and the people of michigan looked into the hearts of the candidates, and all i have to say is, i love you back. >> moving ahead to super tuesday, the big kahuna one week from tonight and could change the race completely. with ten states voting, 416 delegates at stake. i'm back now with our cnn stellar a-team. led by the king himself, wolf blitzer, john king and gloria borger. welcome to you all. >> thank you. >> i've been watching, as always, the brilliant coverage all night, and my sort of gut feeling is -- i know a win's a win. mitt romney won arizona. we expected that. and he did sneak through to michigan. but to win only by 3% in your home state when rick santorum was outspent, what, five or six to one, it's bringing it's not exactly a ringing endorsement. >> as you know, and who knows better than you do, piers, in any kind of soccer or football match or baseball, a win is a win. you can't deny that he did win. it was only a week or ten days or so ago that santorum was ahead in michigan. i don't think that last debate necessarily helped rick santorum. mitt romney did come back and he did win. we'll see how that delegate split breaks down in michigan. for now, look, it's a big sigh of relief for him. he can go forward with some momentum to super tuesday. winning in arizona, michigan, he'll probably win in wyoming tomorrow and we'll see what happens a week from today. >> john king, talk me through -- >> go ahead. >> i was going to say, walk me through super tuesday and what we can confidently expect to happen. there are only ten states this time up for grabs. it's normally 16. it's a smaller super tuesday than normal. what do you think with your brain power for this kind of thing, what can we confidently predict? >> nothing. the one lesson we have learned is that we should confidently not predict anything because of the volatility and that's the fascinating drama. you mentioned, it's a small win for mitt romney in michigan, no question about it. consider the alternative. had he lost, there would be a trap door under the romney candidacy. he goes forward with some momentum. we will debate how much momen m momentum, but he has momentum. his other home state of massachusetts votes, vermont votes, put those in the romney column. virginia, only romney and ron paul are on the ballot. so let's assume a mitt romney win in michigan. that gives him three of the ten. >> virginia. >> virginia. newt gingrich should win in georgia. that's his home state. the biggest battle ground is ohio. ohio next week is the michigan of tonight. right in the industrial heartland. the economy, by far, is issue number one. then we'll fight it out in tennessee. santorum had the edge coming into tennessee. let's check the polling in 48 hours. oklahoma, the other big state they will all fight for. other states out in the west. ron paul might get one, mitt romney might get one. but the big battlegrounds will be ohio, tennessee, oklahoma and then the question mavg, whether with gingrich can come back for a fourth or fifth life whatever the count is now, by winning his home state of georgia. >> gloria, it seems to me there were three damaging hits on rick santorum. he went from this great position, he had a bad debate, i thought. he was very weak that night. secondly, this ridiculous statement that president kennedy made him puke. i mean, come on, that seems to be bad politics. >> i they he said throwup. >> we call it puke in britain. excretion of vomit. president jfk. i mean, come on. and then the last thing i really thought was completely wrong, badly timed, inappropriate, and damaging was this thing about the president being a snob for wanting people to go to college. i couldn't fathom what political capital he would get from such a state. >> well, look, it's clear what he was going for. he was going for some of the voters that he actually got, which are the most conservative voters, the evangelical voters. what he did in the process was turn off a lot of women voters. mitt romney won with women. he turned off some catholic voters who happen to like jfk. and he didn't do himself any favors with the republican favor at large who started worrying about his electability as a presidential candidate. you know, he had a very good populous economic message, but it kind of got overtaken by this emphasis on the cultural issues and the social issues. you know, i had one republican strategist say to me, the problem with rick santorum was, he kept going down these rabbit holes, instead of talking about his economic message. and that only served really to help mitt romney. and i think what we saw tonight is that he's trying to dig his way out of it and get back on his economic message, particularly as he tries to win the all important state of ohio on super tuesday. >> you know, wolf, where does president obama sit tonight, do you think? is he going to be vaguely disappointed that mitt romney didn't get beat in michigan? would that have been a good thing for the president? >> it probably would have been but they assumed from day one that mitt romney is going to be the republican presidential nominee. that's why they've been going after him almost exclusively, in all the democratic campaign commercials and their statements. they are are most worried about mitt romney. they didn't think newt gingrich or ron paul or anyone for that matter had much of a chance. they assume it's going to be a fight that mitt romney will be the nominee. they want to do whatever they can to weaken him as much as possible. they are getting ready for a tough fight and i can assure you and all of our viewers out there, piers, that no one in the barack obama campaign or at the white house or democrats are just sort of saying, you know, this is going to be a cake walk. this is going to be tough. this general election, assuming it will be mitt romney, we don't know it will be, it's going to be bitter, it's going to be fierce, it's going to be ugly. and all of the acrimony we've seen so far is child's play compared to what is about to take place in a general election campaign. i can assure you it's going to get very, very nasty. >> finally, john, if we work on the assumption this is virtually a two-horse race, or that newt gingrich would dispute that, where would you see newt gingrich's or ron paul's if he pulled out, it's unlikely that he might. if other of those pulled out, where would those votes go? >> ron paul isn't going anywhere. the gingrich question is a fascinating question. if rick santorum had won michigan tonight, it you'd hear the argument let's rally around one conservative. this will be a conversation we might be having at this time next week. newt gingrich has won georgia. the question is, can he win on super tuesday? if you look at the calendar down the road, you have mississippi, alabama, arkansas, louisiana. then you move into texas. these are the southern states. the bedrock of the republican party. if you have gingrich and santorum stay in, romney wins the delegates proportionately. and hanging in the race and winning. if one of them drops out, you have a different contest. newt gingrich has a lot to prove next tuesday, winning georgia alone likely not enough. does that mean he'll get out? maybe not. he says he wants to stay in to win, but he understands the math here. you have to win with, not own 8 at home, you have to prove you can win other places. essentially the gingrich challenge is different than the romney challenge. prove can you win outside of a place that's your backyard. >> piers, i think that's a huge challenge for mitt romney. he just can't give up on the south. he's got to prove he's a candidate with some breath and that means not only winning in the midwest, but winning in the south, which is very, very strong for republicans. he's got to prove that on super tuesday somewhere. >> fascinating stuff. another great night's coverage. thank you, wolf, john, gloria, much appreciated, as always. >> thank you. >> mitt romney picked up 29 delegates in arizona. jan brewer is a conservative governor of that state. she endorsed romney a few days ago, she joins me now. governor, welcome. >> thank you, piers, it's nice to be with you. >> it's my pleasure. how are you feeling tonight? it's not a thumping victory. it's not the kind of devastating onslaught that you would imagine would lead to a sensation of the race. so how are you feeling overall about it? >> well, i'm feeling like it was a big win in arizona and we're just really pleased that the people rallied around the man that we believed can move forward and beat president obama. >> i mean, look, he did well in arizona but not with much opposition. the others didn't try that hard. and in michigan it's been a pretty close race given it's his own state. what is the fundamental problem with mitt romney not being able to end this race, do you think? what would you be advising him to do? >> well, i think the bottom line is that he's leading in the race. he's -- you know, elections are long and hard. and sometimes they take a lot longer than what you think they should. but the bottom line is, it's no different than what happened in 2008 and we'll just keep moving on. i think as people see the difference in the candidates, that they will rally around mitt romney and they will understand that he's the man for the position at the right time in america when we are so in so desperate need for leadership. piers, our country is upside down and has not gotten any better. we've heard lots of promises the last election that haven't been delivered and now we need a change. i'm hoping that it's going to be my man, mitt romney. >> if your man mitt does win the nomination, he takes on barack obama. we've already seen you in spectacular fashion on the tarmac jabbing him in the chest and threatening all sorts of things. is that what you want to see from mitt romney when the battle starts? >> now, piers, you don't know what i was saying. the president knew what i was saying but you weren't there. i was not threatening him. i was talking to him and he was a little bit taken -- he took offense to the book that i wrote, which is a truth-telling book, by the way. i went there with a happy heart to welcome him to arizona and to tell him about the arizona turn around which i'm so very proud of, of what we've been able to accomplish here in arizona. you know, growing our unemployment and growing our job growth and everything that we've done with education has been marvelous and i asked him when he came down off the plane, i said, i welcomed him to arizona and i said to him, i would like the opportunity if we could to sit down and talk about the good things that we've done here and he said that the last time we sat down i went out and told the press that it was cordial and i wrote in my book -- he didn't like the way i portrayed him. i indicated it was a truth-telling book, and he walked away from me. and i said, does you read my book? and he said, excerpts. the book is truthful. i was a little bit unnerved. i think he was a little bit thin skinned but he did help the economy. the book sales went up. so i'm grateful for that. >> just to be serious, if mitt romney does win and is the nominee and he gets to take on barack obama, should he be making some kind of advantage of the apparent thin skinned you've identified? >> oh, no. i don't think that would be nice. i don't think that it would be the right thing to do unless he exhibited thin skin. you know, you have to call them like you see them. you have to be a truth teller. >> well, i had to laugh when you said that mitt romney wouldn't play on this apparent vulnerability because it wouldn't be nice. mitt romney has done some of the most vicious, far from nice commercials we've ever seen in politics. so he's got it in him, doesn't he, to really stick the knife in? >> well, you know, i will be honest with you. i don't know if any of those, whatever commercials you're talking about have been played with. it would be hard for me to make some kind of judgment in that regard. but certainly, if you're thin-skinned, you're thin-skinned, but if somebody asks you about it, you're going to talk about, but to play on it? i don't think so. >> well, i suspect so. governor brewer, thank you very much for your time. >> thank you, piers. >> with michigan and arizona decided tonight, the next stop is super tuesday. ohio is a key state. joining me now is mike dewine, supporting mitt romney. and a few weeks ago he switched to rick santorum. welcome, mr. dewine, why did you switch? >> well, you know, i originally bought into the conventional wisdom that governor romney was the strongest candidate against barack obama. but we have elections and primaries and caucuses for a reason and it's become abundantly clear that he's not going to be the strongest candidate against barack obama. i think santorum is. what i'm seeing on the ground here in ohio is a great deal of enthusiasm for rick santorum and very little enthusiasm for governor romney. >> given that mitt romney has won both in arizona and michigan tonight, do you feel like the guy who put everything on red in vegas and came up black? >> well, i don't think governor romney can be very happy with his performance in michigan. this is his home state four years ago. he did very, very well there, overwhelming victory. he's eeking out a victory tonight after spending a massive amount of money to defend his home state. so i think it shows, quite candidly, the inherent weakness of governor romney. and when he gets to ohio, he's not going to have this home state advantage. and i think rick santorum is going to carry ohio. >> i suppose a problem for rick santorum is the infrastructure that he has and the financial firepower, he's dwarfed by mitt romney's battle group, if you'd like. what are you going to do about that? >> there's a great deal of enthusiasm. what i'm seeing is, people just like santorum. i started hearing this a few months ago when people would come up to me and say, they didn't really know him, but they would come up to me and say, hey, that santorum guy, i watched him on tv, i watched him on debate. i think he's telling me the truth. i think he's honest. i think he's straightforward. i like him. that's what i'm hearing all over the state of ohio. so romney's clearly going to come in with the big guns. he's already on tv. but i think in ohio santorum is going to win. >> did president kennedy's speech about the separation of church and state make you want to throw up and do you think it's snobbish for the president of the united states to want people to go to college? >> well, i think senator santorum is explaining what he meant. let's take the colleges. i think that what he has said is the same thing that you would agree with and almost every american would agree with. we want our children to live up to their greatest potential. my wife and i have eight children. they are all different. we want them to do the best that they can. that may mean college for some children. some kids it may mean going to an art school. it may mean doing things with their hands and any number of ways. i think that's what rick is saying. it was kind of misconstrued. it wasn't the anti-education. here's a guy that certainly has a lot of education as does his wife karen. so i don't think that was it. you know, as far as the whole question of church and state, i think rick's position is pretty simple and that is, when somebody walks into their office, it's the oval office, or senate office or mayor's office, they don't leave behind their beliefs. they don't leave behind their morals, their ethics, their religious beliefs. and their public positions are informed by what those beliefs are. i don't think that's a revolutionary thought. and i think that most americans would agree with that. i think governor romney's campaign, frankly, at least so far has been kind of stuck at -- can't really break much beyond 40% in any state despite how much money he spends. >> mike dewine, if we can turn to the terrible shooting in your state at chardon high school, obviously more and more details are emerging about this. are you any clearer about what the motive may have been for this senseless killing? >> it's not clear at all what the motive is, what the motive was. i think it will come out slowly as the interviews continue with people who were close to the assailant, family members and others. and i think over time we may be able to piece something together. as of now i don't really -- can't tell anything really about the motive. you know, there was no real red flags that were going up to people. as people we talked to yesterday, you know, people weren't saying, oh, i knew this was going to happen. at least we haven't found people like that yet. >> mike dewine, thank you very much. >> thank you. when we come back, can mitt romney wrap up the nomination on super tuesday. will it be nult gingrich's last stand? ♪ ( whirring and crackling sounds ) man: assembly lines that fix themselves. the most innovative companies are doing things they never could before, by building on the cisco intelligent network. but proven technologies allow natural gas producers to supply affordable, cleaner energy, while protecting our environment. across america, these technologies protect air - by monitoring air quality and reducing emissions... ...protect water - through conservation and self-contained recycling systems... ... and protect land - by reducing our footprint and respecting wildlife. america's natural gas... domestic, abundant, clean energy to power our lives... that's smarter power today. 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[whoosh, clang] you need lifelock, the only identity theft protection company that now monitors bank accounts for takeover fraud. lifelock: relentlessly protecting your identity. call 1-800-lifelock or go to lifelock.com today. welcome to new nutritionpossible.com... from centrum. its unique assessment tool... helps you find the multivitamin and supplements... that are right for you. so visit nutritionpossible.com. better nutrition... is within reach. centrum. nutrition possible. it's clear that governor romney can raise more money because he can go to wall street and get more money from the people that got bailouts from the taxpayers. so in effect your money is coming back to you in the form of negative ads. i can't match that. but what i can do is match it with people. >> newt gingrich taking a shot at mitt romney over money. he says he's banking on super tuesday. kevin dewine is the chairman of that state's party and joins me now. i spoke to your colleague earlier who obviously defected. what do you think of that defection? is there a family rift about it? >> no. not at all, piers. in ohio, there's two dewines, one the attorney general, mike, does an outstanding job of taking care of the taxpayers of the state. he has endorsed senator santorum. my job is to make sure that we beat barack obama in the fall and let voters choose the nominee next week. no family rift at all. >> ohio is going to be crucial here on super tuesday. what is your sense about the way it's going? >> well, i think ohio is going to be a lot like we saw with michigan over the course of the last week. and i would suggest to your viewers that they just throw out any poll they have seen so far. any poll that they have looked at so far, before thursday or friday is probably worthless. have you the gingrich super pac is making a buy. romney's folks -- tv folks are up. santorum's up, santorum cease doing mail. there's a lot campaigning that's going to be unfurled on to the ohio gop family over the course of the next five or six days. so no telling what this thing's going