oh, here we go. oh, kyra. what a laugh to start the day. happy monday, peeps. happy monday. [ laughter ] kyra, have a good show. we start off with presidential politics and the two states that will be critical in choosing the new president. the new presidential nominee. mitt romney is considered the heavy favorite. iowa is still up for grabs just 10 weeks before it hosts the nation s first caucuses. gingrich kicking off his day with a town hall. rick santorum holding several meet and greets across the state. both are touting their conservative credentials and seizing on the latest stumbles by herman cain. paul steinhauser has the big picture from washington. shannon travis on the campaign trail in iowa. paul, let s start with you. as romney files to get onto the new hampshire ballot, how strong is his lead? what do you think? very strong in the granite state. about 15 minutes from now, he ll be in concord, the state capital, and make it official there by putting
he had retired from the senate in 1998 and was heavily recruited to go back into politics by the g.o.p. and representative dan burton, indiana s longest serving congressman who was nominated for a 15th term beating out five challengers. smoking suitcase at a houston airplane. now they re saying it posed no threat. the bag being unloaded from a plane arriving from amsterdam at the george bush intercontinental airport. a worker heard a pop and saw vapor coming from the bag. the smoke was caused by an external heat source, not explosives. that doesn t sound suspicious at all. pop and smoke. it must be the secret potion i ve been working on. meanwhile, president obama one step closer to picking his nominee for the supreme court. he and vice president joe biden just interviewed federal appeals court judge diane wood. she s reportedly the fourth candidate, possible candidate to interview with the president to replace the retiring justice john paul stevens who is done. thousands acros