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>> martin, from a democratic perspective, who are the democrats worried most about? >> i don't think you have to worry about any of the individuals. the president has to be worried about the economy. if the economy isn't doing well, whoever the republican nominee is will make a strong race. if the economy is doing well, obama will be in very good shape. the republicans have an interesting situation here. either going to go with an insider or an outsider. romney really now is an insider. he's run before. he has establishment support. the other two, pawlenty and huntsman would be considered outs...

>> he didn't care about how it played, he just wanted to get it over with. >> it was too late to be in the sunday papers? except the indianapolis papers. they gave it to them at 7:00 p.m. >> very peculiar. >> he's out. >> he's out? >> yeah. >> what does that mean, i want to ask you andrew sorkin, does that help tim pawlenty? >> i have an answer. >> there are three former governors and mitt romney is clearly the strongest and most likely nominee and tim pawlenty and jon huntsman have obvious paths to the nomination. the notion that anyone else can get in is far-fetched barring a collapse by rom...

Open question. i mean, mitch daniels -- the race isn't settled. and so, if mitch daniels gets in this thing, keeb real factor in the state like iowa. >> dana what do you think? who is the best anti-romney candidate among republicans? >> on paper, tim pawlenty, has the establishment support, has real social conservative credentials but he has yet to catch on fire there as david knows better than anybody in the world, the republican electorate there in -- the actual caucus, the number is so small that it really can be distorted by a candidate that isn't necessarily the one with all the millions....

He was in the low single digits even in places like south carolina where he should have been a powerhouse. so i really think haley barbour, the strategiest, made a very good decision yesterday. jon: all right. so who is the beneficiary of his withdrawal? >> well, if mitch daniels gets in -- and who knows, he's indicated kind of both directions -- if he gets in, i think he would inherit a lot of the establishment support that barbour had among fundraisers and senior republican party officials. by the way, daniels and barbour are very good friends, and everybody had a hard time imagining the two...

Throughout the united states. quite frankly, it is that enthusiasm that's separated the democrats from the republicans where the enthusiasm gap, as we call it, is 15% in favor of the republican party. more republicans are turning out in these primaries, all of which bodes well for us as we enter into the november elections. then when you start to get to the generic polling, this is going to be, unless something dramatically changes in the next nine weeks, this is going to be a watershed week for the republican party. >> right. but i do want to talk a little bit about that generic polling a sec...