our political producer peter hamby is watching from washington. good to see you.e talking about mitt romney. what's he up to? is he sticking his toe in the water, putting his whole foot in, diving, what is he doing? >> i'd say his whole foot is in. it might be an understatement to say he's testing the waters. romney has to be considered the front-runner for the nomination if you look at poll numbers. he's in new hampshire. if you look at the early nominating calendar, if he does run for president, iowa, he lost there last time, he has problems there among social conservatives, south carolina he lost there last time, same problems. new hampshire is a place where he owns property. he's known there, because he's run for president and has been the governor of massachusetts. this is his beachhead, has he to win here in 2012 if he's going to find a path to the nomination. he's there today. he gave a big speech talking to the activists volunteers, consultants, money men in new hampshire you need in your corner if you're going to win the nomination. >> does he feel like h

. >> edd, i want to ask you a question about peter hamby. 117 cities, 106 appearances with candidates of the districts are not competitive districts. perhaps he's taking this trip for his own election. i talked to chairman steele at the beginning of this bus tour. he's been very controversial, people say he shoots from the lip and hasn't been able to raise enough money. listen to michael steele and i want your opinion on the other side. >> i get blamed for stuff that hasn't happened yet. i'm a big boy. i've been in this fight a long time. what's disappointing is that when some within our party lose sight of this is not about the chairman of the rnc, this is about a candidate who's making a sacrifice to run for office. we need to focus on that. >> ed, if you're in 46 or 43 districts that don't have competitive races, this is worth spending the money on this. >> no, it's not. at the end of the day, michael is not a real factor in this election. he didn't raise the money he needed to raise. he's an articulate spokesman for the party. the game has on on without him. i said it before and i

peter hamby reporting about rick santorum, the former senator from pennsylvania who we think is somebody eye running in 2012 for the republican presidential nomination. tomorrow he'll be in south carolina, one of the important early primary states. he's already been in iowa and south carolina and new hampshire. keeping an eye on all of those guys. >> can you do a cool camera move again? i'm loving this. it's like a cop show. >> we have dave jenkins with us. he can do the camera move again. back to mark, right? >> let's do that. >> back to mark. >> he's not participating in this. there we go. i love this. i love this. we are not going to let this die because that's so much fun. you two are excellent. you should get your own show about cops. >>> we're going to come back and play with the camera moves again because more on the primaries from mark preston. don't worry about that. i switched to sprint's $69.99 plan, so i wasn't charged extra. [ buzzes ] okay, i just got your breakup e-mail. e-mails are unlimited, too. and look -- i just changed my facebook status to "single." but internet's a

peter hamby and i, we confirmed earlier today sarah palin is going to be teaming up with michael steelean of the republican national committee later next month, october 23rd and october 16th out in orlando, florida, and in anaheim, california. zoom in here on the cnn political ticker. brand-new up here. palin is going to help the republican party raise some big bucks in those final weeks before the mid-term elections. ali, this is interesting. remember, last year and even into a good part of this year, palin and the republican national committee really didn't see eye to eye over a lot of things. looks like they've made up. looks like she's going to be teaming up with michael steele. that's what i got. mark, what do you got? >> hey, ali. this is just in. it literally just came into my e-mail box. we haven't written it up for the political ticker right now. service employees international union is going to launch a $5 million campaign against meg whitman. it's going to include radio, television, internet advertising, mailers. the television ad is going to run on spanish television station