six different candidates have led in the national polls so far this year. it's amazing to think about it. but there is a big reason for it. the tea party. a cnn poll shows that the republican party is literally split down the middle. half of them support the tea party or are active members. well, 49, 51, some call that iman date. i call that a split. the tea party is really the tea parties. christina boterri from the national tea party federation told us there are at least 5,000 tea party groups. there is no national umbrella group and no one manifesto. case in point, michele bachmann. one tea party support group called on her to quit the presidential race today. the other tea partiers have endorsed her. minnesota congresswoman responded to the call for her to quit on the situation room earlier with wolf. >> it certainly isn't a blow to my campaign because i've had nonstop support coming out of the woodwork from tea partiers all across the country. >> so lots of groups, lots and lots and lots, which means a lot of fighting. but when you add up the numbers, the bottom line is power. the tea party is half the republican party. joining us to talk about it tonight, sal russo from the tea party express. we appreciate your taking the time to be with us. >> glad to be here. >> so what is your view of this -- the breaks that are happening within the tea party, which i know is a broad definition. but you have one group calling for michele bachmann to step down, others supporting her. do you support her? >> i think the you said it very correctly. contrary to some of the impressions, the tea party movement is an extraordinarily broad based movement. that's the reason we won more republican state legislative races since 1928, more republican congressmen since 1948. it has to be broad based and it is. so there's a divergence of opinion. some of the groups have social policies, some have foreign policies but i think the one unifying theme of all the tea parties is they're opposed to the increasing size and cost and intruciveness of the federal government and want to see economic programs advanced by the candidates that will foster economic growth and job creation. so on that score, i think really all ten of the of republican candidates have done very well as far as the tea party is concerned and you know, contrary to that poll that you recited saying the party is 50/50, i think when you hold somebody to say do you belong to this group or that group, it narrows it down. i think what you find is an overwhelming number of republicans and frankly, americans, agree with what i say is the basic premise of the tea party is that the success of spending and the gigantic skyrocketing national debt is unsustainable. >> late me clarify for viewers that that 49-51 was people who identified themselves as active party members or the support of the concept. ron brownstein was on our program last night. pollster at the national journal saying that among the alf of the party that did not identify with the tea party, mitt romney has a very clear lead. about but on the tea party side of things, he has not gotten traction, 10 to 18% of that group all the way through. he hasn't been building. it's herman cain who is the front-runner. and not significantly so but is the front-runner among the tea party people who define themselves as tea party. do you think at some point you've got to come behind one person? >> well, i think that could happen. we've been polling our members for several months now and what we have found is that every couple of weeks, the leadership changes. it started off the newt gingrich was ahead. then newt -- then mitt romney pulled ahead and then when herman cain had the good south carolina debate, he pulled ahead. and then michele bachmann did really well in the new hampshire debate. she pulled ahead. then perry got in the race. he pulled ahead. and then cain had the straw poll victory in florida. and now he's ahead. so i think what that tells you is that people are in the tea party movement as well as americans generally are testing out these candidates trying them out, seeing how they sound and how they feel about them. and so it's moving around. there's not a consensus. which is why i think it's silly to tell anybody to get out of the race. let's keep them all in the race and hear what they have to say. we're in serious economic problems. we need good answers. >> i want to bring in ned ryan on the phone. i know you were going to be with us in person rushing to get to a studio. ned ryan for those watching cnn all day, the man who asked michele bachmann to step down, the president of american majority, which is another tea party affiliated group. ned, thanks for being with us. why did you taking this stand against michele bachmann today? >> first of all, thank you for having me. yeah, we're crazy drive here in new orleans. the reason i wrote this post was really an observation that the tea party movement always has been and hopefully always will be very focused on how do we fix the economy, how do we get jobs and government back to its limited role. that's the focus, that's the purpose. that's where the movement started. as evangelicals are deeply pro-life, i understand the social issues but somebody driving social issues that doesn't have the substantive stands and contributions on how to solve our economic problems, first of all, is not going to go anywhere and is not really adding much meaningful to the debate. i think at some point, it's going to begin 0 damage and confuse people and dilute the party message. that was the purpose of why i wrote that post. >> thanks very much more equalling in, ned, because we did want to hear from you. ned ryun and sal russo there. interesting that someone who is a self-identified evangelical, he doesn't want those issues to dominate. a split tea party and split gop are potentially problems for my next guest, ryan priebus. setting your party's agenda, having trouble coalescing. does that worry when it comes to a national election where your party's split in half? >> no, it doesn't because i think you know, and i agree with sol. i don't think anything's split at all. you the have a party here that has multiple candidates running for president and you're going to have some people supporting one over the other. that doesn't neen there isn't complete unanimity in the fact that we need to save this country from a president who seems to have a love affair with the man in the mirror without actually following through with any promises. while we may be picking our horse so to speak and having a debate amongst each other, certainly we're going to have a uniform and a direction in in party that is in one direction, which is to put a republican in the white house. >> do you think so? i'm just curious. when you look at the mitt romney numbers, the half of the party that doesn't identify itself as a tea party supporter or active member, i hear your point they'll all come together, are behind romney. within the other half of the party, they're not in love with the guy. are you confident if he's the nominee you'll get them to go to the poll. >> i think if you look at barack obama and hillary clinton and you go back four years ago, you had two people that fought each other all the way through the end of june. and guess what, it was pretty good for the democratic party. i really believe that, erin. i mean, i think having the debate within your party over a new direction for america, which is what we're having in our party and i think of a lot of independents are involved with it, is really the same kind of debate, although much different issues than what was happening in 2008 among the democrats. so, we're having that debate. i think it's its healthy for our party, healthy for america. listen, if you want to keep going the same way we have been for the past four years, then americans will stick with barack obama. but i happen to think that's a pretty miserable place to be and most americans agree with me. and that's why i think we're going to be ultimately successful in 2012. >> let me ask you this in terms of money. how much money is it going to cost you to do it, reince president obama at $84.9 million raised. mitt romney $32.2 million and the man tied with him has about million raised. how much is it going to cost you? >> i think it's going to come down to issues. i think the republican national committee, along with the candidate when we get a nominee and do some joint fund-raising agreements together like the dnc and barack obama are doing and we're raising a good amount of money and our net dollars are very high and we're very competitive, but the fact is, it's going to be expensive. we've got a president who's in love with campaigning. i hate to keep -- i'm not trying to continue to do this, but look, we've got a president who is more interested in raising money and being president than he is putting americans back to work. guess what, here's the deal. i think most americans are tired of it. they're tired of the spichs, tired of the pageantry and want to go a different direction. we're going to give them that different direction next year. >> thanks very much for taking the time to join us. we're going to be talking about it with james carville. >> most do, that's the good thick. >> you got to see it that way if you're in your seat. thanks very much. appreciate it, reince. it's been more than a week since gadhafi died but his son saif is still on the run. what is libya doing to find him? an 8-year-old autistic boy was lost in the virginia woods for six days, found today curled up in the fetal position. the doctor who treated him out front with the exclusive details. sometimes it is fun to be bad. actually, it's often fun to be bad. we can't resist telling you what we did today. yeah, anderson. we're talking about you. ♪ and the flowers and the trees ♪ ♪ all laugh when you walk by ♪ and the neighbors' kids run and hide ♪ deep inside you, there's a person who refuses to be kept deep inside you. ♪ but you're not ♪ you're the one be true to yourself. what's healthier than that? >> the number tonight, 600,000. that's the number of facebook logons that are compromised each and every day. now, that sounds like a lot. you know what? it is. it's only .6% of total daily log ins. facebook is the world's largest social network with over 750 million users. despite the rise of google plus. to help store the coo data, facebooking is building buildings in sweden just south of the arctic circle. the cold air will help keep the company's servers cool and save it millions of dollars. when you look at where all the money goes, cisco and facebook is where you see the big gas gluzlers. james carville, david frum, cnn contributor and john avlon. great to see all three of you on a friday night. >> thank you. >> you start laughing, mr. carville. you hear the tea party conversation we had? we had a coup the of the 5,000 groups on including the guy who said michele bachmann get out. what do you think. >> i cannot believe what i'm watching over there. you watch the debates and the tea party splitting. it's hilarious. then the chairman of the republican national committee talking about obama and pageantry and look at himself in the mirror. >> you don't need to pay for pay per view boxing anymore, do you? >> i really don't. i'm mystified but gratified that all this is going on. as a democrat, it's fun to watch here. >> all right. john avlon, what is your take? are they going to coalesce? they say they don't need to but they do. will they? >> this is going to be a long process. the reality is mitt romney, the resumptive nominee, is not getting support from the tea parties or evangelicals. that's a big deal. the rest of the field is fractured. here you've got the most conservative crowd running for president of the republican party in modern history and the conservatives don't coalesce around one candidate. it makes mr. carville very happy. >> let me bring in mr. frum here. i want to coach to you about mitt romney where he says, romney supposedly the republicans' most electable next november is a recidivist reviser of his principles who is not only becoming less electable, he might damage gop chances of capturing the senate. that is harsh. >> the first question is, which of the candidates on the stage would make the best president. from my manhattan of view as a republican, it's incontestable. romney can do the job and almost nobody else on the stage could do the job. what i think is sort of sad and sorry about the tea party activists, the party is split down the middle. someone like me, i'm in the nontea party half and i'm quite content with romney. if the other half cannot agree on one person, they will lose. even though they have half the numbers. it's undisciplined and irresponsible of them not to coalesce. yet, as you saw in that interview, there is something going on in that movement. something as self-evident as hey, you know, one half of the party has one candidate and the other half of the party has half a dozen candidates. we can tell how this is going to come out. they can't say something like that because the very idea of responsible leadership is so enathma, they can't apply it to themselves. >> that's an interesting point. >> when you have someone like george will, a wise man in the republican party in the conservative movement come out that the hard against romney, that is a real party for mitt romney's campaign. you have the reagan revolution as potentially being handed over to someone who said he wasn't a republican during the reagan years. that is a real problem for him in terms of coalescing the party. >> david, it was interesting, you heard ned ryun who said bachmann should quit. it was fascinating how he said i'm an evangelical and believe in the social issues but do not want them to dominate the campaign at all. that's smart politics. but partly it could be a sense that the republican base needs -- is realizing that social issues aren't going to be enough. >> i think that's a big part of it. i think what he was doing was being connected to the real world of coalition politics. you can't get -- look, when somebody like me says i looked at it and mitt romney seems like best of show, that doesn't mean perfect or ideal. that doesn't mean i expect to agree with him about everything. the art of -- along with political leadership, you need political followership. some willingness to draw your own priorities to choose from the best of the available options, no the to let the better be the enemy of the good. and if you don't do that, you're not doing politics, you're doing protests. >> james carville, i'm curious. you heard me talking to reasons priebus about the money. the president has raised more than mitt romney. we all saw the story today in the "new york times" that is mr. obama who said he would issue lobbyists, 15 of his, quote unquote, bundlers have raised $5 billion. is that going to hurt him at all? >> who's going to attack him for it? certainly not romney. people understands, the reason we have high held -- the reason we have pollution and the roin we have income inequality is because pluto crates and providers provide the money for campaigns. i think people understand that at some level. is it fair? yes, the white house says that they don't let lobbyists on the premises and things like that. but there's great cynicism about money and politics. i think people are on to something. there is a connection. >> look, when president obama is going to try to run against official washington and he's getting in bed with bundlers and trying to raise $1 billion, you're going to get a very compromised candidate. it's hard to harness the anger. >> thanks so much to all three of you. please have a wonderful weekend and mischief night. all right. out front next, an 8-year-old autistic boy found after spending six days alone and lost in the woods. the doctor who treated him coming out front exclusively. and the latest in the search for baby lisa. as we told you, the police where is supposed to question her brothers today but they didn't. why not? and people in the building were not happy today. we can't resist telling you what the outfront outlaws did to deserve it. >> the previous interview used cisco tele presence to bring people together for face to face conversations. so i'm glad it's with fidelity. they offer me one-on-one guidance to help me choose my investments. not just with my savings plan here at work. they help me with all of my financial goals. looking good, irene. thanks to fidelity, i can stay on top of my financial future, huh? good one. why, thank you. whether it's saving for retirement, college, or anything else, contact a fidelity investment professional today. 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[ male announcer ] write your story with the new citi simplicity card. no late fees. no penalty rate. no worries. get started at citisimplicity.com. and now a story we can't resist. mischief night. hell night, devil's night. whatever you might call it, it's the night before halloween when kids across the nation play pranks on their unsuspecting neighbors. toilet paper, eggs, shaving cream, all of it. since our next show is on halloween night, for us tonight is mischief night. so we couldn't resist doing this. ♪ ♪ >> he's not here. >> he's not here? >> oh, shoot. he doesn't have any markers, does he? yeah, a sharpie will do. thanks, appreciate it. >> we just couldn't resist, anderson. still out front, the outfront five. the house of madoff. >> it was a very ugly family tragedy playing out here. >> rising threat. >> there is another big concern. the highest tide is coming within the next 24 hours. >> his long trip home. >> it's a story ultimately about how we went through all of that, but survived it. and ultimately got to a point of reconciliation and forgiveness. >> all this still outfront in our second friday half. steady jobs lion across our country... ... scientists, technicians, engineers, machinists... ... adding nearly 400 billion dollars to our economy... we're at work providing power to almost a quarter of our homes and businesses... ... and giving us cleaner rides to work and school... and tomorrow, we could do even more. cleaner, domestic, abundant and creating jobs now. we're america's natural gas. the smarter power, today. learn more at anga.us. that stays even after i treat... 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