"Face the Nation" transcript: March 4, 2012

Below is a rush transcript of "Face the Nation" on March 4, 2012, hosted by CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer. Guests are Republican Governor Mitch Daniels and Republican presidential candidates Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

SCHIEFFER: Today on Face the Nation, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels with the latest on the devastating tornado damage, plus Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul on the countdown to Super Tuesday.

It has been one of the worst storms ever. At least 38 people dead as mighty tornadoes roared through 12 states. In Kentucky and Indiana, some small towns were not just hit hard, but destroyed. And this morning, thousands of across the middle of America are trying to put their lives back together.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We love you. And we're with you.

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SCHIEFFER: We'll get the latest from Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels who toured his hard hit state yesterday.

Then we'll turn to campaign 2012. With Super Tuesday 48 hours away, we'll hear from Newt Gingrich. Can he resurrect his campaign yet again?

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NEWT GINGRICH, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have to win Georgia, I think, to be credible in the race.

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SCHIEFFER: Then there's Ron Paul. He's yet to win a contest, but don't tell him that.

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RON PAUL, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The good news is we're doing very, very well in getting delegates.

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SCHIEFFER: We'll talk to him too, because this is Face the Nation.

ANNOUNCER: From CBS News in Washington, Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer.

SCHIEFFER: And good morning again and welcome to Face the Nation. What you are you seeing here is a map put out by the National Weather Service which shows where the 90 tornadoes hit Friday and Saturday. 38 people now dead in five states by the latest count, an unbelievable $27.5 million people put at risk by the storms.

The storms in Kentucky, the worst in 24 years. And in Indiana, the town of Henryville was hit by a twister packing 175 miles an hour winds and it stayed on the ground for more than 50 miles.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was in Henryville and in other parts of his hard hit state yesterday. He is with us this morning from Indianapolis. Governor, thank you for finding time to talk with us this morning. Just bring us up to date. What's the latest?

DANIELS: Well, we think the fatality rate in Indiana -- the count we believe is final. We pray it's final at 12. The count of those who lost homes and businesses is smaller than it might have been based on where the powerful storms hit, but it doesn't ease the heartache, as you visit with people, who were in the path of them.

SCHIEFFER: Do you have any idea? Can you put any kind of a dollar figure on the damage out there, governor?

DANIELS: A little too soon right now, Bob. If there was any mercy in this incredibly brutal set of storms it is that it didn't hit more populace areas, but in the frame of reference, the kind of towns that got damaged in our state means everything. And so once again you can't really measure the sense of loss in dollars.

SCHIEFFER: But I noticed some of these towns like Henryville just wiped out. I mean, they weren't just hit hard, they were wiped out. Have you ever seen anything quite like this?

DANIELS: I've had more practice than I wish I had in severe weather and severe storms over these last seven plus years. But just from an educated amateur standpoint, I've never seen one quite this destructive.

The continuity of the storm as you followed its path. This one didn't -- as far as I could tell, pick up and come down very often, it just moved a lawn mower through some of the most beautiful countryside and some of the most beautiful towns that we have. So I will leave it to the experts what number to put on it. I'll just tell you that I haven't seen worse.

SCHIEFFER: Are you planning to ask the federal government for any help? Are you getting help -- have you heard from the president?

DANIELS: Sure did. I was standing in the New Beacon firehouse I guess when the president called. Secretary Napolitano called. Some of my fellow governors were nice enough to call. Governor Patrick and Perry and Scott.

The simple truth is, we know from experience, the first few days are really on with the state and local authorities, on the people and volunteer organizations of a state like Indiana. As tough as this is, Hoosiers are tough, too, Bob. And you just would not believe the resilience and the can do spirit I bumped into everywhere yesterday.

Everywhere I went I ran into people from elsewhere. And they weren't always friends or family, sometimes they were just folks who picked up and drove a distance to pitch in.

SCHIEFFER: Well, governor, this is very early in the tornado season. Are you prepared? What are you going to do to be ready for the next round, because there may well be one?

DANIELS: If you needed another way to keep your human pride under control these storms provided it. I think we were as ready as possible. The weather service and others gave lots of warning. I didn't talk to anybody who wasn't fully aware that terrible storms were on their way. People did the best they could to take shelter. Then the reaction afterward was the fastest we've ever done. With all of that, you know, when mother nature decides to work a wrath on we mere mortals, you remember how inadequate sometimes the best of human action can be.

SCHIEFFER: Well Governor, I'd love to talk a little politics with you, but this morning just doesn't seem the right time. I know you have your mind on a lot of others things. So I want to thank you for being with us.

And to talk a little politics, I want to turn now to Newt Gingrich, because the big story this weekend is campaign 2012. 419 delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday. The contest will be held in 10 states, including Virginia, Vermont, North Dakota, Ohio, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Idaho, Alaska and Georgia.

The man the Atlanta Constitution says is leading in his home state now by double digits is Mr. Gingrich.

So let me ask you, Mr. Speaker, if you don't win in Georgia, what does that do? I mean, you have said you've got to win it. But would that mean it would be it if you don't win down there?

GINGRICH: Oh, sure. I said, I think with you a couple of weeks ago that Romney had to win Michigan, that I had to win Georgia, and that Santorum has to win Pennsylvania. I think you lose all credibility if the folks who know you best repudiate you.

And I think that will lead to a very spirited campaign in Georgia, which we've had. I've been at home campaigning pretty hard the last few days. And I'll be back to the Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday morning before I go to Huntsville. And in addition, it means that you have -- you know, I think Senator Santorum is going to find Pennsylvania is very competitive for him, too. So all of us have to, I think, focus in on carrying our home states.

SCHIEFFER: Well, you're looking very good in Georgia according to the polls. It looks like Santorum and Governor Romney are kind of neck in neck out there in Ohio. Santorum seems to have a lead in both Tennessee and Oklahoma.

How do you see Super Tuesday shaking down? What would you expect to see Wednesday morning as you looks back on it?

GINGRICH: Oh, I think there will be basically Santorum and Romney in the lead, me in third place, but coming back and gaining ground. If you look at the Gallup numbers, for example, I closed the gap on Santorum pretty dramatically in the last two and a half weeks. You know this is the seventh time as you and I have talked about it, this is the seventh time I've been through this up and down cycle. We survived Pawlenty, and Bachmann, and Donald Trump, and then Cain, then Perry, then Cain again, and now Santorum. So we wanted to keep -- twice I've been the frontrunner.

And by focusing on big ideas like a national energy strategy and American energy strategy with 2.50 a gallon gasoline and an ability to say no future president will ever again bow to a Saudi king, I think I'm beginning to come back to my real job which is to be sort of the visionary conservative who offers bigger, better solutions for the future. That's what I do best. And twice that's put me in the lead nationally, and now I have got to convert that into delegates.

SCHIEFFER: So you see multiple winners on Super Tuesday. And I take it you're thinking if you win in Georgia, then that gives you a good chance in Alabama and Mississippi. So you don't see this thing ending any time soon.

Do you think there's a chance anybody else will get in to this race?

GINGRICH: I think it would be very hard for anybody else to get in the race. We chatted briefly when we were doing -- Governor Huckabee's forum, and Romney and Santorum and I chatted just for a minute or two together. And we all agree that, you know, the American people expect somebody to come out and earn it the hard way. Lots of people look really good sitting at home being talked about. They don't look as good once they get on the campaign trail as you know because you've covered it for so many years.

This is a rough and tumble business. And I think one the three of us is going to end up being the nominee. And my hope, of course, is that as people get attracted to things like $2.50 gas, then we now have over 173,000 donors, 95 percent under $250.

We keep growing, we keep getting stronger. Governor Perry has told me that he thinks I'll carry Texas the last weekend of May by a huge margin, which would lead into California, our biggest state, the following week where we already have 17 Hispanic co-chairs statewide in California and a number of folks in the Korean and Chinese and Thai and Vietnamese communities. So we're reaching out across all of California.

So my hope would be to go into the summer as the guy who could best debate Barack Obama.

And a lot of these delegates are not legally bound. There are a lot of opportunities to go back and rediscuss this.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you about something. You know, Governor Romney has been hitting and you and Senator Santorum for being "creatures of Washington," as he put it. And he has criticized you for going after millions of dollars in federal earmarks.

But we have gotten a hold of a video that was taken back in 2002 when he was taking a very different tack. He was telling a group then that he knew how to get federal money and he wasn't bashful about going after it. He was also proud of how much money that he got for the Olympics.

I'd just like to play a little of this for you and see what you have to say about it.

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MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm a big believer in getting money where the money is. And the money is in Washington. And I've learned from my Olympic experience that if you have people that really understand how Washington works and have personal associations there, you can get money to help build economic development opportunities.

And I want to go after every grant, every project, every department in Washington to assure that we're taking advantage of economic development opportunities.

We actually received over $410 million from the federal government for the Olympic Games. That is a huge increase over anything ever done before. We did that by going after every agency of government.

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SCHIEFFER: So your thoughts?

GINGRICH: I think the reason Governor Romney can't convert all of his financial advantages, six years of campaigning, $40 million of personal donations, outspent of rest of us probably 10 to 1, he can't convert it into closing the deal because there's a breathtaking scale of dishonesty underlying the Romney campaign.

This is the perfect example. What he said was perfectly reasonable. Here's a guy who did a great job going to Washington. He is the consummate insider. He is the establishment candidate. He should thank the American people for saving the Winter Olympics, because it's their money he used to do it.

That's fine. But then he has the gall to turn to Rick Santorum and me for doing what he's so proud he did. And I think this is the kind of fundamental dishonesty that has just continued to come back and bite the Romney campaign.

Every time they ought to close the deal, the American people stop and say, wait a second, there's something fundamentally false about his premise.

The other example is this fight with the Catholic Church. Governor Romney insisted that Catholic hospitals give out abortion pills. It came out of the governor's office. And what he said in the last debate about it was just fundamentally false.

Eventually all of these falsehoods catch up with you. That video is a perfect example. And it's really sad. I mean, if he had just run as who he really is, he might well get the nomination, and he would have gotten it authentically as the person he is, not the person he's pretending to be.

SCHIEFFER: Well, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for being with us this morning. I hope you'll come back to see us again.

We'll be back in a minute where we'll go north to Alaska and talk to Ron Paul.

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SCHIEFFER: And we're back now with Congressman Ron Paul, who joins us from Fairbanks, Alaska, where it is the middle of the night. But there are 24 delegates up there for grabs on Tuesday.

Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. Let me ask you this question. Where do you think that you can win on Tuesday night?

PAUL: Well, you know, my measurement of winning is winning most of the majority of the delegates. And in that case, you know, we have about three states that we're still -- that we've already concluded that we may well win.

And so next week here in Alaska there's a very good chance we'll come out with a majority of the delegates, in Idaho as well as North Dakota.

SCHIEFFER: Congressman, let me ask you this question, and I mean this as a serious question and I mean it with respect. Are you in this to the end? Do you really think you could actually win the nomination? Or is there a different purpose in your campaign and in your running?

PAUL: Yes, I've answered this question a few times. And I don't know why there has to be an either or. As a matter of fact, if you're in a race to make a point or, you know, to promote a cause, the best way to do that is to win.

So by the fact that I've won 12 times in Congress, and got the people of that district to understand what true liberty is about and what a strict constitution does, and, you know, argue the case of sound money, and a different type of foreign policy. So by my winning those elections, it was very beneficial to promoting that cause. So it doesn't bother me.

Do I believe I can win? Yes. Do I believe the chances are slim? Yes, I do. But things happen in this world that we don't have total control of. And we live in a world that is very much in flux, you know, internationally and monetarily, that just might make the circumstances different.

But I understand your question. But I think it should never be considered an either/or issue.

SCHIEFFER: But I do take it from what you're just telling me this morning that your main purpose here is to make a point, to underline why you think the libertarian point of view is the way to go.

So I take it what you're trying to do here is strengthen libertarians rather you're your main objective being to win the nomination?

PAUL: Well, no. I said something different. I said both are mutual.

But I think what bothers so many people who seem to be in a quandary over this is that they run into so few people who are in it for something other than just gaining power.

See, I see what's happening in Washington, the Republicans and Democrats, everything is spent on gaining power. Because I don't see the difference in the foreign policy. Nothing changes, you know, with the oversea adventurism. Nothing changes with the monetary policy. Nothing changes with the deficit. Nobody seems to care about personal liberties.

So when you run into somebody, it gets confusing. You say, well, he cares a whole lot about the issues, he can't care about his power. No, I don't care about power. But I care about influence, and the best way you can influence a nation and move a nation is by translating this into political action that is successful. So, believe me, the people who come and support me are very, very determined to win.

SCHIEFFER: Were you a little bit surprised last week when Rick Santorum said he thought you were just in this because you were in cahoots with Mitt Romney? And some have suggested that what you're trying to do here is create a situation where Romney might ask your son, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, to be his running mate, what did you make of that?

PAUL: Well, it sounds like he's trying to concoct a conspiracy. I didn't know he was into the conspiracy business. No, I think that's all created. But I think the media has fed on that, because, you know, they keep saying, you know, is there a deal, is there a deal? Obviously not. He wouldn't do it, I wouldn't do it.

And I think that's just Santorum trying to talk about something and he didn't have any issues to attack me on, so he had to go after he on something as silly as that.

SCHIEFFER: This whole thing that people down here in the Lower 48 are talking about this morning, this fact that Rush Limbaugh apologized for calling the young woman from Georgetown who testified before Congress a prostitute because she testified in favor of government health care plans paying for birth control pills.

He has apologized. Number one, what do you think about the fact that he apologized? And number two, does it kind of bother you when the campaign kind of wanders off into these social issues?

PAUL: Well, yes, but I don't consider that strictly a social issue. Yes, I think he should have apologized. I had said he used very crude language. And I think he gets over the top at times. But it's in his best interest. That's why he did it. I don't think he's very apologetic. He's doing it because some people were taking their advertisements off his program. It was his bottom line that he was concerned about.

Now I don't see this -- I think when Santorum talks about birth control, he doesn't believe people should have birth control. He gets off into social issues. I, as an OB doctor, certainly endorse the whole idea of birth control.

But this is something different. This is philosophically and politically important because doesn't the government have a mandate to tell insurance what to give? So they're saying that insurance companies should give everybody free birth control pills.

That strikes me as rather odd. What does that mean? That means that somebody who doesn't need birth control pills and they find that using a birth control pill is an offense to them, they have to pay for the birth control pills to give somebody free birth control pills to -- to be used.

I don't see -- I don't see how anybody should accept that. I mean, when I first started buying medical insurance, you had a choice of whether you should have OB care or not.

Why should somebody who's not going to have a baby be forced to pay for the OB care of a younger person?

That's total destruction of the marketplace. It's this mandate; it's this obsession, you know, with Obama on mandating. Of course the Republicans aren't a whole lot better on this, either, but the market deals with these problems differently. There would never be a discussion like this, who is going to be forced to pay for birth control pills.

And since it's so closely related to abortion, it's the same principle. Why should we force people who are strongly right-to-life to pay money for -- you know, for doing abortion? And Planned Parenthood does that. And of course it's ironic that Santorum actually funded Planned Parenthood and he pretends to be the champion of social values. That, to me, is rather bizarre. And that's why I call him a fake conservative.

SCHIEFFER: All right. All right. Well, Congressman, it's always good to talk to you. And thanks again for getting up so early.

We'll be back in a minute.

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SCHIEFFER: Finally today, I've never liked it when old people remind us things were better in their day. But here I go.

When I came to Washington back in 1969, things were a mess. The country was divided over Vietnam and a wave of violence had taken the lives of two Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr. Yet even in those difficult days, the government still functioned and Congress was a much better place. It still passed significant legislation.

The Senate was a place of giants and a blend of all persuasions. Democrat John Stennis of Mississippi was a conservative, Republican Jake Javits of New York a liberal. Washington's "Scoop" Jackson was a hardliner on defense and a liberal on social issues. Democrat Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota was a liberal's liberal and Republican Barry Goldwater was a hardcore conservative.

They came and they went, but none of them left for the reasons given last week by Olympia Snowe, the moderate Maine senator, who said in so many words she was just tired of fooling with it, that the modern Senate with its "my way or the highway" mentality was no longer the place to accomplish anything.

Snowe is not the first to feel that way lately, just the first to say it aloud. The Senate will be the worse for her absence, but it will survive.

But what does it say about the state of our government and politics when serious people conclude that serving in the United States Senate is no longer worth their time and effort? That's the part that should worry the rest of us. Back in a minute.

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SCHIEFFER: Well, that's it for us today. Be sure to stay with CBS News for all the latest on the storm damage. Plus, be sure to join us Tuesday for our special Super Tuesday coverage. We'll start with "CBS This Morning," right on through with Scott Pelley and the "Evening News" and special reports throughout the evening as the night unfolds.

Thanks for watching "Face the Nation." We'll see you right here next week.