the middle part of next week, alex. many thanks for that live report. another nod toward gingrich. though not a formal endorsement coming from former vice presidential candidate sarah palin. not only did she say she would have voted for gingrich in south carolina. she s speaking out the ex alaska governor called some of the criticisms of gingrich from fellow republicans stal inesque. palin said florida republicans should vote for newt. more on that marist poll showing romney with a lead over newt gingrich. lee mayor nof, the director of the marist poll. we have the great numbers to share. before we get to details, any trends you can read? coming out of south carolina, newt gingrich was in good shape. the momentum fizzled when he hit florida. romney has been able to shore up
for us. good sunday morning you. good morning, alex. what else did david axelrod had to say. he distilled the theme of the campaign into a simple phrase. a fair shake. every citizen in the country deserves a fair shake and more than that. everybody should be paying their fair share. that is essentially the theme and that is the preview of the kind of campaign they ll be running against the presumptive nominee. to hear the white house say it, people like david ak elrod, out of that campaign office in chicago, mitt romney, assuming he ll be the nominee. two schools of thought when it comes to the primary fights on the republican side. they get it out of the way early, voters get used to hearing the negative charges and they re inoculated. the general campaign, in the general election. what the obama campaign is hoping the second school of thought. they tear each other down so
they re in a better position. i m wondering if what you are talking about, this inching upward is why you see in the marist poll numbers the president beats each one of the four gop potential candidates by a fair amount. i mean, quite handily. the closest race is by a few points between the president and mitt romney. but do you think that is what s happening, there s a trend. given the economy where it stands now, it s not so good. i think it s too early to give much meaning to those polls. but i think there is a certain amount of what you could call familiarity breeds contempt when looking at these republican candidates from the eyes of independent voters. remember, these independents will determine the election. they re not movement conservatives. a lot of what they re hearing out of these debate, what, 19 debates, is makes no sense to them. they re not even talking about the right issues. so when they watch that, they re
potential for a surprise two days before the primary. i think back to the thursday, ten days ago prior to south carolina when there was that day that had so much news that you all went whoa. is there that kind of potential? there s no debates left. gingrich, until this week, did very well in debates. that helped him. the next couple of days, not any kind of big event on the calendar that i see at least where he can reengage, jolt the momentum, change the dynamic. romney has a lot of ads on tv and pounding gingrich on the trail and on tv. i m not sure what gingrich can do to stop that. i want you to listen with me to what gingrich said this weekend. let s hear it. i will go all the way to the convention. i expect to win the nomination. you just had two national polls that show me ahead. is this a realistic statement other than the two national polls which show him ahead, which it is true they do in this past week. look, he can stay in the race.
much, they expose vul vulnerabilities exploited later. here s more of what axelrod had to say about mitt romney. i m not saying he didn t play by the rules. the rules allow to you have swiss bank accounts, the rules allow you to put your money in the cayman islands and to set up businesses in bermuda and so on. the rules allow all of that. the question is, are the rules right? he would continue those rules. they are not right. it s not right that someone like governor romney can make 20, $22 million and pay an effective tax rate lower than the average middle class person in this kun industry. alec, it s interesting, according to the wall street journal poll, mitt romney is the individual that comes closest to beating president obama right now at this stage of the election year in a head to head matchup. he s still down by six points. so with the improving economy,