these are real people that you re asking to give you the highest office in the land. i think this phony let s get a group of carefully selected people to ask pre-selected questions, that ought to be rejected out of hand. i think the best thing, media should say we won t cover any candidate who is so pretentious as to think they can script their campaign like it s a hollywood sitcom. antitrust violation if we got together and decided that. it s not just liberal media narrative about you. they say that you talk about protecting entitlement programs and too much about poverty and you sound like a liberal. when someone says a vanity campaign i think he s doing this because he wants to get a television show and he wants a book deal and he wants to help his speeches. i m thinking are you people nuts? i had a television show and i
rick santorum and mitt romney, 16 times. 16. that s more than half of all of the states that have voted. he s finished in fourth place. you know, this has been, i think, since probably he finished second in florida, a vanity campaign. it continues to be that. as you point out, it s one that s really costing taxpayers a lot of money. chris cillizza, thank you very much. joining me now, speaking of taxpayers and a lot of money, pennsylvania republican senator pat toomey, a hawk on the deficit. pennsylvania votes today. why are we still spending money on transporting newt and calista gingrich around the primary states? that s a good question. i think it would be in everybody s interest if newt gingrich would acknowledge the inevitable and focus his support and his supporters on electing mitt romney and defeating barack obama. but you know how this is.
are. can we say he s making this up as he goes along. oh, yes. the answer to your question is he doesn t have a campaign. he s not running a campaign. it has been, throughout, a vanity campaign. people noted last week when everybody ills was in new hampshire and ohio, he s on a book tour in tennessee. he s selling books. he s in first place. this has not been constructive in the way a normal campaign he s in first place. as you ve noted many timetion, many candidates have been in first place for a while over the course of the last year. some have not been serious candidates and then they ve he s not black walnut, he s the flavor of the week. it s going to coming and go. he s not a serious candidate. it s not a serious proposal. by the way, his 9-9-9 plan would be incredibly regressive. if you don t want warren buffett paying 17%?
and probably decide in the next couple months. jennifer ruben, that s actually the most we ve heard about this flirtation, it had been more bubbling in the back of the head. is rudy giuliani what the republican party is missing now? no. and i this i this is a bit of a joke. there are those candidates who either run or threaten to run vanity campaigns. i think this is the classic one. remember, there was a front-runner and he s already turning into a vanity campaign. exactly. last time, you could understand and i think he wants to stay in the mix, i think he wants to be influential. he is a good fund-raiser for the party as well, i don t see him actually running. and mike viqueira, we ve got a lot of i ve called this the summer of speculation, rick perry says, god sends messages through a lot of ways and messeners and i m very calm that s a direction i m hearing is good. he s not ready to announce. but what i m finding fascinating is rick perry is almost leading with the soc