of cnn and john dickerson of "slate" magazine and cbs news. >> award-winning reporting and analysis, covering history as it happens, live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill, produced in association with "national journal." corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> this rock has never stood still. since 1875 we've been there for our clients through good times and bad. when their needs changed, we were there to meet them. through the years, from insurance to investment management, from real estate to retirement solutions, we've developed new ideas for the financial challenges ahead. this rock has never stood still, and that's one thing that will never change. prudential. >> we know why we're here -- to

connect our forces to what they need when they need it. >> to help troops see danger before it sees them. >> to answer the call of the brave and bring them safely home. >> around the globe the people of boeing are working together to support and protect all who serve. >> that's why we're here. >> corporate funding is also provided by norfolk southern. additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: let me give you an idea about how good a week this was for mitt romney. last week at this table we were talking about whether he might

even survive the week, like his home state of michigan, whether he would lose that. republican leaders were debating whether their nominating convention was ghog going to be utter chaos. now republicans are debating whether romney's challengers should step aside to allow him to unify the party. don't think this thing is over yet. we'll get to why in a moment. first we start with mitt romney's very good week with victories in michigan and arizona under his belt. he tried again to turn his attention back to president obama. >> this campaign is a choice for america as to what kind of a country we want. barack obama is turning us into a european welfare-type society, where people feel they're entitled to what their neighbor has. gwen: but he has to get through sup tuesday first. is ohio this week's michigan? >> you know, it is. the stakes are high. in this race momentum hasn't meant what it's meant in other campaigns, where you win one contest and that carries you on

to the next one. in this one it's almost a sign that you're going to lose the next big contest. rick santorum won the three contests before michigan and arizona, and then he lost them. so mitt romney has won these two contests. ohio is like michigan in that it has a lot of evangelical voters. it is the gland daddy of all swing states. it's crucial in a kind of larger context also. it's got a lot of downscale voters, those voters who make less than $100,000. that's interesting, because those are some of the voters that rick santorum has gotten. has he gotten them because he appeals to them in terms of their income and economic situation, or is it balls there are a lot of evangelicals in that group? we're finding the contours of this race, and for mitt romney this is a place where if he shows he can beat santorum and gingrich in a head-to-head match-up, he can argue i've been able to bring my party together, i can get those conservative voters, and now i can head on to tampa.

gwen: you talk about the contours of the race. i wonder to what degree, looking back at michigan, if that tells us something about what we should expect in the next seven days. >> well, it's kind of hard to say. i mean, i think that this whole race has been so unpredictable, as you say. it goes up and down and up and down. atlantis no such thing as a bounce. but when i look at super tuesday, i do think about ohio. it's kind of like michigan without the family ties for mitt romney. so he's got to make it on his own in michigan. and also, one other thing -- i mean in ohio. one other thing is crossover voters. don't forget it's an open primary. so rick santorum is going to try to appeal to blue collar reagan democrats. gwen: it didn't work last time, though. >> well, that kind of backfired on him. gwen: right, exactly. >> but there is a real possibility here if you're a wrage ann democrat and you feel like crossing over and you're a voter who wants to vote for a republican, that rick santorum would appeal to you.

that's the appeal he's had in the past. gwen: he's ahead in the polls so far. but there is a problem which mitt romney has always had, chuck, all along. there's a subset of republicans ta don't like him very much. is momentum enough to make up for that? >>he's had this problem, penguin, as you know, because you've gun -- gwen, as you know, because you've been on the road, too. a lot of them say they'll vote for him, but the passion is not there. probably the closest thing to a constant that we've seen in this race is when mitt romney is in trouble, he throws a lot of money into very negative tv ads and they're very effective. and he pretty much destroyed newt gingrich in iowa and then again in florida doing that. it was very effective in bringing down rick santorum in michigan. he's heavily outspending santorum in ohio now. and as much as we want to cover what they're talking about in the speeches and all that, those negative ads are very, very effective. >> i had one interesting split in the exit polls in michigan that i thought was interesting.

michigan was the first contest where we had one representative from the establishment of the party, mitt romney, and a single representative from the insurgent populaceing. if you look at the exit polls, those who wanted somebody to beat barack obama, they went for romney 61% to 24% over santorum. gwen: electability was the key. >> right. then people who wanted strong moral character, they went for santorum by 4130eu7b9s and people who wanted a true conservative, a 40-point margin for santorum. so you have two parties within -- >> totally. and that's the fight, i mean, that's the fight. which republican party is it going to be? voters 50 and over, mitt romney. 100,000 and over, income $100,000 and over, mitt romney. and, again, electability, mitt romney. moral character. so the romney coalition is older, richer, more -- less risk

taking. gwen: more pragmatic. >> and less strongly conservative. self-identified very conservative voters who strongly support the tea party are still generally going towards rick santorum. >> the thing to watch in michigan -- excuse me, in ohio that he did in michigan was that romney was able to eat into santorum's base, get more -- he won republicans. 60% of the folks who voted in michigan, he won them by 11 points. he was able to go into that territory. santorum, unable to get out of his territory of strong conservatives even lost catholics. as a catholic, lost catholics gwen: let's talk about santorum. they have a lot riding on next tuesday and ron paul is out there trying to scarf up delegates. newt gingrich is counting on a win in georgia, the state he represented in congress for two decades. >> unlike governor romney, i'm not going to washington to manage the decay, and unlike senator santorum i'm not going

to washington to join the team. gwen: rick santorum is countsing on ohio, but the lead he once had in the polls is shrinking. this was his pitch today at a rally. >> in this election he need a choice. we need a choice. we don't need a choice between tweedledum and tweedledee, we need a clear choice. don't buy the media rhetoric that, oh, well, now it's over. gwen: chuck, you spent a lot of time with rick santorum. is that his strategy, saying i am the clear alternative? >> yes, we were talking about the electability problem that he's had and it is a problem. in state after state republicans have said it's very important for me to beat obama. they tend to go for mitt romney. santorum has been arguing with limited success the best way to beat obama is with a clear dramatic contrast in the fall. he says that mitt romney is too much like obama, especially on

health care. that's his favorite point to make when he says the massachusetts plan was a model for what they call obama care. but i think there's so much else going on, and in some ways santorum detracts from his own message or augments it when he gets into the social issues like birth control and the catholic church and john f. kennedy's speech that he might be watering down -- gwen: on on election night he found himself having to backpedal and making an appeal to voters, talking about his mother, who was a working woman, and his wife, who was a working woman and that's his effort to pull back. >> yeah. he lost women in michigan, not by as much as i thoughts he might have lost wifment i think it was five or six points. >> and working women only by two points. >> right. so that was interesting, because it wasn't as much. but i think he understands that he has had a problem with women and will continue to have a problem with women. and also have a problem with

catholic voters, of all things, because he took on j.f.k. and i think the contraception issue with women has become an issue. and he's trying now to get back to his economic message to differentiate himself from barack obama. but, again, mitt romney has had some success there at the cnn debate. he was talking about earmarks and why he defended earmarks and why he took one for the team, which makes him sound like an insider. gwen: there's now an ad against him. but also, we're talking a lot about ohio, but there's got to be a path around or including other states. >> and rick santorum has a bit of a tricky problem here, because on the one hand he's competing with romney in ohio, but then he also wants to compete in tennessee, oklahoma, and to a lesser extent, georgia. lesser extent because it's the gingrich state. he wants to be the -- why is he having a two-front war? he also has to beat beginning

rich and become the single alternative conservative to romney. now, the problem for him in ohio and the benefit romney has in ohio, distinct and different from michigan, is he's running against both santorum and gingrich. he's hoping that gingrich will do well enough to take the anti-romney voters and split them nicely and cleanly with santorum giving romney victory in ohio. gwen: how about tennessee and oklahoma, georgia, as we mentioned? newt gingrich has said i've got to win in georgia to be credible. >> he's hunkered down in georgia. i went to a big tea party rally in chattanooga with rick santorum. he was very well received. i talked to his campaign chairman there, and she felt that he would do great in the state. but you've got to consider the source. it does seem like that's an opportunity for santorum and it's not getting a lot of attention. >> mitt romney is also making a play in tennessee, and i think if you're a serious republican contender for the nomination, i do think you have to prove that

you can win in the south. florida, separate issue. but, you know, mitt romney lost in south carolina by a huge amount. and i think they believe in the campaign that for credibility they ought to be able to win in the south. so they have to win somewhere in the midwest without the family ties and somewhere in the south. gwen: how about the delegate-counting drama? we had a little dustup with romney and santorum yesterday because it gave romney an edge in the count. everyone is claiming to have more delegates than the numbers suggest. >> part of what you do is if you haven't lost in the popular vote you talk about delegates, because you can say, as santorum tried to the day after the vote, look, i tied 15 delegates to 15 delegates with mitt romney, so in fact i won. >> only it didn't turn out that way. >> his argument was i won because i went so far into mitt

romney's home turf and got 15 delegates, so hurray for me. the problem with santorum was he needed a big knockout to get big momentum. but in terms of the numbers, romney is well ahead and has organization in future states where the numbers give him part of his edge and why people think -- gwen: the other problem for santorum is he's not organized enough to get all his delegates slates up. >> gingrich is not on the ballot in virginia and didn't get all the delegate slates in ohio. he has a shoestring operation. but it's remarkable to try to cover him. there's almost no infrastructure whatsoever. he's very efficient. i'll give him that. gwen: you live by the sword, the delegates sword. >> there seems to be no message control. and one thing you have to have when you're a successful candidate is message control. and by the way, i'm not so sure that -- i think if both of these

candidates closed pretty badly going into arizona. gwen: let me tell you who's watching this with some enjoyment. while the republicans are sorting all this out, the president seems to be warming to the idea of using the world's best bully pulpit for a little politics. earlier this week he made the pitch to unions. last night it was to well-heeled new yorkers. >> if you have the vision you have for america in your hearts, then i promise you change will come. and if you're willing to work as hard as you did in the last election in this election, then we will finish what we started and remind the world just why it is that america is the greatest nation on earth. gwen: the president seems to be very interested in reminding the world, a, that he is there, a, that he is the clear choice, and, b, that he's not all the things that these republicans are saying that he is. so back in the fray, right? >> yes. you could argue he's been in the fray for a long time. [laughter] you know, it's hard to figure

out when he got out of the fray. but he enjoys it. he's been looking for an opponent, because for so long we want this to be a choice and not a referendum. also, the numbers are turning his way a little bit and he was able to do some nice contrasting when he spoke to the u.a.w., the autoworkers, about the bailout of detroit, while the republicans were there saying the bailout was so terrible and horrible. the president and the white house -- the president placed a lot of bets early on and those bets are paying off. the president was able to say to all of those screaming fans in the u.a.w. there was, i placed a bet on you, you came through. it's the american people. he wraps himself in the story of america and the flag and, you know, he's going full bore. gwen: he did another interesting thing today. he inserted himself into in kerfuffle involving rush limbaugh and the woman rush limbaugh called a foul name because of her support of

contraceptive coverage and he called her, congratulated her and said he supported her. he doesn't normally get into this sort of thing. >> yeah, no, it was political. it's not very often the president will pick up the phone and just call someone who's testified before congress. obviously -- gwen: he gets to make rush limbaugh the enemy. >> he gets to make rush limbaugh the enemy. you had rick santorum today coming out and calling what rush limbaugh said absurd. but -- so the president was, i think, you know, wanted to get into the fray because after all, the more contraception is an issue, the less they're talking about the economy. the more the republican campaign kind of goes down a rabbit hole in another direction, the happier the white house. gwen: but the more gas prices go up, and economy and energy is an issue, the more the problem, which is why we hear gingrich saying i can bring you $2.50

gas. >> right, the gas price has got to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest concern, on the president's part. it was interesting that clip you played. he said, i promise you change will come. well, wait a minute. generally you don't run for a second term on change, which, of course -- but obviously -- gwen: didn't you promise that last time? >> exactly. apparently what he's referring to, i think, is the economy primarily. and what he's got to hope is that the public will believe that most of the -- that it's been the republican congress that has impeded him and the leftovers from the bush administration. so he can still talk about change, but that is a little tricky what he's trying to do there. gwen: it's also interesting, because in the last couple of weeks, no matter which republican candidate you cover, they all talk about the president as a weak man when it comes to foreign policy. and this week he gave an interview to jeffrey goldberg at the atlantic, in which he talked about how he would act when it comes to iran to protect israel, and he said, "i don't bluff."

sounded like he was very much saying i'm a tough guy. >> well, he is. obviously, the slogan, the unofficial slogan from the white house is bin laden dead and g.m. alive. he did the g.m. alive piece when he was talking about how a bailout had helped the auto industry, and i think that's true. he's also sending specific messages there. that's not just an election message, but also an international message he was sending through that interview and that posture. but i don't think he's going to see the national security toughness question at all to the republican candidates. >> one more piece. that issue that dropped in the political front that we can talk about before the show is over. the presidential campaigns are all biting each other on the left and the right. the voices in the middle were disappearing. this week senator olympia snowe said she's leaving the senate. she did not mince her words. >> people are just stunned by

the debilitating partisanship, polarization and the overall dysfunction of the institution and the political prowess has become to the point of extreme when it comes to resolving the problems facing this country. gwen: debilitating paralysis. that's strong language, chuck. congress is about to really change, if it hasn't already. >> yes. well, this gridlock has been growing and growing. it's become a huge problem and it's really quite shocking for senator snowe, i think, to say she wasn't going to run, because she's a very able politician. she's really figured out her state of maine. there's no question she could have been re-elected, but she's sick of it. she's not the only person in the middle. you have ben nelson, the democrat from nebraska getting out, joe lieberman. there are several others. and what you're seeing is this continuation of a growing partisanship, and it's particularly a problem in the

senate, ballgames the senate is set up really to solve problems in the middle. and you have the filibuster power that gives the minority party a tremendous amount of power. but what you have is a partisanship that's almost like a parliamentary system like in the house, where the parties do not work together on hardly anything. gwen: so as a result of that, the republicans, their chances of taking over -- of taking over the senate fade add lot this week. >> did fade a lot. i can only imagine the conversations that she might have had with the senate leader -- republican leader, who would have wanted her to stay, because she was going to get re-elected, and that this turns her seat into a clear tossup, maybe even lean democrat. >> doesn't give them much time to find a replacement. >> it doesn't give them much time. but i think the sense of frustration that you hear from someone like olympia snowe who's worked so hard on so many issues, health care being one of them, that i think she finally said, you know what, i can't effect change anymore. gwen: these discussions we're

having about social issues, is this driving a wedge? >> not necessarily. what is driving sometimes the wedge is the challenges in the primaries in your own party. but that's not always about social issues. gwen: well, thank you all very much. i know it went very quickly, but it's because we have to leave a few minutes early so you can support your local pbs station, which, in turn, spourpts us, judy woodruff and i will be on hand for super tuesday coverage. you can follow our reports online and on air and keep up with us on the web at web exclusives from tennessee, ohio, alaska and washington state as well as our panelists' reports at pbs.org/washingtonweek. thank you and we'll see you next week on "washington week." good night. gwen: the quferings continues online. see more from our panel about the week's top stories. it's the webcast extra, found only on "washington week" online at pbs.org. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

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thank you. narrator: the best of soul train, featuring the very best acts from the legendary soul train series, starring the jackson 5, bill withers, barry white, gladys knight and the pips, aretha franklin and smokey robinson, marvin gaye, stevie wonder, and more . [music playing] don cornelius: soul train, the hippest trip in america.

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