intelligence committees, democrat dianne feinstein and republican mike rogers. plus, the anemic recovery and the election with "the national journal's" major garrett and janice rivlin. i'm candy crowley and this is "state of the union." republican leaders and former rivals are gathering around mitt romney's candidacy, but the coalescing lacks a certain warm and fuzzy feature. >> compared to barack obama? i would trust mitt romney 100 times over. >> he's the guy. he called and i called him back. we kind of traded some voicemails. >> he's the person that is going to go up against barack obama. it's pretty clear. and we need to win this race. >> i am joined by the latest candidate to exit the race, former house speaker newt gingrich. thanks for being here this morning. >> good to be here. >> so my question is these have not been warm embraces. it was a tough campaign, and i get that that's a tough step to take, but do you think that it's time now to try to bring those who would follow you and say, listen to me, i do embrace this guy in a whole manner, because he needs to move on, doesn't he, to get into the fall campaign? >> i think what he did this weekend is exactly right. he needs to draw the contrast with barack obama whose campaign lunch i thought was an absurdity. >> why? >> well, this is a president who talked about hope and change. what are the changes? more americans lost their jobs than since the great depression. more americans lost their homes than any time in history. more americans are in poverty than any time since the great depression. bigger -- higher gasoline prices. these are the changes under barack obama. >> okay. let me just -- you know that the president's team is going to say, listen, we have, you know, added jobs to this economy that we were hemorrhaging when he started, which is a fact. i mean, they were hemorrhaging jobs when he took over from george w. bush, and he has added jobs, not enough jobs, which they concede, but he's added jobs, and people are being a little more bullish on the economy, and that's where this election is decided. so doesn't he sit pretty well? >> i think he sits very badly once the facts are out because the truth is the unemployment rate -- if we had the same number of people in the workforce that we had on the day he was sworn in, it would be over 10% unemployment. what obama has succeeded in doing is actually driving people out of the workforce. so unemployment is down because there are fewer people looking for a job. but there's a deeper part. there is no recovery since world war ii that is as weak and as lacking in jobs as this recovery. now, if he wanted to campaign in 2010 and say it was george w. bush's fault, that's one thing, but after four years, can you imagine ronald reagan in 1984 saying, oh, it's all jimmy carter's fault? >> i want to move on because i want to ask you about mitt romney, but it is true that he came into a situation that no modern u.s. president has come into. >> and he has made it worse. he has made it worse. >> let me ask you, is there anything that mitt romney could do for you that would make you support him publicly more wholesomely? >> well, i thought the other day when i gave my speech suspending the campaign, i was pretty clear -- >> you said he's better than the president. >> but that's the first thing you want to say to people is, look, this is not some magic show. you're either going to get barack obama or you're going to get mitt romney. now, i don't see how any conservative, given that choice, could end up favoring barack obama, and that's what it's going to come down to. mitt romney has many strong things. first of all, he won. you know, i didn't win. rick perry didn't win. michele bachmann didn't win. rick santorum didn't win. you have to have some respect for a guy who spent six years of his life, put together a serious national campaign, made the case. in the two debates that were decisive, frankly, he beat me. i beat him in a lot of other debates, but when it got to the crunch and he had to do it or die, he did it, and so i have great respect for him. i think that the -- and i'm not quite sure what the magic words as you-all in the media want out of me, so let me say this. i believe that mitt romney will be a dramatically better president for the united states than barack obama. i believe that he has earned the right to represent the republican party and he's earned it the hard way. he has fought his way to the nomination. nobody gave him an inch. >> and do you want something from him? do you want to speak at the convention? do you need help with your debt? is there any kind of that negotiation going on? >> no, no. there's no negotiation. if they think i'm helpful speaking at the convention, i'm glad to do it. i've done lots of conventions in my career and as we're proving this morning, i can get on tv fairly often with or without speaking at the convention. obviously, i'd love help from anybody paying off the debt. obviously, president obama is not going to do it. if they want to go to newt.org, i'm grateful. i have been at this as a republican since 1958 when i was between my freshman and sophomore years in high school. i believe the republican party's very important to our future. what i want mitt romney to do is help us achieve a victory in the senate, the house, and the presidency, and then i want him to give my grandchildren a better future than they're going to get under barack obama. that's all i ask out of him. >> do you have a date set to campaign with him? >> we're talking about several dates and several major events we're going to do together. i have said to the campaign, i will be available at their convenience to do anything they want me to do because they're in charge. this is their campaign. they've got to win it, and i have got to be there as an associate, but i'm not the leader. mitt romney is the leader. >> would you be number two? >> oh, i can't imagine it. you've known me for years. would you pick me to be number two? >> that's a wholly different story. let's deal with the reality of it. would you be mitt romney's number two? >> i think romney is going to look for somebody who is younger. i think he's got somebody like kelly ayotte in new hampshire, rob portman, marco rubio. you look at susannah martinez, bobby jindal, mitch daniel. >> pretty big field. >> we have a deep bench. >> you brought up the senate. and i want to ask you about a particular senate primary race that is coming up in indiana. it's the battle of richard murdoch who is a tea party-backed candidate, senator dick luger, who has been in the senate for decades. i mean, i think at least six elections. so in the senate, that's decades. it now appears that luger is ten points behind. our latest poll showing 38% dick lugar, 38%, richard mourdock. >> i have known them both a very long time. mourdock has been campaigning very hard. he representing the tea party change momentum. my hunch is mourdock is going to win. i think it's one of those place where is people want more change and they're not comfortable -- and they have a governor who has brought tremendous changes. they have a real model of change. >> are you a supporter of mourdock? >> i have not gotten involved in primaries. >> do you think that if this means the seat in indiana comes into play in the general election -- >> oh, it won't. whoever wins will win the -- >> i will have to see you on that. do you think -- i want to talk about the tea party in general. they have not had -- mitt romney was certainly not their big pick for the republican primaries at the presidential level. it looks like orrin hatch in utah will survive what was a much stronger showing for the tea party when it came to a previous senator who was unseated. do you think the tea party has lost power? we're also looking at polls showing that people have a less favorable view of the tea party now. >> i think the effort to attack the tea party has had an impact. my experience of the tea parties has been overwhelmingly, they're serious. they study the constitution, the declaration of independence. i mean, i find them to be very serious citizens everywhere i go in the country and i think the tea parties have added a lot, and i think you will se,e in and i think you will see, in certain races, they are still very, very important. >> they seem to have faded a bit. >> they don't have passion ned in 2010. partially i think out of frustration with having won the house and not seeing the scale of change they want. i mean, this is a very complex form of government and it takes longer to get something done than people would like. >> i want to -- there was an editorial in "the l.a. times" today from former california governor arnold schwarzenegger. and, in part, he said, "an inclusive party would welcome the party's most conservative activists right alongside its most liberal activists. there is room for those whose views, i think, make them sound like cavemen and there is also room for us in the center with views the traditionalists probably think make us sound like progressive softies." it was about a couple of folks that had been republicans and couldn't stand how closed the tent was in the republican party. do you have a problem with being inclusive? because most people do look at republicans going they are a conservative bunch of white guys who want to protect big oil, and now you're even hearing republicans saying it's not big enough, we haven't opened up the tent door. >> you should probably get somebody like tim scott or allen west to talk about being a bunch of white guys since they're both african-american congressmen. but i would just say -- or marco rubio or susannah martinez. >> it's not as diverse as the democratic party. you concede that. >> although the democratic party has no room for a right-to-life speech at the national convention. >> lest we get off topic -- >> but i think it's important. lack of diversity in the democratic party is ignored because they define diversity one way. the fact that the republican party has rudy giuliani, who is i think one of the most widely admired people in the republican party and who clearly is far more moderate on a number of issues than mitt romney or certainly than rick santorum. i think we have very broad range of people that we're proud to have as republicans and there's not an automatic litmus test, although we are largely a pro-life party and we're largely -- definitely is pro-balanced budget and pro-smaller government party. >> former speaker newt gingrich, former presidential campaigner. next chapter to be determined. thank you so much for dropping by. appreciate it. virginia and ohio, two swing states on the candidates' minds. >> virginians are not going to be fooled. >> ohio, this election will be even closer than the last. what ? 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[ man announcing ] what we created here. what we achieved here. what we learned here. and what we pioneered here. all goes here. the one. the accord. smarter thinking from honda. you are forgiven if you think the 2012 election campaign began months ago, but the obama re-election team says it officially kicked off yesterday. >> hello, virginia! it is good to be back in ohio! >> ohio and virginia have 31 electoral votes between them, along with political and economic landscapes that make them battlegrounds. ohio unemployment has been dropping for eight straight months. it has tracked below the national average. but voters there say when it comes to the economy, the presumptive republican nominee would do a better job than the president. the importance of ohio electoral strategy, the president has visited there 21 times since taking office, more than any other state that doesn't neighbor washington. virginia is just a trip across the bridge for the president, and he takes that trip frequently. mitt romney will be a regular as well. >> you're going to hear it all right here in virginia. this may well be the state that decides who the next president is. >> at the moment, romney trails obama by seven points in virginia. not only is the ground game already at full tilt in both states, the air war is under way as well. >> mitt romney stood with big oil for their tax breaks, attacking higher mileage standards. >> he said i don't care how long it takes. we're going to find her. he set up a command center and searched through the night. the man who helped save my daughter was mitt romney. >> former virginia congressman tom davis and former ohio governor ted strickland on battleground politics next. [ female announcer ] introducing a match made in skin heaven. new venus & olay. olay moisture bars help lock in moisture... while five blades get venus close. revealing smooth and goddess skin begins. only from venus & olay. joining me is ohio's former governor, democrat ted strickland, and republican tom davis, a former virginia congressman. gentlemen, thanks both. governor, let me start with you, and i want to put up an ohio quinnipiac poll recently. if the election were held today, president obama, 44%. president -- sorry, republican nominee romney, 42%. it is essentially a tie in a state which has a fairly good unemployment rate at this point, about 7.5%. that's not great, but it's below the national average. why is the president having trouble there? >> well, i don't know that he's having trouble, candy, but ohio is a battleground, and no candidate and no party can ever take ohio for granted. so this is going to be a very close election. but i think the president's pretty well-positioned. his saving of the auto industry is a big deal for ohio. >> sure. >> there are hundreds of thousands of people working today in ohio because of the auto industry's recovery -- >> that's why i asked why it's so close. that's why i asked it's so close. >> i think it's close because of the nature of ohio. we are a microcosm of america. the country is divided, and the electorate in ohio is divided as well. it was close the last time. it will be close this time. it's always close in ohio, but i think the president's well-positioned because he's got a good team on the ground already. they've organized throughout the state of ohio, and i think his message is resonating. i think it did yesterday as he talked about why he deserves a second term. >> let me -- i want to turn to virginia and just get the lay of the land there before i get you both in a more general discussion. would it help if rob portman were on the ticket with mitt romney? would it help him in a close race in ohio? >> i think it may help marginally, but i don't think it would guarantee that mr. romney would carry ohio. >> right. >> rob portman i described as a very conservative guy with wonderfully good manners, but i don't think he has the kind of standing throughout ohio that would guarantee that he would carry the day for mitt romney. >> enough standing anyway to make him the sitting senator, but we'll get back to that. i want to show some virginia polls here for you, congressman. if the election were held today, president obama, 51%. mitt romney, 44%. virginia up until the last presidential election was a conservative place. what's happened? >> well, a couple things. first of all, president obama skewed the turnout level by just bringing african-american voters out in droves, driving it from 14% of the electorate to 18%, 19% and the college town turnout across virginia, even traditional republican towns like radford and harrisonburg, both came out droves for president obama. >> so it got more democratic. more people came out to vote? >> absolutely. of course, now all those college students are gone and they got to reregister them. you don't have the same level of enthusiasm. i think the african-american turnout will be there for him. in northern virginia, he ran overwhelmingly last time, carrying about 233,000 votes. that's part of the wealthiest part of the country. he's not going to do as well there this next time, but it's going to be a battleground. virginia is going to be a genuine battleground at this point, and northern virginia is going to be key for governor romney, but, remember, this is part of the wealthiest part of the country. when you start putting a bull's-eye on people making over $200,000, $250,000 a year, that's where they live and i think it's going to be some problems for the president moving down the line. >> the march unemployment rate in virginia was 5.8% which compared to a lot of other states is great. i'm assuming that may help president obama. i want to -- >> it does. i think it's a credit to our governor, you know, who has brought a lot of jobs in, and the fact that the federal government continues to spend money and in the northern virginia suburbs, that's where the economy is. it's with government. >> i want to read you something from our james carville, as you know, he's a democratic strategist. he told "the richmond times dispatch," "we," meaning democrats, "can lose virginia and still win but if we win virginia, we win the presidency. it is a must-win swing state for republicans. if obama wins virginia, call the dogs in and pee on the fire because it's over." just a little colorful james carville there for you all. do you agree that virginia is a linchpin without which the romney campaign collapses? >> i don't, but i think governor romney will carry virginia. i think you just have to take a look at the demographics and the voter turnout model that the president brings out in virginia driving up particularly african-american and minority turnout, that in a presidential year, democrats do much better there. it's contrary to ohio and colorado and some of these other states. i think governor romney will carry it at the end of the day. >> governor strickland, i want to read you back something you hold "the huffington post" a couple years ago at the end of 2010. "i think there is a hesitancy --" you're talking about the democrats at this point -- "i think there is a hesitancy to talk using populist language. i think it has to do with a sort of intellectual elitism that considers that kind of talk is somehow lacking in sophistication. i'm not sure where it comes from but i think it's there. there's an unwillingness to draw a line in the sand." i just want to remind our viewers that you lost your election in ohio as did i think five u.s. democratic congressmen who lost their races in ohio in a republican sweep. has the party changed vis-a-vis its language? >> oh, the president's message is right on target right now as far as i'm concerned. he's talking about women. he's talking about students. he's talking about a fair tax code. and as i said, you know, he's talking about manufacturing, and he saved the auto industry. so the president's message is resonating right now. i think not only in ohio, but across the country. i think