other candidates a joke. it s the donald who s the one they re really laughing at on this american morning. captions by vitac www.vitac.com and good morning. it s tuesday, december 6th. ali and christine are off today. i m alina cho along with carol costello who s well rested on this american morning. thanks for joining us. i ve had four days of sleep. so watch out. up first, what s red, white and blue and can t agree on how to save you money? congress, of course. offering a proposal to extend the pay roll tax cut before it expires at the end of the year, but republicans are not on board. without a deal, pay roll taxes will rise costing millions of americans $1,000 a year. the clock is ticking and president obama is keeping the pressure on. my message to congress is this keep your word to the american people and don t raise taxes on them right now. now s not the time to slam on the brakes. now s the time to step on the gas. now s the time to keep growing the
there, feed them a sandwich and get them to vote. it s those votes of straw poll goers in a informal manner that can lift or punish a candidate. four years ago, mitt romney crew cruised to a victory. mike huckabee, stole the show, finishing a surprise second. sam brownback came in third. two months later, he left the race. another thing about straw poll votes, just because a candidate has an iowa straw poll vote today does not mean he or she will get that vote come caucus time. many activists are in the dating phase as opposed to marrying phase. but what it does for the campaigns is identifies who those true leaders will be for you in the february caucuses. rick: after his second place finish, huckabee went on to win the republican caucus. for better or worst, the straw poll is in some ways replaced the caucuses themselves. the purpose of the caucuses was to whittle the field of