economic message. he said he was the candidate of change, but you still have 25 million people out of work. you still have almost 10% unemployment here in florida. you still have home values down and continuing to go down. you still have record number of foreclosures in florida. you still have median incomes suffering, middle income families suffering. florida is an epicenter of the housing crisis that put us into the great recession of 2008 and 2009. cnn senior political analyst david gergen joins us from jacksonville. david, mitt romney is not only focused on president obama, he s got newt gingrich to deal with as well. florida was one of the states that was hardest hit by the housing crisis. its unemployment rate remains above the national average. so is tuesday s primary going to end up as a referendum on whether voters who are focused on the economy can get behind mitt romney as the man to best fix it? reporter: probably so, ali, but i must tell you this has become
you still have almost 10% unemployment here in florida. you still have home values down and continuing to go down. you still have record number of foreclosures in florida. you still have median incomes suffering, middle income families suffering. florida is an epicenter of the housing crisis that put us into the great recession of 2008 and 2009. cnn senior political analyst david gergen joins us from jacksonville. david, mitt romney is not only focused on president obama, he s got newt gingrich to deal with as well. florida was one of the states that was hardest hit by the housing crisis. its unemployment rate remains above the national average. so is tuesday s primary going to end up as a referendum on whether voters who are focused on the economy can get behind mitt romney as the man to best fix it? reporter: probably so, ali, but i must tell you this has become such a personalized race. romney and gingrich have gone mano a mano in the several debates and we ve had sort
coming up shortly. gloria borger is standing by with david gergen, donna brazile, and ari fleischer. governor romney, what kind of debate did you think you had tonight? i thought it was terrific, and i was delighted with the debate. it was a big night for me and for the people who support me. you saw the response of the audience. it s a big step forward and it s going to give me the boost i need going into the last couple days before the primary. you were pretty aggressive, i couldn t help but notice, in taking on newt gingrich. you seemed to turn every attack he made on you into an attack on him. particularly the attacks he made on the campaign trail about your finances. when i m shot at, i ll return fire. i m no shrinking violet. thanks. back to you, anderson. it certainly was perhaps a more energized mitt romney than we have seen in privious deba s debates. earlier this week in florida, he appeared to be energized. he has a new debate coach. how much of a role
with david gergen, donna brazile, and ari fleischer. governor romney, what kind of debate did you think you had tonight? i thought it was terrific, and i was delighted with the debate. it was a big night for me and for the people who support me. you saw the response of the audience. it s a big step forward and it s going to give me the boost i need going into the last couple days before the primary. you were pretty aggressive, i couldn t help but notice, in taking on newt gingrich. you seemed to turn every attack he made on you into an attack on him. particularly the attacks he made on the campaign trail about your finances. when i m shot at, i ll return fire. i m no shrinking violet. thanks. back to you, anderson. it certainly was perhaps a more energized mitt romney than we have seen in privious debates. earlier this week in florida, he appeared to be energized. he has a new debate coach. how much of a role that played, unclear. he and speaker gingrich went back
less than one year ago on this american morning. captions by vitac www.vitac.com good morning. it s friday, december 23rd. i m deb feyerick an with alina cho on this american morning. good morning to all of you out in. so glad you re with us. up first, an early christmas present for 160 million americans. the house is expected to vote today on extending the payroll tax cut that divided washington for weeks. house republicans caved yesterday after a lot of arm-twisting by president obama who stead was the disgust of the american people that broke the log jam. boehner saying his side still wants a one-year extension but saw the political reality. we have fought the good fight. i talked to a number of members over the past 24 hours who believe that, hey, we don t like this two-month extension, we don t like this reporting problem in the senate bill, and if you can get this fixed, why not why not do the right thing for the american people, even though it s not e