From Fox’s Special Report with Bret Baier Wednesday, February 8, 2012

On Romney’s attacks on Santorum over earmarks following Santorum’s victories in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado:

Well, you knew that the morning after it would start and Santorum would be recipient of a lot of incoming from Romney. But if that is all Romney can muster, it’s not going to be a lot.
Earmarks is an issue. But look how Santorum parried it. He did it rather well. Rather than going into a long argument about the virtues of earmarks, (and there are arguments you can make in favor), or denying or getting upset about it and acting as a victim the way that Gingrich did, he simply lobbed the ball over Romney’s head, over that net and said, “Earmarks? You are the biggest earmarker of them all with the bailouts.”
That is extremely effective. If he can keep his composure and not act as a victim and just hone in the message — “I am the conservative” — he will be able to do well.
But I want to emphasize about last night. He won in Missouri by 30 points. He won in Minnesota by 28 and in Colorado, where Romney in ‘08 had beaten McCain 60 to 18, he beat Romney. So that tells you this is real weakness by Romney. And Santorum right now is in a pretty good place. Whether he can get the support, the money that he needs to carry on, we don’t know. But he is in a place to make a run.
There have been a lot of Lazaruses in this campaign, enough to make you a believer in resurrection. What is interesting about him is even when he was in the debates they always had him on the flanks, on the outside, way out there. And he’d kind of raise his hand like a schoolboy and say “Nobody called on me.” They’ll call on him now.

On reaction to the administration’s ruling that religiously affiliated employers must provide free contraceptives and abortifacients:

It’s a huge political mistake and miscalculation by Obama and it’s not going away until and unless he capitulates. I think he would like to, but his left is not going to allow him to. There was an op-ed today in the “Wall Street Journal” by three senators, female senators, Democratic senators, urging for a hard-line stance on this.
And the reason it’s so damaging for Obama and the Democrats is that it augments two stereotypes.
The one of Obama as antireligious, the seeds of which were planted when we had the tape, when he thought he wasn’t being heard, about how the peasantry clings to guns and to God because of its frustrations.
And second, I think the larger issue, is the idea of intrusive, large government. That was an issue that created and propelled the rebellion in 2010 that caused the shellacking [of the Democrats] in the election.
The fuel has gone somewhat out of that and [Obamacare] has become a dormant issue. But this is a perfect example of how Obamacare in a concrete way invades your life, institutions, and liberty in a way that really hasn’t been seen. I think it revives Obamacare as a large issue. And in a larger sense it revives the big government issue again.