it's an introduction to a whole new side of gorilla behavior. first, it was just beetsme and titus. but then they were joined by five other males. the researchers had never witnessed a situation like it -- a new kind of group... all male. stewart: they formed this bachelor group of about seven animals that really stayed together -- titus, beetsme, and a silverback, peanuts -- who were together for years. they had a dominance hierarchy based on age. and they occasionally would have this...

odd sexual interactions going on that we never saw in breeding groups where there was more than one male. we didn't see the kind of homosexual behavior that occurred in this band of bachelors. you know, there weren't any females around. abraham: it stayed like this for eight years. but in 1985, the death of a silverback in another group meant that five females came to join the bachelors. and this brought everything to a head. [ hooting ] watts: six males could stay together so long as there were no females there. but not when they now had females.

abraham: titus found himself in the middle of a battle for supremacy. [ hooting ] unlike when he killed flossie's baby, this time beetsme was a full-sized silverback, and there was no doubting his power. one by one he drove off the males and killed two of the females' infants. these were classic takeover tactics. but in one respect he behaved unexpectedly. he allowed titus -- a potential young rival -- to stay. maybe he needed his friend titus to help keep his new group together. but the arrangement backfired on beetsme, because the dominant female, papoose, had designs on the handsome young titus. the only trouble was that, after all this time in the wilderness,

titus didn't quite know how to react. he hasn't seen a female, essentially... and doesn't quite know what he's supposed to do. and a couple of times i saw her solicit mating, and he responded by mounting her. but she had to then reach around behind her and try to reposition him and back into him so that he could figure out exactly what he was supposed to do. abraham: titus's affairs behind beetsme's back offered a new researcher the opportunity to compare the success of these two competing males. woman: the question then is, well, what's exactly going on between these males? and most importantly, who's actually siring the offspring? abraham: for martha robbins, it was becoming clear that female preferences have a huge influence over who gets to be a dad.

robbins: it makes you wonder, well, what do females find attractive in silverbacks? and it may be more than actually who's dominant. there may be other characteristics. abraham: even to human observers, titus is known to have a strong, symmetrical face. he may be popular with the females because of his good looks. robbins: on a personal opinion, yes, i would say titus is more handsome than beetsme. [ laughs ] no, i mean, titus is a handsome silverback. you can get me on film saying that. [ laughing ] i'll say that, but -- abraham: whether titus was more of a hunk than beetsme is serious science. but the only way to confirm who is fathering which babies is a paternity test. to start, all the researchers needed was a bit of each gorilla's dung. because of the development of dna analysis, it was now possible to map out

the family tree of an individual. but it would take 16 years before scientists could unravel the extent of titus's dynasty. he was going behind beetsme's back when he was 11. now he's 33, and he faces the same threat with a young male like kuryama. females align themselves to their leader, openly soliciting mating from titus when they are in estrus. but they also like to confuse the other males into believing that they may also be the father of their children. so secret liaisons with a silverback like kuryama are arranged out of sight of the king. [ gorilla grunting ] [ grunting ]

[ grunting continues ] it's a clever strategy, but you don't want to get caught. no wonder titus is stressed. [ gorilla screaming ] [ screaming continues ] [ screaming ] abraham: biting a female is really out of character. [ vecellio speaking ] abraham: for all those who study titus, his calm, confident rule has been his one overriding trait. today's display of violence is maybe another sign

that he is starting to lose his grip on power. kuryama can sense that his time is coming. posing, he displays his strength. titus pretends not to notice. little by little, felix and veronica are recording a power shift. it's not as simple as silverback against silverback, old versus young. power, in part, comes from the support of the females. if he cannot keep their respect, they will leave the group. as if out of frustration, titus starts heading up the mountain. [ hooting ]

maybe it's a test, to see who follows. he's taking the group high up the volcano slopes, and kuryama falls into line. but the tension between kuryama and titus is still palpable. what form the challenge for leadership will take remains to be seen. [ screaming ] footage of takeover battles is rare. a male can be driven away for good, or bitten so badly he never recovers. 18 years ago, when titus took over from beetsme, he surprised all the researchers by somehow orchestrating a bloodless coup.

their bond of friendship won out, and beetsme stood down. watts: after the challenge, after a lot of aggression, a lot of fighting, after everything was sorted out, titus was now the dominant male. he was fully grown. he was then 18 years old and in his prime, and impressive and strong. titus was the center, and he was in charge. abraham: it was 1991, and the king was crowned. given his unpromising start in life, it was a truly remarkable achievement to create his own group. only 60% of the gorillas born on this mountain even make it to adulthood. only a handful of survivors take over a group of their own.

after 17 difficult years, titus had finally made it to the top. but as he triumphed, the world around him descended into the chaos of the rwandan civil war. for decades, people had followed titus and the research gorillas of karisoke. but then the study had to stop. it's the only gap in the record... a terrible silence that stands testament to the madness that overran the plains below. 900,000 people died in 100 days. even for those who studied them day in and day out, the gorillas could no longer be their first thought.

watts: in april and may of 1994, i was, of course, very concerned about the gorillas and what was happening. but it made me think -- we have allowed the genocide to happen in the first place. and people are saying, "oh, the gorillas, the poor gorillas, what's happening to the gorillas?" and i, i really... i have a hard time understanding that. abraham: the war and instability lasted 10 years. despite the violence, rwandan park staff risked their lives to keep up with the gorillas. but there was one 15-month period with no contact at all.

just after the genocide, ian joined a rwandan team organized by dieter steklis, head of the karisoke research center, to try to find the gorillas. and the first group they came upon was titus's. [ hooting ] redmond: throughout all this turmoil, the gorillas had just been going about their lives, obviously avoiding the areas where different sides were shooting at each other. and it was a tremendous sense of relief to find that most of them had survived, and not only that -- shortly before we had arrived, a new baby had been born. so life was going on. abraham: titus did not just survive the war -- his group had grown in number.

[ native band on radio ] stability has returned to rwanda. the ministry of tourism and national parks and the dian fossey gorilla fund are now protecting a population of gorillas that is 350 strong, and increasing. mountain gorillas have won human hearts around the world. and their fame is helping protect the virungas as a whole. tourism provides income for the local community, the parks, and anti-poaching patrols. the commitment of rwandans and researchers through good times and bad has been inestimable.

rangers like john bosco risked everything to protect the gorillas during the war. now he heads the anti-poaching units which guard titus and his kind. today, he's leading a search party to find the famous silverback. titus has moved so fast up the mountain, he's left the humans behind. they're concerned that he may have travelled into unprotected areas. in the last year alone, ten dead gorillas have been recovered on the other side of the volcanoes -- in the congo.

he's taken his group to the very top of his world. rising up more than 12,000 feet, the summit of mount visoke is like another universe. it's rare for the gorillas ever to enter the crater, but for a moment the lake seems to captivate them. [ vecellio speaking ]

abraham: since dian fossey first entered this world and overturned the gorillas' fearsome reputation, we've discovered that gorillas are intelligent and social. they have individual personalities -- characters that shape their own destinies. felix and veronica are eager to keep up with the ongoing saga of titus and kuryama. the two silverbacks are still uneasy about each other.

[ vecellio speaking ] abraham: for kuryama to displace titus in this way may not seem like much to us, but gorilla body language speaks volumes. they can only come to the top of the mountain for a matter of days. temperatures can drop well below freezing. and if they stay too long, the infants may die. and titus seems to be

keeping them too long. abraham: the group awaits a decision from their leader, but just who is in charge is becoming less and less clear. tired of waiting, kuryama makes that decision -- and the others follow.

the group has split. kuryama may be dismantling one of the greatest groups of gorillas ever recorded. surrounded only by his most loyal subjects, titus sits on the top of his island world. that night, titus and his beleaguered band head over the border, travelling deep into the congo, where the researchers cannot follow. it's a few more missing pages in the record of his life. maybe the final chapter of his story will be lost to the jungle. he's taught us what it takes to rule this mountain.

as this archive shows, he was a formidable silverback. for a male gorilla, success is all about passing your particular genetic code to as many offspring as possible. and as the dna results are analyzed, they reveal some startling discoveries. it turns out that titus conceived his first offspring younger than any other known gorilla. it was the result of his secret mating with papoose. at the age of 11, he sired his first child, right under beetsme's nose. and that child was kuryama. titus is being deposed by his own son. piecing together his family tree, we can see the true extent of his dynasty.

he has sired more offspring than any other mountain gorilla on record. he is truly a gorilla king. his power is much more about politics than brute force. robbins: he's not just an ordinary gorilla. he's one of the longest-observed gorillas, if not primate or animal, in the world. but at the same time, titus embodies what we need to know about gorillas, and what we need to understand to preserve this endangered species. abraham: and his story isn't over yet. 23 days after his disappearance into the congo, titus is back. and he has added one more to his recently depleted group.

[ vecellio speaking ] abraham: titus may no longer be in charge of one of the largest groups on the mountain... but as the only silverback in this group, the fate of this newcomer now rests solely in his hands. the king must reign again. in an underground labyrinth, scientists and engineers labor to bring the world a virtual ocean contained in glass. [ children shrieking ]

the monterey bay aquarium, sustained by over a million gallons of water, home to 35,000 creatures, and one great white. man: we're not seeing fear -- we're seeing awe. now you can watch "nature" online. go to pbs.org to screen complete esodes from this season and seasons past. visit "nature" online for production updates from the field. well, here we are on the alaska coast. go behind the scenes with our filmmakers. we also used a borescope lens, and that allowed us to put the lens right into a flower. and get connected with "nature's" online community. all at pbs.org. and get connected with "nature's" online community. "nature" is made possible in part by... canon. take your inspiration from nature. leave it untouched by your presence.

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>> rose: welcome to our program. we begin this evening with the ongoing story of the murdoch empire and its problems with his newspaper properties and the hacking scandal in london. and today's announcement that james murdoch, some called him the heir-apparent, has resigned from his position in lopped and will come it north carolina. we talk with andrew edgecliffe-johnson and john burns of "new york times." >> it's a dynastic struggle, and presents rupert murdoch with a really serious problem. >> rose: we continue this evening with a look at republican politics, the michigan and arizona returns and the upcoming supered it. >> his favorability rating has dropped 20 points in the course of this primary, which is extremely unusual in the course of a primary to drop that far in

a presidential primary so he goes in the general election in a much different place than barack obama was going in a general election in 2008, where barack obama increased his favorability by 20 points. mitt romney has to figure out a way to win a campaign positively. >> rose: we conclude this evening with william shatner of ""star trek"" and movie and television fame and now on broadway in a one-man show. >> i go to the door, and it's a little boy. yes. he says are you "captain kirk?" i said, "yeah." ( laughter ) he says, "is this your spaceship?" ( laughter ) and i recognized the thing standing on the-- on-- and this thing on the moon. "yeah." "can i come in and see your spaceship, captain kirk?" "come on in." ( laughter ) take him to the stove. ( laughter ) ( applause )

this is where i guide the spaceship. "oh, ." >> can i make a point at at my age my life might have some meaning and since we ask ourselves in varies ways who am i and what am i doing-- and that's a rhetorical question because there is no answer-- if i present to you some of these fact can you give me an answer? so became this magnificent-- i hope-- obsession of doing this one-man show in such a manner that it would be effective and well received and bring in an audience. >> rose: the murdoch story in lopped, the political story in the united states, and the shatner story on broadway when we continue.

s. >> rose: james murdoch stepped down today as executive chairman of news international, the british newspaper arm of news corp, for the first time since 1969 no member of the murdoch family will have a role in managing. a wide phone hacking scandal embroiled the company in controversy. he will remain news corp's deputy chief operating officer and will concentrate on expanding the company's television business. joining me here in new york andrew edgecliffe-johnson of the "the financial times,"" john burns from the "new york times." john, tell me what this means and why did it happen now? >> well, if you read the company announcement, you'd think it was just kind of a routine reshuffle, lots of congratulations for all that was accomplished by james murdoch from his years in london. but you only have to step back

to take a look at this to see whose happened here is they've taken him out of the game in britain at a time when the scandal is not relenting, intensifying, when, by all appearances, criminal prosecutions cannot be far away. his farther has come in here at 80y years old, assumed direct control, as far as we can see, of the "sun" tabloid, to try and right the ship. so it seems to me this is a pretty dark day for james murdoch and not such a good day for news corp. >> rose: and lock landmurdoch accompanied his farther, went with him to london to the "sun" newsroom. >> yes, that really tipped off what we saw today. 10 days ago rupert murdoch flies in from new york to take control of affairs at the "sun" to fight back, as he declared, steak a sunday edition for his six-day-a-week tabloid, walks into the newsroom on the first

morning, shirtsleeves and who is at his right-hand, not james murdoch, the heir-parent, the 39-year-old son, but lock land murdoch, 40 years old, the older son who himself was heir apparent until 2005 when he fell out with his farther and other news corp executives and went off to astalleddia. it looked pretty clear then the succession order had changed. >> rose: what do you make of this, henry? >> i think james murdoch is not a man who cedes territory willingly and what we saw today is he had to give up an empire inside an empire after given this job, a new division created for him, news corp in asia. the idea of that role that he got at the end of 2007 was to prove to the board, prove to the world and to new york, where he was leswell known that he had the chops to take over the country one day. >> rose: james murdoch never cared about the newspaper business like his farther did.

>> everybody says he doesn't have ink in the blood in the same way. lock hand has had experience operating the "new york post." he was in australia and was rumored to be in line to take over the papers there. there's a theor one way news corp might insulate shareholders a little from the scandal is to let lock land take over a spun-off company, where the newspaper is barely recognized for their value in news corporation. they're more of a liability. >> rose: john, tell me what we learned from this woman named sue acres, who is doing the investigation. >> it really was something of a turning point. our attention has been focussedly the last nine months on "news of the world" the tabloid murdoch turned down when it turned out one of the people, one of the phones hacked was the abducted teenager millido youer. certainly we have sue acres, the

assistant commissioner of scotland yard, testifying before a judicial inquiry here in london about what appears to be a still more serious scandal and that is the bribery by the "sun" newspaper-- that is to say, the tabloid sister, the daily sister of the "news of the world--" the bribery of government officials, members of the armed forces, and police officers, on an industrial scale. she spoke of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year of retainers being paid, of reporters getting tens of thousands of dollars in expenses to pay cash payments to public officials for information. and she spoke very much as so-- she's operated independently by the way of scotland yard under what's called the independent police complaints commission. she sounded very much as though she is spoiling for criminal prosecutions which will be a very serious matter for news

corp, since it will, we believe, it will intensify scrutiny of all of this in washington, d.c. under the foreign corrupt practices act. >> rose: so what is the threat to news corp? rupert murdoch's media empire? >> well, there's the reputational threat. but increasingly, i think, it's worth looking at the cost of all of this. we've been looking at settlements out of court, settlements of lawsuits by those who have been hacked and as you know, scotland yard had said that there were more than 800 people of whom some, roughly speaking, 200-plus, 230, perhaps, have actually laid off said is that they will lay lawsuits. they've begun to settle those lawsuits. and the figures we were seeing 130,000 pounds for jude law, for example, the actor, have not, in many cases, lesser payments, included the legal claimants-- that is to say the payments of

the legal costs. and we know of one case of somebody who got a settlement in the tens of thousands of pounds, who is bound, not to say so publicly but has told us publicly that he had 200,000 pounds in legal costs. that's, if i quickly do the math, that's 300-- well over $300,000 in legal costs. if you multiply that by the numbers, dozens, scores, actually, of lawsuits yet to come and you add in the close-down costs of the news the world, news corporation's own legal costs, you're beginning, as that famous american senator say, pretty soon you're talking real money. >> rose: that was dirkson. when you-- when you look at the defense, what is rupert murdoch's defense in this, and james murdoch's murder defense in this? where are they drawing the line? >> what we haven't seen yet is an absolute killer e-mail which

says this was authorized by james murdoch or rupert murdoch. so this is partly a question of where the evidence leads us. and sue acres this week said that these corrupt payments, a very wide range of public officials, were authorized and approved at a very senior level at "news international." we don't know quite what she's talking about there and i think the fate of james murdoch will partly lie in the answer to that and also in the imiment announcement from the house of commons select committee on media, what they make of his testimony. i think the defense strategy is to try to put a series of firewalls between rupert and the board and the scandal. and it looked as a while andy coulson, the former editor of "news of the world" would be firewell -- >> all are gone. >> and closer and closer to rupert murdoch, and i think the

hope now that this can be contained in the u.s. but this week's revelations about industrial scale corrupt payments, as john says, do heighten the risk of a prosecution in the u.s. under the foreign corrupt practices act. but at the moment, i think that is hard to call. will we see a campaigning prosecutor decide to pursue that? will we see great political will to go after very important media titles, channels like fox news and-- especially on the side of election, will we see political momentum there? i think what is happening the d.o.j., s.e.c, and f.b.i., who all have open investigations into news corp, are waiting to see what comes out of the primary investigation in london before they really decide how hard to pursue that. >> rose: do we know judge joel klein is, the former assistant

attorney general in the clinton administration, or do we know what role he is playing after being chancellor of schools in new york? >> we don't. we saw him sitting behind the two murdochs, rupert and james, during their appearance before the parliamentary committee on culture, media, and sport, last summer, looking quite inscrutable, and i have to say, impeccably dressed. >> rose: you would know impeccable dressing, wouldn't you? >> i would know it, ages the chinese would say, education by negative example, as you can see. >> rose: republican laws-- >> we know he plays an important role, and a committee, the management and standards committee to root through, as they said, all evidence, mostly in the form of documentar evidence e-mails 300 million of

them, at the "news" and "sun," that committee has taken a pretty hard line and has been handing over information to scotland yard which has resulted in some of those 30 arrests that have been made. no charges. i think it's important to say, to be fair to james murdoch, that he's not been questioned by the police, not as least as far as we know. he's certainly not been arrested. and he is always spoken as if he's confident, not only that he has no finger prints on this but they won't be able to prove that he has got finger prints on it. i think the attention of the investigators may very well focus on the question of his testimony to the parliamentary committee -- >> so it's about perjury not something he did? >> well, i'm avoiding using the word because i think we need to be very careful here and not get ahead of the scotland yard investigation. it just seems to me very significant that as of yet, he has not been questioned, and certainly not arrested.

>> rose: and what about the-- elizabeth murdoch, the daughter that rupert has always put in the category of people that might succeed him? >> as you know there have been reports, and we've heard them, too, from our sources, that there has been a tremendous simmering family feud over there and elizabeth and her husband, matthew freud, who is a major figure in world of public relations here, have been pressing the case on rupert murdoch, that james had to go, that he had prejudiced the legacy, that he had severely damaged the brand, the reputation, and that they've been making those arguments, certainly, since rupert murdoch came here to manage the "news of the world" scandal last summer. it's clearly-- it's a dynastic struggle and presents rupert murdoch with a really serious problem. >> rose: so who is running the

empire now and who will continue to run the empire? >> well, i think when rupert murdoch is able to fly in in to london and announce a new newspaper will launch at a week's notice, it tells you the job titles on some people's business cards don't count for very much. there's one man calling the shots, and i think as long as he is still walking around that will be the case. clearly, today's news strengthens the case of chase carrie, the chief operating officer. he's sort of the answer to everybody's problem. his surname isn't murdoch. so whenever some trouble crops up in some corner of the empire, chase is sent in to go and calm things down. i think you're right to focus on the potential for lockland or elizabeth to come back into the frame. i would say it's not-- we shouldn't rule out the idea that james could still come back into the frame once the dust has settled, five, 10 years from now, if he can make a great job of running the international television businesses.

>> rose: which are important to the future of news corp. >> and i think that is his hope. this is his strong suit. he's most comfortable in the world of television. if he can find real growth, anainternational expansion story there, maybe he can redeem himself. if the scandal in london doesn't-- it is still very, very early in this saga. we have so many unknowns still to resolve. >> rose: it's important to underline the fact that james murdoch, as john said, james murdoch has neither acknowledged any-- in any way and has protested in fact. >> the case against james murdoch is really that he didn't make the scandal go away. on his watch, whatever else happened or didn't happen, the hope was he could put a lid on this. >> rose: that's the judgment of management ability more than anything else? >> exactly. what we've heard from the m.p.s on the house common select committee has been a very

damning indictment of him as an executive. in the last appearance he made before them, it almost felt as though they were setting out to undermine his credibility, which-- when he stepped up to the new job he had an exceptional reputation. >> rose: and a merger was about to take place. >> exactly. his hope was he would have one of the biget chunks of his farther's empire, and the most cash generative, and who cares about the newspapers when you've got this incredible satellite business. >> rose: who cares about the newspapers is rupert murdoch. >> yes. >> rose: thank you, great to see you. john burns, as always a pleasure to have you on this program and i thank you again for coming to us from cake. we didn't win by i lot, but we won by enough and she that's all that counts. that's what mitt romney said last night after his narrow 3% victory in hirsh began and that pretty much sums up the state of

the g.o.p. presidential race. romney cruised through arizona, even though, hes continued questions over why he cannot connect with the party base. rick santorum has done better but that was not enough. they face their biggest test super tuesday. ron paul was on the hill today to question amalie benjamin keek the other three candidates conservatisming in crucial station. romney was in ohio, romney was in tennessee, and gingrich was in georgia. >> this president has made some promises that he hasn't been able to keep. it's amazing he has been such a failure. he's out of ideas. he's out of excuses, and in 2012, we're going to make sure he's out of office. we have a lot of wind at our backs heading into tennessee and we'll be taking it all across super tuesday states and we are going to have a great day a week from yesterday. ( cheers and applause ).

>> if you help me next tuesday-- next tuesday is very important. georgia is the biggest state in delegates on super tuesday. so we have a real chance here to send a signal to the country, but we need your help to do it. >> joining me are alhunt, al murphy and matt dowd right here with me at the table. i'll begin with al hunt. where does this go from here, other than ohio? >> well, it goes to ohio next week, charlie. one thing about last night, you taught me, i guess, years ago, it's better to win ugly than it is to lose ugly. >> rose: yes. >> and mitt romney won ugly but an ugly loss or pretty loss would have been devastating for him and thrown the whole process into total chaos. i think romney is certainly where we thought he was weeks ago. he's a-- he's not only the front-runner. it's very hard to see how anyone else gets this nomination. but, you know, he has to hope that t.s. elliot was wrong, that

april is not the cruelest month, because february was really a cruel month for mitt romney. if we go back to february 1, he had just won florida. it looked like he had a smooth path to the nomination. everyone agreed he was a better candidate than four years ago. he traversed fault line between the movement conservatives and the mainstreams. none of that is true today. i mean, all of that is in doubt, at least. so he's still a front-runner, but, boy, he say really weakened front-runner. >> rose: mike, you see what a classy political show this is. we're quoting t.s. elliot in the first question. ( laughter ). >> well, you know, i do agree with al. it doesn't matter when you miss a guillotine blade if it's three inches or three feet and romney was looking at the sharp end 24 hours ago in michigan. he won. now the question is how he can roll the table. i think santorum blew it. he could have broken the romney campaign in michigan, but after the narrowing of the base, his appeal only to the social conservatives, i think he's going to be an all the-ran.

the good news is mitt is going to get luck next week. i'm calling it the brezhnev primary. that will give him delegates for free. he'll get massachusetts, and in idaho, the mormon vote will help him out. the question is what can we win in the south. you have oklahoma, tennessee, georgia, and ohio and he has to do well at least in two of those, or he'll hit the rocks again, at least in perception. >> rose: i want to come back to what romney should do now but i want to stay with the notion of michigan. i take no pride asking questions in the evening they ask in the morning, but this question-- did romney win this or did santorum lose it? >> santorum lost this. i totally agree with mike. if he had performed well at the debate and put together an economic populace message that went to his blue collar background, he would have won michigan and i think the blood would have been in the water, and the sharks would have surrounded him and he could not have recovered from that.

in the end, rick santorum lost that. ultimately, why rick santorum had a chance which is why everybody else has a chance is mitt romney is a very weak candidate for the republican party. that has been the case through this entire process, and he's never been able to close the deal. he's never been able to appeal to the majority of the republican party. the fact that rick santorum was in this at all and could have won that is mainly because mitt romney is a very weak republican candidate. >> rose: and, therefore, the question can he do anything-- go ahead, mike. >> no, i agree with matt that mitt's got problems but i put one big asterisk on it. mitt's proven to be a fairly weak candidate in the republican primaries. the problem is in this kind of excited year in both bases, you can become a very good republican primary candidate and simultaneously become a very, very bad general election candidate, and mitt's in a tough position of being hurt on both sides by trying to please both sides. it's rough terrain this year to run in the republican primary and not hurt yourself in the long run. >> rose: i want to open this

up to all of you. what can mitt romney do now, other than amass enough delegates to win the nomination, what can he do to enhance winning the delegation and the kind of strength to go after barack obama? >> i think that is the main thing he has to do. i think he will accumulate the delegates he needs. even if he loseaise number of states on super tuesday, he's going to win more delegates that day than anybody else by virtue of where he is and his strength in multiple states, so he will win the delegate map in the states. he has to begin to say how do i position myself better for the fall and against barack obama? for me he has to quickly coalesce the republicans around him. he has to do that and the only way he can do that right now at this point is win, and win consistently, put together somews together, which nobody has done in this race. i think more importantly, he has to come up with a message that is positive, that is forward look looking that the republican

party, conservatives, whoever they are can rally behind. his favorability rating has dropped 20 points in the course of this primary which is extremely unusual in the course of a primary to drop that far in a presidential primary. he goes in the general election in a much different place than barack obama was going in a general election in 2008, where barack obama increased his favorability by 20 points. mitt romney has to figure out a way to win a campaign positively. >> rose: did he begin to do that a little at the end of the campaign? >> i agree. >> rose: go ahead, mike. you agree? >> no, no, i concur. me has won with the big stick and the money, and i think after super tuesday, if he wins ohio, picks up a southern state or two, tennessee, et cetera, and gets that delegate map argument working, it's time to start to look at the general election, and triangulate a little bit. he has to go out and lose an alabama primary to send a message to the general election with a positive message not just pure base orthodoxy and anger it's very important for him. it will be painful in the primary but that's the price of

getting his positives back up because without them the obama guys will keep him back on his heels. he will will have to pivot and a sharper message of what he can do for the country and less than what is wrong with everybody else. >> charlie, i agree with mike, but they say two-step and perceptions matter. this is really probably not about delegates because as i said it's hard to make a case for anybody else. there is three threats of of primaries, the people's republican of vermont, massachusetts, they're mitt romney. the caucuses in the west, i hate to say this to my friends out there, no one is going to pay any attention to. there are two others that matter, ohio on the one hand, and the southern arc, oklahoma, tennessee, georgia. mitt has to win ohio and he doesn't have to win one of the other three, i don't believe, but he has to have a respectable showing. he can't be down in the 20s and if he can do that, then the inevitability argument is there and he can start that pivot, that segue, if you will, towards

the message. and not only does he need a message. he has to stop saying silly things which he has done repeatedly for the last six weeks. >> rose: and this is not his first run. why does that continue to happen? >> to me it feels a lot like what happened to gerald ford and other people. once a vulnerability or weakness emerges it seems to replicate itself, whether consciously or unconsciously, the weakness replicates itself until you're deliberative enough in your process to overcome. what i've seen in the last two or three weeks with mitt romney is he's made more mistakes instead of less in the course of the campaign and that happens sometimes to candidates that don't have that discipline that they need. >> rose: mike. >> it becomes a feedback loop, too. they feel the pressure and they double down nay weird way and get off kind of the music. butted media hears one and starts looking harder for the next and the next and the next and it becomes a narrative. i'll put one footnote on the michigan. this is at a republican primary but only 60% of the voters were republicans. you had a lot of independents, a

few democrats. mitt romney carried the blue collar u.a.w. counties in michigan. he won macomb county, catholic, blue collar auto work county. santorum didn't do as well there. in the county where they make cadillacs, famous cadillac gap, mitt romney won by eight point, double his statewide margin. mitt romney can play off key and he gets in trouble but some of these gaffs may be gaffes in our beltway analyst world but out on the streets of michigan, there's nothing wrong buying a cadillac. >> rose: how about two for your wife? how about that? >> or three. mitt should have gone and bought a third one up there at the plant. i think we found out from election night that some of the conventional wisdom about romney not connecting to the blue collar parts of the state was not quite right. >> this is why i think he's in trouble for the general election. to me this is like a football game where you want to make the play-offs, you're about to make the playoffs, put all your

players, they get injured in the last game of the season playing the kansas city chiefs now have to face the new york giants in the play-offs. he's going to have a bunch of injured players, and he is. he's going to be very vulnerable and he did it in order to win a primary where in the end he has to winter general election. he is going to go into the general election incredibly weak against a guy, president obama, who everybody thought was ready for the picking. >> rose: speak for a moment, al bpresident obama and how he is viewing all of this. >> well, he's loving tobviously. if you look at polls, there's been a seismic shift in the last five or six weeks. five or six weeks ago we were talking about michigan and pennsylvania being in play. today it shows obama winning by double digits and close races in places like arizona and even tennessee. i don't think that has very much to do with anything barack obama has done. i really don't believe that most people believe at this stage the economy is coming back. i think it is almost totally a product