Video: A campaign reality check for the GOP

>>> news nation is following what amounts to game over in the republican presidential race after mitt romney 's clean sweep of tuesday's primaries and wisconsin, maryland, and the district of columbia . now romney and president obama as mentioned are laser focused on one another with romney delivering the latest punches. he came out swinging at the president just a couple of hours ago as romney addressed newspaper editors in washington.

>> the president came here yesterday and railed against arguments no one is making and criticized policies no one is proposing. it is one of his favorite strategies, setting up straw to distract us from his record.

>> as far as rick santorum is concerned, it is still only as he put it halftime in the race for the gop nomination and it is on his home state of pennsylvanipe pennsylvania he is putting his hopes.

>> who is ready to charge out of the locker room for a strong second half? the clock starts tonight. we have three weeks to go out here in pennsylvania and win this state and after winning this state the field looks different in may.

>> let's pry in the panel michael and charlie sites who endorsed mitt romney . thank you for joining me. all of these football references, good thing i played football with my brothers. is it over?

>> it is over. i think what's going on has more to do with what happened in 2006 than what's just taken place in 2012 . by that, tamron, what i mean is rick santorum got hammered in pennsylvania , lost by 18 points, and the last time he ran statewide. i think this is all about his legacy that he wants to go forward for three more weeks so that hopefully he can win pennsylvania and then in 2016 he won't not guy that lost by 18 points, he will be the guy who defeated mitt romney . one problem. pennsylvania is a beauty contest . whether he wins the popular vote has nothing to do with whether he wins the delegates. he can win and still walk away with no delegates.

>> you have endorsed mitt romney , charlie , and i know that mr. romney says it is not for him to tell rick santorum to get out of the race but if santorum is trying to save his legacy, save his name, that means he is willing to do anything perhaps within the rules of the game to bring down mitt romney to save face here. how concerned are you that mr. romney could be further damaged? we already heard paul ryan say at this point he is worried that this could be damaging for romney .

>> well, i find myself agreeing with james carville who says that the chicken who has his head cut off is the last person to know that he is dead, and there is only about politicians at this point in the election cycle where maybe you have to be bad at math. i think he is playing it out. i think there is a certain amount of pride that's going on here. i agree that it is over, you know, to use an appear practice analogy as opposed to a football analogy. here in wisconsin the fat lady sang last night.

>> my question was are you worried that your candidate, the person you endorsed could suffer further damage if rick santorum is to stay in the race, he can't just stay in the race based on i am a good guy, he has to fight it out?

>> i think that's why you're seeing the coalescing. i think that's why you're seeing across the country that republicans have decided this has gotten old and we have spent too many time about fighting about purt at this, running negative adds against one another and i think the president helped romney by pivoting in the general election mode and i think that's what you're going to see. this is what rick santorum has to understand, i think, that republican voters are increasingly focused on the general election rather than this. yeah, i mean, if he wants to go as a dead ender and run lots of negative ads, he could continue to hurt rom my. i just cannot imagine him surviving much past pennsylvania .

>> michael , you know rick santorum very well. you're from pennsylvania . you talked to him and covered it. what would he want at this point other than as you pointed out to get the satisfaction in his home state because he did so poorly the last time he was in a statewide race there?

>> given where he started, i am sure he looks as this as having not ultimately successful because he won't win the nomination but on balance a good run. i think given his age, he is probably looking at 2016 . i fully expect that santorum comes out of this, speaks for a great sum of money for a period of years, and maybe goes across the street to fox news, and does it all over again.

>> he is throwing pretty lethal blows at mitt romney .

>> sure has.

>> questioning his conservative values, where he stands, and he is not lightening up on the guy who is the nominee for practical purposes.

>> i think it would be hard to rachet that back.

>> how do you do that?

>> i don't know that he is interested in doing that. he is a true believer. one thing about senator santorum , and i have spent a lot of time with him, he never puts his finger to the wind, maybe to his detriment. what he says, he really means. it is very hard for him to play the conventional political game .

>> charlie , we'll talk more about strategy coming up later. i do want to play a little bit of what president obama said about the gop and the ryan budget in this 1-2 pumplg that he took at mitt romney and paul ryan . let's play it.

>> so far to the right it makes the contract with america look like the new deal. it is a trojan horse , an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. it is thinly veiled social dar winnism. it is antithetical for everyone willing to work for it.

>> we heard the person you backed mitt romney say the president is playing hide and seek , he is trying to distract. how more direct can you be from those comments?

>> the fact is that president obama can't run on his record. what you're seeing is an attempt to demonize paul ryan . i followed paul ryan closely, and what he had to say about the budget was so extreme, so misleading, so dishonest, that quite frankly --

>> dishonest in what way? start with the dishonest.

>> you and i could spend an hour going through the charges he made and the claim he made about this particular budget and frankly they don't hold up under a fact check . again, here you have somebody who ran on hope and change four years ago, and is running on negativity, partisanship, and this sort of hyperbolic.

>> give me a fact check , charlie .

>> some of the things he said about health care , when he says that paul ryan wants to get 19 million americans out of medicaid . well, what he is saying is these are not 19 million people in medicaid who would be forced into medicaid under obama care. so these are people who are not now under medicaid . when he says they're being kicked off of medicaid , i think he is stretching the truth. the whole hyperbolic rhetoric about the weather and the parks, all of this is designed to get people's attention off the fact that we have been running trillion dollar deficits and looking at a massive mountain of debt and he has refused to lead on any of those issues.

>> okay. listen, we just heard charlie give him a chance to tell one thing and he said this is what i think is dishonest, not this is a fact of what is dishonest. i do believe that's why santorum is being left in the background. it is time to ham ter out with these two. we can't go from this is dishonest to i think it is with all due respect, charlie .

>> the president drew a very sharp divide and not just between himself and governor romney but between himself and republicans generally. i think that was the real take away that he was running against the brand gop and i think perhaps had not only his own fate but also the fate of the congress in mind at the time he was making those arguments. they really want to portray this as you have a distinct choice to be made here, which way are you going to go?

>> michael , thank you. charlie , thank you as well. we'll talk more about the strategy from romney and the president coming up. gentlemen, thank you.

kris jenner livestand kelly slater kelly slater palindrome palindrome asana