so far. if he loses alabama, should he drop out? yeah. i don t think there is a way forward for him. if he can t win the deep south, neighboring alabama, i don t see a way forward for him. but i believe there is room in this primary for a real conservative to provide an alternative to mitt romney. i think all the way to tampa. every state should have the ability to cast their vote and to have a choice and we shouldn t have a coronation, we should have a primary. mr. gingrich, of course, says he will continue now through the convention in tampa. if rick santorum and gingrich weren t battling it out for the conservative vote, what do you think the results would be in alabama? would romney be ahead? i think the conservative would be ahead. has it damaged the party since they have been having this dog fight that continues? i don t know that it damages. but it divides. it s always difficult to heal
for each of you. romney won ohio by only 12,000 votes. and i thought if you are a republican candidate you know you have to win ohio if you want to win the presidency. how could santorum or romney or gingrich, what do you think that battle for ohio is going to look like when they come up against obama in november? andrea: if you look at his approval, president obama s in ohio now, it s not that great. so the candidate that is going to be the most competitive against the president is the one that will connect in the rust belt with the blue collar voters. now we have seen mitt romney eke out wins in michigan and eke out wins in ohio. remember, rick santorum said i m from pennsylvania, i have experience with the blue collar voters. but he has just been on his heels. what i m, i think is that reason because gingrich is in the race. what if gingrich weren t in the race? would santorum beat romney by more in michigan and more in ohio? it s a double edge sword.
romney won ohio by only 12,000 votes. and i thought if you are a republican candidate you know you have to win ohio if you want to win the presidency. how could santorum or romney or gingrich, what do you think that battle for ohio is going to look like when they come up against obama in november? andrea: if you look at his approval, president obama s in ohio now, it s not that great. so the candidate that is going to be the most competitive against the president is the one that will connect in the rust belt with the blue collar voters. now we have seen mitt romney eke out wins in michigan and eke out wins in ohio. remember, rick santorum said i m from pennsylvania, i have experience with the blue collar voters. but he has just been on his heels. what i m, i think is that reason because gingrich is in the race. what if gingrich weren t in the race? would santorum beat romney by more in michigan and more in ohio? it s a double edge sword. the longer that the two stay
gingrich at 17%. in that poll, they asked gingrich supporters who they would favor if gingrich weren t in the race and they would favor romney. the other piece of news is reporting about shelden adelson. the billionaire casino owner who has given, he and his wife have given $10 million to the super pac which you run. talking about quote-unquote turning off the spigot. how long could newt gingrich remain competitive in the race, given the numbers tonight, the numbers we saw on tuesday, if in fact there is, you cannot raise the kind of money you ve been able to raise for the super pac that you run? i m not sure mr. adelson said that, i ve read that but i m reasonably sure he did not say that. i think mitt romney cannot do is raise the most money, but raise a conservative army. he s capal of doing it. newt is in my opinion, the most experienced, he has the most
strategy we heard earlier from the imbed, that his vote would go all over the place. let mestraight. newt s vote would go over all the place. santorum s vote would go to him. if he can knock newt out as an alternative to romney he becomes the convincing and, comprehensive conservative who can take on romney in the end? if you looked at our polling in florida what we found interesting, santorum s vote split evenly between romney and gingrich. so, santorum makes a good point. in other polling we have seen if gingrich weren t there, santorum benefits more so than romney. so there is some logic into what santorum and the argument san tourp san santorum is making. neither are fits with the tea party, populists, palin folks, talk radio crowd.