minnesota, missouri and maine all hold contests in the next week and a half. the candidates have a lot of ground to cover and not much time. for mitt romney this day after his big victory in florida turned out to be pretty rock yichlt during an interview this morning, romney gave his opponents a new gift. yet another inelegant remark that's easy, very easy to take out of context. >> i'm in this race because i care about americans. i'm not concerned about the very poor. we have a safety net there. if it need repair i'll fix it. i'm not concerned about the very rich. they're doing just fine. i'm concerned about the very heart of america, the 90-95% of americans who right now are struggling. i'll continue to take that message across the nation. >> last question but i got to ask you. you just said i'm not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net. and i think there are lots of very poor americans who are struggling who would say that sounds odd. can you explain that? >> well, you had to finish the sentence, soledad. i said i'm not concerned about the very poor that have a safety net. but fit has holes in it i will repair them. >> well, you might guess it. in no time at all, "i'm not concerned about the very poor" part of that interview caught fire on the internet. romney himself doing damage control aborder his campaign plane. >> you've got to take the whole sentence, all right? and then change it a little bit. because then it sounds very different. i've said throughout the campaign, my focus, my concern, my energy is going to be devoted to helping middle income people. we have a safety net for the poor of the country. and if there are holes in it i will work to repair that. and as far as people who are falling through the cracks i want to fix that. >> cnn chief political analyst gloria borger is here with us. on a day he should be saying i just won florida. i'm onto nevada. here's how i review the campaign for the republican nomination. >> have you heard the term unforced error? this is one of thoechlts you can have all the discipline in a campaign that you want. you can have great strategists, you can have great pollsters, goes on and on. but when the candidate gets off message or makes a mistake or goes rogue or whatever, it's a problem. and i think the morning after this great victory. and you explained the context. the candidate explained the context there. but you know these things are so easy to take out of context. and he's had a series of them, john. from the $10,000 bet during the debate to saying corporations are people, i know what it's like to be afraid of getting a pink slip and i like to fire people which was also taken out of context. that was about your insurance company. but again, it starts to become a narrative particularly if you're the obama campaign sitting out there and saying, gee, these things might be good in some campaign zblads this one came after he showed a week, ten days of pretty great discipline. disciplined debater, disciplined on the stuff. people might say nif or not agree with it but he was a much better candidate. what do they need to do to turn the florida victory into something that will last? >> this is a candidate now who has to be nuanced, who has to be on his game. he's got to have a two-prong strategy. one thing he's got to do, he's got to continue to press newt gingrich. because gingrich is going to continue pressing him. nobody in that campaign wants to it seem like their candidate is coasting, they believe they're inevitable. that's not a strategy for them. they've got to press gingrich. then they have to pivot and they have to take on barack obama. and so they have to do those two things at once. and convince what i call the base of their base, the most conservative, that he's also conservative. so a lot of jobs he's got to do. this kind of a gaffe just doesn't help. >> chalk this one up to a largely wasted day because of that. rick santorum has his eyes on next tuesday's caucuses in colorado. today the former senator from pennsylvania picked up endorsements from a host of colorado congressman including -- santorum pitching himself as the better alternative to mitt romney. >> if you look at the voters who voted for me and where they would go if i was not in the race, it would be divided between romney and gingrich, more toward romney than gingrich. interestingly enough, if newt's out of the race almost all of his votes come to me. >> that's santorum in colorado. the next state on the republican's calendar is nevada. republican caucuses are just this saturday, and the state's voters getting a lot more attention from the candidates. our correspondent joe johns in nevada. this state not expected to be all that favorable to speaker gingrich. what are they saying they need to come back there? >> reporter: they're all saying they've got to focus on the state with proportional delegates as opposed to winner take all. and a lot of people, though, are going a little bit beyond that newt gingrich notion of just uniting the conservatives. they're looking back doing a little bit of monday morning quarterbacking and saying, what he needs to do is talk more about what newt gingrich is for. one thing i've heard from the gingrich circles is they want him to not get stuck down in the mud. i think that was the exact quote i heard with mitt romney. rather talk about what he was for, talk about what mitt romney is for, or get mitt romney to talk about that. so there's a lot of concern that down in florida he did too much of the negative stuff, and romney's very good at it and has a lot of money to do it in the television ads. i think that's probably the lesson they're taking away as they come to the caucus states, john. >> and joe, you had a chance to talk to ron paul. he likes the caucus states. listen to what he said in your interview. >> because we're rewarded for organization and determination and enthusiasm, people who believe in something. and i think it offers us a chance to compete with mitt romney. i mean, it was difficult to compete with his money in florida. i mean, money talks. and we have a lot compared to some others, you know. our financial report isn't puny but it's still not enough to advertise across a big state. >> well, joe, does ron paul think he can pick up a few delegates or maybe he can win nevada? >> reporter: well, he's sounding pretty optimistic there. but you have to say, mitt romney won the nevada caucuses four years ago. he is trying to do what he can in picking up some proportional delegates, but at the same time i think talking to him you get the sense that he's pretty happy about the fact that for example texas congressman who could get into the race with less money than say the texas governor and see the texas governor come and go. so he's saying, anything can still happen. there are a bunch of other states to go. and he wants to ride this thing out to the convention with as many delegates as he can, john. >> joe johns, thanks. rioting at an egyptian soccer game today left 73 dead, hundreds injured. fighting erupted between supporters of two teams at a stadium in fort sayed. is huligan gone awry? >> reporter: definitely it's a case of football fans really going over the top. but all indications are that the security was inadequate at the stadium. we're hearing from both sides, actually, that it wasn't the usual level of security. you go to normal egyptian football games there are a lot of riot police. and it's largely indicative of the gradual decline in law and order in egypt over the last year. what we've seen is nc the revolution, john, the police simply don't have the sort of authority they used to as egyptians increasingly express disrespect for the police, for the government, for the army. and they clearly simply didn't have control in this situation in port sayed. john? >> ben, were they there in sufficient numbers and didn't have the respect or control or were they just undermanned when chaos broke out? >> reporter: i think it's all the above, really. they simply don't have the authority. and you have to realize that some of these football fans have a long history of clashes with the police that goes back well before the revolution. and certainly if you recall those clashes that took place around tahrir square in cairo in november and december. many of the people in the front lines throwing rocks, fighting with the police, were football fans who have lots of experience of doing that. and there are some of these fans are suggesting that this evening was the revenge of the police. they essentially stood back and let the fans from port said go after the fans from cairo. these cairo fans, of course, no friends of the men in uniform. john? >> great reporting, ben wedeman live in cairo. breaking news at the pentagon tonight. defense secretary leon panetta says the united states and nato will end their combat mission in afghanistan next year, in 2013. cnn's pentagon correspondent chris lawrence, is this about saving money or do they truly think mission accomplished? >> reporter: john, a senior defense official said no decision made by the pentagon in this economic climate can be made without considering the financial implications in the money that's involved. look, it costs about $1 million a year for every soldier we've got in afghanistan. the pentagon had expected to spend about $80 billion next year there. that doesn't even account for state department spending. look, even some of president obama's democratic allies like senator claire makaskill have been mutualing to may money for afghanistan infrastructure programs back here to build roads here in the united states. you combine that with the fact that france announced that it was pulling out and the way european nations have slashed their defense budgets, there's just less money to go around. and that is reflected partly, partly, john, in this decision. >> so chris, does the taliban have reason to celebrate tonight? the other side of that question, the afghan force will they be ready by then to take over? >> reporter: well, right now there's about 300,000. they expect to get that up to about 350 afghan, 350,000 afghan troops by next year. it's a mixed bag. i was over there in afghanistan. and you see some of the troops high on drugs, others using their uniforms for different purposes other than what they're intended. just sloppy performance. on the other hand, you do see some units that perform very capably in some ways. so again you've got a real mixed bag over there. but i think this is really illustrating something when the united nations just did a survey of the afghan people themselves. and 80% felt that the afghan police would not be able to handle security once the combat troops leave. >> an important development. chris lawrence live for us at the pentagon. chris, thank you. tomorrow night a talk with former defense secretary gates. up next the obama campaign, why romney won florida. >> i think he ran a very strong negative campaign down there. 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>> well, i think he ran a very strong negative campaign down there. he outspent speaker gingrich by 5 to 1. and every single dollar he spent was on negative ad. i think he had one positive radio ad in the hispanic community, and 99% of his ads were negative. almost all of his rhetoric was negative. and he executed very well. his aides all boasted about that in the newspaper about what a great negative campaign they ran against gingrich down there in florida. and he ground out a victory for himself. so it was a tactical victory. i'm not sure it added to his luster as a potential leader of the country. >> you mentioned potential leader of the country. if you look at the national tracking polls right now, latest gallup poll, obama 48, romney 48. dead heat. your friend are spending a lot of money. $2.5 million spent by democratic groups, most labor unions attacking governor romney. on the air in florida and nevada. i want you to listen to a little sample. >> while romney was a director of the damon corporation, the company was defrauding medicare of millions. the company was fined $100 million. but romney himself made a fortune. corporate greed. medicare fraud. sound familiar? >> in that ad there he morphed into a picture of the florida governor rick scott. if democrats think he's weak and unions aren't worried about mitt romney why are they spending so much money against him, david? >> well, i said he was a weak frontrunner. on obviously he's spending a fortune so that enhances his chances of winning. i can't speak for those who ran that ad. that was an independent expenditure. but look, i've been very candid about it. i've said that he was a weak frontrunner and that he likely would be the nominee because of the nature of the field in which he was running. nothing has changed my view of that. it's been a little surprising about how much difficulty he's had in closing the deal. and relative to the polling that you mentioned, will polling that interests me is watching what's happened to governor romney's standing over the course of this primary campaign. it's hardly elevated him in the eye office the american people. the "washington post" poll had him at 31 positive, 49 negative. what was really stunning about it was among independent voters just 23% favorable rating among independent voters. because they've watched this debacle of a republican primary campaign and they've watched him tack to the right, change his positions, do all the things that irritate voters about our politics today. and he's run into problems there. so i think there's some residual issues he's going to have to deal with if and when he ever ends this process. >> you obviously have to defendant president's record in this campaign. listen to a promise he made early on. he'd been in lovoffice about a month when he promised this. >> today i'm promising to cut the deficit we inherited by half in my first term in office. this will not be easy. it will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we've long neglected. >> david, the congressional budget office this week projected the deficit would be 1.1 this will with a t dollars this year. the fourth consecutive year of trillion-dollar deficits. how's the president going to explain that one to the american people? >> look, i think you have to just be honest about it. we've been through a terribly difficult time as a country. and much of what has happened with our debt has to do with the recession that we went through, the depression of receipts for the government. i would point out to people that the president has signed off on and promoted $2 trillion in cuts and savings, and is eager to do more. the big debate we have is how we do this in a balanced way. he believes we have to do it -- it can't just be a cuts only approach. because if you do that you're going to cut into the the very things we need to grow our economy. education, research and development, some fundamental things. so we need to get some revenues. and his proposal has been that we get it from the top, that we can't afford these tax cuts from the last decade, these bush tax cuts at the top. this is a big difference between us and governor romney who says we can achieve all of this and we can get our budget back on course without asking any more from anyone, particularly people like him, like the president, who are in upper income brackets. and that's a fundamental issue we have to work through. >> david, we'll be in touch. thanks very much. >> good to be with you, john. up next, ominous new developments in what's turning into one of the bloodiest weeks of the anti-government uprisings in syria. also government officials say a teenager who lost her family in the chain reaction car crash won't face deportation. if there was a pill to help protect your eye health as you age... would you take it? 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[ male announcer ] ocuvite. help protect your eye health. my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪ kate bolduan is here with the news we need to know. >> things are back to normal. good evening, everyone. catch you up on some other news. reports from syria today tell of security forces shelling villages and homes at random and army defectors battling security forces near damascus. opposition activists say at least 70 people have died. so far mechs of the u.n. security council can't agree on a resolution calling for syrian president bashar all assad to step down. in florida authorities -- another body in one of the wrecks from last week's multivehicle pileup along interstate 75 near gainesville, florida, raising the overall death toll to 11. three of the dead are members of an atlanta-area family that was in the country illegally. the only surviving family member a 15-year-old girl faces an uncertain future, although an immigration and customs official says there's zero chance she'll be deported. something we'll be following closely. the veterans of foreign wars obtained a cease and desist court order to force an organization called the veterans for weed to stop using the initials vfw. stars and stripes also reports a milwaukee-based group is catching flack for using a doctored version of the pow-mia silhouette in the words semper high. they say their mission is dedicated to war veterans who smoke weed and fight to legalize its use. and a now form bus line owner is being hailed as australia's most generous boss. he just sold the business which has been in his family since 1924 and gave all the employees bonuses ranges from about $9,000 to almost $32,000. i know we wanted to do that story just to show more bonuses the better. just give