Conservatives Not Rushing To Romney; Late-Night Comedians Target Romney
MALVEAUX: Here is a rundown of some of the stories we are working on: Next, it looks like Mitt Romney may finally be done fighting off his Republican rivals. But will the base get behind him? Then, for the international community it is a slap in the face. North Korea fueling up a rocket. And later, going to get some hard core workout tips from one of America's most popular personal trainers. Want you to stick around for my interview with Dolvett Quince from "The Biggest Loser." All right. You can almost hear Mitt Romney breathing a sigh of relief today. Rick Santorum's exit from the presidential race gives Romney a clear path to winning the Republican nomination, but can he win over the social conservatives? Joining us to talk about the race moving forward, Democratic strategist Estuardo Rodriguez and Republican strategist Lenny McAllister. So, good to see you both. Social conservative groups not exactly lining up to support Romney. I want you to listen to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Here's what he said.</s>TONY PERKINS, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: If Mitt Romney wants to capture some of that support that Rick Santorum gained with very little money, based solely upon his message, then Mitt Romney needs to pick up that message. Not just when he's asked in debates or cornered by a reporter to say, "Yes, I'm pro-life," or, "Yes, I support marriage," but intertwined that in his message.</s>MALVEAUX: Lenny, how does he do it? How does he manage to get the Santorum supporters and the social conservatives?</s>LENNY MCALLISTER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: It's very simple. Remind them that he's running against President Barack Obama and he is the only person that can beat him in November. He's going to be the nominee. He doesn't need to be as much as social conservatives want him to do now that it looks as though he's definitely going to be the nominee. With Santorum backing out, there is no anti-Romney. It is just Mitt Romney. And the social conservatives are going to coalesce around him. They may do it in a lukewarm fashion, but they will do it. If we thought that they did not as much as we thought they might in 2008, they're definitely going to do it after one presidential term from President Obama. He will speak to them. He will do some kind of olive branching out to them. But for the most part, he's going to stick to the economy. He's going to make sure he has that base coming around when he needs them. He's not going to do that much but he will have their support going into the fall.</s>MALVEAUX: Estuardo, it's not likely that President Obama is going to be able to capture those social conservatives. But clearly here, it does look like he has some sort of advantage he can capitalize off of the fact that the Republicans aren't all lockstep behind Mitt Romney. What does the president need to do?</s>ESTUARDO RODRIGUEZ, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, you know, I have to just quickly say I think Lenny is 100 percent right. Romney not only doesn't have to do as much to attract the conservative voters. It's simply because he's it and the challenge that Romney's going to have really is to avoid having to confront his moderate record of governor of Massachusetts, avoid having to address the fact that he has been more moderate than most conservatives want. That's the big fight that he's had throughout the primaries. I'm sure that when Santorum announced yesterday that he was moving on and dropping out, there was a huge sigh of devastation from the true conservatives out there who are now left to confront the fact that this is it. You either get behind him and go out and vote, or you sit it out. So I think --</s>MALVEAUX: There is this enthusiasm gap here that they are going to have to deal with, and Lenny, talk about that a little bit because how is he going to drum up that type of support here? It really is going to come down to who comes out and votes here. It does look like the president is starting to kind of rile up his base and get people excited again.</s>MCALLISTER: The president is riling up his base, this war on women, the strategy with that, contraception issue. That has gotten the progressive base engaged with President Obama, but one thing that Mitt Romney does have to his side is time. It's still early April. If he can crescendo this up and start building a head of steam in August, get a good vice presidential candidate that he's going to put into that slot that will keep that base going and invigorated and then do well in the debates. He wants to have momentum going in the right direction. He was able to get that coming out of Michigan barely winning, being able to do well on Super Tuesday. Now seeing Rick Santorum leave before Pennsylvania. If he can continue momentum going from April to now, he has six months. If he takes a methodical approach, kind of like what he's done with this primary process, not get caught up in the infatuation with Herman Cain and Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann and even Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. He was methodical, if he could stay that way, he'll be OK.</s>MALVEAUX: All right, let's talk about what builds on the momentum here and that's clearly the money. Mitt Romney, he actually planned to spend more than $2 million on ads in Pennsylvania before Santorum dropped out. We have President Obama who it was just yesterday three fundraisers raking in $1.75 million there, and that's not even to mention the "Super PAC" money. Estuardo, talk a little bit about whether or not we think this is going to turn into a negative and nasty campaign because you have those kind of dollars out there.</s>RODRIGUEZ: Exactly. I mean, what we saw Mitt Romney outspending his primary opponents five to one and with the efficiency that he was able to destroy any momentum that Santorum or Newt Gingrich had at any point throughout those primaries. We're going to see that doubled, if not tripled, because not only do we have to look at the Romney affiliated "Super PAC," but Karl Rove's crossroads. They have already come out and said we have $1.7 million and we're starting today if not yesterday. So you can bet right now that this is just going to -- what we saw in the primaries was just a hint of what we're going to see when now we enter the one-on-one, and Romney is going to definitely benefit from all that money that's coming in.</s>MALVEAUX: We saw the Obama campaign issuing this pretty scathing statement here about Romney after Santorum dropped out of the race. They said, here's the quote, "It's no surprise that Mitt Romney finally was able to grind down his opponents under the avalanche of negative ads, but neither he nor his special interest allies will be able to buy the presidency with their negative ads, their negative attacks." Essentially saying bring it on here, Lenny. They are ready to fight Romney. How does he actually counter the fact that he does have a lot of money and he's seen as being very much an elitist?</s>MCALLISTER: Well, he has that image, but President Obama has the incumbency and he has a pretty darn big war chest himself. When you look at this, one of the things that President Obama is going to have to look at that Mitt Romney will not necessarily have to deal with is the fact that President Obama had the knight in shining armor, the white horse type of campaign in 2008. He's going to probably run a more negative campaign in 2012. He has a record he has to defend and he will have to throw a lot more mud at Mitt Romney with all the big money that's coming into it and that's going to harm the president's image as well. So if they both get into the mud, it's not as though that Romney will lose out and President Obama will have this clear advantage. It's going to hurt President Obama's image as well and unfortunately, this is what American politics have devolved into.</s>RODRIGUEZ: I have to just add, I don't think it's a matter of Obama throwing any mud here. I think what Romney is going to try to do is avoid everything he's already been campaigning on to get the Republican nomination. And that is extreme conservative positions, and he's going to try to run away from that and the president merely has to state you can't etch-a-sketch your way through only the primaries, but also --</s>MALVEAUX: You brought back the etch-a-sketch line.</s>RODRIGUEZ: I'm sorry, I had to.</s>MCALLISTER: We don't want to get into activism here.</s>MALVEAUX: We have to leave it there. All right, Estuardo, Lenny, good to see you both. We'll pick this up later. So now Mitt Romney looking more like the Republican nominee. He's also becoming number one target of late night comedians. Here is Conan O'Brien.</s>CONAN O'BRIEN, COMEDIAN: In financial news, the Dow Jones is down for the fifth day in a row. Yes. When asked for comment, GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney said, don't worry, America, all my money is in Switzerland.</s>MALVEAUX: This guy ending violence one snack at a time. Armed with only a bag of chips, he steps in and stops a fight.