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suggest. we have will cain who is a columnist for "the blaze." i like the tweed. >> thank you. >> the actual professor though is next to you and that would be the former virginia congressman tom davis is back with us. i said a long good-bye to you yesterday and i'm like, oh, he's back. we loved having you. he is also the former chair of the republican house campaign committee. and he teaches political science now. and ron brownstein is the editorial director of the "national journal" and he is with us as well. let's move on to the state of nevada because the state of florida is over. it is next. the state caucuses are this weekend. mitt romney is going to head west with new momentum after this big win in florida. he won 46% of the vote. newt gingrich was at 32% of the vote. second place sfin anybody. 13% for rick santorum. 7% for ron paul. rick tyler joins us this morning, senior adviser to winning our future pac and former gingrich spokesman. nice to see you, sir. >> good morning, how are you? >> how are you doing, is a better question. did the margin of victory for the competition surprise you? >> a little bit. but, you know, the team romney spent over $20 million here. they ran 0.1% positive for romney which is a little disturbing because it's very difficult to move on and build political capital that way. in other words, romney didn't run any ads about how he's going to balance the budget or how he's going to fix the unemployment situation, how he's going to pay off the debt, how he's going to fix entitlement programs. he was all about how you slount vote for newt gingrich. that clearly had a lot of damage. but i think going forward, you know, we got mired in the swamps here, if you will, in florida. but we're heading for the high ground. we're going to talk a lot more about newt gingrich's conser conservative legislative achievement record when he was in congress, four years of balanced budgets, tax cuts. 11 million new jobs created. stock market went up, nasdaq went up. great success and we're going to focus on that because we feel that myitt romney cannot compar. >> when you complain about the negative ads, you run win ourg future, the pac, which has had its fair share of negative ads, just not as well funded is the issue. aren't you equally to blame for the negativity on both sides? >> you might remember, soledad, in iowa we didn't run any negative ads. in fact, gingriched admonished through the media not to run any negative ads. we didn't do that. we felt like that that over time that was not sustainable. we won south carolina by a similar 14-point margin. we came to florida and they had already spent more than $5 million here. they spent a total of $20 million in florida. >> they out spent you by a lot. you just got hammered negatively and also moneywise. >> yes. >> let me ask you a quick question. no concession speech. no concession call. isn't that unusual? isn't that, i guess, sort of bad form in a race, even if you're staying in and you're going to move on to the next contest? >> i can't speak to that. i'm not part of the campaign. i did note, you know, usually the people who concede speak first. and romney went right on immediately and spoke first. i thought that was fairly unusual around no one has commented on that. i don't know beyond that. >> rick, ron brownstein from "national journal." when you get to march, you have more states favorable to you like georgia and the tnd and ohio but you do have to get there first. then you look at this next month of contest, through the month of february, what, if any, are the states on that list that you think gingrich has a realistic chance of winning in this next month? >> well, it may surprise you but we're going to compete in n nevada. we're going compete in arizona. one thing is we're going to run a national campaign. you can do that with the media now. when people do national programming. this program reaches everyone nationally as does many talk radio shows reach people nationally. internet reaches people nationally. i think you can have an overall national message. where are we going to compete with dollars i think we would focus on states like nevada, states like arizona. remember, it's a little different than the last time. it's not winner take all of the way through. a lot of proportional states. even coming in second in states we can still accumulate delegates until we get to, as you say, super tuesday where i think we'll pick up a fair number of delegates. >> let me ask you a question about exit polls. when you look at exit polls that look at women. when you look at latinos, mitt romney won 54% to gingrich's 29%. there is a theory that says, an issue with affairs in the past turns off women. there is a theory that says, if you talk about, you know, language of the ghetto, that's going to turn off latinos. do you think that had an impact? >> i'm not sure -- you know, perhaps. it may have had an impact. butly point out that, you know, we won the evangelical vote in florida. and newt won the very conservative vote. and so those who identify most strongly with the tea party, he won those folks, too. yes, there's more work to do with women voters, there's more work to do with latino voters. newt has been working on that issue for quite a number of years. it didn't work out this time but we'll keep competing for that vote. >> this is tom davis. i had the privilege to serve with the speaker in the house. but his natural base right now, the party base, the more conservative base has been most activated in caucus states but that's where thing or pays off. months of organizing in between. seems like you're kind of airdropping into these areas that are your national strength that you ought to be winning. how are you going to handle caucuses in minnesota, colorado, over the next month? naturally that ought to be your base? and even in nevada where sharon engle was elected last time in the republican primary, a natural hard conservative base but these things take time to organize. what is the outlook at this point? >> well, sometimes you can go into a state and organize it yourself, other times you can sort of adopt the organization that's already there. tea party is a natural group to attract and get to go to work for you. the good thing about the caucus states which i think you are intimating is that there are more educated voter because they are -- they care about the issues actually go to the meetings, actually organize, actually walk the precincts. therefore we think we have an advantage with those people because we know that those people tend to be more conservative. they know newt's record about balanced budget and cuts and balanced budgets. as you say, you know best about the republican revolution and what he was able to accomplish as speaker. so we think we have an advantage with those people, but, you know, it will be a challenge. and our super pac is prepared not only to run ads but prepared to engage and get a ground game going as well. we'll do whatever it takes to make sure that newt is the nominee back here in tampa and in august. >> rick tyler with us this morning. appreciate your time. >> thank you. other stories making headlines. christine has those. >> good morning. breaking news this morning out of syria. government security forces clashing with armed protesters overnight if the city of homs. at least 20 people were killed. this latest fighting comes as the u.s. and the arab league press for a u.n. resolution to have syrian president bashar al-assad step down. russia and china are blocking it. is iran the biggest threat to america's national security? u.s. intelligence officials in their annual threat assessment to congress, they say iranian leaders are now more willing to plot and attack on u.s. soil if their regime is being threatened. officials point to iran's alleged attempt to assassinate the saudi ambassador in washington last year. tehran's nuclear capability also a major concern. california republican congressman darrell issa threatening to hold attorney general eric holder in contempt if holder doesn't turn over documents related to the botched, fast and furious gun walking administration, that alloweded them to reach mexican drug cartels. he claims holder's justice department is, quote, actively engaged in a cover-up." a democratic report found atf agents not justice department officials were responsible for that program. holder is scheduled to testify before iss a's committee tomorrow. the costa concordia shipwreck of italy is over. too dangerous for rescue workers right now. 17 body have been recovered. more than a doz slen people, including two americans, they have not been found. this as a new report says that six of the cruise wreck survivors are suing for $460 million. minding your business this morning, positive economic news set to boost stocks today. dow futures are up 90 points thanks to upbeat manufacturing data out of china and europe. but who cares about that? it's about facebook, right? facebook's long-awaited ipo filing. it could happen any moment today. facebook reportedly looking to raise up to $5 billion in its initial public offering. that would make it the biggest tech io in history, against google. ipo filing is just the first step. shares wouldn't be listed for several months, of course. and first lady michelle obama on "the tonight show" last night talking about her workout routine and showing off her left hook. >> you got a little testy with al roker. >> oh, no. >> show that footage. >> are jumping jacks your exercise of choice? >> you know, i do everything. i mean, jumping jacks, squats, lunges, a little boxing. >> does the president have to worery about the boxing part? >> you you know, sometimes when he sees me punching, he kind of -- uh! >> boy, you are competitive. man. i didn't mean to hit him that hard. >> that was a great appearance, wasn't it? really, really fun. >> great timing on both of them. thank you. it's true, she was very good when asked about the romney singing she gave a very political answer. it's a great song. a very high end. i would like to say stop with that, please. >> exactly p. i head this morning, mitt romney is going to join us live. he will not be singing on this program. he is heading less though with all of his momentum. we'll take a look at that this morning. plus, pakistan helping the taliban? 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[ speaking chinese ] [ male announcer ] stay a step ahead with the 4g lte galaxy s ii skyrocket. only from at&t. ♪ it was a big margin of victory in florida for mitt romney in case you missed it, here are the results. romney got 46% of the vote. gingrich got 32%. ron paul came in with 7% of the vote. the former massachusetts governor mitt romney joins me from tampa this morning. congratulations are in order for you. we appreciate you being with us. how you feeling as you move forward and you see those results? >> soledad, that feels pretty darn good. florida in some respects is a microcosm of the nation. in part because so many people move here in their retirement years. we've got good support here. actually i understand a record number of votes in a republican primary. so i'm pretty pleased. >> so, let's talk about things that may be less pleasing. if you look at exit polling on conservatives and exit polling on tea partiers, you lost both of those categories to newt gingrich. how do you get them? >> actually we won both conservatives and tea partiers in flg. i'm pretty pleased that we had good support here. we were also able to do very well with hispanic voters. i think the last time i ran i got 14% of the hispanic vote, this time, 54%. the difference is that people care about the economy and they understand that's been my background. they really don't think that people who spent their entire life working in washington are prepared to take on the problem of getting our economy strong again. >> when i talk about tea party and conservatives i should clarify very conservative and strong tea partiers. when you look at that focus, which is a very energized and core group of the party you are trying to represent, they went with the other guy. how do you get them? >> well, you know, i have to make sure i get the majority in each state i go to. so i want to have good support from the tea partiers and fro conservatives but i recognize there may be some who decide to go elsewhere. that's the nature of the process. if i can keep winning and getting the delegates and become the nominee i want to make sure that people know who i am, what i stand for. i'm not going to try to veer to one direction or another trying to get one group or another. >> you know, newt gingrich, he gave a speech but it wasn't really a concession speech and he didn't give a concession call. did that offend you, upset you in any way, shape, or form? >> no. as has been said long ago, politics ain't bean bags. we're battling to become the nom know. he's going to do it the way he thinks is best. i'm going to do it the way i think is best. so far by process has given me a good start. i know we're going to go on. i'm feeling pretty good at this point, soledad. i really do think the american people do not want to take us into the politics of washington and the practices of washington. they want to take us in a direction that gets this economy going again. we rechange the way washington works fundamentality. >> i've never heard that, politics ain't bean bags. i'm going to write that down and throw it at other people one day. you said last night, listen, competitive primary does not divide us, it prepares us and we will win. but isn't there a downside to all of this negativity? when you look at independents' opinion of you, and i think we have a graphic of this, favorable has only gone up 1% since december and unfavorable is 20% increase since december. doesn't that seem to be a very big problem among independents who often decide a race in the general election? >> well, i think if there were some way of having no negative ever launched against you, even by the democrats, why, the argument might make sense. but frankly, i know that if i'm the nominee, barack obama is going to spend almost a billion dollars attacking me. so you might as well get it out there now. learn how to respond, and make sure that we're able to get back to the real issue people care about when the time of the general election comes around. that real issue is how to get america's economy so strong creating jobs for people again and how to change washington from becoming the, if you will, the bloated beast that's taking over larger and larger part of our life. those kinds of issues is what will win. >> do you get distracted from that conversation when you have someone like newt gingrich saying, yeah, i'm going to stay in the race. 46 states yet to go so you don't really get to have a conversation with president obama. you end up having a sort of a battle on two fronts. that's got to be not a good thing. >> well, you know, you take what comes. each candidate has the right to stay in the race as long as they want to. you know, i welcome the fact that we're going to be honing our message and battling against the attacks that will come. but i recognize that this is going to be a long road and particularly if speaker gingrich and rick santorum and ron paul want to go on a long way, i certainly want to go a long way, go to the convention as a winner. we'll take what comes and be prepared for president obama who will do everything in his power not to talk about his record. and the truth is he has failed the american people. he's lost more jobs during his presidency than any other president, i believe in history. home value is down during his presidency. he doesn't want to talk about that. that's what we're going to talk about. >> it might be challenging to get that conversation going if you have a prolonged battle. if you look historically, when republicans are in these prolonged battles for the nominati nomination, it actually bodes poorly for them in the general election, right? i think it's only eisenhower in 1952 who was able to merge victorious. the same is not true on the democratic side. you sound very not concerned about it but the statistics would say maybe you out to be concerned about it? >> i guess i'm very concerned about things i can change. but i can't possibly suggest that i'm going to tell somebody else in the race what's right for them. they have to pursue the course that's best for them. i think with regards to winning in november, it's going to come down to whether people want to have barack obama, who has been extraordinarily unsuccessful and inexperienced, continue to lead a nation at a critical time, both internationally with the threat in iran, as well as domestically, with an economy that continues to bump along the bottom. >> when i was in florida you were absolutely hammered with the ads. literally, it was an incredible thing. now we know that was the most negative ads ever in the history of forever, like 92%, 93% negative ads. when you look at the spending for ads in the campaign, you just killed it, really. your campaign spent about $9 million. your super pac, over $10 million. and 13,000 ads compared to newt gingrich's 200 ads. is this what we're going to see as you move through the primary season into the general election, money flooding with negative ads and that's going to be the tone of this entire campaign? >> well, you are going to see us talking about the contrast between me and the other people in the race. >> that's a yes? >> when we were in south carolina -- well, when we were in south carolina i was vastly overspent with negative ads attacking me. and we sat back saying a positive message, focused on president obama would be just fine. i got beaten there. and we said, well, that doesn't make a lot of sense. so our campaign made sure that we were more appointed on our message and pointing out the differences between me and speaker gingrich and our respective records. as to what the various pacs do out there, there's not much i can do about that. i can't tell them where to go or where to spend their money. obviously the reading was that the pac -- super pac that supported speaker gingrich which was financed by sheldon adelson, my guess is he's saving his powder for nevada and other ways races to come. >> there's a poll that