tim carney, what is rick santorum doing tied with president obama?> president obama has done things to make himself unpopular. also things he hasn't done, like gas prices. i don't blame him, but voters do. and here's an in. being socially conservative does not make you a popular. there's a portion that think we shouldn't be forcing people to buy contraception. >> it's extraordinarily to see you, but we have a saying in britain. a week is a long time in politics. we have a long way to go to the general election. as far as rick santorum goes, how long is mr. frieze going to remain in? the question is not are they going to drop out of the race, but when are their super pacs going to drop out of the race? >> there's probably no other entity in the country more than the obama administration or campaign that would love to test that theory out with rick santorum in a general election. i don't think it's going to happen, but i think we're months out from the election. i think the polls -- we can't start to tune into them too much until there's two people in

tim carney returning to the program. senior political analyst. doctor claudia, chief medical officer for the junior hospital of cook county, illinois and past president for the physicians. and akila professor of political science, former law clerk for the u.s. court of appeals. also great to have you here. we also have with us today some of the tier rankbroccoli. since this is my show, i'm mandating that we eat the entire thing. i'm compelling you. so yesterday, in secret, the nine members of the u.s. supreme court took an initial vote on the fate of the obama administration's affordable care act. the justice will be able to change their vote up until they announce their ruling which is expected in june. the 26 states suing the federal government insist that the law is unconstitutional, mainly on the grounds of the lost center piece, the individual mandate requires people to pay a fine and exceeds the constitutional authority of congress. not since bush v. gore has a case drawn so much attention. here's justice anthony and paul clemeent, the lawy

imogen lloyd webber, tim carney, and mr. cedar. he will be the nominee according to the math.nd there's a lot of denial about the fact that that's what's going on. this is a very close race. but it's a consistently close race that breaks towards romney all the time. >> two things we have been waiting for. can romney break above 50%. he hasn't really done that. if newt drops out, santorum could beat him. but ron paul is not going away. that's not as relevant. these guys drop out because they can't get money. but as long as sheldon adelson and foster frieze says there's a game, there's a game. >> we keep producing more events because of foster and shelley to see if there's a different outcome. well i'm going to keep gambling. that suggests denial to me. >> i think there's just a genuine sort of dislike of mitt romney in the republican party. i think there's also a quality. it's time to look beyond the presidential election. we have lost. >> yes. but here we are. >> a better sense in 24 hours or maybe 36 hours. >> you get the last word. i'm not surprise d because i've been listen

carney, what do you think on tim cook? is this a departure from the jobs reign? it might not actually be going far enough. some of us were looking for higher dividend. remember, apple has no debt. they're still going to be accumulating cash. i'm not sure he's really departed all that far but at least making a change. >> peter, let me go and put out who this puts pressure on. it kind of ups the ante, does it not, on a lot of big and profitable tech companies that have yet to pay a dividend or do a share buyback. >> the most obvious is google. i can't imagine larry page is waking up saying i have to follow in tim cook's footsteps. they're going out and spending a lot of the cash they make. they're going to drop $13 billion on motorola. apple hasn't spent that money that we can see from the outside. >> that's an interesting point, kate. do you agree with peter that the likes of google would not have to pay a dividend? >> i think shareholders might want to see that but the o nous is on them. i think they were in a bit of a unique spot. >> john, break the tie. >> i th

tim cook unveils some of the details of it and there are many. so joining us now for reaction on the big headlines so far is cnet.com senior editor and cnbc.com's john carney. john, it's going to be more crisp than hd tv you get in your living room. that's attract toif a lot of people. >> definitely. i think when you talk about the boosted graphics and the amount of people using this for gaming, you'll see this for movies, games, they bumped up the camera quality. any video chat i think that's smart. and for business anybody using this for video chat, maybe not for taking pictures but to boost the camera in general is a smart idea. >> it also apparently will, scott, be able to take and record video at high def, which is quite a nice thing if you want to use it. one of the criticisms of the early ipads was it was more about consuming content rather than creating it. this changes that a little bit, doesn't it? >> yeah, it does. and, you know, it matches what you've seen on the iphone 4s that a lot of people are using it -- i use it for video editing. now if you can shoot video that is up to par with what's available elsewhere on other apple devices, well, th