jumping four points, that s predebate versus post debate. tonight, they face off here in charleston in what could be a game changer for the primary. we re also expecting to hear from gingrich s second wife in a network television interview that could shape the opinion of some south carolina voters here. we ll get to all that with mr. heilemann in a moment. first, let s get to the news live at 5:30 a.m. this thursday, january 19th. with romney s lead over gingrich shrinking a bit, the could candidates ramping up their attacks with romney suddenly paying a little more attention to mr. gingrich again. gingrich started yesterday s bashing taking aim at romney s campaign tactics and his personal wealth. romney then followed comparing gingrich to a well known democrat. i fully expect the romney campaign to be unendingly dirty and dishonest for the next four days because they re desperate, they thought they could buy this, they re discovering they can t buy this, i think they re now going
the turn too late. and also in politics, newt gingrich is making up some ground you might call it. he is closing the gap the front-runner mitt romney in south carolina. trouble may be brewing, though. his daughters are having to come to his defense after an interview which is scheduled for today is about to go after him from his ex-wife. and a rare winter storm that pounded the pacific northwest. it is now heading east. rob is tracking the forecast. where it will go next and how much snow we are actually talking about this morning. don t know if you re a tune or it s been a while since you were a student. things are different now. reading on an ipad. how about reading your textbook on an ipad? that would be fantastic. how nice would it be not having that backpack that weighs 50 pounds. rescuers resumed their search for the nearly two dozen missing cruise ship passengers. new fears this morning that stormy weather could push the doomed cruise liner into deeper waters
numbers that we were hoping to see and hopefully will continue. so new jobless claims plunged to 352,000 last week. that s a huge drop. down by 50,000. this demonstrates there are fewer layoffs. however, jobless claims can be a little volatile. for example, we saw claims jump a few weeks ago because of the temporary holiday workers that were laid off. and also the prior week was revised a little bit higher, not much. just by about 3,000. it did go above 400,000. we need to stay below that in order to associate that with actual job creation. today s report is good news. we need to see it continue in the long term. all right. felecia, thanks so much. let s get to politics now. we begin in iowa. yes, iowa. just when you thought it was a done deal. well, the des moines register is reporting the iowa caucuses were a virtual tie, that rick santorum actually ended up with a 34 vote advantage and that romney did not win. so now we re being told that in about 15 minutes we re goin
tonight we celebrate. tomorrow we go back to work. dana bash is in manchester. christine romans is in the election center digging into who voted and why. peter ham by is in south carolina, the next stop in this grueling presidential primary. let s begin with dana there. romney s two for two. he won iowa, he won new hampshire. this victory wasn t a surprise, not to most. he was expected to win. it s the size of his win that s really grabbing attention, however. is it enough to get the party to finally rally behind him? reporter: well, fred, that s probably not going to happen immediately because as you mentioned, all of these other candidates are still in the race. effectively, look, this was no question a huge win for mitt romney. you said certainly he was expected to win here because he was governor of a neighboring state, but the size of his win in terms of the overall number, but also the kind of voter that he got, namely the conservative voters in this state. there
and good morning. this is your a.m. wake-up call for wednesday, november 23rd, from the time warner center in new york. i m carol costello. here are this morning s top stories. i don t want a law that says after we lose a major american city, we re sure going to come and find you. i want a law that says you try to take out an american city, we re going to stop you. newt gingrich challenging ron paul over the patriot act. the new co-front-runner still getting high marks in his first debate with a bull s-eye on his back. we ll have more of the highlights ahead. it s going to be a necessme one. delays on one of the busiest travel days of the year. the east coast being soaked. and avalanche warnings in the pacific northwest. uc-davis trying to make good after police were caught on tape pepper spraying peaceful occupy protesters, now promising to pay medical bills and drop charges against students who were arrested. how would a president handle a nuclear iran or an uns