captions paid for by nbc-universal television this sunday, we go one-on-one with rick santorum about the race. can he do the delegate math to beat mitt romney. >> the governor thinks he is now ordained by god to win, then let's just have it out. >> previewing the debate to the fall campaign, the social issues versus the economy. more than 200,000 jobs created in february, and who has the winning prescription for more growth? with us, romney supporter and chair of the governor's association, virginia's governor, bob mcdonnell, and maryland's governor, martin o'malley. finally, our political roundtable is here to talk politics and about something

else, civility. where has it gone and can it return? why the president called sandra after rush limbaugh attacks? he was thinking about his own daughters. >> i want them to speak their mind in a thoughtful way, and i don't want them attacked or called horrible names because they are being good citizens. >> we have a discussion with reverend al sharpton, host of msnbc's politics nation. and marsha blackburn, and ej dionne, and peggy noonan. good morning. another split decision in republican presidential contest held over the weekend, and the results showing a big win in kansas for rick santorum, but

mitt romney also won the delegate in wyoming's on going process, and he picked up delegates in the virginia islands and guam. romney is ahead at 377, and then santorum and gingrich and then paul behind. 48 hours of campaigning to go until the republicans put their mark on the race in the nomination, and here from the campaign trail is rick santorum. welcome back. >> great to be back. thank you. >> you want your shot to go one-on-one with governor romney. what tips the scales to get newt gingrich out of the race? >> you would have to ask him. we are going to keep winning and competing, and every since nevada we finished first or second in almost every state, but we have been there and other

than georgia, congressman gingrich has finished third or fourth, and that continued yesterday. eventually this thing will sort out, and we will have strong performances in mississippi here and in alabama. i even sent my daughter out to hawaii, and she is out there campaigning for us for this tuesday. >> would you like to see him get out after mississippi -- >> i would like everybody to get out if they could just clear the field. and the congressman can stay in as long as he wants, but the idea to make sure we nominate a conservative is to give us an opportunity to go head to head with governor romney at some point, and that will occur sooner rather than later hopefully. >> and let's talk about governor romney, and he is making the argument that the math is the essential unit, and you need 61%

of the remaining delegates to win this thing, and aside from the fact that nobody has the requisite number of delegates yet, and why should not the race be over and done with in advantage of romney? >> well, romney needs 50% of the delegates. on the current track that we are on now, the fact is what if romney doesn't get to that number? this is not a mathematical formula. the race has a tremendous amount of dynamics. there's a lot of states coming up that will be great states for us, like pennsylvania, and we have 72 delegates, and we should win if not all of them, the vast majority, and texas, last count i was up 30 points. remember, governor romney has been doing this for four years and he worked hard to make sure states moved up that were advantagious to him. and the news agency apportioned delegates that have nothing to do with the reality of where the

delegates are going to be. iowa, we barely won iowa by 40 votes, and we had their conventions yesterday, and nobody has that in their count, and they have us winning by one vote and that's not going to be the case when the delegates from the caucuses are elected. and also you also know, a lot of the delegates are uncommitted. while they may be, you know, for romney, a lot of the delegates can win and they are unbound. that's another dynamic. you have a whole bunch of super delegates. governor romney secured several of them, but they are not bound with their commitment. these are the kinds of things that can happen, and it can change as the dynamic of the race changes as we go on. >> if you look at the maps where the victories have been, you have to notice something striking. you are yellow on the map, and you are winning the heartland of the country right now, and it's almost like a presidential red and blue map. governor romney is winning the

coast, new england and the west with the help of mormon voters. how do you change that dynamic, including the fact that governor romney can say rightly i have won some of the biggest battle grounds in the fall, and how do you overcome that? >> well, i mean, obviously we have had to overcome a lot, david, just to be where we are now, and we have been out spent 10-1, and somebody who has all the wind to his back and can't close the deal, winning ohio, and michigan by the skin of his teeth, and both being out spent overwhelmingly, but that's okay, we have the grassroots support, and we have been slowing clawing our way back into the race, and we're in a great position right now as we go forward with states that are very favorable to us, and in favorable areas of the country, and i have got my home state yet to go. governor romney has had three of his home states already, and so it's important for us to look to

the future and see the opportunities that we have. that's how we get back in the race. if we can get a one-on-one, we have seen in the states where we have had one-on-ones, we have done well. >> why not come out and say what your super pac said, and that's that you want gingrich out? >> i am not going to tell people to get in or out of the race. i did not ask gingrich to get in and i will not ask him to get out. >> certainly an advantage for the president who is making the case of the economic recovery, and this is how the ap put it. the united states added 227,000 jobs in february again surprising economists with the breath and braun of the economic recovery, the country put together the strongest three months of pure job growth since the great recession, and those numbers, if you take a look since december of job creation, the pure number of jobs, it's at 734,000 jobs. is your point in this campaign to say, i can do a better job of

accelerating that recovery, and if so how? >> absolutely. just look at the energy sector alone, and the jobs that can allow for exploration of oil in this country and the 600 billion barrels of oil offshore, and the president said no to. alaska, no. federal lands, no. and the only place he is providing help is to brazil, and the brazilians rejected it. and of course it's going to have head winds as we head into the summer driving season. we are already looking at $4 a gallon in some places, and that's having an impact in the economy. energy alone, throw on top of that the implementation of obamacare and other high-cost regulations, and this president set a record on the number of high-cost regulations. i would peel every one of those that cost over $1 million. and week after week, they would

try to repeal the regulations. there's a variety of things the president is doing right now to hurt the economy that we can turn around and put the wind at the back of the economy and see dynamic and sustainable growth. most of the economists will tell you the growth under this president while it has been good certainly the last three months from the standpoint of employment, that the underlying growth numbers are not going to support dramatic job growth until we get that underlying growth number turned around. >> you can't tell americans who are feeling more optimistic, i should say, about the prospect that their eyes are deceiving them, and when it comes to gas prices, sure that hurts everybody but americans know it's republicans just like democrats that have failed to get any kind of leadership plan passed, and that's been going on for decades. >> well, somebody who is trying to open up exploration, and it's

hard to point the finger at republicans. republicans voted yes, yes, yes all the time. and certainly i have. and the president has voted no. so the idea of well you can't fix the partisan gridlock. there's no partisan gridlock. there's an ideology that says let's drill for oil in saudi arabia and brazil, but not in my backyard. it's pure politics. it has nothing to do with the best of the overall environment. it allows the price of oil to go up. all of this is the president's fault. it lays clearly on his table. >> let me ask you as well about some other issues, and when you take on governor romney. you know, your record, which has been debated as senator, you cast votes, of course, for a new entitlement under medicare, the prescription drug been it and a supporter of earmarks and a lot of people think is reckless spending, and you supported no child left behind, and yet you

say this about governor romney, and you said it during a conference call during the week. what you have with governor romney is somebody not somebody you can trust on the issue of big government. yet you casts votes that conservatives would clearly see as big government. >> well, i would just say this about the programs that you put forward. all of those programs were certainly the earmarks in the context of spending on appropriation bills where i never ever voted for an increase in spending on any of the appropriation bills. i was out on the floor voting always to cut spending, repeatedly, and consistently throughout my 16 years. on medicare prescription drugs, there were a lot of things, health savings accounts, which is a private sector reform of the health care system which i think is the most dynamic thing we can do, and i still believe it's the most dynamic thing we can do to lower health care costs and put patients back in

control, and of course the prescription drug bill itself has come in 42% under budget because it's a private sector model. while certainly there was a medicare prescription drug benefit it was done in a way that advanced the private sector of medicine and that's one of the reasons that i supported it, unlike governor romney who had public sector control of the health care system. the bills i voted for were private sector oriented programs. governor romney and barack obama are on the same place with health care, romneycare and obamacare, the same with a top down government control of the resources, mandates and of course now we know, thanks to an interview that you did and others, that governor romney actually advocated for the massachusetts model that president obama adopted with mandates, and then went on the campaign trail and repeatedly -- well, h repeatedly didn't tell the truth. he went out and misled voters that somehow or another he was not at mandates at the federal

level when he was. he said i did not require catholic hospitals to provide things against their conscience, when he did, and he said i did not provide free abortions under romneycare, had he did. he had big government solutions and then gone out and told the public that he didn't do the things he did. >> y are calling him a liar, about his possession that he didn't support a mandate at the federal level. >> which he did. >> he did? >> absolutely. he did. >> electability becomes a big issue. on health care, what is the line of attack you think president obama will use against romney that you think will ultimately kill romney's chances of being president? >> you know, why do you want to say you want to repeal a program identical to the one you put in

place in massachusetts. and we will play the op ads he wrote to advocate for this. that takes the issue that that's the most potent issue in the 2010 election. the reason the republicans were able to make gains is because we had an issue that talked about freedom, and talked about whether government should be controlling your health care choices, should be allocating resources in the health care field, or whether we are going to be believing in free markets and choices and consumers, and governor romney and the state of massachusetts mandated every person in massachusetts has to buy health care, and he said it was only the 8% that didn't have insurance and that is n true. he goes out there and tries to misrepresent what he did in massachusetts because it's not popular. it's what he is doing for climate change. he put caps on c 02, and now that the climate changed, guess who changed along with it?

governor romney. you are looking at somebody that doesn't change with the climate. i stand for the principles that made this country great, and not governor romney's top-down control that will not make the kind of contrast with barack obama that we absolutely need if we are going to win the election. >> i want to ask you about the influence of your wife. i know i am heavily influenced by mine, and you talk about the influence she had on you. recently as it applies to the kind of language you used, and you backed away from kaulg the president a snob or the criticism of president kennedy, and what kind of political partner is she for you and how has that manifested itself here in the last couple of weeks? >> she is very direct. we have a wonderful and very special relationship. she watches everything that i do like ahawk, and, look, she's a nurse and a lawyer, and she knows how to communicate, and she also is a very, very

compassionate person. i think that she understands that i can get fired up and she can do, and sometimes i step over the line and she rightly comes after me and says rick, you have to go back and walk this back. you get a little fired up and you shouldn't say things that maybe, again, you said well you are calling the governor a liar, romney a liar, and no i am not, i am saying in this case he was not saying what was the truth, but to go a step further to say the person is a liar, and that's too far, and that was the case with respect to president obama and that comment. she's a very good governor for me and tries to make sure that i keep things in perspective. >> what about the broader influences on you, and people size you up and get to know you better, and what is who would you say is the biggest influence on you in the full range of your public life and your sense of purpose getting into the race and running for congress and

ultimately the senate? >> yeah, well, i mean, obviously, you know, family is always a big consideration, and it certainly was in getting in the race here tonight. this was not something where i am 53 years old and have been in public life for 16 years, and most of my working career i was in the senate and to get back into that after being out for five years and having a lot more freedom and opportunity and a lot more time to be with my wife and family, and i coached little league for three years and was doing more stuff where in a public life you don't have time for, and it was a hard decision for us. we prayed about it a lot, and we sought if it was the right path for us, and particularly because of the issue of obamacare and government control of peoples' lives, and i felt like it was a game changer for america, and we have a special needs little girl, and that weighed both ways, and i want to be home with her because her life is fragile,

but at the same time you have to go out and fight for the children who are in the margins of society and the government system around the world, they are not given the care and resources allocated, because the government does not see them as useful lives. there's a lot of cross currents here, and we made the decision that it was appropriate for us to step forward and try to, you know, layout a different vision for the country that we didn't believe anybody else in the race could do. >> senator, before you go, are you looking at a clean sweep on tuesday in the south? >> well, it's pretty tough battleground down there. i'm in newt's backyard and we have the mitt establishment, and we are within striking distance, and karen and i are here in mississippi today and we will be in alabama tomorrow and we will just hustle. >> we will be watching, and thank you foroming on the program. >>hank you, david. coming up, a preview of the

debate, and the big issues of the fall campaign. the top governors weigh in, and martin o'malley, and virginia governor and romney supporter, bob mcdonnell. later, our political roundtable. is the country paying a price for the lack of civility in the political dialogue? that's coming up later. [ woman ] i was ready for my trip. but my smile wasn't. [ female announcer ] new crest 3d white intensive professional effects whitestrips. it goes below he enamel surface to whiten as well as a five-hundred dollar professional treatment. wow, that's you? [ female announcer ] new intensive professional effects whitestrips.

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joining me, martin o'mally and bob mcdonald. there is a developing story from overseas we're joining me now, martin o'malley and bob mcdonnell. welcome to both of you. there is a developing story from overseas this morning that we're tracking this morning in afghanistan. a u.s. service member has apparently opened fire on afghan civilians in a village near a military base in southern afghanistan. an a.p. photographer has reported seeing 15 bodies including women and children. obviously, as details develop on this, we'll tell you more. governor mcdonnell, you have a daughter who served in iraq. we know as both a policy matter and a political matter that these kind of things can really start to shape public opinion about after all the country being at war, what kind of impact do you think this is going to have after the koran burnings a couple weeks ago in terms of the national debate? >> well, it's tragic because we have so many brave men and women, ten-plus years in the global war on terror have done marvelous work in iraq,

afghanistan and other places and winning, doing good work. and yet one incident like this in the minds of the civilian population, we're trying to win their hearts and minds can change the equation. so it's too bad. we'll have to see the details. i'm very proud of what our kids are doing there. >> unforeseen circumstances, governor. the debate over iran that's heating up on the campaign trail with the president responding to republican candidates. these are some of the unknowns that could really affect this presidential campaign here in the months ahead. >> well, absolutely. i mean, there are many things that happen in this very tightly and interconnected world of ours that no one president can control. but what we all look for in the president of the united states is someone with steady, capable leadership, a calm hand at the helm. and president obama has provided that leadership. i think this latest incident underscores how important it is for us to conclude our involvement in afghanistan, as we have in iraq.

and i agree with governor mcdonnell. so many young men and women are serving so honorably and so well. but incidents like this do happen in war zones. it's very important we bring our troops home as soon as possible. >> let's talk about the economy as well. it was just about five months ago, president obama says he was an underdog. and now you look at the job numbers. and the trajectory of unemployment over the course of the president's term here, the dark days of it 2009 and '10 with unemployment in double digits, 10% now, in 2012 we've seen it hold steady, 8.3%, over 700,000 jobs created since the end of last year. is he now the favorite given the optimism about the economy? >> well, i think that there is no more important issue than the good news that we're seeing in our economy. president obama, under his leadership, we've had 24 months in a row of positive job creation every month. an auto industry that many thought had gone the way of the dinosaur is now adding 200,000 jobs.

we see foreclosures have been driven down thanks to the president's leadership to the lowest levels we've seen in four years. so i do believe that the overriding issue in this race is jobs and the economy, and clearly things are getting better. and they still need to improve, and we could make it -- we need to accelerate our jobs recovery. >> the man you're supporting, governor, is mitt romney, who is making the case he could do a better job with economic growth. is the argument going to be more difficult to make if we continue on the path we're on with job creation? >> job creation and economic development is the issue in this campaign. and all of us as americans ought to celebrate for progress that's been made. i think the private sector needs credit for doing that. we've lost 864,000 jobs since the beginning of this administration. 8%, 9%, 10%, that may be the best that barack obama can do, but that's not as good as americans really need. this issue -- this election is about jobs, economic development, tax spending, debt and deficit.

and i think on each of those issues, this president has really failed. we'd added to the national debt by $5 trillion. and the unemployment rate being over 8% for the entire obama presidency, that's not a good record. >> but it's going to become a choice, right? and the question is whether romney has broken through with an economic message that says this is a distinctly different path and a more acceptable path for americans. you would argue it's not. >> and you know, it will be a choice between two alternatives. and both of these gentlemen now have records. and when mitt romney was governor of massachusetts, david, a state that, by any measure, is pretty strong to be -- create jobs in a new economy. instead under governor romney's leadership, they ranked 47th out of 50 states in job creation. so i think you're going to have a pretty clear contrast here. and if you look at the presidential campaign, i mean, let's be honest. there's been a lot more time spent pandering to the extreme right-wing ideologues of the new republican party than has been spent talking about jobs and the economy. rick santorum in the arizona

debate mentioned the word "jobs" not once. not a single time. so i believe that the president's looking strong, is strong, is focused on the economy, and that's going to carry him through this election. >> governor? >> well, i think that's a manufactured issue. i think the democrats and this president are trying to do everything they can to take the issue off of jobs and the economy, debt, deficit and energy because they don't have a plan. i would say that republican governors have had something to do with that. the seven out of the ten states are governored by governors. the fact is when you go back to the beginning of this administration, gas prices have doubled. the number of new proposals for taxes and spending are through the roof in this obama administration and with democrat governors. the number of people that have actually lost a job over 800,000. so while we're making some progress, i can't think of a thing that this administration has done other than stimulus spending that would be responsible for that. i'd say we can do better. 8%, not good enough. we can do a lot better. there's 25 million americans that are underemployed or

unemployed. that's not good enough. mitt romney created over 100,000 jobs, showed he could turn it around. that's the kind of change that we need. >> let's talk about social issues because in some cases in the republican race, this is overshadowed talk about the economy. and you, in fact, in virginia have been at the center of some of this. you backed an abortion bill initially that included a very invasive procedure as part of an ultrasound that the state would have required. and then you backed off of that. were you wrong to support that initially, or did you simply back off because the political heat got turned up? >> listen, that was one bill out of 1,000 we passed that was all focused on job, economic development, education and a number of other things. that's my agenda, restoring the american dream for the people in virginia. we've got the lowest amount of unemployment in the southeast and surplus. this bill allows states, 23 that require a woman to see an ul central sound.

>> were you wrong when you said the invasive procedure would be part of the bill? >> no, david, i think you're wrong on the facts. what we said simply was that we support the concept offen ultrasound. through the committee process, i realized there were other things in the bill that needed to be omitted. i recommended that to the general assembly. they agreed to it. the focus on this election is not about that. when people go into this voting booth in november, david, they're going to look at who's got the best vision to create jobs. who's got the best idea to get us out of debt. in this constant focus on social issues is largely coming from the democrats. here's what i'm worried about. >> well, hold on. i'm going to stop you there. i'm still asking about this issue. look, you ran in part, talking about health care, the president's health care -- >> ran against it. >> ran against it, precisely. this was the state of virginia mandating women to have an additional procedure, a mandated health procedure. i thought that's exactly what conservatives opposed. >> david, this was about stating what informed consent is and saying that women have a right to know certain things before

procedure. every invasive procedure has an informed consent requirement. so what i think this is is more of people trying to get the focus off the abysmal record of this administration on jobs and the economy, taxes and spending. i'm worried about the war of the administration and some democrat governors on the american taxpayer. more taxes, more spending, more debt. even in maryland, you've got proposals to increase the sales tax, the gas tax, the tax on cigars, everything else that moves. this is the issue in the race is who's going to keep taxes low on the american middle class, and i think that's why we're going to win. >> do you think the sense that certainly democrats are talking about and that some women feel that there is a growing assault on reproductive rights, can it become a more central issue in the race, or is that going to become a side issue, as the governor says? >> i think the central issue in this race is creating jobs and expanding opportunity. i think these cultural -- i don't like to use the term "wars -- these cultural divisive wedge

issues, these sort of rollback of women's rights, rollback of women's access to contraception and other health, rollback of voting rights, rollback of workers' rights, all of these things that take us back are not strengthening our economy and creating jobs. and i think that people start to see a pattern, david, emerging in states like wisconsin, states like ohio, states like florida, and sadly, recently, even in virginia where these cultural issues are crowding out the things that really should concern us most. >> david, i would say -- >> seven out of ten -- seven out of the best ten states for creating 21st century jobs in science and technology are governed by democratic governors. now, virginia, credit where credit is due, is one of those top states. the question is whether we're making the right investments in jobs, education, more affordable college that will keep virginia in that top ranking in the future. maryland's there. we're making college more affordable. we're creating jobs at twice the rate of virginia.

and these cultural battles that drive people apart are not helpful to driving us forward. >> do you think your counterpart here in virginia would be a good running mate for romney, or would you cast him as an extremist? >> well, i think if you look -- >> here's your chance, martin. >> governor, if you look simply at job creation, now, while maryland's had a better rate of job creation than virginia, the truth is virginia -- virginia ranks far higher than massachusetts did under mitt romney. so for that reason, i think governor mcdonnell would be actually a better job creator than mitt romney would. >> thank you. >> do you think he should be on the ticket? do you think he'd be formidable? >> i think he's a very skilled leader, and he does an able job as the head of the republican governors association. >> governor, would you like to be president? >> no. i've got the job held by jefferson and henry. i love being governor of virginia. but what i do want is a republican president who can get us out of this malaise. we've gone from hope and change to division and malaise.

that's what we've got over these last three years. what i do want is president romney who will have a vision on jobs. >> would you be on the ticket? >> i would be. oh, on the ticket? that's for you pundits to surprise. i could be a help to him, i think, in making sure people see the difference between a president romney and president obama on the things people care about, jobs, government and spending. >> thank you. coming up, in the wake of the heated rhetoric, president obama play a plea of civility with his daughters in mind. what are the costs not just to our political debates but to the country. plus my key decision, questions for 2012. and for this week, our political roundtable is here. msnbc's own reverend al sharpton, tennessee republican congresswoman marsha blackburn and peggy noonan. that's coming up next. hair mixes with pollen and dust in the air. i get congested. my eyes itch. i have to banish you to the garden.

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we're back with the political roundtable. joining me, wall street journal we're back with our political roundtable, joining me, columnist peggy noonan. "washington post" columnist e.j. dionne. host of msnbc's "politics nation" and president of the national action network, our own reverend al sharpton. rev, good to see you. and republican congresswoman of tennessee, marsha blackburn. welcome to all of you. let's start with senator santorum and look at my key questions for the week as we face them. can each of these candidates, romney and santorum, expand their appeal. you saw the math. can romney expand it in the south and can santorum expand it for the party? for romney, can he make the math, because he's in the middle

of the math in terms of the primaries, and for president obama, what we've been talking about as well, is he going to get credit for an improving economy, or will he be tagged as somebody still facing bad numbers and is not recovering the economy quickly enough? that's our backdrop. peggy noonan, start us off. how do you see this race right now? >> i think you still have to say that mr. romney is the one everybody watches because he is still the front runner. others have risen and fallen. they've come and gone. i think the race is romney who has a way of grinding it out and staying, not doing the up and down, but just staying, and santorum who's coming up, who's got a close poll in illinois and who is holding on and who is trying to break through as the not romney.

he's trying to make it a two-man race, and we'll see where it goes. the odds are with romney, but life is interesting. >> right. forgive me for interrupting. congresswoman, if you look, you do have this split. you're a woman of the south in tennessee where santorum played well. romney's trying to get in there. he's got two contests coming up, but he is losing the heart of the party. even though he is still the odds-on favorite. how do you explain it? >> i think that what has happened is this race is really capturing the attention of the american public. democrats and republicans. who want to see where the republican party is going to shake out. what people in tennessee said is mitt was for the tea party and the establishment and said we are conservatives. we are not necessarily partisan. we want somebody to listen us. what we want is somebody who's going to focus on jobs and the economy and listen to us. and i think people are saying, listen to me. don't yell at me. listen to me. >> where do you see it? >> i think that romney will

still be a probable winner, but i think that the challenge here is that he has to deal with the base. he has to deal with the extreme, but at the same time come with a broad enough vision for the american public after the primaries are over. and i think that's the kind of delegate balance he's not been able to strike yet. people are more concerned about jobs and the economy than they are things like the blunt amendment and all. so where we get past the rhetoric, heated rhetoric, that all of us have engaged in and deal with the broader picture, i think it's going to be the one to tell the outcome of this election. >> e.j., if there's anything that romney seems to want, he wants to run as the centrist candidate against president obama where he can be quite formidable, but it's getting through these primaries that seems to be the obstacle. >> i think the biggest obstacle for romney compared to what it did for president obama four years ago, is hillary clinton forced obama to appeal to white working-class voters. and that's where he was weak. and he needed them in the general election.

this primary is forcing mitt romney to keep going back to the base. and i think romney emerges with two problems. he is the favorite, obviously, though this is such a strange race, the pundits are always wrong week to week. but romney has two problems. the staunch conservatives, evangelical christians, tea partiers, overlapping groups. that's not the biggest deal, even though this could cause him problems because turnout might be just a little depressed among them, and he's going to have to waste some time rallying them when he would prefer to middle of the road voters. romney wins these primaries because he wins big over voters earning over $100,000 a year and especially over $200,000 a year. the republicans need to beat obama among white working-class voters. in "the new york times" this morning said romney is starting to look like a walking dollar sign, and that's what he's got to stop. and right now obama's doing well

enough in the white working-class vote to win. but it is only march. >> let me talk about something bigger as i've been alluding to throughout the program. we had this moment this week with the president in the press conference talking about why he called sandra fluke after limbaugh had attacked her. and he was doing it for his daughters, he said. he brought up this question of where civility has gone in our political discourse, in the campaign and congress. olympia snowe talked about how polarizing congress is as the reason she wants to leave. reverend, you talked about it when you were down south this week in montgomery during your march. this is one of the points that you made that had such resonance. i'll play it. >> we are not each other's enemy. we are not each other's competition. if we lock arms like we did coming down highway 80 and cooperate rather than compete, we can make america work for everybody! >> a democrat saying that it could be a republican as well,

it's a very important message. how does it ultimately resonate? >> i think the problem is that we've got to be mature enough to say, we can be passionate, and we can have some firm feelings. but that we don't have to poison the atmosphere. and i learned that in my own development. i used to say things that i really believed any kind of way i felt them. ironically, the president mentioned his two daughters, as my two daughters got older, i started worrying about what i was saying because they would question me. it's not cute to just exacerbate things. you could be right and do it wrong or say it wrong. and i think that that would be the appeal that i would make, that yes, be passionate. i still march. i still protest. but don't get in the way of your message and the ultimate goal should be to bring people together in the country to make progress even if we disagree how we don't have to be disagreeable. >> but do we as voters celebrate the friction too much? >> i think that what we have to remember is what was just said and learn to agreeably disagree, to make your point, because when

the rhetoric gets too loud, it's like i was saying, voters are saying don't yell at me. listen to me. and give me the facts. they want to be well informed, and they're seeking to be well informed. that's why you've seen the rise of so many grass-roots organizations, and quite frankly, i think it speaks to e.j.'s point of why the pundits are wrong so much now because the american people are going directly to sources getting their information, and they want us to respect them, and respect -- they give us the opportunity to represent them, i seek to honor that in everything i do every day. >> i talked to john lewis, civil rights leader, recently. he said he thinks there's something in particular that brings out a level of hatred. let's be clear, there are plenty of pundits on the left that use inflammatory and corrosive language. is there something different now, peggy? >> i'll tell you how i see it. one of the big problems with discourse in america is the way

-- the way women are being spoken of. women in public life, women in politics, women in policy questions. it seems to me that women who have been rising to positions of authority the past 20 years rose at the same time as the internet. and the internet was a sort of wild west where anything could be said. and i think it came on to actually infect our entertainment life, our political life, our journalistic life, what is said on radio by commentators and comedians. and i think somebody has to stop and notice, this sounds like a horrible mysoginistic war on women. we've got to stop it. i feel like the grown-ups have to step in. i wish the president had had a real moment and not just called someone who was sympathetic and deserved his sensitivity. wait a second, guys.

left, right and center, it's getting horrible for women now. let's stop it. >> i wish mitt romney had had this moment in this case because what rush limbaugh said, it wasn't just that he called her awful names, he said she should put sex tapes up to reward us. it was vile. the line on civility was john kennedy's when he said civility is not a defined weakness. i grew up in a very politically diverse family where we always had arguments all the time. and i had a dear uncle whom i argued with for 35 years. and when he died, his kids asked me to do the eulogy at his funeral. and i was really grateful for that. i made a point of quoting richard nixon whom my uncle loved. and i did that because i wanted him to rise out of the casket and tell me, i knew you'd be quoting nixon someday. we ought to be able to be passionate and disagree passionately. and remember, there are people we love who have different views than the ones we have. >> see, we're debating within our families, and you do it in

that spirit of love and friendship and knowing that at the end of the day, you're never going to really agree, but you're going to celebrate the freedom that you enjoy to have that debate. >> i think that's where the key is going to be in seeing real leadership. because i agree with john lewis. a lot of this is race. i sort of agree with peggy that this anti-women's spirit is out there. but it doesn't mean aeverybody disagrees with you, are either racist or misogynists. we can disagree on the facts, but we must admit there are some racists. and that's where we have to come together. that's why i came with newt gingrich on education. there must be some area that we can show opposing views can come together for the good of the country. >> it's also the effort to delegitimize the other side. and that certainly happened to bush, and it's happened to obama when we talk about, you know,

the freedom being under assault. both sides, this becomes a big component of it. >> yes, but respect for women, i think, is the biggest thing we have to address at the moment. words like "slut" and "whore" actually don't belong in any public debate in america. >> and the way we advertise economics is so different than the way we advertise politics. it would be as if somebody said, don't buy their product. it will poison you. >> right. >> we don't do that in the commercial sphere, we only do it in the political sphere sfp. >> let me get a quick break in. we'll be back with also a look at our top political stories trending this morning right after this break. what makes the sleep number store different? the sleep number bed. the magic of this bed is that you're sleeping on something that conforms to your individual shape. wow!

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we're back. final minutes with the roundtable. i am looking at the trend tracker here, and it's on point to discussion of santorum winning kansas, and obama making a big play for women voters as we havebeen talking in the last segmen segments. and al, the march you did on friday to commemorate the '65 march. and truman called the march a silly idea that would not have much impact, and this is what dr. king said here on the program. >> first i would say the march was not silly at all. i would think that the march did more to dramatize the

indignities that negro people face in the south more than anything else. i think it was the most powerful and dramatic civilized protest that has taken place in the south, and i think it could well justify the cause put in it. >> what is the message today? >> the message is, the new law being put in place, and there has been no established reason to change the law, and there is no widespread fraud that has been in any way documented, and we do not believe that we should have millions of people disinfranchised. it has a disproportionate impact on seniors and we think it violates civil rights of people, and we sought to not just commemorate 47 years ago, but

continue today to fight those issues. >> congresswoman, alabama and mississippi, who gets the advantage there as you see it? >> i think the polling is showing the race between santorum and romney is tightening up. i think, again, economy, jobs, number two issue is national security, protecting this great nation, and female voters are going to be about 52% of the vote. >> interesting. we will be watching. thank you. before we go, a quick programming note. you can watch the press pass conversation on the blog this week, and we talked to mark conversation on the blog this week, and we talked to mark halperin, and john hei -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com