tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight a preview of the super tuesday primaries with joe scarborough. polls continue to show a divided gop electorate. there are 400 delegates out stay. we are glad you joined us for the preview of the primaries coming up right now. >> every community has a martin it's the cornerstone we all know. boulevard, but a place where your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you.

thank you. tavis: tomorrow night i will be joined by russ feingold for a look of the upcoming presidential race in the state of the progressive wing of the party. good wednesday we continue with the chief medical officer of the cancer society. thursday we will be joined by david e. kelley. friday night, a conversation with the woman whose courageous fight to gain equal pay in the

workplace led to the landmark legislation the bears her name. good we will look ahead of the most important day of the election calendar so far this year. did we call it super tuesday, and joe scarborough is doing a job i think we can say he enjoys a bit more than his time in congress. who knows? always good to see you. >> it is great talking to you. >> are you enjoying this more than your time in congress? is there ever a time you wish you were not in the set? >> despite the fact i have to wake up around 4:00 in the morning, a commuter about an hour into work, and shoveling a lot of deaths in -- there is never a day i wish our were still in the well of congress

with 435 members. it was a great time to be there, but washington is different from today. it is so divided it seems like it is very discouraging. >> the list goes on and on. i have lost count of the number of people in the house and senate who said they are not going to run this time, and that will determine who has a shot at holding on, but what is your sense of the vitriolic end the part that is worse than it has ever been?

>> bill clinton and i when we get together and talk, of seiters will hear us talking about the good old days of the 1990's when we balance the budget, created 20 million new jobs, we all came together, and people stop and laugh and say, isn't that the same time you impis' clinton? -- impeached clinton. even while that was going on we were working behind the scenes to do the business that needs to be done for america. that is not happening right now. look at olympia snowe. she had been at the house, then moved to the senate. she was one of the few moderate republicans left, yet there are a lot of republicans on the far

left steering her departure. they did not think she was sufficiently loyal. she voted with the republican party's 76% of the time on all votes. good she voted against the president's health care reform bill, yet they are cheering that she is leaving town. they could not get a presidential candidates to say they are glad olympia snowe is a republican. then he said, i am glad. i wish jim was a republican. it seems the extremes on both sides do not understand. bob kerrey, i know he is not a hero, but he is running for

senator in a conservative state, alaska. the hatred that has been leveled a against them by people on the left, and an -- a conservative state, nebraska. the hatred and has been leveled against them, one blogger had a two-word statement to senator kerrey when he announced he was going to run again, and the second word was you. can you imagine a democrat during that to a war hero? a guy who left his leg on the battlefield, a guy who is trying to work across the aisle, it's just like can you believe conservatives aren't cheering olympia snowe -- conservatives are cheering olympia snowe. now she is about as conservative

as you can get in maine. there are a lot of really great men and women who do not want to fight the fight again. >> you said two things. in no particular order, disabuse me of this notion there is any space left in this hour for moderates in your party. >> scott brown is more conservative than most new england republicans of 10 or 15 years ago. at the same time, he has made some votes against his party. the tea party years hate him. he gets hate mail from the far right. good he has to battle against elizabeth warren, and both are good friends of this show. and we will see if he can win, but it is more difficult by the day to be a moderate republican.

lot on1990's you have a the left to said, or get middle america up. -- for get middle america. i remember a chairman of the democratic national committee saying, we are throwing it back to the republicans. howard dean and rahm emmanuel say, we are going to do everything we can to win those areas back. democrats made that call. that is why barack obama got a lot of swing votes in 2008. democrats figured out finally that they could not be a national party without winning read state america. i do not think the republican party has figured that out yet.

if we lose maine and some other states, i think a lot more republicans are going to start speaking out against the more extreme elements out there. if that takes place it is going to happen because conservatives tried to hang their hat on the social issues and that is where they lost it. you would agree or disagree? >> a month ago i would have disagreed. today i do agree 100%. this past month has been the worst month for the republican party since august of 1974 when richard nixon resigned, and i mean that you're a good -- i mean that. we have allowed us to be a party

defined by contraceptives. we are debating survey that should have been close in 1965. you have saying contraception is bad and he is going to use his presidential platform to speak out against it. you have the front runner talking about how jfk made him want to throw up on his sweater vest because john kennedy was talking about separation of church and state. you have the front-runner talking about how president obama was a snob because he believed children should end up going to college if that was a possibility. it was aspirational, and is what the american dream is in part about, so this has been a bad month. you add rush limbaugh over the past week, and you even have people like my wife, a pro-life

conservative republican who has never voted for a democrat before in any national election -- i hear her talking to her friends on the phone saying, what is up with our party? fix the economy. leave us alone. we will take whatever we want to take. it is astounding to republican women, to conservative republican women. it is astounding to a lot of republican women and independence that republicans have gone down this have a trail over the last month. it is bad news for this party. tavis: let me get your take on this terminology we are cheering every day, the so-called war on the mn -- we are hearing every day, the so-called war of thue women.

10 years ago we are looking a figure of the woman -- looking at the year of the woman. i was going to speak at nyu with an all woman panel. we are talking about women, children, and poverty, but we are doing it against a backdrop of this so-called war on women. is there a war on women right now given what you have seen? >> i think there are parts of the republican party who do not understand that talk about contraception and not only pushes away democratic women and independent women but also republican women as well, and there are a lot of people in the

democratic party who do not understand there are conservative and pro-life people as well who sometimes do not feel they are as represented by the democratic party as they would like to be. that said, and you actually have -- unfortunately, most of the people i have spoken with in washington do not like this fact. you have a small section of the party that seem to be going after the rights of women. you have been talking about abortion rights. we are talking about contraceptive and rights, an issue settled in the 1960's. 99% of women have taken birth control in their lives. the fact of the front runner of the republican party is saying it is ron and promising to use his presidential campaign to that ishat rowrong,

disturbing. i do not think it is a quinn said in the president obama has a 50% approval rating, -- i do not think it is it a coincidence to the president obama has a 50% approval rating went just a couple weeks ago he was tired or behind both candidates in the nationwide gallup polls. the president is ahead by double digits in virginia, a double digits in ohio. it is not up to me to decide on this show whether the republican party looks like it is conducting a war against women. you can see swing voters, independence, and women especially feel the way. five is a real problem for the republican party, and it is a wrong they are going to have to go right. >> super tuesday of we said earlier, let me ask you whether

or not it is the case this race would already be over were a not for these super pak pimp daddies, pick a phrase, but were it not for these handful of people pumping in all this money, this race would have already been over? >> as you know, you are going to have them on sides, and it is something i think we are going to have to deal with over the next couple years. there is no doubt about it. bricks santorum would be out of the race right now if he did not have somebody funding of super pak. newt gingrich would have left a long time ago if he did not have a superpower. mitt romney would not have been

in a strong opposition as he is today. there is no doubt about it. supertax have fundamentally altered the nature of the campaign. it has made it more negative, and it has made campaigning less transparent, so you do not know exactly where the attack ads are coming from. it is not good for the party or for the country in general. >> i think you are right. i think it is bad on both sides. i was upset with the president for embracing this nonsense. i think it is wrong across the board, but what do we do about? >> i think it is up to the united states congress and the president of the united states to pass some form of campaign finance reform that the supreme court not overturned. there has to be a way to draft a

bill that would prevent a billionaire to be able to write $10 billion checks of the time to keep the campaign going but does not have the support of individual americans. i am not a huge fan of individual limits to campaigns. i think people should be able to give what they want to give straight into the campaign. use damp the check. it goes on-line immediately so you know who was a supporting what campaign. that said, one of the benefits of having spending limits is not new get to see which candidates have a broad base of support. -- is that you get to see which candidates have a broad base of support. without that money they might be down in single digits. it is something the next congress and this president is going to have to take care of. president obama had promised he was going to abide by public

financing in 2008. and he figured he could raise more money than mccain, and he flip-flop on that. then he promised, even though he raised more money than bush and he was going to push for finance reform. that never happened. i am hoping he will finally turn to campaign finance reform and work with congress to get a campaign finance reform bill that will drain the swamp of the super pac money. >> tammy why it is you believe that is possible, when the president you are referencing chastised in the u.s. supreme court, sitting on the front row for the citizens united.

he slaps them upside the head, and a year later, he does a 180, and you believe he might actually get serious about campaign finance. put down the crack pipe. doug >> he is not running for reelection. that makes things hopeful after two tries this president will move toward a real campaign finance reform. he has as cynical a record as any american in modern history, but if he gets reelected, he is not running again, and maybe he get that through congress. tavis: what is your sense of what tomorrow might bring. this is going to go on a little bit longer, but what is your sense of what tomorrow brings? what are you looking at?

>> everybody is going to be looking at ohio, and i think that is important. mitt romney is going to win more delegates than rick santorum. i personally believe it is accomplished, and that you actually had a sense of rick santorum of set in michigan and -- rick santorum upset in michigan if instead of focusing on my wife's birth control pills, he decided to focus instead on our neighbors and jobs and the economy, instead of focusing on the jfk's separation of church and state speech, he decided to focus on education and health care reform, but he did not do any of that, so he led mitt romney back into the race. romney is going to pick up more delegates if it is even close

because the santorum team screwed up, and he did not give delegates and all of the district. the big question is how big of a delegate when will it be for ann romney. if romney whims' -- if romney winds ohio, it is all a matter of math, despite the fact the man who has been campaigning against a rock obama's individual mandate, the health care reform plan, -- against barack obama's individual mandate, the health care reform plan, has actually been revealed to have supported a government plan in 2009. we have a front runner who says one thing one week and another thing the next week, and is causing a lot of republicans real concern.

>> the conventional wisdom is there are a lot of republicans who are not fond of mr. romney, but if he is chosen the party will rally around him. i am not sure i believe that. i think mr. romney has an enthusiasm gap problem. is there any way that you see the party really rallying around to make this race competitive, assuming he is the nominee? >> i do not seek the republican base getting excited about mitt romney. gov tavis: they might not like now romney, but they hate obama. >> you could have said the same thing about the republican base in 1996. they love bill clinton, but did people get excited about bob

dole's? did people get excited about bob dole in 2008, even though they barack obama. campaigns are one when you have someone who excites the days. it is not enough to say, i do not like a rock obama. i am going to vote for mitt romney. you have got to have a candidate to get people so excited they are willing to make phone calls. they are willing to pass out bumper stickers and signs may have in the back of their van in a church parking lots. i do not see that happening for mitt romney, because he has flip flop on social issues. he has flip flopped on health- care issues. he has flip flop on just about every issue there is out there. does that mean mitt romney

cannot win this raised salmon and a does not mean that, but craig -- as that mean mitt romney cannot win? that does mean that real conservatives, mitt romney, george w. bush, that energized the base. people like john mccain, bob dole, george h. w. bush, they usually do not win close elections. tavis: i meant that they hate the president and not to rally around romney. good -- enough to rally around romney. there is nobody covering politics anywhere these days who is more honest than you are, and that is why i am always delighted to have you on the program. >> we cannot wait to ceo in new

york soon. good -- wait to see you in new york soon. >> thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. if you are in the new york area market please join me for a conversation about women, children, and poverty. the guests include suze orman and others. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with russ feingold on u.s. mistakes in the 10 years since 9-11. bowdothat is next time.

we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs. >> be more. pbs.