tonight mitt romney is florida s choice. a win that helps him look like the front runner again. a competitive primary does not divide us, it prepares us. and we will win. it s a new setback for newt gingrich and his roller coaster campaign. we are going to contest every place and we will win. four candidates with four contests behind them. but the fight for the nomination is just beginning. the votes are in. florida has spoken. and now the campaign goes west. the campaign does head west. the story is what happened in the east in florida. if you re just joining us, welcome to the special primary coverage live until midnight. after wild swings in the polls, withering attack ads, millions spent by the superpac. earlier speaker gingrich conceded the night but not the race. governor romney claimed victory and looked ahead to the fall. a lot to talk about in the hour ahead and our guests. let s start by bringing a quick look at what the candidates said tonight. thank yo
this. the gleaming romney family was rolled out yesterday, like this is what it s going to look like. if you vote for me you ll all look like us. look how well we ve done. if you want to be like the romneys, vote for the romneys. maybe that s a brilliant roll-out as i called it in our cold open tonight. chris, i would say part of all politics, president obama tapped into this, too. part of all politics is making people vote aspirational. that is, this is what we want out of our country. now the other part of it but they already have it. right. i agree. the romneys already have it. that s potentially the problem for mitt romney. there is clearly a strain, john touched on this. there s clearly a strain of economic pop limp that exists in both parties. but in the republican party, mike huckabee tapped into that. he was the populist messenger. it s why he beat romney in iowa.
but they already have it. right. i agree. the romneys already have it. that s potentially the problem for mitt romney. there is clearly a strain, john touched on this. there s clearly a strain of economic pop limp that exists in both parties. but in the republican party, mike huckabee tapped into that. he was the populist messenger. it s why he beat romney in iowa. who is that messenger now? newt gingrich is not a populist. rick santorum, maybe, but his time in washington makes it hard. the best populist natural populist in the field is a guy from texas named rick perry who is at 1% in polls and largely irrelevant. and that s the problem. not that mitt romney isn t vulnerable to an economic that there s no message to deliver that argument in this field. you know, it s if you look at the history of the republican party, the democratic party. the democratic party has historically been much more open to old money. teddy roosevelt, frank
superpac? it doesn t make him the nominee but makes life very difficult for mitt romney of $10 million of negative adds dropped at his head. now he s getting hit from the right and left. he is getting hammered on the air for a potential game changer. romney has not had to take that kind of is there a better use for the $10 million? please! pay every single republican voter to forgot the john huntsman worked for president obama. then he has a chance in the 2012 republican party. how about florida? how available is florida to any challengers against romney? you must have money in florida to compete, as you know. this is the first big state and our media markets, there has gotting to someone thooz beat romney in south carolina. if a conservative or john huntsman, i don t think that is likely, but if a conservative beats mitt romney sh there s going to have to be a flad of
newt s ad accused romney of being timid. brian, did newt wait too long to start going after romney and the other candidates? absolutely. i don t understand why everybody is saying he is a republican and go after him. have you watched any races? do you remember the barack obama 3:00 a.m. call? they still haven t forgotten about it. if someone insults you and says that he says the stuff in these ads is not true, why would he not come forward and say let me tell about you fan knee and freddy. and let me tell about you the problem with nancy pelosi. instead he said i can t believe they are being mean to me. that doesn t sound like the savy politician. and republicans keep saying we can t beat up on each other. you have to beat up on each other. but obama and hillary clinton beat up on each other until election day, it seems like. and john mccain and mitt romney were beating up on each other and now they are best buddies. they have never been closey. closer. did you see them o