good wednesday afternoon to you. i'm dylan ratigan. thanks for giving me a slice of your afternoon. big story whether we like it or not in this country, the primary postmort postmortem, mitt romney running for president, last night's winner arizona and michigan, a blowout in arizona, winner takes all. you win it, you get the delegates. romney beat santorum by 20 percentage points. enough about that. romney also carried michigan. this, however, a very narrow victory, 41% to 38%, and more interesting because while romney carried michigan, which is the state where he grew up, by nine percentage points in '08, the proportional support for him diminished. right? if you look at this year's map on a county level, you might think by colors santorum has ak actually has more counties. his are the ones in purple on that map. romney won through hotspoting, if you will. michigan awards its delegates by congressional district.

santorum may have won the most counties but romney won the areas with the most people, which is not an unreasonable thing. and so he gets more delegates. but proportionally, it's not winner take all. romney wins the popular vote but has to split the delegates. this is where it gets to be a party. proponents say this whole delegate splitting thing is a better representation of distributive power and what voters want. critics of the system are saying that all this delegate distributing, a little for you, a little for me, two of these, two of those, is why the primary fight continues to drag on. and from the republican standpoint that creates further self-destruction, further fracturing, less strength in the general election. that's the theory on that. all rational signs obviously point to the fact that romney will be the republican nominee for president. there you go. not only is he ahead in the delegate count but the polling numbers are very strong and then for my money, most notnotably,

83% chance odds on intrade, so money says that. newt gingrich at 2%. not even close. that's where the market is anyway. michigan opting, however, to not use the winner take all model. many of the states doing the same thing. means this sort of pro wrestling could extend well into may, which is when romney's delegate lead may be wide enough at that point by actual numbers to pressure out the other candidates. we start our primary postmortem with ed rendell, former pennsylvania governor and leader of the democratic party. normally i would want to talk about the problems of america and how these politicians aren't addressing them and electoral reform. but let's talk a little bit inside of the immediacy of what is currently happening. how damaging -- how much damage sl the republican party doing to themselves in the context of who these candidates are, how this debate is being conducted, and its extending duration with all the money and the nonsense?

is there a risk for them here? >> there's a significant risk, dylan, particularly if this goes, as you said, into may and the axing of each other continues. it's going to be very, very difficult to recover, not necessarily impossible but difficult. and gingrich has indicated his willingness to fight on. if he carries georgia, i think he will continue to fight on. santorum is going nowhere. he's enjoying this ride. so i think that you're going to continue to see this type of warfare going into -- through april and maybe into the middle of may. >> there are political theaters around the world, and there have been in our own country, where an extended debate among men and women who aspire to solve problems of consequence can have value, that it's good to spend the time, to hear more ideas and have these conversations, even if in gingrich's case you only have a 2% chance of winning. how much of this is a function of not the split delegates or the money or all this but the fact that the actual debate is a

terrible debate? that we're complaining not -- of course you want to short an lousy debate, but you could have a long fantastic debate as well. >> no. absolutely. look, the -- if you're an independent voter, and let's say rugt now the independent voter is the key to the outcome in november, first of all, the entire field, the bachmanns, the perrys, the her man caines, you're convinced this is nothing more than a clown circus, number one. then, number two, as you narrow the field, the candidates, particularly senator santorum, keep talking about issues that are just way out of the mainstream. you know, making contraception illegal, attacking jfk for his reasonable statement on church and state. it's not focused. if you look at clinton versus obama, hillary clinton versus obama, it was a tough campaign. i know. i was involved with it as one of

the leaders of the hillary clinton forces. but the level of debate was all about public issues, about how to get the economy moving, it was about what to do about health care. ironically, hillary was for a mandate and back then, i don't know if you remember, but barack obama was against the mandate. the campaign made obama a better candidate and better for the fall, no doubt. but that hasn't happened here. >> right. >> you look at mitt romney's unfavorable rating climbing during this campaign, that's the most damaging thing of all. i agree with you, he's going to be their nominee. you can't close your eyes and think about anybody else being their nominee. but he's been so bloodied up, some his own doing, that his unfavorable has risen so high, it's going to be difficult, although not impossible, for him to recover. >> at the same time, the level of dissatisfaction with the electoral state in america, the jobs condition in america, income and equality in america, prevalence of poverty in america

is very high, which makes any politician, including this president, theoretically vulnerable to a strong candidate who can make a case for increasing investment, for increasing jobs, for creating more fairness in the tax code. no such candidate obviously exists. there are people, whoever, like this guy david walker, this gentleman, who used to be george bush's comptroller, who is working with no labels, working with america's elect, who is working inside of a campaign to renew america's prosperity, and he says things like this -- i would be interested on your thoughts on this rhetoric. >> i focus on substance and solutions. fiscal responsibility, the need for government transformation, and the need for political reforms. our political system is broken. we have a republic that is not representative of the public dominated by the wings on the far right and the far left. people know it. they want truth, leadership, and solutions. >> "the new york times" editorial page is talking about

mr. walker like he's a third-party presidential candidate. >> i know david walker. he's a terrific guy. but he has no intention of running for president. >> i know that. but my point is not to suggest he should run for president. my point is that there is an appetite, a wave in the republican and democratic party for a political dialogue that we're not hearing anyplace else, which makes people like david walker interesting for a lot of folks to listen to. >> no question. and the question i get asked by intelligent people, not only just college educated, intelligent people everywhere, is why didn't we pursue simpson bowles? that was a format that said yes, we have to keep investing in the things that are important to invest in, but we have to significantly reduce the debt and get rid of the deficit and lay out a balanced plan. some entitlement reform, some increased revenue, et cetera. that's what the american people want to know. they hunger for someone who's going to talk about that. the president, give him credit,

has talked about the investment strategy. he talked about it in his state of the union. he talked about it -- >> for sure. >> invest in infrastructure and education and research and development. clearly that's correct. but has the president done enough to say that we're going to get our debt under control? >> right. >> i think most observers would say no. there's a yearning for that, a yearning for someone to come in and lead. >> and to that end, saying those things while facilitating trade with china, not dealing with the tax code and not dealing with the banks, in other words, whether america can tell the difference between words and actions, that's another new reality. wonderful to see you. are you enjoying your day, ed? >> i am. david walker for president. >> listen, there you go. at least david walker to effect a presidential debate. how about that? >> and those are the questions -- >> that's what i'm saying. >> one last thing, dylan. those are the questions we need to be asked. >> right. >> those are the questions. instead of asking about

contraception, ask the republican candidates if you're not going to raise revenue, how are we ever going to pay off the debt? >> yes. >> there's no way. it's not possible. >> you have to cancel it. cancel it. the marshall plan. i'm telling you. you can't even -- they can't raise taxes enough to pay this bad boy. >> and, dylan, we haven't even talked about how citizens united is ruling the political process. >> the nice thing is everybody is learning that every day. >> supreme court should be ashamed of itself. >> they should. i hope they are. nice to see you, ed. talk to you sooner than later. ed rendell. coming up, what they were thinking as the world was imploding in the white house during the financial crisis. our specialist with a revealing new book looking inside the obama white house in that first year when they printed trillions, seized on health care, and ignored the underlying problems in the banking system. why'd they do that? plus, round and round it

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responded to that. and we're out today heading to super tuesday with some wind at our back and it's blowing out are there right now, i can tell you that, but we have a lot of wind at our back heading to tennessee, and we're going to be taking it all across these super tuesday states. and we are going to have a great day. >> mitt romney and rick santorum both pledging to forge ahead. again, all the probabilities suggest that there is basically no chance anybody who's not mitt romney will get this nomination despite all the theater. but here we are. the next big contest, next week's super tuesday, where ten states with more than 400 delegates. i want to bring in the wednesday megapanel. imogene, johnathan, and rob, first around the horn on the concept, johnathan, of romney as a lock, which is how the markets have it. in other words, for all the theater, they're saying, listen, there's an 83% chance it's romney, santorum is less than 12% chance, newt gingrich is a

2% chance. is america ready to deal with romney as a lock? >> well, it's not so much is america ready, it's still the question is whether the republican primary electorate is ready for romney to be a lock. this conversation we're having would be completely different if romney had lost by three points last night or just lost period, this idea of inevitability of romney being the republican nominee would have gone out the window. but his three-point squeaker last night, while it settles sort of the question of if there's going to be a white knight, it raises questions about, one, if there's enough passion for romney, and two, will the turnout from 2008 continue to be flat or go down as it has in previous contests, and we'll find out for sure when we get to super tuesday where you have ohio, which both santorum and romney need to win in order to show that they can make it to even get the nomination. >> romney is a lock.

are we ready? romney/obama 2012. get your bumper stickers out and let's party. >> i think what's more likely especially after last night is the possibility, the real possibility of a third-party candidate. you've got american elect going on. the let's face it, that's such a game changer. 1992, perot completely blew it open for clinton. it happened again in the uk recently. they polled at 15% presidential candidate, third-party presidential candidate. they're in the debates. it completely changed everything in the uk. suddenly you had three people on that stage, a coalition government -- >> always have calls for a third party. there are examples that are very persuasive, although it usually doesn't happen. >> i think the momentum is clearly he's locked and loaded. i think you'll have more of the establishment coming behind him. i think within -- you know, it's quite possible a week from now if he has a really good showing on super tuesday that we will see all the sort of republican

powers that be really rallying behind him. >> right. >> these things do turn on a dime. as we've seen with -- one day -- months talking about herman cain one day -- >> romney has been a lock the whole time. >> yeah. >> traded between 70% -- just like the debt crisis. the bond yield never went up in july. >> no. >> the market was, like, listen, this is a joke, we're not going to a-pay attention. the market is saying, listen, we're having a good time. we'll come back to that. quickly. go ahead, johnathan. >> one of the reasons why romney's stock is riding so high in these trading platforms is because he has tradition on his side. >> right. >> republican tradition is the guy who ran the last time and didn't get it but runs the next time is the guy who gets it. >> like the politician traders almanac. i get it. like the storm always rallies the day after thanksgiving. the guy who just ran for president always wins the nomination the last time around. one issue, this next story is sort of instructive, i feel,

imogen, you can buy and sell the tax code, special interest, you're the pistachio guy, you're the oil guy, whatever it is. it's gotten so bad in america someone has put in a piece of legislation to create a $250 tax credit in the event that you grow a mustache. now, that is an obvious corruption of the electoral process, the two sets of rules and all that. but before we judge, before we judge, let us misunderstand the potential power in our society were more men to have mustaches as a result of their more empowered and masculine state, they will function in a way more useful and beneficial to society, which i think was the argument behind the tax benefit. this was the help america initiative. by bringing more mustaches forward. you don't think that's a good idea? >> so wrong. facial hair, bad, unattractive. fundamentally -- >> what about empowering? what about a man's right to

choose? >> america has a debt problem, dylan. we need to go back to history, look at the historical president, 1535, henry had a beard. start taxing things, not credits. >> as the judge in this courtroom, which you clearly are -- >> yes. >> -- let me offer a piece of evidence. can we get the evidence, please. >> who is that guy? >> that is me. imagine mitt romney. he would be 100% locked for the nomination. all he has to do is grow a mustache and he's good to go. >> or he could be the bass player for sound garden. >> yes. >> i think the mustache thing -- >> have you ever had a mustache? >> no comment. i think you look great right now. >> i appreciate that. >> i would say that, you know, the whole nation of sort of magnum p.i.s could really up the testosterone. >> yes. >> we minor league get out there -- >> with energy independence, we have to do electoral reform, reform the prison system.

we've got to get jobs for our veterans. we've got to drill for oil. >> you can do that better with a mustache. >> do it bet we are a mustache. johnathan, the last word. >> i'm all for a magnum p.i. nation. >> are you refraining to comment, then, on any other content of the past couple minutes? i'm confused. >> we've got to move on. if i could grow a mustache, i'd have a mustache. and i thought yours was fine right till about here. >> okay. >> everything else from here down should have gone. >> so you're saying the part below the lip line. >> correct. the upper lip line. >> that shouldn't be there. >> right. >> you grow a beard and start shaving off parts to see what it looks like. >> sculpting. >> you're, like, what if i do this. all looks pretty bad. >> horrific. >> that's why you end up looking like this again. >> if i were hitchhiking, i wouldn't accept a ride from you, dylan. >> i'm a friendly guy. very friendly. all right. we will come back to the panel

in just a few. first, yet another reason why we need to lock washington's revolving doors. as if you needed another reason. a new report showing nearly 400 former congressional staffers paid and educated by you the taxpayer to represent you and defend the constitution of the united states have now acquired enough skills that they can be hired by special interests and join the lobbying ranks. 400 of them. thank you, america, for the training. now k street is salivating about the fact that about two dozen lawmakers are set to retire this year, which is known as jackpot in special interest land, making all those retiring staffers candidates for new access to power. oh, yes. but not if our next guest has anything to say about it. a cowboy in his own right, democratic congressman david cicillineny. >> with no mustache. >> no mustache. >> but that a name that means business back in certain parts of new york, you know. >> right.

>> he wants members of congress to be banned from ever becoming lobbyists. if you have the privilege of serving america and defending the constitution and debating our most consequential issues, you forfeit the right to take money afterwards to try to persuade lawmakers to do what you want because you're getting paid to do it. that's pretty simple stuff. right? >> absolutely, dylan. this is a simple idea. when your service is concluded, when you retire or move on, you can't become a lobbyist or engage in lobbying activity. there are 370, according to the center for responsive politics, 370 former members of congress engaged in some kind of lobbying. i think about 280 are registered federal lobbyists. i've only been here a little over a year. this is a pretty broken place. the power of special interest, big money to influence this process is obvious. but one big part is lobbyists. one way to fix it is say if

you're a member of congress, when you leave you cannot become a lobbyist so that disproportionate voice can't be p heard on behalf of special interests. >> let's talk about this. much like banning insider training or superpac transparency, this is in the domain of the phenomenally idiotically logical sort of thing that people in america can't even believe isn't already legal. they discover it and they become -- everybody's approval rating goes to 10%. then all of a sudden they like north korea as much as they like the congress. that's where we are today. then obviously no one in congress is going to want to help you do this because what the heck are they going to do for jobs after they're done in congress when you take away their job? as a practical matter, how is it that -- and how can people like me and others in america help you exert this the simplicity of a solution like this knowing that none of your colleagues are have any incentive to do it, that it's a direct hit to your future employment? and do you have an alternative job suggestion for them since

you're taking their future job away from them? >> well, first of all, it's not going to happen unless the people in this country demand it. from 1986 to twooux, according to the center for responsive politics, 40% of members went into lobbying, almost half went into lobbying. this won't change until the public demands it. people can encourage their members of congress to become a co-sponsor. ask them if they'll vote for it. speaking to their representatives saying this is one way we can help to begin to restore the public's confidence in the work that we do by ensuring that members of congress cannot engage in lobbying. one of the things that's so broken here, as you were saying about the tax code, every special interest has their own set of lobbyists that are influencing and distorting our democracy. this is one way to be sure elected officials, former members of congress, don't contribute to that. you can go become a professor, go teach. there's lots of things you can do. you should not be able to take

your public service and leverage it to your own financial and private gain and to distort really our democracy by amplifying the voices of special interest by using the power and influence you had as a member of congress. it's wrong. this is one thing we can fix. people should encourage their members of congress. the bill number is 3491. encourage them to sign as a co-sponsor and support it. >> the number of congress is 202-228-3121. right? isn't that the -- that's the phone number? >> main number, yes, i believe so. >> and what's the bill number? >> the bill number is 3491. it's on my website, cicilline.house.gov. we'll do a pledge to encourage members of congress to sign up for it. simple proposition. >> you got to find another job for them. bring it to them. say here is another job for you. >> here's what else you can do. >> got your stick. now you need a carrot, which is

a new gig for the people whose jobs you're taking away. nice to see you, congressman. thanks for your efforts. >> thanks for having me. >> we first met him at the greedy bastards book party. we walked up and said we should put you on tv. and it's a chance to talk about my book, a five-week bestseller on "the new york times," sumer fun. up next, our specialist joins the conversation. a look at that year. the money printing. the decision go-to go after health care. the decision not to restructure the banks. the decision not to get rid of management. our specialest calls it a disastrous combination. look, every day we're using more and more energy.

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wo oar back with the

megapanel and the specialist with an explosive new book. the white house is aflutter about it, particularly a memo leased in this book called "the escape artists," about the obama economic team. as you know, a subject near and dear to my own heart, especially the decisions made in '08 and '09, specifically decisions behind what the author of this new book claims was the obama economic team's fumbling of the economic recoveries. gno nome shriver is the senior editor at the new republic and has written a book that explains how, my favorite question, how obama's team fumbled the recovery. what's the answer? >> i think there are three key moments. the first was the initial stimulus decision in late 2008 when they huddled during the transition. i write in the book his top economist thought it would take between $1.7 trillion and $1.8 trillion to fix the hole in the economy. they only gave president an option for $850 billion, that

was the highest option they presented to him. i don't think they could have gotten the full $1.8 trillion, but they certainly left a couple hundred billion dollars on the table. second, between late 2009 and early 2010, there was a period there where the team was totally paralyzed. you had one faction that was adamant that the deficit had to be reduced. you had another faction, christina roemer this time joined by larry summers thinking this recovery is starting to wobble and we need to reinforce it. they were so at odds that paralysis was the result. >> that's what duration? >> late summer of '09 through the spring of 2010. >> third reason? >> third thing is in 2011, republicans get elected and they're adamant about slashing government, and instead of trying to make the case this economy still needs help, they go down this 3 1/2-month dead end of negotiating over a deficit deal that is never going to happen. >> and the end result as you see it is the tepid nature of the recovery, the lack of jobs and lack of investment, et cetera. >> unemployment was between 8

p.9% and 10% for 2 1/2 years, a long time. >> go ahead. >> christine roemer is almost the heroine in your book. can you talk more about that, expand on her? >> yeah. roemer was the one member of the team, the one senior member who never served in government. there's a funny story. when a friend of obama's, also an alumnus of the clinton treasury department, he was the personnel chief during the transition. he e-mails christina roemer and says we'd like to interwithdrew you for a job. she confuses that first e-mail thinking he's looking for her to get advice about getting a job in the obama administration. she was naive about how this stuff works. she didn't realize they wanted to interview her. she's very naive about the way government works and the political continue stranlts but sophisticated about the way the economy works and really sizes this thing up better than anyone else on the team and sees -- >> at the very least perhaps by assessing the scale of the liability. >> yes. >> even if you don't like her solution, she was the one person in the room saying the scope of

the problem that we are trying to solve, like the 30 million jobs, it sounds like she was arguing we didn't even understand the scale of the problem. >> that's right. on top of that, she argued the president should see these tradeoffs clearly. even if you're not going to recommend $1.8 trillion, he should see how far away you are from the ideal. >> one premise, noam, which if you spent more the economy would be better. mostly the republican party and all the austrian economists would argue with the press saying spending less would have been more if you look at their economic views than spending more. >> the thing about the way the recovery shook out is they made a series of predictions. one of those predictions was that the economy would begin to turn around based on the stimulus in late 2009. they actually nailed that, nailed the date it would turn around as a result of the stimulus. then they made a couple more predictions. one is it would start to shoot up and accelerate. they got that right, too.

it did start to accelerate. they thought it would hit something called escape velocity, it would keep accelerating into the upper atmosphere and everybody would be great. that was where they got things wrong. it started to accelerate and then -- >> i would argue from my perspective in my narrative, the reason they're getting it all wrong is they're not looking at the lack of investment. they're trying to manufacture money or manufacture spending to drive action. but they're not looking at the hole in the bucket, which is the lack of capital requirements, et cetera, et cetera. it's a debate -- that's why i wrote a book, too. >> you did. >> johnathan, the last word. >> do you discount the political realities faced by president obama, particularly when he was trying to negotiate that first stimulus deal? i recall back then that the idea that a $1 trillion number coming out of the white house was perceived to be automatically dead on arrival. so is it right to discount the political realities facing the administration during that time?

>> i don't discount the political realities. i think they definitely existed. what i think was a problem was this meshing of economic advice and political advice. in the book, i write at length about how larry summers sort of made the mistake of superimposing the political advice on the economic advice he was giving the president. i think the president should have had unvarnished economic advice from the economic advisers. then he could hudle with his political advisers and figure out the best course for getting this implemented. the problem with meshing the two, they shaded the number down and that led to the sense they were closer to the mark than they were. that was a mistake. >> like your core criticism is the president can't be asked to make decisions if he's not given the full frame of what the decision implies. >> exactly. >> and that making political management decisions without revealing the frame of the fact, 30 million jobs, whatever it is, is that really the greatest risk in the white house. is that fair? >> i think that's right. the president needs to have every piece of information in front of him, needs to know

exactly how far away he is from the ideal. when you have an economic adviser internalizing the political constraint, you become confused about what the person is giving you -- political, economic advice. that's a tough spot for the president. he has to sort out what kind of advice he's getting before deciding what to do. >> a great point. congratulations on the book. >> thank you. >> it's called "the escape artists: how obama's team fumbled the recovery." if you want to learn more about his book, we have an excerpt of it up over at dylanratigan.com. if you like it, i'm sure noam would be happy for you to read the rest of it. coming up here, consider this -- a less controversial subject. playboy bunnies with jet packs. yes, jonathan. it may not be as out there as you think.

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asking yourself what wonders interstellar travel may hold for all of us, what would incentivize people to pay all that money to fly to outer space, i have two words for you -- space bunnies. i know this may sound like some sort of fantasy or adolescent dream or science fiction. but if the world's two most notorious "playboy"s get their way, a playboy mansion in the stars may become the initial incentive to load space planes. in fact, the playboy company is making plans for such a facility. here are some renderings shown to space.com. the intergalactic playboy mansion would be on a station on orbit like a cruise ship circling the earth. think of this as the beginning of the whole potpourri of market of places you could stop -- sports stadiums, shopping, all in space. it would include the playboy facility, a zero-gravity dance club, a hotel room where one could float around. that's what they call it in space. with your significant other.

a restaurant and a casino game room that includes, get this, in the casino a giant human roulette table. what that means i do not know. but it does look kind of awesome. here would be our sales pitch were they to ask us. bunnies with jet packs serving you tang martinis from a very different kind of floating bar. we'd give that to sir richard if he wants it free of charge because we're not sure the virgin playboy mansion is ultimately going to fly. a playboy space club in space certainly one kind of an experiment. next up, hear how your child or grandchild's big idea or their experiment could earn them a free ride in college. [ rosa ] i'm rosa and i quit smoking with chantix.

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well, forget the current educational structure where we give you debt, you get a diploma, you may or may not learn group-based problem solving and may or may not be able to pursue your ideas for experimentation and solution in america. so why not reverse that to make it ideas and experiments for diploma? as we learned in silicone valley, shown in austin and miami, not to mention in the midwest on our college tour, those who have the opportunity and groups to help them experiment do. we asked everyone we met what

theire their experiments were. one new england university, they have an answer to this problem that could get you a free ride in college. the man behind the idea is the dean of the university of new haven's college of business. and the man behind mastercard's priceless marketing campaign, larry flanagan is our guest. how do you evaluate? how would you take one of the students that i met or another student who might be aspiring who has a big idea, who has an experiment? how do you sift through everything that might come in, larry, to determine whether it's worthy of consideration for a free education or any sort of benefit? >> well, the good news is there's a lot of good ideas coming in. so we're seeing the students being very creative. we've made it structured for them so we can go through them and score them, so to speak, and look at the quality of the ideas. but they're very good ideas coming through. and really what we're looking for is not necessarily, you know, the next facebook or big innovation, but really how the students think.

they have entrepreneurial leadership. do they think creatively? do they really have an idea and they're not deterred by the lack of resources or seemingly, you know, too many barriers in their way? that's really what we're looking for, is the way they think about the idea. >> and that's the critical point. we've been saying around here that if you don't know where you are and you don't know where you're going, then you're never going to get there. the way you get there is a how question. so where are you, where are you going and how are you going to get there. it seems you're trying to encourage people to think about how they think as much as what they think. will you elaborate a little bit on why you consider that emphasis to be so important for us right now? >> i think what we want to do with our students at the university of new haven and the other students we want to attract is to understand what they want to do. i think a lot of situations in higher education, students do what they think they need to do following prescribed krucurricu

and expectations of how they should study and what they should do when they graduate from school. what we want to do is have the students think coming in about what their brand is, what are their values, what's interesting to them, where do they see themselves long term, not technically what they do as a career but the things where they really are going to get some energy out of it. that's what we're trying to do in the how part of it, to give them the tools and the structure to really follow the ideas that are in there. and i think the competition has shown that there's a lot of great ideas. there's a lot of thought and innovation out there in the minds of high school seniors and college students. and we really want to give a platform for them to really open that up and pursue it. >> so walk us through exactly how your system works and what the idea is. so give us the pitch. consider me a high school student. and then once you've answered that, give me a sense of whether you think what you're doing could be scaled to other universities and community colleges and everything else across this country. >> well, the pitch, so to speak,

is having students convince us that they have the motivation and the interest and the creativity and the thoughtfulness to fit in with the our program and with our college at the university of new haven. you know, as far as scaleable, it's easily scaleable because what we're doing is no different than right writhing an essay for your college application or doing an interview. you know, universities want to look for students not just what numbers did they get on their test scores but how do they think and what are their values and what kind of motivation will they bring. so it's scaleable everywhere. >> have you had any conversations at this point about scaling it? are you aware of any other universities in america, for instance, who are using a version of what you're doing as a metric for admitting students? >> i don't know of any specific programs. i'm sure there might be similar programs.

i think those universities such as the university of new haven are using facebook really as the primary channel to reach high school students and college-age students, really out there on the forefront doing that. so there are many universities out there such as the university of new haven that are using facebook primarily and other social media really as the new channel to engage with students and get a much more deeper, you know, texture from us understanding the student and them understanding university of new haven better than we used to be able to do with traditional channels. >> and how is has that benefitted the university? in other words, because you're doing a better job of both sending a signal as to what you want and doing a better job of reading the signal from the network coming back as to what you're getting, has that helped the overall culture of the school? >> it's changing the culture of the school. i'm fairly new to higher education. i've been in it less than a year now, but i am looking at our

students as customers, and we're changing our culture by this digital engainment, social marketing engagement with students to make the university of new haven, the college of business in particular, a very customer-centric philosophy and organization where we can engage much more with the students who really are customers. it's a controversial topic in many circumstances. but when people have a lot of choices and they're paying a lot of money, i call them customers. so again, to your question, it's really affect agriculture change. >> what would you say as the last question are the two or three foundational principles of that cultural restoration that you are trying to facilitate? >> i think, again, being student centric, being flexible and innovative in the way we instruct and help students bring out the best, of being less prescriptive on what they should do and more reactive to they need, to really develop those skills of innovation,

sustainability, and entrepreneurship. and, you know, all of the tools that are going to help them really be productive and bring a lot of both social value and economic value when they graduate. >> larry, continue gragrats on experiment. >> thanks. >> sounds like you've begun one yourself in entering higher education in this fashion. ple pleasure to learn about it and fits with us, the words we use around the office. it is where we're at. thank you, larry. >> clathank you. >> coming up, chris asking whether romney won it or blew it. but next, shooting straight where we really stand in the gop race. all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information.

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here on the show, we are in the business of math and fact so forget much of the gop race hype. ray has numbers for us. what's going on? >> thanks, dylan. with mitt romney winning arizona and michigan last night, you probably think he's doing well. in fact, you probably heard michigan was absolutely crucial for romney. but pundits said if he lost that state, he'd be toast. they also said that about new hampshire. if you think about it, iowa was also supposed to be the most important state in this race. don't forget about florida. that was that large pivotal swing state. now finally everyone is focused on ohio, the next hot state, that is a part of super tuesday next week. do you ever get the feeling that the presidential campaign coverage sounds a little too much like the rollout of a new product? the iphone 3g is the best phone in history.

until the iphone 4. but wait. now there's an iphone 4s. this approach is better for producers than consumers. what i mean is if you're in the business of politics as a candidate or consultant or a symbiotic content creator, you do want every week to be the best week ever. you want each of these states to be the most important ever. if you're in the business of life, you probably want to know what's happening. let's put aside some of this hype and the sexy states and focus on the fundamentals of this race. i think to do that we should begin at the end. what does it take to win? well, you need 1,144 delegates to clinch the nomination. that sounds like a lot, and it is. for context, romney and santorum each won just 13 delegates in that big state of michigan yesterday. in fact, only 193 delegates have been awarded so far. people may act like this thing is on the verge of ending every week, and you may be tired of it, but no one's even halfway to clinching the nomination. early in the race, i think it does make some sense to focus on the message and the momentum,

not just a delegate count. after the first three states voted, for example, newt gingrich led the delegate count but hadn't proven himself to be a real front-runner. when a race lasts this long, however, the individual states and momentum matter less. let me give you my basic theory here. mitt romney is not the likely nominee because he avoided embarrassment in his home state or because he could do well in ohio. romney is the likely nominee because, just like barack obama last cycle, he is consistently stacking delegates. 128 and counting. and rick santorum is not the strongest challenger because he's conservative or a religious leader or a tea party guy. it's because, more so than any other candidate real or imagined, he's actually in striking distance. he's got 29 pledge delegates. and if you count some of the unpledged delegates likely to go his way, his numbers rise up to about 82. so he's the only one who really is close to getting near romney

where it matters. that might be a little boring compared to all the theatrics and the sexy state, but at least it's true. dylan? >> i want to make it not boring. i have a financial background, market background. i have intrade in front of me saying there's an 82% chance mitt romney wins the nomination, not the presidency, the nomination. there is a 6% chance that rick santorum wins the nomination and there is a 3% chance that newt gingrich wins the nomination. which means that if mitt romney loses and you bet against him, you could make 82 cents, the whole thing would collapse. would you be more willing to bet on rick or newt for a huge blowout -- biggest payday of your life or bet against mitt romney and if you're right get a huge payday? >> i'm surprised you didn't offer me a credit defall swap on the romney -- >> no, i'm a legitimate --