There is good news all around in our A block tonight.   Good news on the economy, a good speech by the President on how things are turning around, and brand new poll numbers showing the president beating Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich in a head to head match up.

Let’s face it.  Progressives have been worried silly over all these subjects.  We all want the economy to improve.  We all know people who have been affected one way or another.  If the economy doesn’t improve, we face the possibility of President Obama being ousted by a Republican who is more than eager to roll us back to the Bush years, except far worse.

Here’s the hard news.  The auto industry continues to be a success story.

President Obama touted that success today in Ann Arbor.

And a new Wall Street Journal / NBC News poll shows the public is starting to believe in this recovery.

President Obama also joined the Democratic caucus retreat in Maryland today and said “You guys have had my back and I’m going to have yours.”

This is an important moment.  Substance and message are merging.  As the economy shows further signs of life, the President can point to the success, and he can take an even more unified front with his fellow Democrats.  

Republicans are attacking each other in Florida, ahead of Tuesday's presidential primary, while President Obama tackles the issue of jobs in Michigan.

On tonight's show, Ed will talk with Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) about new strong numbers indicating America’s recovery and Jonathan Cohn, Senior Editor at The New Republic, about the message the president needs to send.

Mitt Romney is basically lying his way to the nomination and now Newt Gingrich is calling him on the carpet.  Ed will do the fact-checking with Mayor R.T. Rybak (D-Minneapolis, MN), Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Newt Gingrich has an excuse for his poor debate performance – he was in shock.  Erin McPike, reporter for Real Clear Politics, and Mike Papantonio, host of "The Ring of Fire" Radio Show, review Newt's chances for victory in Florida.  

Fayette County attorney and Tennessee Tea Party leader Hal Rounds who's leading the charge to whitewash Tennessee school text books.

The Tea Party wants slavery taken out of school textbooks in Tennessee. They say slavery makes the founding fathers look bad so they want it removed -- almost entirely.

They are asking lawmakers to change state law so that “no portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.”

So no mention of American slavery, if it makes the founding fathers look bad.

Somebody should remind this Tennessee Tea Party that one of the greatest things about this country is that a black man who would have been a slave in George Washington’s day can and did become the 44^th President of the United states. How’s that for progress? 

This was one of the most bizarre stories that we stumbled upon today:

Mitt Romney's father-in-law, Edward Davies, converted to Mormonism....get this, 14 months AFTER he died!  

And that's not all.  While he was alive, Mr. Davies was a resolute atheist who regarded all religions as "hogwash."

How did this posthumous conversion to Mormonism happen?

Gawker reports that Davies, Ann Romney's Welsh-born father, was an engineer-type who insisted that his family be raised without participating in an organized religion.

In the wealthy Detroit suburb of Bloomfield, Michigan, back in 1965, Mormon Mitt Romney started dating Ann Davies.  By the following year, Ann had converted to Mormonism.  Her two brothers, Jim and Roderick, soon followed.

Ann's mother, Lois, converted in the days before her death in July 1993.  But Edward never renounced his atheism before he died on Sept. 8, 1992. 

Five months after Lois' death, on Nov. 19, 1993, Gawker reports that Edward was baptized as a Mormon at a "special family meeting" in Salt Lake Temple.

Actually, the practice of converting dead people to the Mormon faith is nothing new.  Catholic and Jewish organizations have expressed outrage, for example, when the names of dead popes and Holocaust victims (including Anne Frank) have turned up on Mormon lists of the baptized. 

Former staffers of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker could be facing jail time as a Republican Wisconsin election scandal heats up.

 John Nichols, Washington Correspondent of The Nation, joins Ed Schultz with all the details.

An aggressive Mitt Romney repeatedly challenged Republican presidential rival Newt Gingrich in a fast-paced campaign debate tonight, ridiculing the former House speaker's call to build costly projects in key primary states and to colonize the moon.

Romney vehemently denied Gingrich's own accusation that he anti-immigrant — more so than any other candidate. And, as charges flew back and forth, Gingrich rebutted any suggestion that he couldn't rein in surging federal spending.

"You don't just have to be cheap everywhere. You can actually have priorities to get things done," Gingrich declared, saying that as speaker of the House he had helped balance the budget while doubling spending on the National Institutes of health.

The debate was the second in four days in the run-up to next Tuesday's Florida primary. Opinion polls make the race a close one — slight advantage Romney — with two other contenders, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Texas Rep. Ron Paul far behind.

Gingrich's upset victory in the South Carolina primary last week upended the race for the nomination to oppose Democratic President Barack Obama in the fall, and Romney in particular can ill-afford a defeat on Tuesday.

Ed will have reaction and analysis of tonight's debate at 11pET with the mega-panel of Joy-Ann Reid, Managing Editor of TheGrio.com, MSNBC Contributor, Jimmy Williams, former Democratic Senate Staffer and MSNBC Contributor, and Richard Wolffe, MSNBC Political Analyst.

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The heat is turning up in Florida.  Newt Gingrich comes under attack by the GOP establishment and the Romney campaign's biggest problem could still be offshore.   Ed will have the latest from the GOP campaign trail with Robert Wexler, a former U.S. Congressman (FL-D).

'ED SHOW' EXCLUSIVE: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) opens up about her time on the ethics panel that investigated former Speaker Gingrich.  Does she have a "secret dossier" on Gingrich that would prevent him from becoming president?  Ed will ask her.

Brand new problems for the Romney campaign regarding off shore tax shelters.  Ed will turn to Ari Melber, Correspondent for The Nation, and Dr. Caroline Heldman, Professor of Politics at Occidental University, for analysis.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer says she felt "threatened" by the  president's attitude during their confrontation yesterday, but now a fellow Republican is questioning her account of events.   Dr. James Peterson, Director of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University, joins Ed to weigh in.

Two more former aides of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker are under arrest.  John Nichols, Washington Correspondent of The Nation, explains why this will have a big impact on the effort to recall Walker.

And Governor Chris Christie is back in Psycho Talk again, this time for saying civil rights should be put up for a vote.

It's going to be another packed @EdShow at 8pET on @msnbctv.

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AP Photo/Josh Reynolds

In this Nov. 2, 2010 file photo, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., right, thanks his partner Jim Ready at a party in Newton, Mass., after Frank won re-election in the 4th Congressional District.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a frequent and welcomed guest on The Ed Show, plans to marry his longtime partner Jim Ready of Maine.

A spokesman for Frank, 71, confirmed today that the congressman's wedding will be held in Massachusetts, but said no date had been set.  

Elected to the House in 1980, Frank was one of the first openly gay politicians to serve in office at a national level in the United States.

Massachusetts was the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004.