love. vladimir putin is suggesting john mccain is nuts. mccain responds on twitter saying, dear vlad, was is something that i said? on this american morning. captions by vitac www.vitac.com and good morning to you. it is friday, december 16th. nine days left before christmas. can you believe it? have you finished your shopping? i have two gifts bought. and that means no. good morning, everybody. i am alina cho. welcome to american morning. the last critical debate before the iowa caucus, the front-runner, newt gingrich playing defense on his conservative values and electability. mitt romney stood by his business background playing it safe and texas governor rick perry realizing it may be the fourth down threw this hail mary pass. there are a lot of folk whose said tim tebow wasn t going to be a good nfl quarterback. that looked print good. am i ready for the next level? let me tell you i hope i am the tim tebow of the iowa caucuses. best line of the night.
let s begin with the latest in the political plate underway in iowa. right now, dramatic, huge developments unfolding. looks like a three-man race if you believe some of these cent polls. newt gingrich, mitt romney and ron paul all basically within a margin. we re watching all this unfold. jim akcosta is standing by. he s on the scene for us. gloria borker is joining us. newt gingrich, he s trying to project the positive image he is above the fray, but is he making a mistake by not through all these attacks from mitt romney, ron paul and these other republican presidential candidates? you know, wolf, i think he s able to have it all ways. it s a smart strategy. don t forget, gingrich came into politics and was known as the bombastic speaker of the house when he was the one in charge of those house republicans and one republican control of the house by waging a relentlessly negative campaign against democrats. so now, he s able to play against type. that really works for h