presidential nomination is all but over but we will get a taste tonight of whether the tea party will finally show some 2012 strength and a test of how important the culture wars will be in a year defined mostly today by economic challenges. our first stop indiana where 80-year-old senator richard lugar, leading republican voice on foreign policy is asking for one more term but facing a tea party and conservative revolt, revolts lugar's critics prove the senator last touch with the folks back home. dana bash is at lugar headquarters in indianapolis. you had a chance to talk with senate lugar a bit earlier today. let's listen to some of the exchange. >> reporter: you're 80 years old. you've had by all accounts a stellar career. why did you decide to take on this fight within your own party rather than just say it's been great, time to go? >> well, first of all, because i believe that i have a unique opportunity to serve my country with regard to arms control, with regard to terrorists, with regard to all sorts of foreign policy questions that really have to be tackled by somebody. i believe i have a unique opportunity to serve indiana agriculture and farmers generally. >> it is striking, dana, i understand his record, i understand the issues he loved but in a year like this, the first thing out of a man who is in risk of losing an election, to say foreign policy, wow. how does it look out there tonight? >> reporter: that is what is making a lot of republican strategist who want richard lugar to succeed scratch their head and cringe, frankly, because yes, that is definitely his record. it is the hallmark of his career, foreign policy, but it is frankly what has given him big trouble out here in indiana, the fact that jobs are on everybody's mind, not nuclear weapons being in the hands of terrorists, so that is a big problem. the other thing that is really fascinating, john, is that richard lugar, unlike the republican incumbents who lost to the tea party insur jens two years ago saw this coming and i asked him about that, he said i took the votes i wanted to take, those votes being for president owe ba with ma's two supreme court nominees for the dream act and other things that hurt him on the ground with republican voters. he seems very comfortable with the votes even though at the end of the day it could mean that his fellow republicans could oust him here. >> tim: vote will send a message to incoupkucouple incumbents ac the country. he was the mayor of indianapolis before he was a senator. let's listen to one of the voters. >> reporter: you were just talking to senator lugar. did you vote for him? >> no. first time i didn't vote for him. >> reporter: that was a long pause there. >> i hated to depart. >> reporter: why'd you do it? >> i needed someone that can go up to congress, put their foot down and say no more politics, we're going to do the right things, we can't let obama dictate to us anymore what he's doing. >> when you hear that voter say put their foot down, no more letting president obama get his way, is this, will this be if senator lugar loses tonight is it a tea party victory or a sense of voters saying been there too long? >> reporter: i think it's the latter, that it is the sense he has been there too long. there's no question that tea party activists and tea party groups have come in with a vengeance, spent their money and time to help lugar's opponent richard mourdock but it seems to be a referendum on senator lugar, you can see in that voter's face and hear it in his voice it pained him to vote against senator lugar. he's beloved even by people voting against him, i heard that from voter after voter after voter, as you said people who have known him since he was mayor of indianapolis. many of them think it's just not time for him anymore, no matter how much he tries to use seniority as his, to his benefit. >> most of the polls have closed in indiana. the polls that are still open will close soon. we'll bring you results throughout the night on cnn. dana bash is there and this will be a message to incumbents of both parties across the country. north carolina a statewide referendum on same-sex unions could give a referendum of a state president obama carried in 2008 and hopes to keep blue. voters voting that says "marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic union that shall be valid or recognized in this state." it bans domestic partnerships as well as marriage and remember the democratic convention to nominate the president for a second term is in north carolina this summer. let's go to chief white house correspondent jessica yellin. the president was supposed to be in north carolina today where his schedule last week said he would be. he often talks about showing leadership, showing boldness, showing political courage. did he duck, not want to step into the middle of the fight? >> today he didn't talk about gay marriage. he was in new york and talked about manufacturing. i'm told by a top democratic official that his senior advisers are now scrambling to try to figure out exactly what the president's position should be and how they should sort of clean this up. i should be more exact how they should clean this up after vice president biden sort of went further on the issue because gay rights groups have been pleased with the president to date aand where he has been on all of the issues and now it's an awkward position for the white house in an election year as you know. >> do they evolve again, they always say the presidents evolve. if you go back, george w. bush and dick cheney had a days agreement. from the get-go, up to the states. george w. bush said you need a national constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage. for a group of people, team obama, says governor romney can't get its act straight and keeps changing positions, why can't the president get this one right? >> he doesn't have a clear position. president obama doesn't say no or yes, he stays murky taken seems deliberately murky so he can have it both ways where he seems to be indicating to the gay community he's maybe with them and to others maybe against them, so it's unclear. now, next week the president will be giving a commencement address at barnard college where one of the leaders of the gay marriage community will be getting an award. this issue will come up again because we'll see them together on stage presumably, and it will continue coming up until the white house clarifies the president's position. they're going to have to say something at some point to clarify it. i'm sure they know that. so there will be a next step in this story at some point. >> there will be a next step, when they make it they'll know the results of the important vote in north carolina. could come up the convention down the road as well, too. >> that's true. we're learning about a dangerous new bomb from al qaeda, one meant to blow up a plane bound for right here in the united states. cnn national security contributor fran townsend is in new york. the fbi has the bomb, what do we know about it, what are they looking for? >> first what they're looking for, one, is it petn, the same high explosive odorless that can be put in a putty used both with in the underwear bomber, abdulmutallab and the cargo plot. and so all those bombs were made by al asiri, in the process in the last few years of training others to make such bombs. can they link this back to him they want to know. is it the same explosive petn. second, one is the detonation device? we've heard over and over the detonation device in the underwear bomber is what failed to let his bomb explode. did they improve that? there have been some different things done to this particular device, and they will really analyze the detonation piece to see whether or not they believe this would have been successful. those are the two keys, what they're looking for. john, sources said to me, there's a debate whether or not they'll release the photographs of the bomb. they have them in addition to the device, they've taken photographs. they don't want them to leak. we heard u.n. cry out of washington about the leaks, trying to figure out whether or not they can get the necessary information to screeners and law enforcement without releasing the actual photos. >> they have this one device, the question is, they're studying it now to see if al qaeda and the arabian peninsula made progress, if they have a new trigger, a detonator as you just mentioned. do they think this is one device and they have it or think maybe there are more out there they need to worry about? >> it's interesting, john, and i spoke to this law enforcement source, said to me, that's the problem, we don't know if there were other individuals who volunteered to carry such bombs. we don't know if there are additional devices that were built, constructed in the same way. it would be unlike al qaeda to build just one, based on my own experience. they're rightly concerned, if they don't have insight, now there's so much information out there, they worry they'll lose their ability to continue the investigation and learn more. >> national security contributor fran townsend, thanks so much for that new information. we'll continue to follow the story as well. in just a moment presidentby ma may be the most controversial issue of his first time, we grade him on health care. and john mccain weighs in on the romney campaign's latest self-inflicted controversy. he [♪...] >> announcer: with nothing but his computer, an identity thief is able to use your information to open a bank account in order to make your money his money. [whoosh, clang] you need lifelock, the only identity theft protection company that now monitors bank accounts for takeover fraud. lifelock: relentlessly protecting your identity. call 1-800-lifelock or go to lifelock.com today. tonight as part of our continuing look at the major dividing lines of campaign 2012 we grade president obama on an issue also a major challenge for mitt romney health care. let's first look at the president's major health care promises, one was to deliver near universal access to health care. another was to close an expensive prescription drug coverage gap medicare recipients know as the doughnut hole and another major promise from the president told most families, especially middle class they'd see their health care costs go down. >> and if you already have health insurance, we will lower your premiums by $2,500 per family per year. >> so has the president kept those promises? well yes is the answer to sign universal or near universal coverage. you may not like the law but the president signed that into law. yes would be the line here, eventually is the answer when it comes to closing the medicare doughnut hole, the health care law phases in the costly changes between now and 2020 and on cutting premiums if you scored it today it would be a broken promise, costs were up again in 2011 but with we'll score this one in progress. why are we doing that because the true test will come after the health care law is fully implemented in 2014, by then or soon after, the president insists the controversy over his signature initiative will fade. >> but long after the debate fades away, and the pros nost indication fades away and the dust settles, what will remain stand something not the government-run system some feared or the status quo that serves the interests of the insurance industry, but a health care system that incorporates ideas from both parties, a system that works better for the american people. >> debate the politics of the here and now tevi troy, servegd served in the george bush administration and melanie barnes, domestic policy in the white house i say before you escaped. let's start first with the premium cost. if you scored it today you'd have to say a broken promise. the kaizer foundation, health care costs up 9% for individuals, 3% for employees, about 1.5% increase is tied to the health care law. i was trying to be fair and say let's wait until the law is fully implemented. does it surprise you that at the moment, was this supposed to happen, costs still going up? >> i think it's important to put this in context. if we look over the last few years, costs have been rising consistently, and actually in the last year, 2010 to 2011, we've seen costs still high but going down. what we expect, once health care is fully implemented is for those costs to continue to go down and for families to save in the range that the president promised when he was on the campaign trail, about $2,200 for every family and that's because of all the things that we built into the affordable care act when we put it together. >> you don't like it but will that happen? will premiums start to go down once the law is fully implemented? >> no, john, i don't think that is the case at all. the cbo has shown the cost for a family will go up $2,000 so you'll see that go up and the promise that melanie talked about it going down $2,000, so it's going to be higher. >> why is the cbo wrong? >> we have to look at all the pieces coming together. the first thing we did was go after the consumer protections, make sure that children who had preexisting conditions could get covered but what we've started to see now are the provisions that include things like rate review, so if an insurer is going to go up about 10% over its past year's premiums, we have to review that, and make sure that if there needs to be a rebate to consumers that they're going to get it. the same thing with administrative costs. we have to make sure the costs are devoted to people getting better health care, not to the administration of a health care plan. we fully expect those costs to go down and as i said, and consistent with what the president said, that will be about $2,200 worth of savings for every family and we're already projecting for 2012 that costs are going to go down and in fact some lower than the rate of health care inflation. >> another big promise from candidate obama in 2008 was to deal with prescription drug costs. some of this might have been dealt with in the affordable care act but in 2008, senator obama put it this way. >> then we'll tell the pharmaceutical companies, thanks, but no thanks for overpriced drugs. drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in europe and canada and mexico. we'll let medicare negotiate for lower prices. we'll stop drug companies from blocking generic drugs that are just as effective and far less expensive. >> senator mccain said he had the same position and it hasn't happened. why? >> look, there's a lot of things that go into the cost of prescription drugs and i think the tax on prescription drugs that you see as a part of the obama aehealth care law will be paid by consumers themselves. i'm not sure this is going to work out the way he wants. in terms of prescription drugs for seniors the real benefit to seniors came from part d, a plan that passed under president bush that for the first time allowed seniors to get prescription drug coverage under medicare. >> conservatives thought it was a huge new entitlement program. >> true some conservatives didn't like it but it was passed with a bipartisan. which is not what you can say about obama's health care law which is very unpopular. >> one thing the president was able to do the unfinished business making sure the doughnut hole, the gap that causes seniors to have to pay more is starting to close. what we've seen since the affordable care act pass is seniors are saving about $600 annually on their prescription drug costs. the president referred to we heard in that clip ensuring there are more generics on the market, also included on the affordable care act so people who are buying relatively expensive drugs now because we have ms, they have forms of cancer, because they've got forms of arthritis are now going to see what we call generic biologics on the market that will help them. so consistently we've seen more people with preventative care, this closing of the doughnut hole, more students able to stay on their parents' plans, making sure health care is more affordable and more people have access to it. >> the generic biologics is one piece of a large 2,700 page bill with that is unpopular, likely ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court, extremely expensive, about $1 trillion and it appears to be more like $2 trillion and doesn't reduce premiums, doesn't give universal access. there will still be over 20 million people without coverage in 2019. >> i think you have' gotten ahead of yourself on the supreme court. >> it's a generous grading there overall on yourself. >> i think you've gone ahead of yourself on the supreme court. we fully expect it will be found constitutional and beyond that, people appreciate the pieces already coming into play and they'll continue to see more of that. like i said if you're 26 or up to 26 you can stay on your parents' plan. 86 million americans that now have preventative coverage, those are the kinds of things that they like, those are the things that people are going to see more of. >> you can see this is a feisty debate in here. some of you are asking at home why aren't we looking at governor romney's record. next week we get to romney on health care. we'll do this through the election. melody and tevi, appreciate your coming. when we come back if there's ever a collective sayings of vice president joe biden something today he said is sure to be in the book and guess what? it's also the truth. we'll get to that. remember an author who wrote a story you heard as a child or perhaps you read it to your own children. ♪ ♪ one, two, three, four ♪ you say ♪ flip it over and replay ♪ we'll make everything okay ♪ walk together the right way ♪ do, do, do, do born to leap, born to stalk, and born to pounce. to understand why, we journeyed to africa, where their wild ancestor was born. there we discovered that cats, no matter where they are... are born to be cats. and shouldn't your cat be who he was born to be? discover your cat's true nature. purina one. welcome back. here's kate bolduan with the latest news you need to know there. >> good evening, everyone. let's get you caught up on some of the other headlines. the investigation into the military's part in last month's prostitution scandal in colombia concluded the chain of command wasn't notified properly and the offending troops were left on duty but with senator john mccain who was among the lawmakers briefed this afternoon says the military brass was much more prepared to answer questions today than previously right after the scandal broke. >> they came much better, there's still a number of unanswered questions that i think by now we should have had answers to, but overall, at least they gave us a timeline, a lot of the details which, frankly, we should have been informed of a long time ago, right after it happened. >> we'll bring you much more of john king's interview with senator john mccain in just a few minutes. stick around for that one. the chief executive officer of yahoo! is apologizing for padding his resume with an extra college degree. scott thompson said he was sorry for how the issue affected the company and that he takes full responsibility. thompson's company bio listed a bogus computer science degree in addition to his actual degree in accounting. yahoo! calls it an inadvertent error. and maurice sendak, children's book author and illustrator who brought us "where the wild things are" died after complications from a recent stroke. president clinton called him a king of dreams and one critic the picasso of children's literature. sendak created 100 stories with fanciful and sometimes controversial tales. he was 83 years old. those stories will live on forever. >> love those books. >> loved reading th