KEITH OLBERMANN: Let's look now at the questions that must be troubling some Republicans tonight — who are Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum and why does it look like fewer people care now than they did two months ago? For that, I'm joined by Daily Kos founder and publisher, "Countdown" contributor Markos Moulitsas. Good evening, my friend.
MARKOS MOULITSAS: Good evening, Keith.
OLBERMANN: So, all right. Let's split Santorum's past into two categories: internal and external.
The internal first. "I was basically pro-choice all my life until I ran for Congress." And the 1990 issue statement — "Hard cases, abortion hard cases, can't be criminalized." The spokesman said, "Oh, he ran always as a pro-life candidate," a non-denial denial. This is the sort of thing that could really deflate that balloon, couldn't it?
MOULITSAS: Yeah, well, I'm willing to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt that they get crazier as they get older. I mean, Rick Santorum absolutely seems to get nuttier by the day, but what I thought was interesting was the denial, however, because I mean, as we know, if Rick Santorum is as religious as he says he is, that there is actually a commandment that addresses that sort of thing.
OLBERMANN: Mmm-hmmmm. The external problem. Fulminating that the Democrats were the party of Woodstock — and that's only four years ago — primal lust, homosexuality, sexual freedom, which he seems to be totally against in all forms. Is that what, in another sense, the GOP elders fear when they worry about Santorum actually winning the nomination? There'll be something so off-putting that there'd be no chance of a Democrat or independent voting for a Republican candidate, and you literally — you'd have to have Satan running as a third party to bring anybody over to your side?
MOULITSAS: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Rick Santorum really — bottom line — is unelectable. I mean, the guy lost by 17 points in Pennsylvania, which is a battleground state, by the way, the last time he ran for re-election — so the guy isn't exactly the strongest, you know, election candidate. He seems like he was running for Dana Carvey's Church Lady.
OLBERMANN: Yes.
MOULITSAS: Which, actually, is hilarious if you're doing an "SNL" skit, not so funny if you're running for president of the United States.
OLBERMANN: The Romney slip, which we discussed with Nia for a while — saying that spending cuts would slow down the economy. Club for Growth aside — is he going to have to spend the rest of the primaries trying to live that down, and is there anything that if he gets — if and when he gets the nomination, the Democrats could use with that quote?
MOULITSAS: I guess it depends on what Mitt Romney shows up that day. If it's the Mitt Romney who's forgotten he's running in a Republican primary, and is talking about no spending cuts and a progressive tax structure, and talking about the one percent and the 99 percent — well, maybe not so much. But, he still has to run a Republican primary.
In fact, half the time he's talking about all the spending cuts he needs to make, non-defense spending cuts. So his — what this incident does — I don't know if it really affects him moving forward. What it does is it really reinforces the fact that he has no core, no ideological grounding, no principles, and no mooring, nothing that moors him in any way on any issue or any ideological or even moral ethical concern.
OLBERMANN: Lastly, poll numbers, and they're all over the place. The Quinnipiac ones that we quote had him up by — the president up by a couple, but that's registered voters, which is just — just essentially a popularity contest at that point, but in the Associated Press, it has the president over Santorum and Romney by eight and ten, and I can't remember which was which.
But there's a far more interesting number in the AP poll which — they've been tracking GOP Republican interests in the presidential race. First off, 40 percent of Republicans are still dissatisfied with all the candidates. In other words, the choice. And in December, 48 percent said they had a great interest in following this race, and now it's down to 40 percent.
So, as much as it's grown more and more entertaining for people who have been standing on the sidelines — especially people with a left-of-center point of view — apparently there has been something of an attrition rate almost equivalent to the number of Republican candidates who have fallen to the attrition rate.
MOULITSAS: Yeah, I don't think the polls are that off. I mean, the exact number may be off by a point or two, but the trend lines are very consistent. The fact is, Mitt Romney was competitive two months ago, is becoming less and less competitive — particularly in battleground states — and what we found is, absolutely, the longer this primary process drags out, the less people like Rick Santorum, the less they like Mitt Romney, and the better Obama looks in comparison.
Not to mention the money that is being spent. I mean, the Romney campaign spent, what? Thirty-eight million in January alone. The longer this keeps up, the more he's spending that money trying to bash another Republican as opposed to Obama — which is why we're actually encouraging Democrats to vote in open-primary states like Michigan, North Dakota, Tennessee and Vermont because the longer this goes on, the longer — or the better it's going to be for Democrats this fall.
OLBERMANN: You know when you have a sitting president who is willing to start singing repeatedly that —
MOULITSAS: He's feeling pretty cocky, isn't he?
OLBERMANN: Exactly. It's like — he's not a depressed man, relative to his future job possibilities.
The Daily Kos founder and publisher, "Countdown" contributor Markos Moulitsas. It's always a pleasure, sir.
MOULITSAS: Pleasure, thanks so much.
