Mitt’s big night! He regained momentum leading into Tuesday’s Florida Primary by channeling Newt—and using the former Speaker’s sparring tactics against him in last night’s debate. MSNBC Political Analyst Howard Fineman and USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page are here to talk about Mitt’s win.

 But Mitt’s nose grew longer as the debate wore on. We’re fact-checking Mitt’s statements tonight, including his “blind trust” and his vote for former Democratic Senator Paul Tsongas in the state’s Democratic presidential primary. MSNBC Political Analyst David Cornand USA Today’s Susan Milligan join us for the fact-check.

Next up: His name is invoked by Newt over and over on the campaign trail... but who is Saul Alinsky? What does he stand for, and what does it mean that Newt is channeling him? The Washington Post’s Melinda Henneberger and the Chicago Sun Times’ Lynn Sweet reported on Alinsky and they’re with us tonight.

Plus: The GOP infighting isn’t just winnowing down the field... it’s shining a spotlight on President Obama. Is the Mitt-Newt duel putting a spring in the Obama’s step?  We’ve got the latest from Obama plus new poll numbers. DNC Executive Director Patrick Gaspard and author and political commentator Ron Reagan will talk it over tonight. 

How can you not love this battle in Florida?

Here you have two candidates: one, the prince of the establishment, the other charging with his battering ram. 

One, bereft of spontaneity, robot-like in his earnestness to learn how people behave - the other speaking from the gut of every ticked-off voter watching him from the sidewalk.  What a display of personal opposites - both fighting to the political death to represent the same political party, to be the champion of the same partisan demand.

Look, I think this is going to be a close election this November - real close.  The tough economy almost dictates it.  We Americans are a demanding bunch and we don't like economic failure, refuse to accept economic decline and we're always looking for options, especially when things aren't so great.

But, this demolition derby that's going on before our eyes - climaxing with another ringside event tonight - is just too good to be true if you're Barack Obama - too wildly lucky of him if you're watching the spectacle.  

How can a political party put on such a show of clowns followed by this gladiatorial spectacle we're catching now? How could a party be so benighted as to think this is what the American people want to see?

I don't know if Newt has the mojo to keep this going, whether he can land some sound punches tonight and get some applause for them -  get enough votes for them next Tuesday.

I do know that the man from Georgia is raising issues that the Democrats will find more than handy this fall: the most important being that Mitt Romney has benefited from the unfairness in the American tax system

What the Democrats need to add to this charge is that, not only is he a beneficiary of an unfair system, he wants to make it more unfair.  He wants to give further breaks to the guy - him - who makes more in a day without working than the average American does in a year through the sweat of his brow.  He, Mitt Romney, wants to intervene in the affairs of man to give more to the man on top.  He wants to make our tax law more favorable to the very rich than it already is. If Newt isn't ready to challenge that in debate, President Obama should be.

This is going to be a great national election this fall.  We can thank Newt Gingrich for making it an even hotter one.  

The Empire Strikes Back: The conservative wing of the Republican party is finally going after Newt Gingrich. Elliot Abrams, Ann Coulter, Tom DeLay and others are all panicking that Newt might actually win. And if he wins Florida, it might be over. But the polls in Florida show Gingrich may have crested. So we'll see if he can regain his momentum at tonight's debate.

About tonight's debate -- Can Newt play off the enthusiasm of the rowdy audience to regain his mojo? The audience has kind of been the '12th man' of the Republican race. We'll run through their worst moments thus far, and we'll see how Newt plays it tonight.

Time magazine's Joe Klein says Barack Obama is back. And our new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll supports that theory. He's looking strong -- and we'll have new numbers tonight.

Associated Press

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer got in the president's face yesterday on the tarmac in Phoenix. If a picture's worth a thousand words, what's the story here?

Yesterday, the John F. Kennedy Library released the last of his presidential tapes. They were from two days before he was killed and included a conversation on an issue that haunts so many of us: what would Jack Kennedy have done with Vietnam? 

Would he have done what his successor Lyndon Johnson did: create an American war in Vietnam, involving troop levels of a half a million soldiers?  Would he have allowed the war to escalate to where we lost American soldiers? 

It's a question I've been asked again and again traveling the country for my new book "Jack Kennedy Elusive Hero."

This much I know – the day he died, he'd given a speech that very morning in Fort Worth that "without the United States, South Vietnam would collapse overnight."  Those were his very words that morning of November 22, 1963 - with Lyndon Johnson at his side - to the city's Chamber of Commerce.

"Without the United States, South Vietnam would collapse overnight." So was he ready to introduce American combat troops?  Or was he going to limit our role to those many thousands of "advisors" in-country?  Was he going to do what Lyndon Johnson did, make it an American war?

There are good reasons to believe he would not have.  His war buddy Red Fay recalls Kennedy issuing orders to a marine unit commander wanting to take his men into a combat situation - that if he did he would have hell to pay. 

Kennedy had resisted introducing Americans into frontline fighting because of what he'd seen happen to the French when they were fighting in the country.  He'd seen how the firepower of the French had been totally overwhelmed by the nationalistic spirit of those fighting them.  The Vietnamese did not want foreigners running their country either - directly or through a government they were seen to be controlling.

The tapes released yesterday show Kennedy getting conflicting reports.  The military was telling him that the US-backed government in Saigon was winning the battle against the Viet Cong.  The State Department official had just told Kennedy that the government we were backing was focusing mainly on fighting its own students, who were moving over to the Viet Cong side. 

Kennedy wondered aloud if the military and the state department people had just been to the same country.

We know this.  The day before he left for Texas, President Kennedy was thinking about an exit strategy.  He asked national security aide Michael Forrestal to "organize an in-depth study of every possible option we've got in Vietnam, including how to get out of there." 

Associated Press

Let the games begin: Last night's State of the Union address was the first speech of President Obama's re-election campaign. He emphasized fairness throughout the speech. And you clearly hear the message he's going to run on this year. He talked about Mitt Romney without mentioning him by name. Our big political question tonight: How confident are Republicans now about their chances this November?

Also, how did President Obama look when compared to Republican rivals Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney? The address last night was a welcome relief from the partisan attacks on the campaign trail. We'll have all the State of the Union reaction and analysis today on Hardball.

And Pres. Obama had a secret last night -- a risky Navy SEALs mission to free an American held by pirates in Somalia. We'll get the story on the rescue mission tonight.

Romney's taxes. No wonder Mitt Romney didn't want to release his tax returns. He made $45 million over the past two years, pays an effective tax rate just under 14%, and has a Swiss bank account and accounts in the Cayman Islands. Talk about lousy optics. Mitt's the one percent of the one percent. Is he the right guy for the times?

The NBC Debate last night saw Romney trying to attack Newt Gingrich. But Gingrich played the role of frontrunner and brushed off the attacks. And Romney stumbled when asked what he did to further the conservative movement in this country.

Hey Newt -- who are you calling elite? Frank Bruni writes in the New York Times that - by any measure - Newt Gingrich is a member of the hated elite, the same group he loves to demonize.

By the way, the wife of billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has given Newt $5 million. Who are the Adelsons, and what do they want if Newt wins the White House?

President Obama delivers his State of the Union tonight. We'll look at the state of his presidency, and the state of the economy. Are things really getting better? And what would President Obama do with a second term in office? We'll hear from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tonight.