obama with oeus own records. gretchen ham he will executive director at public notice. donna gentile o donnell adviser to bob casey and former staffer for pennsylvania governor ed rendell. welcome to both of you. donna you know bill clinton well. i know you worked very hard on his campaign in pennsylvania and elsewhere. what is going on here? is this just bill clinton being bill clinton? pretty much. i was surprised that his staffers were surprised. i think it probably says that these are new staffers, not people that have known him for a longtime, but i also think that it s important to remember, bill clinton is not your standard surrogate, he is a former president, he has his own ideas and he loves being in the arena. i think he s prepared to engage the debate in a manner that benefits president obama, but i also think that he is really interested in ideas and deliberations and discussion,
to ask which president. the strategic goal i think is the same. the tactical issues are really what s at issue. jon: all right. so is there going to be some big meeting, gretchen, between these two camps to say, okay from now on mr. clinton you can only say this? you know, like i said he is a former president, he is not going to be a parrot for anybody. he s not just going to go out there and read off a bunch of talking points. owe has his own ideas on policies, he s a big thinker and he s been on record about these taxes before. let s look back at when we were here two years a it does seem like groundhogs day when we were talking about the taxes and them expiring two years ago. the president said president clinton said i would not raise taxes at a time like this. in these economic times and i don t think this is him straying too far off the message and the stances he s taken. for him to not standby his words is not him not being genuine and him not, you know,
you have to wonder if they ever attended a sunday school class. martha: joined by gretchen ham he will the executive director for public notice. alan colmes is the host of the alan colmes radio show. good to have you both here. good debate tonight. it s the last chance before super tuesday to see the candidates face off. gretchen do you expect sant rick santorum says i will defend everything i ve said out there. do you expect him to defend statements like that tonight? i think he will defend statements like that tonight. i don t know how much the other candidates will take him to task on the statements. they do play to the conservative base. you do need to win the conservative vote. i don t know that this will be a big issue tonight. i know most americans are concerned about the me and we have to get back to talking about those issues that matter to all americans. martha: i mean, clearly, democrats must look at this.
going to do, i just want to reassure them tonight, we are going to contest every place and we are going to win and we will be in tampa as the nominee in august. [applause] [cheering] bill: somewhat defiant newt gingrich last night in florida. where does he and his campaign go from here. gretchen ham he will former spokeswoman for the house republican congress. doug schoen, a former pollster for president clinton and a contribute. i see schoen is back from hanging out with the one percent. sorry had to bring it up again. gretchen, what does newt gingrich do? would you make the case that was classic newt? it was classic newt. he was himself, that is persistent. he needs to debate well, make it about the issues and give that historical context and the big ideas that people like. he needs to get out of the mud. bill: these debates are going to the sideline now. i don t believe there is one for
the exit poll said interestingly me last night that they see him as the true conservative but they didn t like him. they voted against him on personal terms. the answer to your question is they are not listening but they want to. bill: gretchen do you site the same way? i can completely agree. if you look at the exit polls mitt romney won those who thought he what s hrebtable, those most concerned about the economy, he won those folks by 20 points and he split the tea party, he didn t win the strong tea party vote. that shows us that newt needs to calm down, act presidential, talk about the issues that the americans care about, that is the economy and also be that conservative. bill: more to your point to tea party. he split the vote of the generally supportive tea party. yes but not the strong, he won the strong. bill: but he won the strong tea party voters. he said last night, doug, he s going to he has 46 more states to go. you need organization, money,