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>> what do you think of when you see a tree, a treatment for cancer, alternative fuel? do you think of hope for the environment, food, clothing, shelter? we do, weyerhaeuser, a growing ideas. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> we won by enough. >> this week, mitt romney

squeaks by in michigan. >> talk about someone who is lead on every moral cultural issue. >> resulrick santorum, culture . -- warrior. >> we could not get together. >> olympia snowe is fed up and going back to maine. a special tribute to our troops. >> you will one of the most extraordinary chapters in american military history. -- you wrote one of the most extraordinary chapters in american military history. >> mitt romney was born in michigan, grew up in michigan. his father was governor of michigan. in 2008, he beat john mccain in michigan by nine percentage points.

this week, he almost lost the michigan primary to rick santorum. why? >> i am not willing to light my hair on fire to get support. >> he is who he is. why did that work against him in his home state? >> many republicans do not think romney is one of them. they do not see him as the standard bearer for the conservative party. you put it as he almost lost michigan. he said he won michigan by enough. in a certain sense, he is correct. it does not matter if he won by three percentage points or six percentage points. he got the popular vote. that is what the press cared about. he got one more delegate. the best thing he had going for him was rick santorum. rick santorum needed to beat him

in michigan. he did not do it. >> nina? >> he won because his opponent did have a cultural warrior campaign. he won the women's vote. santorum walk up to that of the last minute. the republican party in michigan and much of the country is more conservative than it used to be. he did not win the way he might have years ago. there were democrats who voted for santorum because they thought he was an easier candidate to shoot at. >> evan? >> romney will limp over the goal line. some of this is manufactured excitement in the press. there are some in the republican party who keep shaking their heads. there's something about romney that voters broadly speaking do

not like. >> colby? >> the significance of michigan is not as close victory but the delegates. they do count for something. over the next several weeks, we will see the importance of the delegates over the winning primaries to be the real issue. you could look at michigan the same we looked at florida or south carolina in the past. the question is the delegate count. robocalls told michigan voters that romney supporter the bailout for wall street opposed the auto bailout. santorum also opposed the auto bailout. >> he did not run a good campaign in a state with a 9.2% unemployment rate.

he talked about how john kennedy made him want to throw up. he talked about how barack obama wanting kids to go to college made him a snob. he talked about how he was fine with banning birth control. how does that help the people of michigan and get or hold on to a job? >> charles krauthammer says romney remains a slow, unspectacular tortoise in the race. >> a few percentage points make a huge difference. had romney lost michigan, he would have heard the alarm bells through washington. it would have been high drama.

it did not. the conventional wisdom is wrong the -- romney wins. >> people make fun of him because he keeps putting his foot in his mouth. he is not the most appealing to most of america because he really is different from them. however, he really did map out a year-long campaign. he has been unbelievably tough. he did have the money to stick it out. he has modified the plan when he had to. if i thought running a campaign was evidence of running the country, i would have a great deal of admiration for him. i still have some admiration for him because he has dealt with himself. >> one thought. the american public may not love romney but his own staff apparently does. we have heard little of the usual back fighting.

you do not hear that. that tells me romney is a pretty good boss. at least the people close to them like him. >> it is a very disciplined campaign. in my view, he is a manufactured candidate. if we learned anything from michigan, he will have a difficult time in the general election. his position on the bailout of the auto industry will come back to haunt him. a few democrats voted last week, but they will turn out to the general election. >> super tuesday. what about ohio? could this be another michigan? >> rick santorum was leading in the polls. the poll was taken after a his losses in arizona and michigan. that shows him a one-point leader.

ohio is not quite michigan. it is a lot like michigan and that is another state that is more like the rest of the country with an urban population and its neighbors santorum's state of pennsylvania. there is no reason on paper% or not to do well there. the feeling is he might lose it to mitt romney because mitt romney is going to dump a lot of negative ads in ohio. >> the culture wars continue unabated. >> president obama said he wants everybody in america to go to college. what a snob. to say that people of faith have no role in the public square, you bet that makes you throw up. latest column is entitled "satan makes a bad

running mate. " you challenge the idea that the conservatives control party. >> the almost never get the candidate they want. they did not want john mccain. they did not want george w. bush. he refused to back the anti- abortion amendment. they did not want bob dole, who refused even to read the platform of the republican party on abortion. they did not want george h. w. bush, who called them the extra chromosome set. the only candidate they really liked and got was ronald reagan, who rewarded them by going to church approximately once in his eight years in office. i am not saying they're insignificant. i am saying they are not determinative in the republican

nominating race. >> that brings us to mitt romney. >> he will probably come out on super tuesday squishy squashy. he is not going to win in tennessee or georgia. he might squeak out a victory in ohio. but you will have other players stepping up on super tuesday. newt gingrich will be partially back in the game. santorum might do well in tennessee. he might take tennessee. he is up in the polls there. romney is just not emerging as the inevitable candidate. he may be the one the republicans conclude withstand the best chance against barack obama, but there is no enthusiasm. >> i have had an aha moment. i have been watching the way the candidate street each other, -- with the candidates treat each

other, the savage way they treat each other. it is the way they conduct themselves in congress. you know what kind of approval rating that has gotten for congress. i think the tone of our national debate did not used to -- there was some politenett in the party. there is not any more. i think it has debased the currency of the party. >> voter turnout is down. i believe cable news ratings are down over 2008. the campaign is fun and has twists and turns. the evidence suggests the general public is turned off. >> it shows up in the polls and other ways. the negative campaigning, particularly by mitt romney and the people who support him,

made his unfavorable rating shoot up. it is higher than his favorable rating. >> there is a larger price to pay for this. women can be said to be increasingly concerned about what the democrats call the republican's war on women. >> they were still debating birth control in the senate on thursday. the amendment would allow the employers to refuse to include contraception in health care coverage. the amendment failed. can you explain to us why we're still having this debate in 2012? >> the republicans had an issue that turned on the issue of religious liberty with the obama health plan. where they made a mistake was they have gone overboard with the question of reproductive rights and about a woman's right

to contraception. the amendment goes beyond the question of contraception. it would allow insurance companies to block mammograms. the zealotry of the republican push to embarrass obama has got them in this bad position now on contraception. >> there is a close balance between the free exercise of religion and separation of church and state, that the government should not established religion. that was a legitimate question in the first iteration of the obama rule. i do not think it is in the second one. the goal post moved from, can over the religious organizations not include this in their -- overtly religious organizations not include this in their insurance plans to, can anybody

decide you do not have the right your own reproductive freedom and we're going to leave it out? that is a different goal post. >> the question for some, especially women, is why do the republicans want to get government out of our lives but into our wombs? it is more than contraception and reproductive rights. the supreme court ruled decades ago is a matter of privacy, whether the government can intrude upon your privacy 24 shoot to -- to force you into doing or not doing certain medical attacks. >> senator olympia snowe says she has had enough. >> people are stunned by the partisanship and dysfunction of the institution. the political paralysis has come

to extremes. >> she was first elected to the house in 1978 and the senate in 1994. she says there is an all or nothing mentality to running congress now. she wants no more part of it. she is not running for reelection. that is an opening for the democrats. >> they might have a war in maine. they have two weeks to decide who the candidate is. this is really sad. this is increasingly happening. moderate members of congress leave because they feel there is no place for them. she is only the latest. there are many others we can name. the idea of a moderate republican is almost non- existent and is getting less existent in the democratic party with the idea of a moderate democrat.

the national journal did an analysis of the voting pattern. there's almost nobody in the middle. how do you make a deal if there is nobody in the middle? i hope obama offers her a job and puts her in charge of something important. >> she left because of the political paralysis on capitol hill. nina is right. it is sad for the person the senate is losing. she pinpoint the problem. the goal in congress is to block the other side. if you are a democrat, you vote against republican plans. if your republican, you vote against democratic plans. gridlock has become the highest goal. you are not there to pass anything anymore. you are not really there to change anything anymore. you are just there to keep the other side -- >> i would put it differently. i do not think gridlock is the

goal. gridlock is the result of both parties pursuing their own ends to the exclusion of everybody else. snowe and others want to reach accommodation on big policy issues. that seems to be missing in the senate the notion of respect for one another. it is gone. >> what is going to change it? that is the issue. the public hates it. >> it is being exacerbated. >> the direct way to change it would be for president obama to run on changing it. >> he tried that. >> he needs to do it again. he needs to find something substantive. instead, he is doing familiar tropes.

it is a tired old message. it is not the message that will give him a clear mandate to force something. >> it is also exacerbated by the amount of money, the outside money, it is exacerbated in the primary system. people like senator bennett of utah are ousted. nobody thought he was not conservative, but he was not conservative enough for conservatives in utah. that happens over and over again. it is starting to happen in the democratic party. it exacerbates the party. the number of competitive districts is minuscule because they are drawn to be compact units, singularly democratic or republican districts. the fight is only which one gets elected in the primary. >> american military presence in the middle east. are we getting out or in more detail? >> in one of our longest wars,

he wrote one of the most extraordinary chapters in american military history. now the iraqi people have a chance to forge their own destiny. everyone of you can take pride in knowing you gave the iraqis that opportunity. use succeeded in your mission. -- he is succeeded in your mission. >> it remains to be seen what the iraqis will do with that opportunity. we're still very much in afghanistan. the people our military have been training are now killing our troops. is it time to get out. >> there is already a plan to disengage. the question is whether we step up the timetable. there is the big question around afghanistan, the future of iraq, the middle east with syria, and the larger question about iran and what will happen there with respect to whether israel feels the need to take a

strike and what that does to the united states. it is not just one country. it is the whole region that poses serious challenges to the united states. >> israeli prime minister will be in washington next week. it will be interesting. >> i talked to a very senior republican former executive- branch official. i asked if the israelis were going to bomb iran. this is somebody who's really plugged in. he said if they think obama is going to be reelected, they will do it to lock him into supporting them before the election, supporting what they're doing. if they think the republicans are going to win, they will wait and probably do it later. >> i think it is trickier than that. obama is clearly signaling do not do this. they worry if they do it after he has done the signaling, they

will lead the frosty relationship with obama going forward. >> jeff goldberg had a long interview with the president. he said they're going to try to persuade netanyahu to postpone any attack on iran as nuclear facilities. >> israel announced they will reveal what ever they do without consulting the united states first. this, i think, is designed to give the united states and the obama administration credible deniability if an attack takes place. it will not work. no one will believe it. certainly the states of the mideast will not believe it. the aftermath of an attack on iran, rocket attacks on israel are possible, will boycott, all the rest. it will produce the same result.

we talked about afghanistan for a minute. the reason ron paul attracts so many young voters is because he is the peace candidate in this election. he is the guy who says get out now. since the unfortunate burning of the quran in afghanistan, six u.s. servicemen have been killed by members of the afghan army. if we have to fight both the taliban and the afghan army, there is no reason for us to stay in afghanistan and other day -- and other day. -- another day. >> jeffrey goldberg said the president used the phrase "i do not block." >> is talking to israel and iran. he is saying to israel, do not attack iran. trust me, if iran gets weapons,

we will do it. you have to believe me we will do it. you do not have to do it now. that is the message to israel. the message to iran is that we are serious. i do not think it will work, but he is saying to them that you have to stop building weapons. >> he is talking of a snowball effect in the middle east. if iran gets a weapon, the saudis will want a weapon wi. >> the point charles made last week is open for discussion. an attack on iran might get applause in riyad, amman, in baghdad. the prospect of a shiite government concerns other parts of the middle east as well.

it is a serious calculation. i think they all want to see iran not have the capacity to launch a nuclear weapon. i think president obama has made it clear that the united states will take all the steps it has to to prevent iran from having a nuclear weapon with or without the israelis taking action. >> there is a serious point of view in israel's intelligence establishment that this is not a good idea for all sorts of technical reasons. it is fine to say we will bomb them, but if it does not do when you are trying to do, is not worth much. >> the saudis are saying, if you do it, really do it. take them all out. easure to get us

into perpetual war. >> i keep reading about the potential for these bunker- busting bombs and how deep they go. >> it is a tough mission to fly. israelis will have to go a long way. they will have to refuel on the way there and back. they will not have a lot of time over the target. on the larger point about whether the other arab states who generally dislike iran would rally around the israelis and americans, i simply do not see it that way. basically, you are going to have a jewish state bombing an islamic state. that is not going to play well with the people of saudi arabia , the royal family holding on by its fingertips waiting to be overthrown by islamic fundamentalists. it is going to be very tough for those countries to applaud an

attack on iran. >> what about the role of turkey? >> i think more of syria than turkey. turkey really does want to see the assad regime out. what effect with a strike on iran have on the populace of turkey is a real tough question to answer. this is an element -- islamic population, not as radical as in other states. what happens in the islamic world if there is a strike on iran, not just in the arab world? >> you get the last word. we will see you next week. nsipt,ipt, log on. vo:geico, committed to providing service to

its auto insurance customers for over 70 years. more information on auto insurance at geico.com or 1-800-947-auto any time of the day or night.