santorum may be footnotes to this battle royal between newt gingrich and mitt romney. it s a battle for the soul of the republican party. will they acknowledge it has a heart, compassion for those that are poor, or already it continue to demonize them and engage in wolf whistling but dividing us in ways that are reprehensible and need to be called into question. question to both of you. who do you think do you think romney given his natural disposition for conflict avoidance, do you think he s going to be able to throw a few punches tonight? romney has all the ferocity of an attack goldfish. attacking is just not something that s in his nature. you love attacking don t you? you love it? absolutely. i love a good street brawl.
ff floridians and defending himself against fresh mitt romney attacks. joining me is ron mott. good afternoon. i guess it must have been a fairly eventful occasion. reporter: this could turn into one of those mixed martial arts events. over the weekend you know that governor chris christy referred to gingrich as an embarrassment from the gop. he s stayed away from responding directly to that. the folks on the romney side, their strategy is to come out hard in this debate against newt gingrich. ramp up his takes on the former speaker. the speaker today said that mitt romney has gone from pious bologna to just desperate bologna. it will be interesting to see how much sparring they get into.
that they have been taking, i think, have been correctly been cast as hurtful to the middle class. you mean by that mr. gingrich s view that poor children should clean toilets. but what would a romney or gingrich presidency mean for the u.s. economy? i look at mr. romney s economic plan and the single greatest beneficiary would appear to be himself. right. i think if you want to get an understanding of the economic policies imbedded in every single republican candidate, including the ones that have dropped out, all you haved to to know is supply-side trickle down. at its root, every one of them is playing from the same play book that president george bush played from. a decade that was particularly tough on job growth and the middle class. what the conservatives are saying, they want to frame the president s views, the kind of views he will talk about tomorrow, as if capitalism is on trial. no. what s on trial is the following
question. is the average american getting a fair shake in today s economy? that, to me, is the heart of what the president is going to talk about tomorrow. it s the most critical policy question for an elect rat. looking at your own economics crystal ball, how far will the unemployment number drop by the summer? and will it be enough for president obama to beat back the relentless attacks that are coming from people like newt gingrich and mitt romney? the challenge on the unemployment rate, martin, is interesting. as the economy improves and we start adding more jobs, you re going to be pulling more people into the job market. people sitting on the sides. if you re sitting on the sides, you re not counted. that s going to put pressure. i think the president is going to have some momentum on the unemployment rate, but more broadly, on the larger economy. and i think that the momentum will help him. i want to finally ask you
it s failing that mitt romney has and that s part of who he is. newt gingrich is better at it. newt gingrich is much smarter than mitt romney. i don t think mitt romney can draw the blood needed the fight gingrich one-on-one. professor dyson, your view. he s snarkier. newt gingrich has descendsed into muck raking and slinging. now the vicious politics of that has come back to bite him. they beat up on the morals issues with progressives and liberals and here is a guy who his own former wife talks about open relationship and he uses