he was not there, his army of people were not there, but this certainly continues or gets some momentum back on the side of mitt romney. it doesn t squash the insurgents of rick santorrum, but a big weekend. clayton: a look at actual numbers as they break down. marco rubio. alisyn: they asked about v p s, who they wanted for vp. dave: no surprise. clayton: take a look at this, this is marco rubio with 34% now and that s who would have, who most of the folks in that audience would like to see as vp. chris christie also with 9%, governor mcdonnell, 9% a romney supporter and representative paul ryan with 8%. dave: no matter how many times marco rubio says i m not taking the vp slot, everybody wants him, even more than chris christie, who i think is emerging as more of a possibility. alisyn: interesting. so, sarah palin is a crowd favorite, a darling of cpac and she fired up the crowd yesterday by going after
well, too. boy, it s a beautiful song. clayton: much more on the life and legacy of whitney houston coming up over the next few hours of our show, live reports from los angeles as we try to get more understanding of exactly what unfolded in the beverly hills hotel. interesting things in politics and all eyes on maine last night, actually, as it was wrapping up the week long caucus and especially going on, technically. oh my gosh. clayton: which is bizarre and actually the state s g.o.p. came forward with their results last night and a big win for mitt romney. alisyn: yeah, good news for mitt romney after you ll remember he lost that trifecta of missouri, minnesota and colorado to rick santorrum, and he s back in the game with 39%, remind me, this is a beauty contest, no delegates? delegates will count, but they will later be given. alisyn: at the convention. dave: they are nonbinding in this case. and when you see those numbers separated by 194 votes, so, i
admiral who famously said, who am i? why am i here? romney needs to do that and people need to know him better. it s true they know president obama, a lot of people don t know the other republican candidates especially in nonprimary states, they aren t paying attention yet. i ve been travelling promoting my book and a lot of people don t know who santorum is, don t know his policy and god help him if they google him. dave: let s not get into the google problem this morning. one of the interesting developments yesterday was not just romney s win cpac in maine. he needed one or both. suddenly, i heard the question, should newt gingrich get out of the field when a week ago we were talking about rick santorrum getting out and now that newt s biggest fundraiser is out, where can he gather back momentum? we have no debate until the 22nd. newt is like a pit bull in this race and he always comes back. he does. and i think that people have counted him out so many times, i think what hap
wing media and as well as the american people at large have bought into the conventional wisdom about the race, it s essentially built on economic issues, that s true and i don t think that s wrong. i think a lot of folks were taken by surprise, that a social conservative like rick santorrum would do a full three-state sweep. why can t the media remember, oh, about four years ago, a little known senator from illinois came out to sweep the rug out from hillary clinton? and evangelical minister, mike huckabee, won iowa. there s a blind spot in the media on social issues. they can t believe that the people in the heartland can believe this stuff and doesn t get through their heads and i think that santorum is attractive in the sense that he s new and fresh and keeps the reporters from going back to the dredgery assignment. he s unattractive and they don t like him in terms of
not. he didn t leave a lot of delegates. and this is a beauty contest and not where he s putting most of the efforts and romney will do well and a lot of states are coming up. that s a fair analysis, and we never can say who the nominee is going to be of course, but it s a job of political analysts to handicap what s going on and make some sort of informed judgment. and i saw this comment, in the new york star ledger, wrote that god must love pundits. just when you want to hit the snooze button during this g.o.p. race, he, meaning god, polled the rug out from under them, giving rick santorum it may be god or the voters who have a way of up ending the wisdom and the best laid plans of the candidates and the media and i think one thing that s interesting about wolf blitzer omg and stuck talking about the rick santorrum victories, the left