joining us live from politico's offices is the executive editor, jim vandehei. thanks for being with us. >> great to be here. >> what are you looking for tonight? what are the scenarios? >> well, the polling that's been done is fascinating. if you factor in the margin of error, it's a tie between the big three, between mitt romney, rick santorum and newt gingrich in both states. nobody thought these two states would be this close or this important. and once again, in what i think is the story of this campaign, you have a very sort of wounded, wabblely mitt romney benefiting tremendously from the fact that there's two very conservative guys in the race dividing the vote. basically you have gingrich and sanitorium forces, the social conservatives split between the two of them to the benefit of mitt romney, the front-runner. >> as you well know, mitt romney is looking the fact this conservative vote is split. we've been hearing from newt gingrich and rick santorum asking one or the other to get out so they the have a clean shot at the former massachusetts governor.

jim vandehei is with us. he is the executive editor of "politico." to talk more about it. good to have you on the program. thanks for joining us. >> great to be here. >> 400 plus republican delegates at stake on tuesday out of 1,144 needed for nomination. how to you think thank things -- think things shake out? >> i think it is a big day for santorum. he has to show he can have more momentum and win more states. particularly ohio. if he can, i think the race goes all the way to the convention. newt gingrich, rick santelli, mitt romney, ron paul will have no incentive whatsoever to get out of this race. however, if mitt romney can win in ohio, can win some other states, nice bucket of states beyond virginia which is a slam dunk for him, on super tuesday, i think it will go a long way to convincing republicans he, indeed, is inevitable, whether it's going to happen that day or over the course of the next month or so. >> it seems that way. of course governor romney won in arizona and michigan this week. last week by three points in michigan where he had the support of college

jim vandehei, good morning. >> good morning, how are you? >> i'm doing all right.arah palin as we said, not pleased with game change which airs this saturday on hbo. her super pac has released its own interpretation of the film. here's a bit of that. >> this is sarah. >> well, i'm not a member of the permanent political establishment. >> a feisty, strong, tough, and straight-talking governor. >> tremendous record of accomplishment, 80% approval rating. >> i'm not going to washington to seek their good opinion, i'm going to washington to serve the people of this great country! >> that's about 30 seconds. it's a 2 1/2-minute sort of trailer. what's at the core of the argument here, vandehei? >> well, she's trying -- the movie to be negative. haleprin would know better than any of us. the truth is, is anybody's impression of sarah palin going to be changed by a movie? you either love her or hate her, and i don't think any work on behalf of her super pac is going to change any minds. but i think what she wants to do is get out in front of this, make clear that a lot of

that cowl mean, which would only make jim vandehei elated -- he loves the long nights. but it is once again something to keep an eye on because illinois having a little bit of a ballot issue. >> we're going to mikey in one second. media matters will probably start picking us with nasty emails. the drudge report, he has mitt romney in double digits at the top of the site. the lea story is about tebow and my advice on tebow, he should go to the packers, working the system that's been fantastic at grooming quarterbacks. and he'll play if they go down at all. >> i'm downstairs. >> roving cam. >> we've got the mikey cam, andy is wired up here. right mind me, you can see the editors working on the stories going up. off preview there. behind me, they're putting the "politico" print edition to bed. we have a sneak peek. pall ryan is is the story with the republican budget. this is a work in progress. it won't actually say headline goes here, there'll actually be a headline there. over here behind me, reporters all working on live stories tonight about the returns out. as soon a

joining us now for a look at the playbook, the executive editor jim vandehei.morning. >> good morning, how you doing? >> i'm doing all right. you guys have a 2008 memo, laying out a plan to shield steve schmidt from john mccain blame. there's been a lot of talk about him over the past week with the "game change" movie. >> this is fun stuff for political junekies. it's a very favorable movie to steve schmidt. and unearthed this memo written before the campaign had ended by a campaign staffer about how they can make sure they could protect steve schmidt's image and make sure he didn't get blamed for the collapse of the mccain campaign, and it detailed how they can use their friends and resources to make sure he does not come out looking like the person that sunk the campaign. and it clearly worked. i mean, schmidt's reputation is better than ever and the "game change" movie very much reflected his vision of how the campaign worked which has been palin's chief critique. she feels like, listen, this is just the campaign as told by steve schmidt. >> so, jim, this is