we have to be respectful of their time too. >> my name is mark murray and i am a seventh grade teacher at mlk. i'm here to ask that the non- reelection of those teachers be rescinded. we are an understaffed schools. normally, we have one quarter to one-third of our staff leave each year. how can you fire the teachers that had highly satisfactory evaluations. how can you mentor these teachers and fire them because they're not improving quickly enough? all four of these teachers worked there butts off for these students and are well-respected and. now we find out we may lay off a higher percentage of our remaining faculty because, despite the fact that we have training, we are not in the zone so we do not get special treatment. put that together with the people who are leaving and retiring because of the atmosphere and we could be looking at 50% turnover for next year. that sounds like the turnaround model only we did not earn it. i am just wondering if something can be done about this. i really hope it can. as the previous speaker already said, we are feeling really ignored right now. [

nbc senior political editor mark murray joins me now. the vp question takes on more weight with rick santorum out of this race. everyone says romney has to play it safe with this pick over the next few months. who is supposed to be mr. right or ms. right as we look at this? >> well, thomas, i don't know if we have any person who is exactly right who is the obvious pick right now, but there are a few names on the top of the list that are having a lot of buzz. one is ohio senator rod portman, he served in the bush administration. he comes from a presidential battleground state of ohio. then you also have florida senator marco rubio, again another presidential battleground state in the state of florida, a rising star. there's a house budget committee chairman paul ryan has gotten a lot of buzz with his budget plan that you have, and then there's new jersey governor chris christie. >> when we look at risk santorum, i have to ask you about this though because maybe he would be considered if they can work out where mitt romney and rick santorum

knicks news senior political editor mark murray standing by. we want to start with ron mott. he is there in pennsylvania. what are you hearing? >> reporter: hey there, tamron. we're hearing that rick santorum is running a bit behind. maybe ten or 15 minutes from now we expect him in the room. the first word we got that something was afoot was late last night when the campaign sent out notice that they were canceling a couple of events today, this morning, about two hours away from here, west of here. and they were adding an event as they described it here in gettysburg. when we walked into the room this morning, we could tell this was not going to be a traditional rally. this room is far too intimate for that kind of thing. the campaign later clarified this would be a press conference and of course, that set the press corps abuzz about what the topic would be. we did ask one campaign official in fact what senator santorum would speak about. that was met with just a shrug. so of course, all day people have been talking about him suspending his campaign here. over the past coup

. >> joining me, news deputy political editor mark murray and mark smirkconnish. >> romney laid out why not obama but what was missing is the answer of why him? >> that's right, tamron. i was able to attend a focus group of republican voters last week and all talking about, yes, i know mitt romney is a businessman but they didn't know what the plans were and we didn't hear that from mitt romney last night. romney in his speech said he will talk about this in the future and you can be sure you will hear some of this in the convention taking place in tampa heading into the fall of general election. right now mitt romney is known as a businessman and a person able to beat rick santorum and newt gingrich and not a lot beyond that. >> michael, to mark murray's point here, in that speech he talked about his wife. he talked about his father. he mentioned he is a businessman. some question aspects of his business record but here is your big window. critics of mitt romney admitted it was a good speech for him, good maybe in performance and lacking as to answering that key question if not obama t

we have mark murray and molly ball, national reporter for the "atlantic." u. >> good morning. >> mark, run us through the maps, what are the key states now? >> there are seven battleground states we have are toss-ups that we saw from 2008. some of them have been around since 2000 and 2004. it is colorado, nevada, north carolina, florida, ohio, virginia and nevada. those seven will end up deciding the presidential election. >> okay. so this has changed a bit from 2008. so, molly, what does this tell you about the changing voter demographics? >> well, one thing we certainly see are the southwestern swing states that has a lot to do with the hispanic vote. so that's a major battleground. we have the southern swing states, depending on whether you count florida, but certainly virginia and north carolina, those are new swing states, newer for the democrats to put into play and that has to do with a lot of the changing demographics in the south. then the old traditional rust belt swing states, ohio and pennsylvania, sort of hearty perennials of the swing state cir

. >> nbc news senior political editor mark murray joins me now. and mark, this is an amazing phenomenon with hillary rosen because it shows the power of the twitter sphere and social media. it spread like wildfire. hillary rosen, who no one knew who she was, was trending nationally for a moment last night. talk about this and its impact. this is a real boost for mitt romney here. he can sort of portray the elite democratic limousine liberals out of touch with real working women to a degree. >> luke, the romney campaign really capitalized on an opening they got from hillary rosen last night. you're right. before i went to bed i was checking twitter. almost every tweet was coming from some republican, some person from the romney campaign making this thing go viral. and so it really does show that the romney campaign, if you give them an inch, they can actually really capitalize on something. but dope deep down, why were they trying to capitalize on this? i think they continue to have a problem with female voters right now, and they are trying everyth

. >> mark murray, nbc senior political editor joins me.y potential vp picks are ducking that question. is it a sought after job? >> it is. people always want to be able to help the party. it does give you a bit of a leg up if you want to be president. the problem is even if you are a successful vice president, it doesn't automatically give you entrance to 1600 pennsylvania avenue. we saw al gore who wasn't able to become president after serving as his vice president for two terms. but thomas, we know the general election season is heating up when we're talking about deep stakes, and this is something we'll talk about from april to the republican convention in august, if mitt romney holds true to form whoever the nominee is in picking the vice presidential candidate right before the convention. >> there's mark, a huge curiosity factor getting into the romney camp to figure out who is best suited to be paired with mitt romney, whether a vetted, more establishment figure or vp candidate with the tea party, fire up voters, get them behind romn

time to do the math now with mark murray, nbc news senior political editor. o you, mark. got your calculator? here we go. >> i do. >> mitt romney does not yet have the 1144 delegates he needs to secure the nomination. is there a reasonable scenario in which he's not the gop candidate? >> it will be something extraordinary to keep mitt romney away from being the republican nominee. we have crunched the numbers and rick santorum needs to win about 70% of the remaining delegates to actually get to that 1144 magic number. and when you consider that many of the delegates are awarded on a proportional basis in the upcoming contests, it is very hard to keep mitt romney away from that number. rick santorum still has a mathematical chance, but boy, it's a very slim chance. >> you talk about the proportional awarding, let's talk about this. apparently rick santorum met with texas rick perry this week coming amid all the news that the texas republican party is talking about changing their primary from that proportional allegation to a winner-takes-all vote. what are the

joining me is senior political editor mark murray. morning. >> the campaign has come out against amendment 1. why side step it today? >> i think what you're trying to see president obama, they're trying to reach out to voters that they need to be able to get to the polls and a lot of times when you hit general election mode it is all about the swing voters, the people who decide elections and so president obama and his white house has made the calculation that people who make gay rights their number one issue are already voting for president obama or maybe not voting for mitt romney and you look at the president's records on gay rates like the repeal of don't ask don't tell in addition to the administration no longer defending the defense of marriage act and saying we have a very strong gay rights record and what we're going to try to do is talk about our message. >> bottom line, we should remind people he won north carolina by a razor thin margin four years ago. what was it, i think about 14,000 votes. i guess why shake up the boat w

. >> now let me bring in mark murray. thank you for joining us. you have a new poll out. "washington post"/abc news. 52% said stay in. 43% said drop out. we know the stakes are high for pennsylvania. we also know that he has a little daughter who is ill. who has been hospitalized. she is now back home with the family in virginia. is this the right time for him to drop out given the personal challenges which are absolutely heartfelt and we know of great concern to him and his wife. and the reality of, he could take a shellacking in pennsylvania. >> it is important to take all these things into context. you're absolutely right about the health of his daughter. this was the second time the campaign season that she was hospitalized. and of course, her health became a story during the whole easter passover holiday weekend. and coincided with his time off the campaign trail. as ron mentioned, it also came after his defeat in wisconsin. bitterly fought contest which after the delegate count came about, it was going to show that rick santorum needed to win some 70% of all the rem

. >> nbc news senior political editor mark murray joins me now. mark, thanks so much for being on the program. this was a gift to mitt romney because it was on the cover of "usa today." now it's essentially obama-romney. i want to play about what romney said about the dropping out of santorum and what it means on the other side. >> this has been a good day for me. senator santorum has decided not to proceed with his campaign, and i had the chance to speak with him this morning. we exchanged our thoughts about going forward. he will continue to have a major role in the republican party and i look forward to his work in helping assure victories for republicans across the country in november. >> as you remember, that was an awful contest that he exchanged and how much can santorum get behind mitt romney and do you think he'll get behind him with the enthuse ychl that he could warrant? time will have to heal some wounds here, remembering the 2008 democratic primary between barack obama and hillary clinton. she didn't immediately come and embrace barack

. >> mark murray makes this argument to me all the time. can we say the tea party is dead if mitt romney is the nominee because you can't get more tea party than mitt romney. >> they're like a booster rocket. >> i would say that mitt romney is high tea. thank you, chuck todd, and thank you, howard fine man. i'll give you all the numbers, including who is leading right now in the smad chop. president obama says romney is out of touch. we'll have our strategists tell which one is most likely to win. this is "hardball." [ male announcer ] drinking a smoothie with no vegetable nutrition? ♪ [ gong ] strawberry banana! [ male announcer ] for a smoothie with real fruit plus veggie nutrition new v8 v-fusion smoothie. could've had a v8. it was in my sister's neighborhood. i told you it was perfect for you guys. literally across the street from her sister. [ banker ] but someone else bought it before they could get their offer together. we really missed a great opportunity -- dodged a bullet there. [ banker ] so we talked to them about the wells farg

according to senior political editor mark murray is that his business experience has gotten to these photoers. when asked to describe him with a word or phrase, accomplished businessman, successful businessman, he was also quoted as very indecisive, and a little stiff. despite the reservations of these folks, their biggest concern is romney's consistency. the message were make a stand, whether people like it or not. be consistent said another. summed up by one participant, jonathan, a 27-year-old deputy police officer who said i only know mitt romney as the businessman. george bush felt like a regular guy, remember, these are focus groups, this is qualitative analysis, if you l qualitative data, but it is an important place to look and to see where does mitt romney stand right now as we start the beginning of the general election. we have much more on this by the way at first read,.msnbc.com. with the republican beef stakes on the way, mitt romney is now offering some statistics on what he's looking for in a running made. >> you want someone who without question could lead the countr

michael smerconish as well as senior political editor mark murray. i'll start with you and get your reaction to these heated words from joe biden today. very fiery. his comments about mitt romney having this profound misunderstanding remind immediate when the critics referred to president obama, or then candidate obama as naive. >> when i go back and look at elections in the last, say, three decades, it has usually been that national defense has been a strong suit of the republican party. i don't think that will be the case in this election because there are some achievements that i think any rational person would have to credit the obama administration with. i'm referring to not only the successful takedown of bin laden but getting out of iraq and we hope because it appears to be in progress, getting out of afghanistan. hopefully for the obama administration, iran doesn't blow up. so it seems to me this is the year where the ds are going to be the ones touting their record on foreign policy. >> we'll talk about these key states such aspen pen but yo

i don't know what you would say, mark murray. nbc's senior political editor, thanks for joining us.s does seem an inartful way of comparing the controversy over women to an insect problem. >> it probably wasn't the best thing for republicans in the biggest indication here is how democrats are just going 100 miles an hour on this. this was not mitt romney who said this. this was not even an official from the romney campaign, it was the chairman of the republican national committee and they are trying to make thissen a issue saying republicans and specifically mitt romney are out of touch with women. now the earlier comparison was that reince priebus was comparing women to caterpillars. the biggest take away is democrats want to make the gender gap a very big issue for november. >> speaking of women, jay carney has spoken out on the question of whether women should be members of augusta, the augusta national golf course and of course we heard from augusta yesterday that they will not discuss the membership issue and here you have the ibm ceo, the sponsor of the match, who is the new c

nbc news senior editor mark murray joins me live. let's go deeper than this.bviously, mitt romney is going to go after president obama. that's the person he would be running against. so there is the superficial headline. take me deeper inside, please. >> what is interesting, we saw a tale of two different strategies that were unveiled at those dual speeches in washington, d.c. when you saw president obama's speech, he really talked about the republican party and the ryan budget plan in particular. and linked mitt romney to that. and when we saw mitt romney speak, he actually spoke all about president obama. in a way, you see the strategy for president obama. he wants this election to be a referendum on the republican party. in fact, he mentioned romney only once in his speech. however, mitt romney wants this to be a referendum on obama, mentioning obama or obamacare 22 different times, according to our political unit. >> how is it possible that either of those are novel or new ideas? if you're going to place someone in office or incouple benl, you'll go after

knicks news senior political editor mark murray standing by. we want to start w

mark murray joins me with a closer look on this. what did we learn from these tax returns? pretty standard stuff or any bomb shells? >> no big bomb shells. the adjusted gross income for president obama was about $800,000. and he paid an income tax of about $162,000 which comes to an effective tax rate of about 20%. for vice president joe biden, his income was about $400,000 and he paid an income tax of about $88,000. his effective tax rate was about 23%. >> so when we talk about the fact the president is on the campaign to talk about wealth and privilege in this country, people being able to have their fair shot and people on the upper end of the income scale paying their fair share, when we talk about the buffett rule and the pitch that he has on that based on investor warren buffett saying he shouldn't to have pay a lower rate than his secretary. >> 20% effective tax rate. the buffett rule essentially applies to millionaires. that one would need to pay at least a 30% tax rate. so president obama is below that. when you look at where people who make about a million dollars

mark geragos, what do you make of second degree murder? >> well, you know, i always wondered during the conrad murray prosecution why the d.a. here in l.a. didn't charge second degree murder because it has such a heavy sentence and when you're facing that, a lot of times you can get somebody to plead to a lesser charge of manslaughter. and if you drop the use, which is the use of the firearm which carries potentially the same kinds of life penalties, a lot of times you may not need to go to trial. it makes more sense to me that they would charge him with a second degree murder and then they let the chips fall where they might. >> marcia, as a former prosecutor, how hard is it to prove second degree murder? >> in my opinion, not as hard as people have been making it sound. the standard of depraved mind is very similar to what we have in california called conscious disregard, which means that you're acting in a manner in which you know that your actions are likely to cause serious bodily injury or death. when you have a gun and you shoot it at someone and depending on what the forensics show, if it's a point blank shot to the chest i think

murray and has no feel. >> i think the party is going to come behind him because they don't like obama. it's amazing. >> it is amazing. mark it. that said, as a republican who has been looked down upon by liberals in the media for a very long time, being a part of the party where, you know, half the members don't have passports. they are american firsters. there's a positive side to that. >> as a nation, joe, as a nation we want a president who loves paris. that's what we want. >> maybe not. maybe that was clumsy. at least he's been out of boston. >> this is like, remember mtv when the lady asked president clinton, boxers or briefs? with him you get the -- this is the defining moment. >> i don't like to make a big deal out of individual things like that. you don't have to answer the question. i don't care if they want to know your fond memories of france. don't answer. >> gene? >> i think rick perry had the best line, standing next to romney he wondered when he was going to ask if he had grey poupon. the gardens are beautiful. >> they are. >> totally lovely. i agree the gardens are lovely. >> it's a point joe raised with t