two. hoping it will be a christmas black morning. captions by vitac www.vitac.com good morning. this is monday, december 26th. i hope some of you are watching from home. did you get back from toronto okay? i did. boxing day. like the black friday of canada. right. good shopping. a lot of news right now. right. eight days to go m s ts to go ba caucuses, paul steinhauser is live with us in des moines, iowa this morning. hi, paul. good morning. reporter: good morning. quiet over the weekend. things pick up today and one week to go until the iowa caucuses. the first contest in the primary caucus calendar. this is a poll that came out friday afternoon. the most recent poll here. people are likely to go to the iowa gop caucuses. three-way traffic jam at the top. ron paul at 21%. mitt romney, former massachusetts governor, 20%. newt gingrich 19%. basically it s upgrabs here in iowa with just under a week to go. newt gingrich was the front-runner in polls. look at t
as these holidays wind down. the president yial campaign sean is heating up. one week from tomorrow, the iowa caucuses will mark the first formal votes in the 2012 race. right now, it s too close to call, statistically speaking. according to a poll from the american research group, ron paul, mitt romney, and newt gingrich are locked in a three-way statistical tie. you can see it there. 21, 20, 19% apiece. paul steinhauser is in des moines with more on this three-way battle. and no clear front-runner at least for iowa, paul. reporter: no clear front-runner. and that poll you just showed from arg came out on friday. the most receipt polling we have of people likely to take part in that caucus on january 30. it also indicates with just a week to go 1-10 still say they haven t made up their minds. and a sizeable amount are saying, i m backing this candidate or that candidate, but i may change my mind. three-way traffic jam, i guess you could say, for the top spot. ron paul, tho
there on christmas day. the white house condemning these blasts. nigeria s president calling an end to the sectarian violence voug to catch those responsible. churches also bombed in nigeria last christmas season. more arab league observers are on their way to sir yeah here s why. an opposition group says security forces killed more than 20 people in the city of homs today. the observer planned to go there. u.n. says more than 5,000 people have died since syria s crackdown on protests began in march. a suicide car bomber in iraq got through six security check points before setting off an explosive device at the interior ministry. at least five people killed there, 39 wounded. this happened after iraq s prime minister was meeting with the senior security officials to talk about how to keep the country safe. a series of explosions killed almost 70 people in baghdad just last week. mexico says it s captured the chief of security for one of the most wanted alleged drug king
endorsement from the state s gop king maker. they fought wars over their borders. now a strange bit by pakistan s turning, once again fwloob a big tourist attraction. i m wolf blitzer, you re in the situation room. the first vote in 2012 presidential campaign is only eight days way. we re talking about the republican caucuses in iowa. and the latest poll there shows what amounts to be a dead heat. ron paul is on the rise. he s the current favorite of likely republican caucus goers. the arg poll shows him with 21%. mitt romney is next at 20%. and newt gingrich who s been slipping a bit lately is at 19%. there s a big drop off to rick perry at 9%. michele bachmann, 8%. jon huntsman at 6%. rick santorum who has been to every iowa county and there are 99 counties. he gets only 4% in this arg poll. with time running out, you would think the candidates would be pounding pavement in iowa but santorum on this date, is the only one on the campaign trail and he is getting a visit w
difd mccullough will give us perspective on the present through the lens of the past. why in the world is not a tiny nation about to skip over a date entirely? i ll explain. next up, a fascinating look inside spy games. both the fictional and nonfictional varieties with columnist and novelist david ignatius. then a look at innovation with the master architect frank gehry. finally, why president bush might have offended some italians on inauguration day. first, here s my take. we hear a lot about leadership these days, mostly in the sense of the failure of leadership, the absence of leadership. certainly that s the view of many people who oppose president obama. but there are also many democrats who believe that president obama has been a disappointment, a bad manager, an ineffectual leader. the conventional wisdom is that obama just doesn t have what it takes to be the kind of leader we need, the kind we have had in the past, someone, for example, like bill clinton,