your note pad. if you have a pen, write it down on your spouse's back and just look at it any time you want. when george bush came into office, there was a $5.7 trillion debt. $5.7 trillion. okay? when he left office, there was $11.5 trillion debt. george bush nein effect doubled the national debt. now the national debt is approaching $16 trillion. another $5 trillion has been put on. by the end of the president's first term, he will have put $5 trillion.

you project the numbers forward, he goes over $20 trillion. so we will go with two presidents from $5 trillion to $20 trillion. it's unsustainable. and both parties are going to have to come together soon. there's going to be a crisis. there is going to be a meltdown, an economic meltdown in the n couple years. and david brooks writes about it, "america is europe," we'll talk about that in a little bit. we can't keep piling up debt like this. >> there's going to be a crisis. the other part, even if there isn't a crisis, we're leaving to our children that $20 trillion of debt that they are going to have to pay off. somebody has to pay off that debt some day. >> right. >> and we're basically consuming now at the cost of our children later. >> that's right. you know, this doesn't even take into account unfunded liabilities. it doesn't take into account the $50 trillion that we're going to owe on medicare and social security in the coming years. we're in big trouble. you know, you talk about

grandchildren. you used to say on the campaign trail, we can't leave this debt to our grandchildren. and you know people's eyes are glaze over. i don't give a damn about my grandchildren. this is not about our grandchildren. this is about us. we're the wubz who are screwed if we don't clean this up. >> the issue is going to be which president is going to be able to do this on a bipartisan basis? unless it is on a bipartisan basis, we will not be able to address this. >> yeah. people are more aware of this. >> a lot of bipartisanship at the moment. >> you know what? i do think going to what john said earlier, the only person that is able to do that is an independent candidate. bottom line. >> steve ratner, thank you very much. mort zuckerman, stay with us. still ahead, we're going to bring in former governor tim pawlenty, national co-chair for the romney campaign. and up next, nbc's david gregory and kelly o'donnell join the conversation. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] this is lawn ranger -- eden prairie, minnesota.

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>> newt gingrich or tick lated a world view that made him sound like he grew up during the great depression and had the playing. >> you live in a world of total warfare. we have to worry about -- the world could be in danger at any minute. we're looking at an abyss the all of us are more at risk to day, men and women, boys and girls, than at any time in the history of this country. >> after all that, i'm almost afraid to hear gingrich's one word for himself. >> mr. speaker -- >> cheerful. >> live look at washington, d.c. 26 past the hour. joining us now from washington, the moderator of "meet the press," david gregory and nbc

news capitol hill correspond kelly o'donnell. good to have you both onboard this morning. >> good morning. >> david, michigan, the polls keep bouncing back and forth. let's just do -- i mean let's underline the simple fact. mitt romney has to win michigan, does he not? >> yeah, he does. he's been an underdog there. the one thing that he didn't have a sparkling debate performance, per se, i like to say he's been working the jab pretty well against santorum. he did it during the debate. washington insider, washington insider. he's made santorum appear to be an incumbent in a lot of ways. and you see him closing the gap in michigan. he has the superpac ads up, he has his own ads coming up. he's not going to take them on the right on associate issues. but if he can continue to work this angle about him as a washington insider and having to apologize for certain votes he's taken, it seems to have paid some dividends. but, you know, as you said, this is an even race. he's got some momentum.

and we're going to see if this helps him. >> david, how fascinating. you know, every campaign has that one moment, perhaps a defining moment where something happens that's not on script. and it actually turns things around. in '88 it was michael dukakis in the tank. and in '92, george bush looking at his watch. i wonder if with all the talk about contraception and all the talk about all these social issues, if it wasn't that moment that rick santorum said the other night that he took one for the team. that he didn't believe in no child left behind. and he thought it was wrong but this is what george w. bush wanted so he fell right in line. is that going to end up haunting him a lot more than some of his other positions on contraception? >> i think that's smart. i think it might. we just don't know yet. i do think that, you know,

meetchum is saying if this is our year, who is the our? that was the republican party going in a new direction, influenced by the tea party, talking about what you were just discussing which is dealing with the debt and government spending. it was also about bucking the establishment in washington including the republican leadership. and for rick santorum to make the case that he's so principled on issues like the bailout, if he was that principled about national education reform, no small matter. i mean this wasn't a technical vote. this wasn't an amendment. this was a big effort by the president of the united states. i mean people will argue with him about whether it was worth compromising principles about. i think romney did leap all over that yesterday. to say, you know, that notion of how many times did he compromise his principles? and that's an area, by the way, as we know that romney's challenged as well. >> exactly. >> he is challenged as well there. you know, just so moderates and

progressives who don't understand the importance of this issue, just to fill you in on it. since 1980 when the department of education was set up, every conservative chatting has been talking about abolishing the federal bureaucracy for education, bringing that money back home, getting it into the classrooms and out of washington, d.c. certainly what i talked about nonstop and a lot of other conservatives did throughout the 1990s, getting rid of the federal department of education. and so for kelly, for rick santorum to say i would along with the basically the largest nationalization of education and did it arm in arm with teddy kennedy and i sort of followed teddy kennedy and george w. bush along because i was part of that team, that doesn't help him, i would guess not only with conservatives out in the heartland but also conservatives on capitol hill. >> very much so.

when you're out there with voters attending events that santorum is holding, one of the things do you hear about is education. in this economy, we haven't talked about it as much. it hasn't been one of the sound bites that makes most of the attention until this debate. and you got the sense that he was sort of standing on the cracking limb when he threw out the line about taking one for the team. it's one of those things that people might understand a practical part of politics. but that's exactly what especially tea party voters do not like. they don't want leaders who will go along. if he's got the -- if he's got the social conservatives, that piece of the electorate that he needs that mitt romney also needs, is that voter that is frustrated with washington and while people may understand the ways of washington, that's the kind of thing that can really, really rub them wrong. >> david? >> can i make a contrarian point to all of this? a lot of the discussion on this program is about solving problems, thinking about

american renewal, american competitiveness, about bipartisanship. now how many times has the issue come up someone on the right or left being totally intransigent on certain issues? and here is a example of santorum siding with the president on bipartisan education reform which it's been criticized in a lot of different ways is still the centerpiece of what has become the liberal and conservative movement to introduce accountability into education reform. >> yeah. >> rick santorum went along with that. now for all the people who say hey wait a minute this guy doesn't have a general election chance because he's so extreme, this is an example of a guy who went along with what was a national consensus on this issue. i think people can look at this is a little bit differently, maybe tougher in a nominating proce process. i think it's fair to look at it from that point of view. >> also, a guy to get elected in pennsylvania, a blue state. it's not purple. a blue state twice. >> and then got --

>> lost by a point. >> yes. it was a very bad year for republicans. kelly, i want to get background on rick santorum, especially in terms of how people on the hill view him. you've been covering the hill for years. what do republicans on capitol hill think of rick santorum as their potential nominee? >> well, one of the things we saw is that mitt romney really racked up endorsements from people who had been on the hill for a long time. and he was way out front. there was a perception that santorum would not in any way do this well. so he lags in the endorsements and public support from colleagues who worked with him. one of the notable changes is when mike dewine of ohio who was an ohio senator and now the attorney general of the state flipped from romney to santorum. when i talked to people, there is a sense among republicans that there is that concern about the electability factor. would he do as well in november? but now there is increasing concern about romney's ability in that area based on his performance during the

primaries. so what is stark and very notable is there is not a big community of people coming forward on the hill to support santorum. you'll hear people talk about him in more personal terms that he was difficult to get along with. that kind of thing. he's addressed that. and so you don't see a big choir of people coming forward to support him. and one of the interesting things about politics is when arlen specter became such a moment in the debate, he, of course, has been out of office now for a couple of years. he had a long career. that i think really made a difficult moment for santorum because he had not supported pat tomby who has risen as a big voice among conservatives. >> john? >> quick question for david. wondering what you're hearing from the white house about whether they want to send money to santorum's superpac which -- how they're viewing the race right now. >> you know, i still think the

singular focus is on romney. they may offer a couple of head fakes in the direction of santorum to keep mixing things up. i think, you know, can you hear some of them making the case that he's got a good economic populous pitch among working class voters, particularly which is an area of weakness for president obama. but i think in their heart of hearts they still think that romney is going to be the nominee. he's the most foremidable. and particularly on social issues, contraception just being the most recent, that it will be easier to have that stark contrast between santorum and president obama. >> david gregory, thanks very much. who do you have on "meet the press" this sunday? >> rick santorum. we'll talk to him. a couple days before the primaries. also, governors jan brewer of arizona and jerry brown. >> wow. >> haven't had them on the program. i'm looking forward to that as well. >> talk about the odd couple. >> that's good. that's good. >> i think they go out for dinner in san francisco. >> that's okay.

kelly o'donnell, thank you as well. >> thank you, kelly. >> good to see you. >> all right. for the first time pakistan is calling on the taliban to hold peace talks. but can they tamp down the protests over the burning of the muslim holy books at a u.s. air base. we'll have details after this. ok, guys-- what's next ?

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president obama surrendered twice today. i think it deserves to be brought to the country's attention. the more outrageous involves the killing of two young americans and wounding four others in afghanistan. now, apparently there was an incident where an amount of radical islamists were being burned, apparently the koran is part of that. that has been blown into a huge incident by fanatics in afghanistan. the president apologized for the burning. but i haven't seen the president demand that the government of afghanistan apologize for the killing of two young americans.

[ applause ] he is consistently apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the president of the united states, period. [ applause ] >> that was newt gingrich yesterday blasting president obama for apologizing to the afghan president over the inadvertent burning of muslim holy books at a u.s. air base. it triged days of violent demonstrations including a protest yesterday where two american troops were killed by a man wearing an afghan army uniform. even members of the afghan parliament are enjurnlging jihad -- >> why are we still in afghanistan? we went over to afghanistan and we invested billions and we invested the blood of our sons and daughters ten years ago because that was where al qaeda was based. and because they sheltered al qaeda for the horrific attacks of 9/11. we should have gone this there. we should have killed as many taliban members as possible. we should have killed as many al

qaeda members as possible. but we destroyed al qaeda. we destroyed al qaeda in afghanistan. why are we still there? why do we triple the number of troops? why are we trying to rebuild a country that wasn't -- it wasn't built in the first place. why are we still in a place like this? where an incident like that, a horrific incident like that, though, could bring all those people out wanting to kill the same american troops that have been fighting for a decade, spilling their blood, building their schools, trying -- why? mort, why are we still there? why are we sntill in afghanista? >> we're there because we've been there. i mean it just gets to be that simple. nobody wants to be the president who wants to withdraw. but i agree with you completely in what you're saying. at this stage it makes no sense

whatever. we are wasting blood and treasure in that order on a country which will never appreciate. that country is so corrupt today it just makes -- it's disgusting. and we are sitting there providing the means for that corruption on every level. >> you know, if the president had wanted to apologize to the afghan people, if he wanted to apologize to muslims worldwide, fine. that's fine. but to a corrupt leader that is said publicly he considers switching sides of the taliban, i mean we are in effect sending our sons and daughters to die to prop up karzai, one of the most corrupt leaders on the planet. >> yeah. >> this is -- it's a long, slowly unfolding tragedy. it's now lasted three time as long as the second world war. >> it's disgusting. >> and what could be a major development, pakistan's prime minister is calling on the

taliban and their militant groups to participate in peace talks with the government in afghanistan. standing by in the greenroom, former presidential conditioned date tim pawlenty. and next, harvard law school professor on money and politics and what voters can do about it. keep it right here on "morning joe." the employee of the month is...

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fantastic. >> no, they didn't. >> yes, they did. >> that's right. we were there. >> you were great. >> you know what? i borrowed money from the mayor. mayor bloomberg was up there. i passed it out to the students before. i said please don't boo me. my mom's watching on cspan. >> that was fun. let's do it again. should we go there and do a book about there? >> let's talk to the professor. he has important things to talk about. >> he is going to teach us things. what is the one way forward? is there one? >> no, there is not only one. no. >> there's only one. you know, you harvard people. >> i want to be thoughtful. >> what is wrong with you? >> let's start this again. i'm sorry. i'm sorry. you're not on the campaign trail. go ahead. >> tell us the way forward. >> so everybody, especially television shows they're sort of obsessed with the left side versus the right side. >> what does that mean?

>> one thought. i get one thought. >> seriously. >> i'm going to give you detention. >> here's what the left does. >> go ahead, professor. i'm sorry. >> gosh. >> what this book is about, the most interesting political divide is between the inside and outside. the inside is from mars and the outside is from earth. the inside gets obsessed with the deficit. they're like what the heck? why can't we address this fundamental issue? they look at how we fund campaigns. you say what the heck? but on the inside, you can't talk about any of the issues. in a meaningful way that's going to get to any kind of solution. so what this book is trying to do is say how do we knit together the outsider movements to focus on this fundamental problem to make it possible for the inside to be sane again which, of course, it's not. >> we gave the example of the left versus right. the exaggerated differences. the false choices. if you talk to somebody on the left they go, republicans want

to take corporate taxes down to zero. if you talk to the right, they go president obama wants to -- he's a socialist. the the president's 28% corporate tax rate, republicans 25. and yet they exaggerate the differences and it's sort of keeps this little game going. >> right. because they're constantly focused on this monkey on their shoulder like how do they continue to get the money into their campaigns that they need to get? they each have different monkeys feeding them right? but they're going to talk in a way that drives that underlying money campaign. that constant focus drives them away from what the american people really care about. if we don't address this underlying corruption issue we'll continue to get a public that has no faith. >> professor, do you agree with me that of all the candidates that are out there right now in 2012, buddy roemer fits this profile best? actually, i believe has the best message, pure message for 2012? >> absolutely. i've been with buddy. i had him at my house. i had all of my liberal friends.

>> oh, my. >> how could you possibly -- never let a guy from louisiana and lsu fan in your house. >> there is something about the silverware. we weren't sure. >> absolutely. that is exactly the point. he is living the life of taking no more than a hundred dollars but he couldn't get on television on any of these debates. he has been powerful on your show but he couldn't get on the debates because they asked have you raised half a million dollars in the last six weeks and he said, what the heck? the whole campaign is about the corrupting influence of money and you are telling me the only way i get to debate is if i raise the money. i don't believe in his policies but i believe in his reform. i think you're right. he is the one candidate that would effect that. >> has there been a moment in which you think all the forces came together for reform in the last say hundred years? >> yes. >> is there a historical analogy? >> exactly 100 years ago. the election of 1912 there were four candidates for president.

>> right. >> two candidates called themselves progressive. it didn't mean liberal. it means we're going to change the system because the corruption of that system had risen to such a point that people weren't going to put up with it anymore. >> we're talking about t.r. >> t.r. and woodrow wilson. very different people and politics but doting said they were progressive. 70% of americans voted for those two together. wilson beat t.r. but that was the last moment when the revulsion from this grew to the level they did something about it. >> what we have is a system that basically works under the leadership of the president and you're going to have to find a president who knows how to work on a bipartisan basis. i thought reagan by the way, and i was very surprised at this, worked wonderfully on a bipartisan basis. just one example, in 1983 reagan and tip o'neill reformed the social security system. they both took the credit and the blame and that was a huge step. we haven't been able to do anything like that since then and it takes that kind of leadership and personal relationship to make it happen.

we don't have that. >> professor, isn't the problem that in 1983 ronald reagan could say to the republicans keep your mouth shut? >> yeah. >> tip o'neill could do the same thing. i remember hearing this great -- reading this great tip o'neill story right after the beirut bombing. he went down and talked to the democratic caucus and he said, today, we're all americans. you all will not criticize president reagan. and they were afraid to do it. we don't have that today. >> no, absolutely. the other big thing reagan did with tip o'neill was the tax reform. the biggest tax reform in the history of the country because of bipartisan support. that's impossible today because the congress of today has no relationship to the congress of even ronald reagan's period. i think after, you know, you left the congress the radical change in the way that institution functions means they cannot on the inside focus on what's right. they have to focus on what funds their campaign. >> you know what's so fascinating is in 19 -- in the '90s i always go out and talk about how bill clinton and the republican congress did so many

great things together despite the fact we didn't like each other. david axelrod, hey, didn't you also impeach him? yeah but it was the '90s. even when we were screaming and yelling at each other and he was accusing us of hating old people and we were accusing him of being a demagogue, behind the scenes leon panetta his chief of staff was talking to john kasich our budget director and they were working day and night. >> no more. >> day and night. it doesn't happen anymore. >> that's right. >> it's because of this corruption. i think until we focus on that we're not going to get any change. >> professor, thank you so much. come back. >> i want to talk about this book. "one way forward." >> how often do you come to new york? >> any time you ask. >> okay. >> seriously. professor, we'll get you and buddy roemer here. >> let's make it happen. >> buddy is on next week. >> absolutely. >> by the way, don't worry. we'll provide the silverware.

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good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast as you take a live look at a rainy new york city on this friday morning. welcome back to "morning joe." we have john meacham, jonathan capehart and the michigan primary is just four days away. new polls show rick santorum and mitt romney in a statistical tie at the top of the gop field.

according to the american research group santorum has a slight lead but romney is within the margin of error. newt gingrich and ron paul trail the front-runners. the latest rosetta stone poll has romney up three points. and a franklin and marshall poll out of pennsylvania shows rick santorum with an overwhelming lead among republicans in his home state with 45% support. the former senator is 29 points ahead of mitt romney. the pennsylvania primary is not until the end of april though. when it comes to the general election president obama leads both rick santorum and mitt romney by eight points in pennsylvania. >> that's interesting. >> what do you make of this neck-and-neck situation with santorum and mitt romney? >> i tell you what. >> it keeps getting worse for romney. >> it does. if mitt wins by a vote then they're going to take that as a win. a win is a win is a win. but john meacham -- >> unless you're in iowa. >> yeah.

john meacham if mitt loses by a vote, then i suspect all hell is going to break loose and we may have the first contested convention since 1976. what do you think? >> i think it's kansas city which is good. it's not bad for the party. people argue it's somehow or another bad for the republicans or the chaos is not good. i think it shows a certain amount of vigor. that's the best possible scenario. one question i have, and this is a high game so you'll love this. if santorum were to be nominated, is he a goldwater figure or is he a mcgovern figure? et first gasp of a movement or the last of a dying ideology? >> well, the debate, santorum seems to be having in the national press right now, is a

debate that was resolved in 1965 when the beatles were playing shea stadium. we are talking more and more about contraception. i have seen some good moves though. i mean, the past couple days in virginia especially, steve rattner a couple days ago they moved off the state sanctioned vaginal probes. yesterday they moved off another controversial element which suggests that people like bob mcdonald are saying, to the state legislators, we're going to calm down because this is an election year and we're going to do our best not to scare 99% of the voting population. santorum, though, on contraception, he hasn't had that moment where he comes out and says, guys, you've got nothing to worry about. my beliefs are my beliefs. but contraception is okay. as president of the united states i'm going to do

absolutely nothing to stand in a woman's way of having contraception. >> no, he hasn't said that yet although i agree i think with john in the sense that if santorum is the nominee which i don't believe he will be. i do believe romney is going to win michigan, but if he were the nominee, i think the election would not just be about contraception. i think it would be about a bunch of very fundamental conservative views that he has that i personally believe are out of step with the american people. >> like which ones? >> people will decide. like taxes, like the role of government. things like that. i like a woman's right to choose. forget about, you know, what happened in virginia but just the fundamental question of the woman's right to choose. he's in a different place from, i think the rest of the country, the majority of the country. >> jonathan, it's so fascinating, i've always said americans aren't ideological. a lot of us on tv, a lot of people in washington, americans are not -- take the two social issues of our time -- abortion

and gay marriage. on gay marriage americans are moving the direction progressives would want them to move. you look at any poll. this is a matter of numbers. look at the numbers. they're moving. on abortion it's going the opposite direction. americans are becoming more pro life. of course the reasons why, you know, science, medicine, you get 3-d imaging now where parents can actually get inside the womb and see their child very life like. for rick santorum to be scaring pro life voters off is not an indictment against the pro life movement so much as it is his own view, which is i think extreme by modern american political standards on contraception. >> yeah. very extreme. and, you know, when you get to a point where someone like me who has no dog in this fight at all listening to him but concerned

about the impact of what he is saying, it being very uncomfortable by what rick santorum is saying, hearing what you have been saying about your wife and republican women, you just backed out of the kitchen to listen to them, talk about what republicans are saying and doing on contraception and abortion issues and just being completely uncomfortable. >> right. >> by the tone and tenor of what rick santorum is saying -- >> right. and, jonathan, rick santorum, but i'm not talking about that. i'm talking about gas prices, talking about that. part of what makes a candidate great is a candidate that can define the issues and shape the issues and control the narrative. if he -- we saw this with mitt romney four years ago in mormonism, we saw it with the president on race. at some point this guy is going to have to step forward. i talked about how his -- because i've got a lot of personal beliefs that i don't -- that i didn't let go over into my political beliefs because --

>> well, what's interesting, you brought up romney and mormonism, the president and race. those were two big speeches that they each gave so are you saying rick santorum needs to once and for all come forward and give his view on all these issues and give us a road map of how he would behave as president? >> because, yes, because the knock on rick santorum is he is too radical on social issues. that is not a knock from the main stream media who will say that -- this i think about most conservatives. this is a knock i hear from republicans. whether it's from my wife, whether it's from my former chief of staff, whether it's from my 24-year-old son, who is a republican's republican but more of a ron paul republican, and my son will still say, can you believe the stuff this guy has said about gays and lesbians? and, you know, my son's -- he is

a -- but, there is a growing libertarian trend in america where people are saying, i want you out of my wallet. i want you out of my bedroom. rick santorum's got to give that speech to tell people i'm staying out of your bedroom. >> what you're saying is that rick santorum's views on a range of issues, more conservative, more radical, whatever you want to call it than what your wife, your son, your former chief of staff are comfortable with. how does he give a speech in which he says something that he actually believes but that may in fact upset even more all those people who are conservatives but not in his camp? >> well, i think barack obama, i think it's safe to say, i think bill clinton, i think probably ronald reagan, they all had beliefs that were more outside the main stream on certain issues. i think we all do. but they understood that if they were going to be elected president they were going to represent 300 million people, they had to let them know. we'll keep it in the middle. so i think he can say, as i have

heard him say in previous speeches, yes. i have my personal views on contraception but i voted for title 10. i never let my personal views get in the way of a woman's right to contraception. >> so the issues are hurting him -- >> it's not in the primaries but it is going to kill him -- look at the pennsylvania numbers. he is way ahead in pennsylvania among republicans. he is getting blasted in the general election. look at michigan. he's doing well in michigan but he loses as well as romney by 25 points in the general election. >> it's just interesting because when you -- when the whole hhs controversy came up your analysis was it's bad for the president, bad timing, but ultimately will hurt a republican on this. and it appears to be. >> if the republicans take the bait, and they took the bait. >> yeah. they did. >> when this, before that friday it was about freedom of religion. >> yeah. >> and republicans won that

every day. i will still say i think the president's decision was a mistake and he now agrees. he agreed that he should have listened to some other advisers. but the day it went forward, republicans should have dropped it and gone to gas prices. they should have dropped it and gone to gas prices. we said that in real time and they didn't do it. >> yeah. >> so it's killing them. >> i'm going to drop it and go to gas prices right now. gas prices are quickly becoming a major issue in the 2012 campaign. with president obama trading new attacks with republicans over the economic implications. in a speech from miami yesterday, the president insisted there are, quote, no quick fixes to solving america's energy challenges despite what his opponents are saying on the trail. >> only in politics do people root for bad news, do they greet bad news so enthusiastically. you pay more, they're licking their chops. and you can bet that since it's an election year they're already

dusting off their three-point plan for $2 gas. anybody who tells you that we can drill our way out of this problem doesn't know what they're talking about or just isn't telling you the truth. now that's the easiest thing in the world to make phony election year promises about lower gas prices. what's harder is to make a serious, sustained commitment to tackle a problem. we're not going to overnight solve the problem of world oil markets. there is no silver bullet. there never has been. and part of the problem is when politicians pretend that there is then we put off making the tough choices to develop new energy sources and become more energy efficient. >> the president called for, quote, all of the above in terms of a response to rising gas prices including increasing oil production, developing alternative energy resources, and enforcing stricter fuel efficiency standards. according to triple-a gas prices have jumped another 3.3 cents from wednesday to thursday bringing the national average to $3.61 a gallon.

>> steve rattner, the president talked about generally supporting an all of the above approach which i agree. i wrote about it several years ago. we need to do everything. >> right. >> we need to do nuclear. we need to do alternative energy. we need to drill. we need to go natural gas. but his own environmental base is preventing him from moving forward on the keystone pipeline. his own environmental base is making him hold back on fraking and going after natural gas reserves that we have here. his own environmental base is stopping him from drilling as aggressively as most presidents would drill in the position that we're in now where we need to bring domestic consumption up. is that going to solve all the problem? no. would it help some? steve? >> yeah. everything you say is true, but it's at the margin. look, the world uses something like 80 million barrels a day of oil. the fundamental problem at the moment is we don't have a lot of spare capacity in the world.

there's about three or four million barrels of spare capacity in the world and virtually all of it is in saudi arabia. so when you have threats to the straits of hormuz and people worry about oil being able to get through, there is no margin of error. there is no freedom of movement. when you have the economy getting stronger around the world and people using more gas there is no margin of error. this is a problem that's been building up for 20 or 30 years. this is not not a problem that occurred in the last few years because we haven't drilled off the florida panhandle. there is more we can do on each of those fronts and debate what the president did or didn't do on keystone pipelines and so on. that oil is going to get produced whether we pump it across our territory or it goes across canada and gets exported. that hasn't changed the world oil dynamic. >> do you think it would have been a good idea for the president to support that? >> on balance i think it would be good to find a way to build that pipeline. we need job. we need oil. we should build it. it doesn't change the fact that the oil is going to get pumped somewhere. >> mika?

>> yeah. do you support the -- i'm not -- >> what, do you not read polls? >> no. >> okay. this is fascinating. the question was put to the american people -- >> i'm reading steve's op-ed. >> you all wore american flags when this question was asked. do you support the construction of the keystone pipeline? 63% say yes. 23% say no. one of the things though that has driven me crazy about the energy debate through the years has been the fact, john meacham, that when you talk to the left, they say, oh, you know. it won't help to build nuclear plants. it'll take too long. it won't help to drill. it's on the margins. it won't help to do this keystone pipeline. it's just a little bit -- and then on the right, oh, come on. we're not going to -- there is not enough wind. there's not enough sun. there's not enough this. we're not -- we need to drill. so both sides -- >> that's a song. >> are talking past each other.

and they are all pushing it down the road. >> nothing gets done. >> we've had this discussion on nuclear for 20 years. the french fuel 75% of their energy through nuclear plants. >> they made a decision and just went with it. >> they went with it. but the left and the right, the extremes of both sides keep talking past each other instead of truly doing an all of the above. and the president is in the camp of the people who are not doing all of the above as are the republicans in the house and the senate. >> right. >> the energy question is a little like the fiscal, federal fiscal problem don't you think, where if you immerse yourself in the facts of it, you -- one tends to come to a position where an all of the above kind of moderate position makes sense. if you don't immerse yourself in the facts of it, it's very easy to be as you say pushed this way or that way by an extreme left

or right wind, so to speak, without really engaging the facts of the matter. i think that there's -- this is one of the -- the fiscal crisis, i think the energy is really where if you actually learn what you're talking about, you do end up in a place where you want a nonextreme answer. >> when we come back, former presidential candidate and former governor of minnesota tim pawlenty joins ounce set. we'll get his take on the republican race. that's probably how he feels. but first here is your weekend forecast with bill karins. >> is this going to -- love him. >> he is so cute. >> why is he so awesome? >> perfect. >> the most wonderful person ever. >> i love you, bill. >> good morning, everyone. we're watching snow and rain moving up through areas of new england. got about 2 inches in the areas of connecticut. that's going to improve. temperatures are on the warmup. so we'll melt a lot of that.

where the roads are still a mess is all of michigan and definitely down toward chicago. chicago right now about 3 inches on the ground. grand rapids will probably get a half foot during the day today. still, detroit doesn't look like a lot for you. maybe a little bit this afternoon and early this evening you'll pick up a couple inches and that's about it. so winter returns today to the great lakes in new england. the middle of the country will dry it out as we go to your saturday. be prepared for a very windy saturday on the eastern seaboard. some areas are going to gust up to about 50 to 60 miles per hour. then as we go to sunday the daytona 500 down there, we've got showers unfortunately for that big race. oscars look just fine in l.a. the next storm will be up in the northern plains but the spring warmth will return as we go into the beginning of next week. have a great weekend everyone. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. the employee of the month isss...

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meet arlen specter, liberal, pro choice republican turned democrat. the deciding vote on obama care. rick santorum supported specter over conservative candidates twice. >> i'm proud to endorse arlen specter. >> santorum and specter voted for liberal judge sotomayor. they voted against right to work. if rick santorum couldn't say no to liberal arlen specter can you really trust him to change washington? >> wow. >> a brand new web ad from mitt romney hitting rick santorum's

congressional record. joining us now former republican governor of minnesota, former presidential candidate tim pawlenty, who is backing the romney campaign. good to have you back on the show. nice to see you. you look so good. >> he does. >> you look so good. >> where was that last year? >> i don't know. >> you know -- >> you didn't look good back then. >> john meacham, there are of course tragic stories of what happened to political figures when they have to go home. >> yeah. >> when they have to get on their horse and go. washington going back to mount vernon, never the same man once he went there. >> no. >> don't you get a sense that governor pawlenty now, actually as he said, sits alone at his windowless basement drinking alone to the sound of george -- >> thinking, i could have worn a sweater vest. if only i had known it was a sweater vest

i never think of that, as i drink alone in my windowless basement and that's only four or five nights a week. >> and mornings. >> holy cow. seriously, i mean, you, when you got out of the race, were playing by the rules that we've known for 30, 40 years in modern american politics. >> once you get your butt kicked you should get out. >> no. obviously you're like, win iowa or new hampshire, i've got to have this huge base of financial supporters to get me through. but that's just not the rule. you have to be looking at this scratching your head going -- should have stuck around. >> one of my coaches said to me once no more woulda shoulda coulda. that game and play is over and you have to live for the future. my campaign had a fair chance, i had a fair chance. didn't get it done so you move on. the moving on for me is i'm proud and excited to support mitt romney clearly the best candidate in the race. >> i'm not going to let you slip to mitt romney. if you look back, you got to see

what happened with michele bachmann and you and michele bachmann were both thinking i got to win the iowa straw poll and it ends up nobody needs to win the iowa straw poll. next time, you know what? go out and play what is that, bocci ball and go you guys vote for whoever you want because in the end it doesn't matter, the iowa straw poll. >> look, we made the decision tactically we needed to make some progress early, keep pace early. turned out that wasn't really necessary in this campaign. we also ran out of money. you got to have a super pac and some money. we ran out of money. but that's all history. we didn't get it done. that's the bottom line. i had a chance, a fair chance. i didn't get it done. >> you were ahead -- >> i would like to talk about mitt romney. >> but i do think though it is fascinating and you were there first and it is fascinating that the rules of the game have changed it seems if not forever at least for the foreseeable

future that a candidate like yourself that has a good following, that's a respected guy, a lot of positive conservative credentials can say, you know, it's not going well right now but i'm going to, like santorum, keep my head down. i'm going to do all 99 counties in iowa and wait for lightning to strike. >> each cycle is different. in 2008 when john mccain was running most people would look back and say you couldn't line up the dominos again one in a hundred times to get them to fall like they did for john mccain in 2008. never would we see a campaign like that again at least in the near term. guess what? a lot of unexpected things happened this time as they will between now and november. anybody who sits at this table and tells you they think they can predict what's going to happen in november, there's going to be three more intervening events. more things will happen. people will say dumb things. people will say brilliant things. this race will turn three or four more times. so you never know. >> i do think, mika, it is far more likely in this current political environment that people will say stupid, dumb things than say really smart things. >> we can probably count on

that. we look at the economic situation and gas prices. might there be another foreign crisis? all these things can tip the scales in a big way. i do want to ask you about something another former presidential republican presidential candidate said on our show yesterday. that was jon huntsman who is in favor of a third party. thinks it would be really good for the country at this point. what do you make of those comments? did you hear what he said? >> i didn't hear what he said, mika, but i have a lot of personal experience with third parties in minnesota. you'll remember we had governor jean-francois ran jesse ventura ran as a third-party candidate. substantial candidates have come in and have not won with the exception of governor ventura in recent times but they haven't been really successful and sustainable so they end up changing the debate and maybe the distribution of the votes but at least in minnesota they haven't achieved sustainable suction es. i think it is probably unrealistic as a way forward unless you are an entertainer or billionaire or both it is very hard to catapult over the

current platform. >> an entertainer -- sounds like vladimir putin has it lined up. he goes shirtless. >> a good rule for russian leaders. keep your shirt on. >> based on our experience in minnesota i don't think it has been a factor -- it has been a factor but not a sustainable, transformable factor. >> do you think from having been out there talking to republicans and now probably having more honest conversations since you -- >> what are you saying, john, since you left? >> do you see why people were so frustrated with these two parties that seemed to be butting heads sometimes for the sake of butting heads? does that frustration make sense to you? >> if you go talk to average minnesotans or americans they're not caught up in the details of a lot of what the parties are caught up in. what they want to know is look. am i going to have a job? can i pay my kids' college? how am i going to afford my health care? am i going to be okay in terms

of my mortgage? it's the bread and butter stuff of the economy and their life and they're sick of the bs. they just want somebody to give it to them real and give them solutions and stop the bickering. but i would add they're also sick of washington, d.c. and when republicans in particular say we don't want insiders. we don't want washington, d.c., there's precisely one candidate in this race who hasn't spent the bulk of his adult life in washington, d.c. or in a parasitic relationship with washington, d.c. and that is mitt romney. >> because he lost his race to get to washington, d.c. >> well, that was recently. >> yeah. >> but look at his whole life. >> he lost in '94, too. >> the fact of the matter is rick santorum, newt gingrich, and even congressman paul spent the bulk of their adult experience in the culture of washington, d.c. or in parasitic relationship with it. we don't need more of that. it's not working. >> do you have regrets that you should have been more candid? would you have just answered the question i just asked that way

six months ago, eight months ago? >> you know, early on the race was more polite. you know, it got increasingly more challenging. >> you have to always be thinking about it. >> i think from my standpoint one of the things i've learned looking back is you just be who you are, say what you think, and let the chips fall where they may. and records matter. leadership matters. if you're going to be president of the united states in these challenging times you better have run something or done something. that's why i'm underwhelmed to say the least about legislators. there is a big difference between pushing a yes or no button or giving an after dinner speech or voting on an amendment and actually running something. i think it is one of president obama's real short comings. he hasn't run something as an executive before. and again, one candidate in the race on the republican side is actually -- has been an executive, has executive experience and function and decision making, run something. it's mitt romney. >> all right. are there times along -- >> we've interrupted jonathan three times. >> go ahead. >> i'm sorry. >> all my home state governors have been on the last few days.

christie yesterday, carlton in minnesota -- >> you look so good. >> yeah. >> so we got to talk about the romance between mitt romney and ron paul. >> yes. >> yesterday rush limbaugh said he suspects romney has struck some sort of deal with ron paul that he would agree to not run as an independent in exchange for political favors or something for his son senator rand paul. >> well, that may be -- >> what are your thoughts? >> well, clearly congressman paul has said things about governor romney that are favorable. they've also been accurate. when rick santorum has made comments about romney ron paul has come to his defense and said it's not accurate. rick has been holding himself out as the true conservative and when he was a second or third or fourth tier candidate people let it go because he wasn't in the mix. now he's in the mix and the other campaigns and media are saying let's look at the full record on labor, on taxes, on debt ceiling votes, on other

issues. and guess what? rick santorum's record is not the perfect or, quote-unquote, true conservative record he's been telling people. >> let's go back to -- >> that's what congressman paul said. i think like everybody else if you've been in the battle, been a leader, made some decisions and you don't just give speeches you'll have battle scars. every one of these candidates has some clunkers. none are perfect including mitt but if you look at the record on the whole, mitt's got a conservative good record as a leader in a tough state. >> let's go back to rush's theory. it certainly seems like a deal has been struck because he's not only chopping santorum up to little pieces in these debates. he did it in past debates with, against newt and other front-runners leaving mitt completely out of it. do you know -- >> i know mitt and i know ron paul. i really don't believe there's any deal between them. think about ron paul cutting a deal as an insider to get some political favors. >> he's a father. he's a father. fathers cut deals. >> come on.

probably the last person to, quote-unquote, cut a back room deal in american politics would be ron paul. >> it just doesn't make sense. seriously. is ron paul mr. libertarian? i worked with him for a very long time. you know, the only true conservative in this race, is mitt romney? >> it's just idle speculation. >> that's what we love. >> you're engaging in unsavory rumor mongering. >> i don't think so. i think this -- >> ron paul, can you imagine -- >> you look at the commercials. the commercials look the same. >> can you imagine in today's world where everything is in the public, one person, more than one person knows about it everybody knows about it. 24-hour intense media scrutiny. >> yeah. >> then you drag ron paul into a back room and say, hey ron. >> yeah. >> you do this and i'll give you a favor. first of all he wouldn't do it. second of all it would be all over the news in 48 hours. >> you know it doesn't work that way. it's much more subtle than that. >> joe, this is a lot different than when you were in congress. things have changed. >> oh, okay. great. what are you up to now?

>> you know, i'm going to open a margarita bar in south florida. get some kenny chesney music. >> i'm going. good. >> that air church song. i'm just teasing. i'm serving on some corporate boards, helping mitt and just going to do that for six or 12 months and then see what's next for me. down the road, probably get involved in some charitable operations. >> governor, thank you for being here. >> come back. >> i have to ask you this. i may make you stick around. you're a football fan right? >> yes. >> you actually know who bud wilkinson was right? >> you want to put him in my seat? >> yeah i think i actually do. >> that's okay. >> has a minnesota connection. >> does he really. his son is coming up next. he is going to sit down and i just don't think capehart or meacham -- >> i don't think it's fair to kick mika out. >> it's all good. >> all right. coming up, i'll be cohosting, if the governor will stay with us, talking about a book called "letters from a legend" when it comes to college football greats

they just don't get bigger than former oklahoma sooners coach bud wilkinson. now personal letters with his son reveal a man who was much bigger than a sports icon. that story when we come back. piro.obert

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what are some of the problems you faced this year trying to replace lost ball players?

>> well, the same thing that you always face. it's one of the nice things about college athletics that you only see men at their very best. in professional athletics you see them sort of go over the hill but in college football at least they're getting better all of the time and we start with a new group and try to bring them along to be as capable as the men who played last year. >> that was of course the late great coach bud wilkinson at the university of oklahoma football team, three national championships in the 1950s. bud wilkinson's letters to his son, the new book. it's great to have you here. you know, it's just amazing. your dad won 59 games? >> 47. >> 47, 59. i'm a politician. we exaggerate. how do you like this? if you -- things don't go well for you, you end up next to me. it gets no worse than that. >> you know, there's worse things. working in the salt mines. working in a lot of other

places. glad to be here. >> mika would disagree. but talk about this book and talk about your dad. what was the inspiration? >> three years ago i was asked to give a keynote address in oklahoma city to commemorate a room named in my dad's honor and during that talk i read part of a letter he had sent me at graduate school. i had never done that before. it was very well received and it was at that time i decided to go back and reread all of the letters that i had kept. and as i studied their contents, i realized they provided remarkable insights and themes that are as relevant and vital and important today as when they were written 50 years ago. >> you know, one of the letters that jumped out to me was your dad talking about the will to prepare was more important than the will to win. >> yeah. joe, that was one of his major thoughts. he said that because he knew that everybody wanted to win on game day. the fans are in the stadium. the flags are flying. the band is playing. everybody is filled with excitement and awe but only if you prepare diligently long in

advance will you have a consistency of success. >> jay, one of the things people look for in leaders is what is their style? what things do they use to motivate their team? your dad was a great leader but seemed to have a civil almost gentle spirit about him. tell us how you can be both strong and have that spirit and be successful. >> you are exactly right. my father was somewhat professorial as a coach. he talked very calmly. none of his players remembered his using profanity ever but he encouraged them to always be the best that they could be. felt that since football was a team game that you had to subordinate your own egos for the good of the team. that's hard to do, you know, if you are a gifted, great athlete. but he taught his players to do that and as joe just said preparation was always so very important to him. his teams were extremely well prepared. >> john? >> jay, where did he get the habit of writing advice like this? did his father write him? did he have a teacher? what was the culture like that

led him to put pen to paper? >> he went to military school and got his masters degree in english education at syracuse and i think this was a skill that was very easy for him. he was quite articulate. he was eloquent both in the spoken word and in writing. and these letters i think are remarkable in their insight because he had an ease in dialogue of conversing on things much beyond football, you know, he's quoting the poet robert woodsworth and the harvard university president, the philosopher william james. >> sounds like bryant. a little different. >> and bear was one of his good friends as you know, joe. >> but very different people. >> absolutely. >> and bud wilkinson. >> they were. >> but talk about -- what fascinates me about this is your dad like you said, very strict training, very disciplined guy, soft spoken, and yet you came of age. >> yes. >> he saw his children coming of

age during very tumultuous times, the 1960s. you can see this in the letters to you. >> yes. >> basically telling you, stay grounded. stay focused. keep your eyes straight forward. >> yeah. that's absolutely true. my older brother, pat, went to stanford two years ahead of me and both my mom and dad knew that he enjoyed an iconic status not just in oklahoma but around the country. they thought it was better for us to be away. i was, joe, a typical home sick struggling kid and my dad gave me strong reinforcement and confidence. >> can you give the background here? another fascinating thing about this book bud wilkinson didn't lose football games. >> that's right. >> he just didn't. you were the most sought after recruit in not only oklahoma but through a lot of the nation, and your dad said, and you believed, it was best for you to get out from underneath the shadow. you went to duke and there was a great coach there but he wasn't your dad. and then your dad started losing

and you started feeling guilty about that. did you ever pack, were you close to packing up and going home? >> i don't remember that i was maybe at that state but i did very much feel an element of guilt and jamie roberts who won the trophy for my father in 1953, great offensive lineman, was an assistant to the naval academy ahn duke defeated them in 1961. they had the great heisman trophy winner joe palino and the celebration on the field after the game i kind of spilled my heart to j.d. roberts and he gave me a big pep talk and just said, look. your dad is fine. he's going to do well in victory and defeat. you made the right decision. >> the best part of it was, amazing, he almost told his son, you've lived with him this long, you don't know your dad very well. if you think your dad is measuring success or failure with wins on the football field, then you need to learn more about your dad. let me read you this, governor. tell me how important this is for a leader to think this way.

this is from dear jay, love dad. my grandfather -- my grandmother, a great lady, one of the finest i've ever known, always told me when i was a young boy growing up to dare to be a daniel. dare to stand alone. it is the best advice one can have to have a happy, successful life. isn't that something? dare to be a daniel. how many times in your life did everybody tell you to go in one direction but you knew you had to stand alone? >> yeah. and to have the strength and the courage and the vision and the character to do that is not easy. i was going to build on that if i could and say leaders are sometimes characters revealed in adversity but also revealed in how they use and wield power. your dad was a successful person, faced adversity, also had to be a powerful person. how was his character revealed in those tough moments? how was he able to stand alone against the crowd? >> well, i think he handled the defeats with the same dignity

and grace that he did in handling all the victorious times. as joe just pointed out, the letters were written between 1960 and '66 and 1960 was the first year and the only year that he ever lost. think of this. he became head coach at the age of 31. i was 5 years old. they never lost a conference football game until halloween my senior year in high school. so the take off on this book, it's the first year and they were just 3-6-1. it was an extraordinary year. real anomaly. then later in the book over the six-year period he retires from ou at the young age of 47. >> is that all? >> to run for the united states senate. and he picked a bad year to run. it was the johnson landslide. and so the reader will be able to see, well how did he undertake these difficult experiences? he handled them the exact same way as he did the great pictures. >> yeah. it wasn't about winning. >> that's right. >> well, except he thought winning was important but you're

right other things were far more important and if you did them you'd back into winning. >> good things flowed out of them. all right, jay. thank you so much. the book is "dear jay, love dad." bud wilkinson's letters to his son. thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you. great pleasure to be with you. i'm al ways looking out for i'm al small ways to be more healthy. like splenda® essentials™ no calorie sweeteners. this bowl of strawberries is loaded with vitamin c. and now, b vitamins to boot. coffee doesn't have fiber. unless you want it to. splenda® essentials™ are the first and only line of sweeteners with a small boost

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i can't hear you because i'm also making you a smoothie. [ male announcer ] marriott hotels & resorts knows it's better for xerox to automate their global invoice process so they can focus on serving their customers. with xerox, you're ready for real business. yes. i think this is going to work. what time is it, governor? >> well, it's time for business before the bell and the $5 a gallon gas and dow pushing 13,000. we have to go to brian shactman. take it, man. >> yes. >> governor, don't start taking our jobs, now. okay? you're good at what you do. that's a good toss. we're looking at dow 13,000 today, folks, how we'll make a run at it at the open yet again. the stock futures are up. we had timothy geithner on our air a little bit ago. he said the eurozone issue much less likely to derail the u.s. economy. also major focus on oil and gas.

oil above 108. brent crude, which is traded overseas 123. i just checked retail gas guys. 365 a gallon nationally up 4 cents from yesterday. this is a big issue we're going to be talking a lot about in the next few months. >> all right. take it. >> thanks to brian i guess we'll be back after a break. this is exciting for the 13,000 dow but i don't like the $5 a gallon gas, mika. i know you don't either. >> you're good. >> he's taking my job. >> thank you, brian. [ woman ] my boyfriend and i were going on vacation,

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