and it migrated between personal attacks between rick santorum and mitt romney. how does romney turn santorum into an effective surrogate or someone that he can use? >> it important to note that you have to mark down on your calendars, april 10th is where the general election started. there really isn't any more attention on the republican primary season. and when mitt romney is looking, what he needs to do to shore up his situation, it is one with the middle. also with female voters. he also has to make sure his right flank is protected. and rick santorum, if he is someone who emerges as a surrogate, could do a very good job for mitt romney, assuring evangelical christians, other people who weren't all that big enthusiasts of mitt romney's presidential bid, that mitt romney is one of us. he can be a very good president. i'm very interested to see how rick santorum, how he talks about mitt romney. we've seen a lot of republicans these last couple weeks come on board. starting to fall in line with mitt romney but they haven't been the greatest endorsements in the w

rick santorum said yesterday he guarantees he will win. mr. santorum did not bother campaigning in maryland before today for even a single day of campaigning. mr. romney won maryland today without even much having to try. rick santorum does not want to be thought of as out of this race. he's been priming the pump for days now trying to your his supporters to tonight's losses. >> we knew that april would billibe a very tough month for us. this is a series of state, rhode island, new york and connecticut and d.c. and maryland, these are not conservative states. we have some states that we know we can run well in. wisconsin is one. pennsylvania we know we can win. we know that the month of may is rich with delegates and strong states for us. states like texas and arkansas and kentucky and indiana and west virginia and north carolina. those are the states we know we can get this right back to where it was now, which is a lot closer to what mitt romney and the pundits are spending. by the end of may we expect this race to be close to even. >> th

against rick santorum even more. if i were to advise romney in pennsylvania, and also wisconsin as part of this too, wisconsin a swing state. he wants to spend not to crush rick santorum, but he wants to spend to push his own favorables up and drive his own unfavorables down. that's what he needs to do to defeat barack obama in a blue leaning, purple state like pennsylvania and wisconsin. >> do we have an idea where romney is going to be the next few weeks leading up to april 24th in pennsylvania. >> reporter: he's going to raise some money, but pennsylvania will be the first stop and many stops in between because, again, that's the big state here. one of the things i think they are counting on now is they really do believe they can rightfully claim the momentum. we saw through the whole first part of this primary season, if mitt romney wins new hampshire and immediately loses south carolina, newt gingrich wins south carolina and immediately loses florida. mitt romney wins florida and immediately loses in that sweep

rick santorum not giving up at least not yet. former pennsylvania senator told cnn last night and we quote. >> we knew april would be a very tough month for us. but we also knew the month of may is rich in delegates and are strong states for us. >> but before santorum can get to may, he has to get through tonight. and then he faces five more primaries on april 24th including one in his home state of pennsylvania, which he admits he absolutely has to win. and that is no gimme. the latest quinnipiac poll has him leading by just six points. for more on tonight's republican primaries i'm joined by current correspondent david shuster. thanks so much for joining us. out in wisconsin at least we have been hearing that there is virtually no emotion behind this. are people turning out in wisconsin even to vote in this primary? >> if there's no emotion it's because they are so depressed over the negative ads. the romney campaign has spent nearly $3.5 million in advertisement. so they believe this is an important state. so there are a lot o

i wouldn't read too much about rick santorum not mentioning mitt romney in the speech. i think rick felt it was very, very important for him to have a narrative that shares why he was suspending his campaign and all the good that the campaign did and i think also make it clear that rick santorum is still going to be a passionate fighter and a loud voice for conservative causes. so, right now, the great unifier is barack obama. rick santorum got into this race because he felt that barack obama had to be defeated. he feels -- still feels that strongly and will still be committed to that cause. >> so help me understand, how will he, i assume he will join forces with governor romney at some point. how will he convince voters that these statement and others like them are just politics? let's listen. >> you really believe this country wants to elect a wall street financier as the president of the united states? you think that's the kind of experience we need? someone -- someone who is gonna take and look after, as he did his friends on wall street and bail them out at the expe

mitt romney and so i think the campaign kind of began today, whether rick santorum wants it to or not. >> he already pivoted in the general campaign. he's going to spend a lot of money in pennsylvania, as he did in iowa and florida because he wants to crush santorum in his home state and end this so they don't have to deal with texas, arkansas, states where santorum could do well. >> absolutely. and what we have seen is romney has already closed some of the gap in pennsylvania. he was behind in wisconsin not long ago and he closed that gap and then won tonight. so he's got a reasonable possibility. after all, santorum lost the last time he ran in pennsylvania. the only reason that pennsylvania matters that much is whether you can get santorum out of the race and you can go on. if rick santorum wins pennsylvania, he's going to go on apparently. and romney just wants to end it so he can focus. what i thought was interesting today, wolf, we had -- if you compare the obama speech earlier today and the romney speech tonight, you have i think a portrait of the campaign that's coming. you kn

rick santorum won't get out. if this is just halftime, i need some gatorade. i'm not going to make it. >> you need to be liquidated in that climate. >> santorum's speech was interesting because he compared himself to ronald reagan in 1976 and the losing reagan campaign for the nomination when he lost to gerald ford and reminded the audience that reagan came back four years later. you wonder if that's the scenario that's in the back of rick santorum's mind. he caught himself at the end and said let's skip the mistake this time and go straight to the happy ending. you have to wonder why that story sticks in his mind. >> karen, mitt romney kept returning to this message of believing in america as if no one does believe in america under president obama. >> we believe in america. we believe in ourselves. our greatest days are still ahead. we are afterall americans. >> we're americans. is he trying to sell voters on the idea that president obama doesn't believe in america. president obama doesn't believe in the america where you can look at the ryan plan that mitt ro

the only person that doesn't seem to understand that is rick santorum and newt gingrich. santorum is like the guy at the blackjack table that doesn't know when to walk away and cash in his chips. you saw today with the president he's beginning to frame this race. republicans have made a decision not to focus the message on the president's economic record but to frame a choice between the ryan budget and president obama. republicans are going to have to do a better job than they did today at communicating around these issues. if you look at the damage done to mitt romney in the republican primary, you understand why the president is trying to seize ground in the middle of the electorate, today. you also understand why people want rick santorum out of the race so mitt romney is start to merge his operation with the rnc, begin to off load a number of overhead cash expenses and get on into the general election. really a santorum candidacy doesn't serve more purpose except to conflict damage on mitt romney in the context of a general election. he doesn't have a chance to be the

that's why i think we hear so much of rick santorum talking about ronald reagan, because he's lookinghead in my mind already to 2016. if romney gets the nomination this time and loses to president obama, i think santorum will certainly start spending as much time as he can over the next four years to try once again. >> well, we'll go now to john raymonder who is the senior aide to rick santorum. john, what do you make here tonight? you've lost three to nothing but a spirited speech from rick santorum tonight. how are you feeling? >> well, look, we knew that these -- we were playing on sort of mitt romney's turf, if you will, and we think that things dramatically change now. we get to go to our home state. mitt romney has already had multiple home states because of how many homes he has, but now we get to go to pennsylvania where it's rick santorum territory. that leads us potentially into may, which could be a great, great month for rick santorum the way the states line up. as we mentioned before, texas becomes critical. texas has a whole boat load of delegates. my belief is if rick s

four to one in wisconsin, the one negatived a that rick santorum has run is absolutely brutal. re is the santorum attack. >> i'm rick santorum and i approve this message. >> what if i told you this man's big government mandated health care included $50 abortions and killed thousands of jobs. would you ever vote for him? what if i told you he supported radical environmental job kill and the wall street bailout? and what if i told you he dramatically raised taxes? one more thing what if i told you the man i'm talking about isn't him? it's him. >> pretty rough stuff. and the fact of the matter is technically there is a lot wrong with that adds. but the bigger problem is a lot of republicans say i doesn't matter where rick wants to say in. but every time he is putting up these sorts of ads, it drives republicans crazy and drives the romney campaign crazy which respond in kind by putting more money into negative ads. and it allows the obama campaign to sit back and say we're not going to advertise in wisconsin because rick santorum is doing that for us. >> what if we told you this ma

rick santorum has decided to drop out of the race before he got clobbered again. he lost his 2006 re-election bid by 18 points in pennsylvania. santorum was all but ignored by moderators in their early debates. let us consider what rick santorum has wrought. did he make mitt romney a better candidate, or did he put him in a box, as "washington post" columnist e.j. dionne has suggested? >> i think rick santorum, who appealed to voters who like his ideology -- did not care if he was going to win or not, but like him talking about social issues. the candidate was one to talk about economic issues -- mitt romney. he forced mitt romney in a lile fthero th right and mitt romney wanted to go. now in the general, which is sort of begun already, mitt romney is having a harder time going back towards the middle and trying to pick up independent and moderate voters. that was santorum foster lasting contribution to the race -- santorum's lasting contribution to the race. >> college-educated males like him. who else, mark? >> conservatives like him, evgelicals, high iome voters

rick santorum.ely spoken? >> reporter: i would guess they have. this is the santorum family streaming into the room as we have seen many times, the children lining up behind their father. megyn: there is senator santorum. we'll take a listen. rick santorum. [applause] >> thank you very much it, always an honor to be here in this beautiful town of gettysburg. such an historic town. i want to thank everybody for the outpouring of prayers the past weekend. we had a difficult weekend. -- good friday was a little bit of a passion play for us with our daughter bella who is the joy our lives, getting unfortunately very sick. we ended up in the hospital over the weekend. but i'm here to report to start out things that she is a fighter and she is doing exceptionally well and is back with us and the family and we are looking forward to spending a lot of great time with her. but it did cause us to think and as the role that we have as parents in her life and with the rest of our family, this was a time for pra

though it look likes an obama/romney contest, rick santorum is still officially running, or is he? chris cillizza an msnbc contribute somewhere manager editor of post politics.com and nbc's ron mott joins us gettysburg, pennsylvania, traveling with the santorum campaign. chris, let me go first to ron, because ron, are you hearing anything new here? we want to talk about the buffett rule and all of that and what paul ryan said. i just got an e-mail from somebody close to the campaign who said, just make sure you have a camera there in gettysburg. what are you hearing? because we know some people inside the campaign suggested that santorum get out before pennsylvania's primary to avoid the embarrassment of losing his home state. >> reporter: absolutely. good day to you, andrea. we reporters are prone to ask questions, and when we got the word late last night, it was almost midnight for me, he was cancel two events in western pers pennsylvania two hours from here, scheduling an event in gettysburg, that got people think, is he going to drop out of the race? my producer asked an aide wh

that was rick santorum last night following a triple loss to his rival mitt romney. ntorum is pledging to fight on in his home state of pennsylvania and beyond. >> pennsylvania and half the other people in this country have yet to be heard. and we're going to go out and campaign here and across this nation to make sure that their voices are heard in the next few months. the clock starts tonight. we've got three weeks to go out here in pennsylvania and win this state and after winning this state, the field looks a little different in may. in 1976, ronald reagan didn't get out of the race. he was able to stand tall and win the state of texas, which we have every intention of doing. >> but does he still think he can win this thing or is he relishing the role of spoiler and hoping to improve his chances for a run in 2016? robert served as spokesman for rick santorum when he was in the senate. joan walsh is the editor at large for salon.com. robert, we're a couple of pennsylvania guys. at the end of the show tonight, i'm going to do a commentary and argue that what i think

what asnob. >> we are going to win this nomination. >> this time romney is firing his mud at rick santorum. >> i want to congratulate senator santorum. >> i have concerns about women in front line combat because of other types of emotions that are involved. >> we went into a recession in 2008 because of gasoline prices. >> to make people's lives better. ♪ there is hope for our nation again. maybe the first time. [. >> game on. >> game over. >> what i say goes. god help us. >> from america. >> church lady, we are going to miss you. who else will speak for the voiceless blah people in this country? michael shore, thank you for joining us on this. and now, when we come back you know how rick santorum was talking about how global warming is a hoax fox news orare the guys leading that. they have been attacking one climate scientist in particular. he is going to bring a hockey stick with him. you better watch out. >> the science behind global warming faces its biggest chal challenge ever and calls on nasa to reveal everything it knows. ♪ we will not settle for easy answers. (vo) the former gover

want you to bring down to less than $50,000, less than $50,000 and mitt romney wins that 40% to rick santorum's 33%. that is something we really have almost not seen before. somehow he got traction with the lower end voters that santorum has been able to rely on. one last category because this is the one everybody keeps talking about on the republican side. the most important candidate quality. the number one thing people wanted in maryland who voted today was a candidate who could defeat barack obama. look at how they voted on that. 72% for mitt romney. only 12% thought that for rick santorum. wolf, this is an overwhelming bundle of numbers for mitt romney right now and why we can so easily say this is the way maryland voters went today in the republican primary. >> good numbers for mitt romney indeed. thanks very much, tom. we'll check back with you throughout the night. one quick note. by the end of the night on the democratic side it looks official. president obama will have enough delegates to ensure his renomination. he had no opposition, so that's not much of a surprise, obviously, as we

for rick santorum. i've been telling my liberal friends, there's a lot of populism in the republican party. your guy spoke it. it isn't all 1%. it wouldn't be in general election if it was 1% party. 49 of that 50% republicans get in general elections like 2010 are not 1 percenters. why did he stay on that line and run on that line and knock romney's block off? why did he stick on my grandfather's big hands out of the coffin. i grew up, a joe bag of doughnuts, kind of guy, why didn't he stay there? why did he get into contraception and all this stupid stuff we fought about 50 years ago. >> you guys did. oh, come on, chris. >> so i hope we bring up contraception under this campaign? >> that's fine. that's one sentence out of a whole 45-minute speech. most of his speech was, look, my grandfather was a coal miner. >> how come everyone thinks santorum is a cultural, like pat buchanan. >> he is. >> i think santorum got off track in michigan. if he stuck with the theme you are talking about, rerentlessly, and

peter alexander, romney wants to meet with rick santorum. is that going to go forward? we had a communication with the director with santorum and he said romney's folks reached out to us. romney specifically to the former senator and saying we'd like to meet and want to talk about a possible endorsement and at this point it sort of dangles and romney folks would rather not say santorum except to say he's standing by our side like he did four years ago, but right now we have no specifics on when that will take place. ? you saw tony perkins withhold active, enthusiastic support for mitt romney. from your knowledge of the campaign, now that they can go after rick santorum voters because he's no longer representing them, do you have that? >> we're not worried about evangelicals and social conservatives. we're the republican party right now. we will be the guy going for the support. they'll tell you they're focused on women and independents in these states that will be the decisive states come this fall. specifically this attack on the war on women. the romney folks recognize

rick santorum is hard to report on in the presidential race. while numerically, in terms of the number of people left in the race mr. santorum by default has to be considered a top-tier presidential candidate but the way he campaigns frank repels top-tier style coverage. as in coverage that takes him seriously. because rick santorum campaigns like a michele bachmann or like a herman cain. he campaigns like herman cain did if herman cain had not had a sense of humor or a singing voice or that long, weird string of sexual harassment allegations or an economic plan that rhymed. we reached out to the santorum campaign today to find out where mr. santorum read laths night, as he sa, that you can't take american history classes at the university of california. we have yet to receive a clarification from the santorum campaign. it does not appear he has issued a correction to this misstatement either. rick santorum does stuff like this all the time. you may remember him saying on the campaign trail, remember when he said the government in amsterdam nrk

rick santorum decided to drop out of the race before he got clobbered again. e lost his 2006 re-election bid by 18 points in pennsylvania. who would have thought when this campaign began that santorum, ignored by moderators in early debates, would have won all those caucuses? did he make mitt romney a better candidate, or to put him in a box, as "washington post" columnist e.j. dionne suggest it? roger? >> i think rick santorum appealed to voters who like his ideology -- did not care if he was going to win or not, but like him talking about social issues, when the party structure wanted a candidate who would talk about economic issues, mitt romney. he forced mitt romney a little farther to the right and mitt romney wanted to go, and now in the general, which has sort of begun already, mitt romney has to do a harder turned back towards the middle trying to pick up moderate an independent voters. that was sent from's lasting contribution to the race. >> we know that college-educated white males like him a bit who else like him, mark? >> i think that probably cons

they need rick santorum, maybe more than santorum needs romney at this point. >> i just got off the phone as i said with the national campaign spokesman who said it is not an inevitability that this endorsement is going to happen. we're scheduling meetings. we have to have meetings and we're not scheduling it just yet. it's in progress. but it's not an inevitability. as we're waiting to dip into the president for a moment, we just had a reaction from ron paul, a statement about rick santorum getting out of the race. congratulations on santorum running such a spirited campaign. dr. paul is now the last and real conservative alternative to romney. we plan on continuing to run hard, secure delegates and press the fight for limited constitutional government. quote from gingrich, i am committed to staying in this a is all the way to tampa so that the conservative movement has a real choice. i humbly ask senator santorum's supporters to visit newt.org to join us as we bring these values to tampa. we know well only a conservative can protect life, se defend the constitution, restore jobs and gro

her answer is rick santorum is pro-life. rick santorum is pro-life. i can't hear you. >> i have to ask you about something he said about holland and euthanize ya. i don't know if you read about that on the blogs. he stated that people wear bracelets saying do not euthanize me and people are involuntarily euthanized. do you remember him saying that? >> a lot of these things are what's in his life. he's a strong pro-life person. that comes from life to natural death. those are the issues that are important to the people of middle america and that have come out to look for him. >> not asking about what h in his heart. your candidate said all of these things about ta country called the netherlands which is a full place full of real people called dutch people. he said things that are not true. will he correct these things? he's pro-life. her answer again is rick santorum is pro-life. he's pro-life. did i mention he's pro-life? >> the government says the embassy says the figures are not correct. he gave a wrong picture of the dutch euthanasia rules. >> rick

better job with the super pacs and fundraising than rick santorum has. maybe there is an unusual year because of the resources mitt romney has but a victory is a victory and until santorum puts victories in his column, the drum beats look, at least stop the negative attacks and run a positive campaign from here on out like mike huckabee did in 2008 when he tried to stick around. >> it's one thing to run when you're affirmatively damaging your opponent to run in september. the continuous vicious attack against mitt romney is doing harm to his capacity to win in november. i think the president is sitting in the white house applauding rick santorum every day his favorite friend for attacking mitt romney and putting out a budget accessible to attack. the poll numbers showing women turning significantly against the republican party over the past couple of months, that i think to a great extent because of the argument being made by rick santorum. >> to a certain extent. the other issue is and you see the pressure not just at the national levels, but members of

polls show him ahead of rick santorum by 7 points there. rt, santorum says he staying in past pennsylvania's premare regardless of the outcome. this week romney picked up a number of key endorsements including one this morning from wisconsin senator ron johnson who is ex-cooing calls for the gop to unite behind a single candidate. >>> maryland is one of the three primaries we will have on tuesday. what do voters there care most about. romney supporter and former maryland governor bob erlich. why was he the choice for you? >> it was tough. i started with newt and rick and came in the infamous class of '94. i think the skillset that the governor has is what we need today and that is what you you see emerging along the campaign trail. he is going to win the maryland primary. that will be the big news, not, wisconsin, on tuesday. >> shannon: he is leading by a significant margin. >> his numbers are good. if you look at the skillset and leadership and ability to turn the economy around. someone who understands the importance of creating private s

any minute from now, rick santorum is expected as andrea mentioned, to speak in pennsylvania. a lot of speculation over what mr. santorum will say. we'll bring you his important comments. will he drop out of the race? that is the big one. and we're following news regarding the president. mr. obama due to speak in the coming hour about the buffett rule. all is fair in love and war but what about taxes? congressman paul ryan also the rounds. we'll have both sides and what the president will say in the next hour. >>> and developing news in the trayvon martin case. meanwhile, we are hearing from george zimmerman via the internet. what he is saying now online. ar. with hertz gold plus rewards, you skip the counters, the lines, and the paperwork. zap. it's our fastest and easiest way to get you into your car. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 you and your money deserve. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, that means taking a close look at you tdd# 1-800-345-2550 as well as your portfolio. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 we ask the right ques

rick santorum is no longer candidate for president in 2012. for president in 2016. imagine the contest. imagine santorum coming back after the defeat of mitt romney demanding on the ground that false prophet, romney, failed to deliver the goods. imagine the moral indignation that rick santorum would be able to skplash, the personal right he would claim to blast away at any other candidate, especially one calling for anything short of all out ideological warfare, all out cleansing of the republic of any speck of liberal intent. this is the prospect of what happened today. by leaving the campaign before the april 24 pennsylvania primary, the former senator from that common wealth maintained his political viability. he had he stayed in the race and lost in pennsylvania on his on turf he would leave a deep record of defeat. the common wealth would fire him as the romney ad put it, would have rejected him once more. well, now santorum can march on. pretend to root for romney this november. all while remembering ad that romney ran against him, the o

despite his personal guarantees to the contrary, the possibility that rick santorum will lose his ownthat possibility has given way -- is giving way to a common sense argument that if he does lose pennsylvania, mr. santorum will have to drop out of the race. and if he will lose in pennsylvania, if it looks like he's going to lose in pennsylvania, shouldn't he probably drop out before that loss in order to avoid the embarrassment of losing at home? former mike huckabee aide telling the hill newspaper today that the damage of losing in pennsylvania would be huge, "if he loses pennsylvania twice, that's going to really hobble him in the future. that would be very hard to live down." given rick santorum's guarantee that he will win pennsylvania, his admission that he needs to win pennsylvania, and the real possibility that he might not in fact win pennsylvania, the santorum campaign appears now to be trying to reframe the importance of the contest there. "the new york times" noting that while mr. santorum has said he must and will win pennsylvania, "his aides are now casting it as a mere

did that mean they voted for mitt romney or could it have meant they voted for rick santorum? , obviously maryland and washington about the same size as wisconsin, but can, do you think, mitt romney lock this up tonight? >> i suspect that santorum will stay in this contest at least until his home state of pennsylvania has an opportunity to vote at the end of the month. i don't think he's going to go it, even if he loses in wisconsin, maryland and d.c. he's got some more fight left in him. i would be surprised if he simply walked away as a result of what's going to happen tonight. >> what do you make of what tom was talking about which is when you see the breakdown, you see lots of independents but also a lot of democrats and the democrats voting for rick santorum, which could indicate some spoilers out there. not enough probably to move things. >> it depends how many voters showed up, democratic voters, and wanted to spoil things a little bit, move things, continue this process thinking the longer the republican primary process continues, the better off president obama would be

bush. >> so is rick santorum right? >> so that kind of, you know, jibes with what rick santorum is saying. i don't know. i don't think, though, that this argument is, you know, so many of these people coming out of these are talking about electability. he electability, electability and they talked about that with john main and now with mitt romney. it's not as much about ideology as rick santorum would want it to be. >> not so much about conservatism versus moderate. it's establishment versus anti-establishment. they are drolled by an establishment group. mostly moderate towards conservative republicans in washington. mitt romney was the golden boy for them a long time ago. and certainly in all of the states with the organizing he has been able to get from officials on the ground. rick santorum is tapping into the strings of the republican party with an anti-establishment and happens to be a very conservative this time around. i am not so sure that's the best way to analyze it. >> i think the final analysis is what driv