welcome back to hardball. dozens of advertisers have now ditched the rush limbaugh show after limbaugh owes offensive attack last week on georgetown law student sandra fluke. today rush played down the feeling or the fleeing i should say of support. everything is fine on the business side. everything is cool. 28 sponsors out of 18,000. that s like losing a couple of french fries in the container when it s delivered to you at the drive through. you don t even notice it. none of what s happening is out of the ordinary. it s just part of an onslaught to try to convince you that this shows history. and our days are numbered. and i m happy to tell you
strategy is to continue to press forward on those basic concepts, while the republicans refight cultural wars that were settled i thought long before i was born. aren t the democrats and the president in particular forcing the republicans to stay on the issue? when the president weighed in at the press conference, weighed in to the rush limbaugh controversy by calling the georgetown law student who had been attacked by mr. limbaugh, he opened it up for all the republican candidates to be asked what they thought about that issue, whether they distanced themselves from rush limbaugh. everybody wants to be seen as the economic candidate but haven t democrats been trying to box republicans in to keep them talking about this? no, the republicans kept this issue front and center and seem obsessed with battling over a woman should have affordable access to contraception. look at the news and activity around the issue. last week the blunt-rubio
you give love a bad name oh, the jersey s coming out this morning. newark mayor cory booker joins our panel. you know if you signed up the whole political thing you could coanchor the show. if you decide presidential bid is not that interesting, we would love to have you. you don t get love a bad name. thank you. see, he flatters me. you guys don t flatter me. you are back. we love having you. you ve advised the buchman campaign and romney campaign. ron braun seownstein, you re so. that s happening. tim pawlenty, of course, the former minnesota governor and also former presidential candidate will be joining us this morning. and alice stewart, press secretary. she s going to talk to us. reince priebus, chairman of the rnc and kevin dewine is slated to talk to us as well. we re going start by looking right at the numbers. mitt romney landing six victories on super tuesday. it was a nail biter in ohio. 38% to santorum s 37%. ultimately like the difference of something li
claiming credit for the par rid. in fact, the industry analysts argue production increased not because of the president, but in spite of him. on federal land, the area where the president has control, production in the gulf of mexico is down 30%. lease sales in the rocky mountains on federal land are down 70%. mr. obama doesn t deny that his long-term goal is indeed to wean us off oil. we have to make sure that we ve got a set of options that reduce our overall dependence on oil. he argues that it will inoculate the country from the price swings but analysts say it will take decades. for now, producing more oil is the only solution. bret? bret: jim, thank you. also the news conference, president obama said he phoned the georgetown law student called the slut and prostitute by rush limbaugh because he doesn t want people discouraged from speaking out. i thought about my daughters and one thing i want them to do as they get older
mm-hmm. dealing with the gulf oil spill or something like that. do you want me to read that? no. it speaks for itself. after the diabetes scandal and now this. certainly not a good year for paula deen. you hope that it s not true. but if more than one person is coming forward well, it s one one woman is filing this lawsuit. and there are expected to be other employees that come forward as witnesses. paula, paula. hope it s not true, girl. all right. patricia heaton, you may remember her of course as debra from everybody loves raymond. great show. love that sitcom. she got in hot water because she decided to chime in to the whole rush limbaugh contraception debate. because she actually tweeted the girl who was at the center of all this, that georgetown law student. take a look at some of the tweets that she directly sent. hey, g town gal, if your parents have to pay for your birth control, maybe they should get a say in who you sleep with. instant birth control there