faith, honor, love, and truth. >> also the unpredictable ali wentworth on her life with george stephanopoulos. this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. tonight a candidate on the rise. people being slaughtered by their own government and a hollywood star breaking with the pack politically. but first rick santorum winning contests proving every pundit wrong. listen to a confident rick santorum just a few moments ago in texas. >> i feel blessed, truly blessed, to be here at a time when our country needs us. lots of generations don't get the opportunity we have right here to be a generation that reclaims the greatness of our country. >> rick santorum, mitt romney, newt gingrich and ron paul are fighting for the soul of the republican party. who has that special formula for keeping america great? joining me is man who says he never endorses anybody. the best oddsmaker outside of las vegas. welcome. this has been one hell of a roller coaster ride, this republican race. are you really as a party any nearer to knowing who will be the nominee? >> no. santorum's confidence reminds me of romney's confidence last week and gingrich's a month ago. i think the next month of the election is probably about as clear and easily understood as the previous two months. >> how do you see the period leading up to super tuesday and immediately afterwards in terms of its significance? could this all be over by april or is it more likely given what's been going on state by state so far that this will run all of the way to the convention? >> i tend to think it willing over before it goes to the convention but i can't prove that and there's every reason for every one of these candidates to stay in. romney is staying in. gingrich isn't going away. santorum isn't stepping out and ron paul will be there through the convention. all four of these guys, nobody is moving aside. there isn't a new person coming in. so those are the four guys. it will be one of those four guys. whichever one it is, all republicans will pull behind them so to a certain extent if you're a let's replace obama guy, you're less concerned about which one of these four gets it. >> that's certainly true. nate, let's talk statistics here. it's very, very hard to predict. mitt romney has the most money. he has the best infrastructure. having said that, rick santorum apparently today three times the money poured in as compared to when he won in iowa and he's clearly on a roll and looking and sounding more and more confident. from a betting point of view, where do you think this is all heading? >> it's hard to say. every time you have one piece of conventional wisdom it's right for a week and wrong the next week and flips back to being right again. i think santorum is at a disadvantage in the delegate math but if gingrich's campaign is going nowhere and if some of gingrich's voters come aboard to santorum's train, he has strength in the midwest and strength in the south which could make it even. if he win as state like arizona or michigan, states that lean toward romney, they're not perfect romney state but michigan romney is from michigan originally but if santorum wins one of those states, you could say it's a tossup. for right now i think romney is about a 75% favorite. i think it's foolish to go higher than that given what we've seen the volatility in the race so far but also he does have some clear advantages. >> governor, one of the problems is with white evan jellist. >> i hope it's not the mormon thing. i think we're past that in our history. i hope that's the case. there's a concern of who is most like reagan. the reason they are searching for the soul of the modern republican party in a presidential candidate is a decade behind the times. the soul and heart in the republican party is in congressional leadership and the same thing is true with democrats. obama is not making the decisions about what the democratic party did in the last three years. pelosi and reid did the stimulus package, wrote the banking bill, wrote the health care bill, wrote the plus up in domestic spending. so the presidents are less important because each party is led by an id logicd id logicall party. they sign the bills that their party sends them. we're not asking them to be leaders but signing of the legislation their party sends them. >> right now you have got to be feeling confident if you are in the white house because it is all going to be about the economy. everyone seems to be in agreement about that. the economy is indisputably improving. it looks like things are getting better. hard for a republican candidate as this carries on to stand up there in august or september and say you said would you fix the economy and you haven't if it's beginning to be fixed. >> there's a recovery story to be told. we've seen good numbers on purchases of automobiles. but there are still some headwinds certainly from europe, maybe from action in congress, maybe from oil shocks notice mid east. it's an odd case where the economy could be impressive by november or almost back into recessionary mode. it's more of all or nothing than in elections in the past. economic forecasts often go badly. it's almost like right when you think you're at a turning point is when you get a negative surprise. there's no doubt if you're in the white house, the picture looks brighter than it did three months ago. obama's approval reading up to 48%, 49%, that's where bush's was in 2004 when he was re-elected. it looks like obama is a 60-40 favorite. maybe more if there's a problem nominating a candidate. he has a good wave of news lately. >> it certainly is one thing i can protect that you can't predict anything. thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> tonight in syria, reports of desperate residents behind closed doors afraid to leave their homes shelled and bombed by government forces. cnn canned independently confirm claims from either side because the government restricted access to the country. let me start with you, nick. of all of the things that you have witnessed over the years and heard about and reported on, what is going on in syria? i know we can't get in there in the which we wouay we would lik. what's your sense of the apparent atrocity unfolding there? >> the government is in effect devouring its own people. it's firing artillery on its own cities. civilian areas. and most recently it seems to have dispatched militias that have been killing families, men, women and children in their homes. the thousands and thousands of people have died already and it looks as if we're heading toward a civil war. >> nick, you tweeted earlier i noticed to your followers you were coming on the show. what should america be doing now? very, very good pertinent question. there was a huge range of responses i was looking at from all that you read when you got those responses, what do you think is the best response? what should america be doing? >> i wish i could say that some of our followers produced the magic solution. the basic tragedy of international relations is there are more grand problems than there are grand solutions and in syria we have -- these humanitarian catastrophes are described as the problem for hell. there's not a great solution. there's not much the u.s. can do. i think we can encourage some military factions within the government to think about defecting and also there's one thing we can do to give us a greater moral authority to criticize russia when it supplies arms to syria and that is for us not to be supplying weapons to bahrain as it cracks down on its uprising in that country. >> let's turn to russia and china and their position in this. they're being condemned across the board from sarkozy to angela merkel saying this is appalling what they've been doing. what's their game? what is the answer to how america should deal with their game? >> what we're seeing happen over syria is a new alignment. you have russia, china and iran helping syria and you have the europeans and united states all on the other side. the problem is that russia has enormous interest in syria both in terms of arms sales and commerce and that both china and russia are very worried about the precedent of people power. the russians are facing street demonstrations in moscow so the whole idea of what's happening in syria has repercussions for what's happening there. the united states has real limits on what it can do with either of them but it can keep the noise up in terms of saying this is unacceptable in the 21st century. it can begin to work with the syrian opposition which has been very disjointed. there are three parts of it. you have the exiled opposition that includes a wide array of groups. you have the internal opposition of local coordinating committees and you have the free syrian army, which is made up of defectors and one of the great problems is they do not speak with one voice. they don't have one plan. as long as you don't have an alternative that's beginning to crystallize, it will be very hard to get people in the military in syria to defect to get beyond the rule of thumb is you have to have 30% of support in order to stay in power and assad has that 30%. >> one of the big problems is obviously a huge humanitarian crisis going on getting worse by the day but we're not seeing many journalists on the ground. the footage is sporadic not like egypt where we could see the atrocity for our eyes and see what was going on. will journalists get into syria do you think? >> this is where turkey plays an important role. the turkish foreign minister is m cou coming to washington early next week to have talks. they are talking about creating a humanitarian aid along the border. this is one area where there would be support for an american role providing whether it's food and medicine and basic humanitarian goods to help those who are either taking refuge along the border or inside turkey or to try to get them into other parts of syria. >> nick, i know you have been trying to get into syria. what do you think about the situation involving the media there? >> it's really hard to galvanize the national community to care about a crisis when you don't have footage coming in over television screens. there are individuals in syria doing a heroic job with their cell phones and then capturing that video and then taking it at some risk to themselves and trying to post it through in some cases the cell networks and surrounding countries near the borders. if they are caught with that, caught doing that, they'll be arrested and risk execution. boy, i admire their courage but in the absence frankly of cnn and "the new york times" and a lot of other international media, it is a lot harder to get that kind of international critical mass of attention at the u.n., in arab league capitals and especially to create that kind of pressure on moscow and on beijing. >> we're going to keep it going. i thank you both for coming on tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> when we come back, i'm talk to holiday legend jon voight about the man he wants to be presidents and about being a republican in hollywood. i love that my daughter's part fish. but when she got asthma, all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. [ smack! ] [ smack! smack! smack! ] [ male announcer ] your favorite foods fighting you? fight back fast with tums. calcium rich tums goes to work in seconds. nothing works faster. ♪ tum ta tum tum tums but think about your heart. 2% has over half the saturated fat of whole milk. want to cut back on fat and not compromise on taste? try smart balance fat free milk. it's what you'd expect from the folks at smart balance. >> he is strong, honest, and wants to bring the country back to its exceptional place where we have been for hundreds and hundreds of years until president obama decided to follow his father's footsteps and take us to socialism. >> you are a very rare specimen. you're a republican in hollywood. there aren't many of you. >> listen, i want to tell you, i am honored to be here with you, piers. you are a voice of truth for americans and i thank you for that. >> i really appreciate that. it's interesting hearing your speech there. whichever side of the divide you're on, one thing i've been trying to push on the show more and more is trying to be positive in what is a tough situation for america. america remains a great country. there is a tendency to talk the country down so much that people forget that. that actually the challenge is to keep america great. it's not how do we fix this broken horror story, isn't it? >> i would say the thing to do is to keep us strong. we have become perceived as a weak nation throughout the world recently and that's unfortunate. so maybe i see it a little differently than you. >> here's what i would say to you. as a brit who was in britain for most of the bush years, my sense is that america has become more popular around the world but the danger to barack obama personally is more popular than george bush was and the image of america is a more friendly one but the downside of that one of the reasons for that is it doesn't seem as strong a country as perhaps it once was through the foreign policy actions of barack obama. >> i agree. i think that there's a lot to be asked for from this president and i think that's why i am out there. that's why i was in pensacola working for mitt romney because i see -- you know, i see this as a very, very important election. i'm very excited to be backing mitt romney by the way for the first of the reasons would be the most important is that he's a true american. he loves america. and his entire family has always followed the true american way of hard work and success and we're losing that a little bit. >> tell me about mitt romney. you obviously know him quite well. i have interviewed him twice. i would love to interview him again but for some reason -- >> you will. >> he won't come on again. i'm not sure why. have a word with him. i feel frustrated for him that unlike the other candidates, he doesn't want to put himself into any personal interviews. he doesn't want people to see what he is like. i think rick santorum who i sat down with an hour recently has become personally engaged with the electorate and they are warming to him personally and it's helping hip and it doesn't help mitt romney if he's seen as this kind of slightly aloof robotic figure. >> he's quite reachable, this guy. he's a fellow who shoots from the hip. he's a very charitable fellow as you probably know. and he's warm, honest, and he's got great virtues. you know, he's in a tough spot too because he knows he has so much time. he has to appear different places and he's looking to present his views in the proper way. i don't know. i'll talk to him. >> have a word with him, could you, jon? last night was fascinating politics because nobody predicted that rick santorum would win all three states particularly colorado where mitt romney has always done well before. if you're mitt romney, what do you think has gone wrong albeit probably temporarily, what do you think has gone wrong and what should he be doing now to fix it? >> let me say this. i think that my view of last night is that it's a little bit of mass hysteria. we had this situation where the obama care was revealed that in obama care there was an attack on religious freedom and everybody was quite upset about it. the church was up in arms as they should have been. and we have santorum who is a devout catholic and everybody knows that and he became kind of a rallying point for those people and people surrounded him and i think that was the bump he got last night. >> santorum today very interestingly has gone straight to a church. he's been photographed in there making this incredibly inspiring speech from the pulpit and then he walks among the people of the church and they all came together and did a group hug prayer. quite extraordinary scene. i haven't seen that with a presidential candidate probably ever. it's clear what he's doing to me. what he's saying is i'm the conventional religious guy here. and mitt romney, because of his mormon faith, isn't quite one of us. it seems to me deliberate. >> maybe it is. i think this evangelical base has surrounded him now and picked him out. we'll see what happens down the road. by the way, i think this thing is short lived. i think that the obama administration, david axelrod, will turn this thing around very quickly. the catholic vote, you know, the electorate is 27% of our electorate and they're going to want to appeal to it. they'll turn this around. >> what do you think is the biggest misconception about mitt romney? >> i don't know. i hear so many things about him that aren't true, you know. i see all of this stuff. to me he's, you know, the more i get to know him, the more i like him. he's strong. just let's take mitt romney as a candidate and say what recommends him? you take just of all of the things that he's done. people say we don't know him. we know him completely. he's been running for president. he was governor. he did the thing with the olympics. let's take the olympics thing. just for an example. look what he did. he came into a big mess. there was thievery and corruption and they called mitt to save the day. he came in and he looked at it. rolled up his sleeves. he made a plan. and what he did was organized 700 people under his employ. 26,000 volunteers. and went in search of a budget, the money for a budget for $1 million and in doing so he set a record for private financing from a source from gathering private financing for all of the olympics, both summer and winter, right? >> you believe he can bring that kind of business skill to america incorporated? >> absolutely he can. >> hold that thought. let's take a little break and come back and explore about how to keep america great and also about hollywood. you are a hollywood legend who has a weird place of being father to one of the most famous women ever created in the history of planet earth. >> created? >> let's discuss that after the break. this is $100,000. we asked total strangers to watch it for us. thank you so much, i appreciate it, i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money ? if your bank takes more money than a stranger, you need an ally. ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense. >> i burst to tell you everything but in the fierceness of my own battles i told you only what would inspire and keep you safe. i love you so much. >> i've missed you. >> and i have missed you. >> the academy award winning jon voight on screen with his daughter, angelina jolie. >> how was my british accent? >> not quite as good as alec baldwin the other day but not bad. what is it like being the father to one half of the most famous couple arguably in the history of mankind? >> you mean my daughter? angelina. yes. lovely girl. >> do you find it a bit surreal? is it weird to see how famous she's become? >> it's a very unusual thing. of course she's my daughter and we've gotten back on track together. >> it's been a rocky road. >> famously. it's wonderful to be with her. you know, we have so much in common besides our love for each other. all this stuff in the business is great. i feel like i'm so happy. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures