number two to fend off. herman cain. the ex-godfather s pizza ceo is tied for second nationally with governor rick perry in the new washington post /abc news poll. cain and perry tied with 16% each. mitt romney still leads with about 25%. the amount outside groups are paying to fly congress around the world has hit a new record. roll call reporting in august alone outside groups spent $1.5 million for members of congress and their family members to travel. roll call says it s a new record for one month. about 50% more than the previous record. and the other name for republican party, is the gop, of course. what do those letters stand for? do you know? new poll from vanity fair and cbs say only 51% of republicans know that it stands for grand old party. still, that s better than the 38% of democrats who got it right. the two next most popular
going to make this a make or break. we saw it on the faa when they shut down the federal aviation administration, we re seeing it now on this debate about fema, we should be able to have a legitimate debate about emergency aid. why link that into a government shutdown or not. i ll give the senate democratic leader most of the credit. he manufactured a crisis all week. about disaster when there s no crisis. everybody knows we re going to pay for every single penny of disaster aid that the president declares. u.s. lawmakers are supposed to be in recess this week, but senate majority leader harry reid has ordered a monday session for a possible vote on a compromised package. and with more assertive vigor, president barack obama is talking job creation. he s taking his pitch on the road. this hour he ll be in seattle, washington. last night, he delivered his message in the nation s capital to the congressional black caucus. this was his straight talk message and challenge.
that was cool. american morning continues right now. after the deluge, i m christine romans, tropical storm lee now a tropical depression, but still, packing plenty of rain after dumping a foot on parts of the gulf coast. i m carol costello. right now massive wildfires threatening to burn down thousands of homes in texas. it is the worst fire season in state history and it s far from over on this american morning. all right. good morning, everybody. it s monday, september 5th. labor day. welcome to american morning. ali is off today. happy labor day. i hope you re not laboring. i really do. up first this morning, tropical storm lee now downgraded to a tropical depression but it s still a major rainmaker as it moves across the southeast. the storm dumping a foot of rain along the gulf coast. it also spawned several tornadoes including one in mobile county, alabama. it ripped the roof off of one home, uprooted trees, and brought down power lines. here s what lee
forward. and it will not change the peace process. clayton: don t we want our politicians to take brave, bold moves? the rob is, after the war 44 years ago, israel s territory expanded, doubled, and 350,000 people now live in the new areas. what do you do with those people? clayton: we saw movement in the gas strip and the idea we will go back to the borders and have peace, we have seen concessions in the gaza strip and there is continuous war. much more on this ahead. wes have senator santorum joining us and we have former white house press secretary to talk about this. the g.o.p. presidential field starting to take shape. this afternoon, former godfather pizza c.e.o., herman cain, will
herman cain, ladies and gentlemen, our gop frontrunner again today. new key polls show that despite the beatings he has taken for some gasps in his interviews with the media and the blast of his 9-9-9 the former pizza ceo way out in front in the quinnipiac poll way out in front with 28% followed by mitt romney with 23%. rick perry way down in the single digits. about the same results in the cbs/new york times poll. herman cain in front with 25%. four percentage points of romney, although that is within the margin of error. you can see that cain is holding a double digit lead over everyone else. meantime texas governor rick perry hitting the air waves with his first campaign television commercial. the ads focusing on jobs and energy is already being shown in