arizona. you're in "the situation room." they are numbers that are making mitt romney nervous. they are certainly catching the attention of the obama re-election campaign. we're talking about the latest polls that show rick santorum at the front of the republican presidential pack. look at that gallup tracking poll number that has santorum ten points aheads of romney nationally among registered republicans. even with the sampling error, santorum is the frontrunner in this poll. but that position comes with an extra bit of scrutiny and santorum is now being called on to explain some rather controversial remarks from recent days. our national political correspondent, jim acosta is joining us now. jim, what's going on with rick santorum and his campaign right now? >> rick santorum has spent the last couple of days making hot comments about the president and touch, on sensitive issues. it's a reminder of the culture that santorum has worn proudly throughout his career. lately, rick santorum has sounded more fire and brimstone then a frontrunner warning a crowd in georgia against sitting idly by on election day as america did leading to up its involvement in world war ii. >> we think, it will get better. he's a nice guy. i mean, it won't be near as bad as what we think. i mean, you know, this will be okay. i mean, oh, yeah, it -- maybe he's not the best guy and after a while you found out some things about this guy in europe and he's not so good of a guy after all but why do we need to be involved? we'll just take care of our own problems. >> ask whether he was comparing the president to adolph hitler, santorum said, flatly "no." but before that, at another event the rising gop contender appeared to call the president's political belief system a kind of theology that wasn't quite christianity. >> it's about some phony ideal, some phony ideal, some phony theology. not a theology based on the bible a different theology but no less, a theology. >> obama re-election campaign spokesman robert gibbs who said the president's political team now takes santorum seriously as a potential nominee and called the comments part of a republican race to the bottom. >> i think the idea that rick santorum could be the nominee say real one. and obviously, we're looking more at what rick santorum is talking about and what he's offering. he made some comments over the past to you days that i think question people's character and question people's faith. and i don't think that belongs in our politics. >> in his own sunday talk show appearance santorum denied he was questioning the president's faith. >> i wasn't suggesting the president's not a christian. i accept the fact that the president is a christian. >> and he defended his view that health insurance companies should not be forced to core prenatal care because he said it leads to more abortions. >> yes, prenatal testing and amniocentesis does, in fact, result more often than not, in this country in abortion. that is a fact. >> santorum claims prenatal care is designed to find abnormalities in the womb, a staunch opponents of abortion rights often points to his daughter with a disability, bella, on this issue. but he says the gop contender can separate his personal belief from public policy. the question is how voters will respond to this latest tough talk from santorum. more comments like the ones he made over the weekend, how hot is too hot? wolf? >> and he's sort of doubling-down on these comments, jim. he's not backing away as far as i can tell from any of them. >> that's right. only the comparison with world war ii. he says flatly he was not making a comparison with president obama and adolph hitler and i talked to a santorum spokesman who also said that santorum was talking about washington, the way washington works. he says that they're taking people's liberties away in washington and that's what happened over in europe, not a comparison with adolph hitler, according to the santorum campaign, wolf. >> all right, jim accoosta reporting. >> his convert shall remarks, prenatal checking. we're doing a serious fact check on this entire subject and lisa sylvester will report in the next hour. the super pac is backing mitt romney and responding to the santorum surge the same way it did when newt gingrich rose to the top of the polls, flooding the airwaves with attack ads. joe johns is covering the campaign right now. he's with mitt romney in cincinnati. what is the very latest on this front, joe? >> reporter: well, wolf, if the campaign has really learned anything after all this time, it is that they make progress when they get aggressive. and here in swing state, lowe, today, the mitt romney campaign pretty much came out swinging. >> thank you. >> reporter: in more than one way it was business as usual for mitt romney in cincinnati. selling his experience in the private sector. going after the latest contender to zoom to the top of the polls. >> one of the people i'm running against, senator santorum, goes to washington and calls himself a budget hawk. and then after he's been there a while he says he's no longer a budget hawk. well, i am a budget hawk. i don't want to spend more money than we take in. >> reporter: at a small business event romney appeared with rob portman a former u.s. budget director under george bush. i asked portman about that but he wouldn't go there. >> i'm happy representing these folks in ohio. >> would you take it if he offered it? >> you know what he's going to need when he gets elected? people in the united states senate. >> but the immediate question is not about running mates it's about who is the party's nominee for president and to that end, the romney campaign is creating deja vu all over again in the super tuesday states as well as dimini michigan and arizona. a flood of advertising from the romney campaign and pro romney super pac hits the next campaign up on the next calendar. a million in michigan where the candidate grew up. the super pac ads hit santorum hard as a washington insider. >> romney rescued the olympics. >> santorum was in washington voting to raise the debt limit five times. >> reporter: no accident that there are already questions whether santorum's surge to the front of the pac could have occur too early. did he peak too soon with michigan and arz not scheduled to vote until the 28th of the month, still time for a change in the race. could santorum take a fall like newt gingrich did in the florida primary? >> the difference between santorum and gingrich is that santorum doesn't have as many holes in his record so the pressure really is on romney right now to either show some passion, come up with a compelling message because this isn't about records. this is about the fact that mitt romney is not giving conservatives a reason to vote for him. >> mitt romney attends a fundraiser here in ohio tonight and then he heads back to the state of michigan to continue working there. a lot of hopscotching right now, wolf. >> and it looks like that strategy that they used to really beat back gingrich in iowa later in florida, as you say, that's the strategy that they're going to use in michigan right now. a little less here in arizona. they're more confident about arizona, the romney folks, than they are michigan? >> it certainly looks that way. >> joe johns on the scene for us us usual, thank you. despite the bitter contest the republican candidates are united in their attacks an president obama and the sudden spike in gas prices is giving them a brand new weapon. our white house correspondent is joining us from the white house. briana, what's the latest on this front? potentially it could be a significant weapon against the snpt. >> and wolf, the white house and obama campaign is bracing for a continued assault on this issue. not just in republicans out on the campaign trail, but also, from congressional republicans. we know from a house republican source that speaker boehner told the house republicans last week this is a debate they should welcome especially on recess and they will making the case for increased drilling. on the campaign trail, especially looking toward super tuesday, you're seeing some of the republican presidential hopefuls really make this case as you see, these -- some of these prominent energy states going to be in play on super tuesday. listen to what rick santorum said, blaming president obama for high gas prices and the effect that it has on americans who are already struggling. >> all of a sudden they're going to be hit with the same force of wind that hit us in 2008 in the summer that caused us to go into a recession. all because of the radical environmentalist policies of this president. >> now, the obama campaign, the white house, they're pretty confident with their defense. they say, wolf, and you've heard them say this about economic issues before. control what you can control. they look at iran and say they can't control that but we've done things that we can control. the payroll tax cut extension, they point to that putting more money in the pockets of americans so they can afford higher gas prices. they point to the fuel efficiency standards in the actions the president has taken and that's during his administration. and they also point to the fact that domestic oil production is the highest that it's been in ten years, wolf. >> you know, i've covered a lot of presidential campaigns and there's a history of presidents getting hit on this specific issues with isn't there, briana? >> there is, wolf. it doesn't matter if they're a democrat or republican, if you lo look, we can take you back to march of 2004 when john kerry was hammering president bush as he tried to unseat him over gas prices. he was in san diego where gas prices were about $2.15, of course, we'd love to see that but that was high at the time. listen to what he said. >> i'll tell you what, if the gas prices keep rising at the rate they're going now, dick cheney and george bush are going to have to carpool to work. >> so channel that frustration and this is a tactic used by democrats and republicans and, wolf, i should tell you that there's a sense in the obama campaign and at the white house, that the big concern, while they are concerned about gas prices, obviously they're much more concerned about the unemployment number, especially when gas prices tend to recede in price after the summer. >> yeah, one of the problems. if the gas prices keep going up so might the unemployment number because there could be a correlation. more expensive energy, less jobs. thanks very much for that. just days before the arizona primary election, the gop contenders will face off in the arizona republican presidential debate. that's here in mesa, arizona. that's wednesday night, 8:00 p.m. eastern. only on and they will moderate the debate. here's other political headlines making news on the cnn political ticker. republican florida seven for mark rubio comes out on top. rick santorum is second and new jersey governor chris christy rounding out the top three. they came in a lot higher than the last time this survey was conducted two months ago. ron paul's campaign said it raised $4.5 million in january. that's not counting $1.7 million it says that it has been raised online from a so-called "money bomb" that's still going on. the campaign reports $1.6 million cash on hand. and it says it's on track to top its fourth quarter haul of more than $13 million. the cofounder of papal is pumping cash into the super pac, supporting ron paul. new filings with the federal election commission, show peter teal donated $1.7 million in january, on top of $900,000 he donated in december. the money from the silicon valley billionaire accounts for 76% of the super pac's fundraising so far. remember, for complete political coverage, be sure to read the ticker on cnn politics.com. a look at a side of the syria fighting only cnn can bring you, just ahead, the men behind the syrian opposition. ivan watson takes us to the countryside where farmers, cacae waging war. and the u.s. is trying to keep israel from taking action against iran. senator lindsey graham and senator john mccain, they're my guests this hour and we'll talk about whether or not that's a good or a bad idea. and on a very different note, jeremy lin's unbelievable rise to fame. just ahead, you'll meet the man who predicted it, years ago! ♪ there's another way to minimize litter box odor: purina tidy cats. our premium litters now work harder to help neutralize odors in multiple cat homes. purina tidy cats. keep your home smelling like home. oh! 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[ male announcer ] michelin knows it's better for xerox to help manage their finance processing. so they can focus on keeping the world moving. with xerox, you're ready for real business. potentially pivotal meeting plan at white house. lisa sylvester is monitoring that and some other top stories in "the situation room." what's going on? >> hi, wolf, mounting tensions between israel and iran are no doubt high on the agenda when president obama hosts israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu at the white house. the white house announced the two leaders will meet march 5th. netanyahu will be in washington to speak to the annual policy meeting of a pro israel lobby. israel made clear it considers iran's nuclear program enough of a threat to warrant an attack on its infrastructure. the u.s. has advised israel against it. the death toll from friday's suicide bombing at a marketing tribal region climbs with each passing day. a government official now says 40 people are dead from the blast. dozens more were wounded. it happened in a town about 180 miles west of islamabad. someone riding a motorcycle entered a festival crowd after prayers and detonated the bomb. chaos at a prison in northern mexico. this left 44 people dead and 30 inmates on the lamb. federal and state police around the facility where rioting erupted yesterday. the local governor said the 30 escapees are member of the zeta drug cartel. the prisoners directors and 18 guards are been removed and are under investigation. >> in northern california, two pilots that managed to survive a midair collision. shaken but not badly hurt on sunday evening when a helicopter clipped a small plane. a federal aviation spokesman said the chopper went down between san francisco and sacramento. the plane landed about 20 miles to the south. one fire official says it was lucky for everybody involved. pretty amazing when you consider everything, wolf. >> very lucky, indeed. amazing, you're right. thank you, lisa. it's been 17 days of unrelenting shelling by syrian forces on opposition strong holds in the syrian city of homs. cnn cannot verify the authenticity of this youtube video but it demonstrates the pounding neighbors into the besieged city are said to be taking. opposition movement with few arms and no sign of serious international support, is a poor match against the well-equipped forces of syria's bashar all assad regime. we got a first-hand look at syria's so-called "orphan resolution." meet syria's armed opposition. a handful of men on a hillside, leading prayer by a masked cleric. god grant us victory over the sinners, he chants. make us victorious over the family of assad. bravery against a 40-year dictatorship from fighters who are little more than boys. >> this is a rebellion of farmers, carpenters and university students. the men here describe themselves as members of the free syrian army. but it would be much more accurate to call them an impromptu village guard. many of them are defending these olive groves that surround their community with little more than hunting shotguns. the men guarding the entrance to this opposition-held town, don't have enough guns or ammunition. the commander is a former syrian army general who defected six months ago. like many of his fighters he covers his face for safety. he calls syria's 11-month-old uprising "the orphan revolution." unlike the revolts in ejicht, libya, tunisia and yemen, the syrian rebels haven't received any foreign support. with no outside help, the men of the community turned to a higher power. friday prayers in a packed mosque in the rebel-held town. condolences for a man killed by a sniper's bullet in the nearby city turned into a full-throated war. "god is great." the town march into the town square and performs a weekly ritual of defiance against bashar. there's no syrian government presence in this town but assad's tanks are never far away. >> they are one kilometer away from here. >> the syrian army? >> yes, syrian army. >> will you fight if the syrian army comes here? >> yes. we were here for ten months and it was peaceful. now there is no other solution. >> you have to fight? >> yeah. we have to fight. >> not everyone shares the spirit of defiance. this man spends his days taking care of the flock of pigeons he breeds on his roof. these are hard times for the whole country, he says. it's too dangerous to travel outside of town because you don't know who you could meet on the opened road. and if you leave, you may never come back. trapped at home while his birds fly flree, he waits for what may feel inevitable, i syrian civil war. >> joining us now is ivan watson who filed that report. ivan, glad you're safe and back in turkey out of syria. here's a question -- how much control does the syrian government really have over the northern province of syria that you were in? >> the syrian government is facing an insurgency, wolf, that the syrian government has a network of military bases and it's got tanks and it has attack helicopters and air power. and troops. but they seem to be staying largely confined to their bases, meanwhile, we drove through village after village, town after town, where the opposition had set up road blocks at the entrances to their villages and towns. they had blocked roads with either sandbags or piles of dirt and they were controlling what was taking place inside their towns. there were no government officials to speak of in the towns that we visited. the residents are terrified of the power of the syrian military, knowing that they can't really fight back if there was a full-fledged assault. but the fact of the matter is, there's some kind of uneasy stalemate with deadly skirmishes taking place between the two assailants on both sides. >> ivan, thank you. he's fortunately back safe in turkey right now and we'll stay in close touch. here's a question, should the u.s. be arming syria's rebels? senators john mccain and lindsey graham, they say, yes. it may be time to start seriously considering that. they're coming up next right here in "the situation room." we're reporting today from may saw, arizona, the site of wednesday night's republican presidential debate. ♪ ♪ wow... ♪ [ female announcer ] sometimes, all you need is the smooth, creamy tast