newshour" tonight, we have the latest on the presidential race from "newshour" political editor christina bellantoni and we ask one of santorum's strategists what comes next. >> ifill: then we turn to margaret warner, reporting from germany on the european debt crisis. tonight, she meets some of the workers behind that country's good economic news. >> we come to germany to find out why it's doing so much better than its european partners. the castle behind me may date from the 1700s, but the economic model they've developed here is 21st century-plus. >> woodruff: jeffrey brown talks with zbigniew brzezinski about america's place on the global stage and his new book "strategic vision." >> the tragedy is the public's understanding of world affairs today is abysmal. it is probably the least informed public. >> ifill: the "washington post" investigates the connection between the private interests and public roles of members of congress. >> woodruff: and special correspondent dave iverson takes us to the theater, where the son of san francisco mayor george moscone remembers his father's legacy, after he

more than 1,100 are needed to clinch the nationanomition "newshour" political editor christina bellantonihere with more on what's next after santorum's surprising trifecta. christina, given these three outcomes from last night, which one did you find the most surprising? >> colorado was definitely the most surprising. missouri, which i'm sure we can talk about, was less of a formal contest. not very many people turned out. minnesota was going to be a little tighter, but colorado, mitt romney was favored here. there weren't very many polls coming in to the caucus. they were mostly done by a public policy polling, a left-leaning pollster, but romney was favored by 10, 12 points in a lot of these polls and some fairly recently. with santorum winning by five point, as you can see on our map, romney was able to win the northwestern part of the state, which is close to utah, where he has a strength. but he was not able to really deliver. another big surprising thing of the night, this green portion here is the one county where newt gingrich actually won in all three of the states, and i think t

and "newshour" political editor christina bellantoni. christina, after last night, after seeing what romney did in arizona and michigan, is it safe to call him the front-runner again. >> i think so, yeah. particularly when you look at the map. it's very difficult for any of these other candidates to really forge a path forward because he can collect in this slow build toward having that magic number, even though it could take months and months. >> ifill: but winning delegates doesn't... winning elections, as he did yesterday, doesn't necessarily equal winning delegates. there's a disconnect there somewhere. >> yeah, there is. and i think that's what supertuesday is really going to take a look at that. it's how many states, what types of states is he able to win? can he win in ohio, which is a very similar electorate to michigan, which he was able to pull out this very small win. or is he able to win any of these southern states? will he even compete in the southern stphaeuts what point is he trying to prove about his strategy other the ne

by stuart rothenberg of the rothenberg political report and columnist for "roll call" and christina bellantoni. hello, to you both. we know now tree quarters of the vote of the precincts in florida the margin is about 47 percent for mitt romney. christina, you're looking at this county by county. what do you see. >> you see newt gingrich performing well in the panhandle part of the state. a more conservative area and more to the south. it's more like the south than florida and places move there to retire.e. you see gingrich performing well among the conservatives. they're arguing he's doing better with conservatives then mitt romney. this is a battleground state, and it's not like those voters are picking barack obama in a general election. another thing about the geography of the state is the i-4 corridor from south beach to tampa. the majority of the votes are, where the candidates spent a lot of their time. they're really, really taking a look at this area. romney performed very well here. that bodes well for him. it also sort of suggests this will be fertile ground for a general election.

on our politics page, the political checklist returns as political editor christina bellantoni asks gwenhey are watching for in tomorrow's arizona and michigan primaries. and on our world page, two more presidential elections, our team in russia has more on vladimir putin's try for a third term. plus we have an update from senegal, which has been rocked by weeks of anti-incumbent protests. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at the pivot point primaries in arizona and michigan. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy, productive life. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to y