romney. no matter what state you talk about and no matter how well he does in the state. ed is talking about rick santorum making a play for the working man vote in the republican primary. has it rung true? i think some has rung true but we can t under estimate a lot of the vote for santorum tonight is anybody but mitt romney. do not overestimate that whatever these guys do, that a lot of that vote they are getting is because a lot of those republicans do not want mitt romney, far right, conservatives, working class, mitt romney personifies the moderate in their minds, politics they don t agree with. but i do think that santorum has won tonight either way because i think the question we re going to see tonight is whether or not romney is just wounded or fatally wounded. either way he s wounded.
looking at. 45% to 29% for santorum said the top issue was the economy, and for those who see the economy as a really personal issue, the 3 in 10 who saw layoffs in their families, 45% went to mitt romney, 35% went to rick santorum. let s take a look at other numbers we have regarding religion, may come as no surprise to those of you watching and those on the panel, 24% who said that a great deal of importance to them, 32% said somewhat, 18% said not much. let s dig in the numbers, though, when you break it down for the folks who said that religion was a great deal of importance to them, 62%, went to rick santorum. let s go down to the bottom of the screen, when they were asked if it mattered, those reply it does not, 23% went to rick santorum, 49% you see there went to mitt romney. so some interesting numbers, i don t know if they could be categorized as huge surprises
important to them today when they talked to the exit pollsters. our first look who turned out today, but before we get that first data, has to be said the stakes are high, nobody would have put michigan in play at the start of the primary season, nobody would have thought anyone would get close enough to mitt romney in his home state to warn any suspense at all about the results of michigan. but tonight, there s suspense. the polls have been wicked close heading in tonight in michigan and this is therefore, a big night for presidential politics. chris matthews, what is your take? before we get in the results, we have to remind ourselves through the circus we have been watching the past several months about the stakes of the fight. who makes the big decisions in our country about peace and war, how the burdens of society are shared. future of our health care, you look at a couple candidates who emerged at the top, romney and santorum, you have to think this is scary to some people. fi
rick santorum managed to make this an ideological contest. a two-person race against mitt romney. no matter what happens tonight, rick santorum has got plenty of reasons to go forward which he s going to do. we will see how mitt romney does whether he wins in michigan, loses in michigan on super tuesday, but the net result of all this is a very pessimistic republican party, and in washington people went from very confident about being able to beat president obama to where they are today, which is very pessimistic. ed, you were an early as a liberal and american who has been very supportive of populism on the democratic side, you recognized rick santorum would be more than an also-ran. you saw potential on the republican side. is that coming to fruition, is there a future if he doesn t win michigan or did he raise too many expectations that he might win michigan tonight and maybe mitt romney will get it? my coverage of santorum
whether he s not getting enough rest, but when you have these statements pile on top of each other like they have with him, they create a narrative that get terrible for him which is he s no better than the other candidates in a race against obama. the chances of mitt romney winning versus obama are no greater or less great than rick santorum, and of course that is not true. in the context particularly given santorum s comments over the last two weeks. so it s clearly an area of the campaign that should mitt romney go on to win tonight, should he become the nominee of the party where they have substantial work to do and you have to run a presidential campaign offering a positive message and vision for the future of the country. what does prosperity look like? what is a 21st century conservative vision to create opportunity in this country? and so far, there has been very little of that and if you re going to win, you have to be successful. he was singing america the beautiful for a w