good evening, i'm ali velshi sitting in for erin burnett "outfront" tonight. newt sinking and santorum surging a brand-new poll out of iowa and it has stunning, new numbers. the former front-runner, newt gingrich, plunging from his top slot, down to fourth place. former pennsylvania senator rick santorum doing the opposite, he surged from single digits into third place. mitt romney now leads the pack with 25%, and there's another new poll out of new hampshire where the nation's second contest in the race for the gop nominee will be held one week later on january the 10th. mitt romney dominating his opposition there. he's at 44%. rivals ron paul and newt gingrich trailing 17% and 16%, respectively. let's go right to political correspondent joe johns. he's on the ground in iowa. joe, this is a bit of a shocker. santorum rising as much as he has. he was out there with representative steve king on the hunting trip. king did not endorse him on that trip. it made people wonder, we're so close, this is a guy to every county in the state. he still couldn't get that endorsement. what has done this for rick santorum? >> reporter: ali, i've got to tell you, a lot of people thought that santorum was underperforming in the state of the polls for a long time. like you said. he's been to every county. he's spent more time here than i think any other candidate has been running for president. he also talks and speaks to the issues that so many evangelicals and social conservatives in state really concern themselves with. so it's probably not surprising that rick santorum at last was going to get his day in the sun here in iowa, if you will. it's a huge jump going from 5% in one poll all the way up to 16% in another poll, which really suggests that of all these candidates and the way that the polls have gone up and down, rick santorum may be surging at exactly the right time for a guy running for president, ali. >> it's still a game of small numbers, though. 43% of iowans polled said that they might participate in the caucuses say they could change their mind. which means, is santorum gaining from the undecided? is he gaining from newt gingrich's losses? what about 43%? that's a bigger number than anybody is polling right now. >> reporter: right. and if you think of the arc of the eye caucus race, again and again and again you've seen conservatives come up and then you've seen them go down as people look at their baggage, elect ability, a variety of other questions, backgrounds, personal histories. rick santorum is a guy who basically hasn't gotten his shot yet. okay. so who's the big loser here? it's pretty clear that newt gingrich has just sunk pretty dramatically in the polls. no doubt that has at least a little bit to do with the fact that he's just been attacked over and over again by mitt romney, by ron paul, by others. he's really been quite a target and a lot of people who watch the ads and watch the polls very carefully say the ads might have something to do with gingrich's drop in the polls. >> but, but, we seen, joe, every one of these candidates who hit close to the top spot and they take that hit. this is something that has not happened to santorum or jon huntsman in this race. >> reporter: that's very true. it certainly hasn't happened to rick santorum. i have to tell you, he's something of a known quantity. >> right. >> reporter: he spent quite a while in the united states senate. people know him pretty well and know his record. a lot of people have dug around trying to find skeletons in his closet and i don't think they found a whole lot of them. jon huntsman hasn't spent a lot of time here in iowa at all. >> right. >> reporter: now his moment likely to be in new hampshire. >> right. >> >> reporter: that is a place, of course, where mitt romney appears to be doing great right now in the polls, ali. >> right. but romney is so dominating things in that state. joe, good discussion. we're going to be having a lot of them over the course of the next few days. joe johns and the best political team in television in iowa. let's go to john avlon, kiki mclean, and rich galen. he's a republican strategist. kiki, i feel bad for you. what have you got to contribute to this discussion? iowa is the hottest place for a democrat the last time around. you know john made a point -- i'm going to put to you first, kiki -- but john made a point where he said that the conservatives in iowa self-select in many cases in their participation in these caucuses and you've got an extra dose of conservative in the thing. >> yes. >> so santorum, with a good showing here, really bears very little relationship to the country. >> yeah. it's interesting. there are three or four things i would tell people to pay attention to over the next six days. the first is that i had the benefit of working for president richard gephardt 24 years ago and as a democrat he won the iowa caucuses. the the other thing that's interesting to pay attention to is you don't hear a conversation about new participants the way that you did for barack obama in 2008. are there a lot of new people that are going to flood those church basements and school cafeterias? at the company where i work, the other thing that we've been paying attention to, the analytic team has been combing social media to see where that intensity is and they are really seeing it in the conversations about gingrich. >> yep. >> and the attacks on him and from the paul people. you don't see santorum with an online presence quite with the level of intensity that you do from ron paul's people. so take your polling, measure that with a little bit of analysts of social media, and don't forget barack obama had tremendous intensity in social media and in the digital world last time. then the last thing i'd remind you is that that bounce into new hampshire and buchanan and mike huckabee out of iowa caucuses last time. and the final thing that i would say, this isn't necessarily about who wins and the numbers that day. it's who wins in the trend. >> all right. let me -- >> like bill clinton did in new hampshire. >> let me ask you this, rich, if i were kiki's people, if i were democrats, i would send a thousand volunteers to help newt gingrich. because if romney walks away from this and catches on in new hampshire where he's good a commanding lead, this poses more problems for barack obama than were newt gingrich were the nominee. >> that is true. i think kiki said this earlier -- or you said earlier to joe, this is the terror of small numbers and this is one data point. you have to be careful when these sorts of shifts happen this dramatically, it may make you stop and wait. the register will have the final poll in sun's paper. that means they will release it saturday night and we'll see if those numbers match up with these numbers. if you're the gingrich people you've got to say, oh, this is going to be tough. if i'm advising gingrich, which i'm not, i would say, let's wave to new hampshire, we'll go there for the debates and camp out in south carolina, and we will do battle with santorum in south carolina. wish goes on, loser goes home. >> john, let me ask you something. it's interesting what kiki said about there's no magic of these independents. there's no magic in fiscal conservatives supporting mitt romney. they actually like jon huntsman more in some cases but they don't figure he's got a chance. there's no imagine nick social conservatives choosing between michele bachmann and santorum, and figuring maybe santorum's got the momentum. what about the 43% of those people that say they are going to caucus who haven't got a choice, who haven't made a choice yet? >> momentum can matter a great six days out from a caucus about re caucus are low turnout, high intensity elections and skew overwhelmingly conservative. 80% of caucusgoers are conservatives. what is fascinating about the poll is the surge for santorum, because social conservatives, people looking for that conservative al ternive to romney with gingrich's numbers cut in half now saying, maybe it's santorum's turn, he's been to 99 counties. the other thing that really strikes me is that mitt romney remains stuck at that glass ceiling of 25% and playing it out, whatever happens in the primaries and the momentum game out of iowa and if other candidates start coalescing, 75% of the party that seems to want someone other than mitt romney, that's where things can get interesting. >> let me remind you, four years ago, president obama, who became president obama, won the iowa caucus with just under 38% of the vote. so 60-something percent of iowans wanted someone else but he got to raise his hand january 20th. >> let me ask you this, kiki. mitt romney was on the situation room with wolf blitzer earlier today he responded to newt gingrich's complaints about him about too many attack ads. listen to what romney said. >> you're going to get into a campaign like this, you've got to have broad shoulders and if you can't take on the negative that is part of a primary, you're surely not going to be able whats coming from barack obama. if you can't handle the heat in the kitchen wait until barack obama's hell's kitchen. >> what do you think, kiki? sounds like he's staying above the fray? >> i don't think anybody attaches high levels of personal negativity from barack obama. but mitt romney said something that is very important, and that is, when you see the level of negativity going on, which is not unnatural in the last week in an iowa caucus, but what you see here the sheer volume demonstrates the level of vulnerability that all these of these candidates have. gingrich has a laundry list of issues. you've got people like rick perry, nobody even talks about him except that he's changing his opinion on the issue of choice. you have mitt romney that can't break the ceiling. by the way, why won't he put out his tax returns? what it's demonstrating is the litany of the political vulnerability which i think could come out in a general election. >> he didn't say he wouldn't do it. he say he may do it and if nobody else has put out their tax returns either, all things in their time. i listened to that whole interview. he didn't say he wouldn't do it. unlike, by the way, john kerry who never released his records no matter -- >> none of us are going to be all that surprised to find out that mitt romney is a very, very rich man. kiki, john, rich, thank you. still "outfront," a young girl in indiana is murdered and dismembered by the man who was supposed to be baby sitting her. we learn more disturbing details about the crime and the suspect. and the autopsy results of a family of five killed in a tragic christmas day fire. what we learned about their final minutes. and a funeral marks the end of kim jong-il's reign. and kim jong-il's accomplishments. did he really invent the hamburger? we're going to take a look back. 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[ giggles ] the funeral for the late north korean dictator kim jong-il was held today in pyongyang. it was elab rate and highly choreographed. hearse made it through the snowy streets. a giant portrait of the dead dictator led the way. kim's son, there is he, the expected predecessor, kim jong-un, walked alongside the the black car carrying his father's casket on top, not inside. they wailed as the procession went by. some question whether these cries are a product of true grief or whether they stem from a place of fear as uncertain future and uncertain future lies ahead for one of the world's most repressed societies. with me is a handful of people who knows a little bit about this. governor bill richardson has spent a lot of time in the country. he's had an inside look into the north korean leadership. governor richardson, thank you for being with us. >> nice to be with you. thank you. >> our reporter, paula hancock, who was covering this from south korea, but look at the video, we see the same video, it's all provided by the north koreans, said that there did seem to be a difference between the people up close, up front, like anywhere else mourning and wailing the way that they are and the people in the distance who seemed to be onlookers, who seemed to be looking at the whole thing. in other words, was this outcry -- you've been there -- are these people as devastated as they look that kim jong-il has passed? >> well, it's all very choreographed. i do think there's a lot of grief there. it's a funeral procession that is basically based on the cult of personality. kim jong-un, the youngest son, is now the leader. that's the message that is being conveyed. the root of the funeral, the grandfather, the father of the country, then kim's father, and now i think what is interesting is leading the funeral procession is a signal that kim jong-un is now the leader. what was interesting is that the uncle was right behind him. >> right. >> he's now vice chair of the national defense commission. so it shows that he's kind of going to be a mentor, maybe a reegent kind of help guide kim jong-un in his early days. but now that the ceremony is observe, now that the funeral is over, tomorrow the last funeral event, now you will see the consolidation of power by the military through kim jong-un or you might see some disruption. but i think the odds are that kim jong-un for the next period of time will be anointed leader. >> well, this is one of those weird conundrums where you know these repressive leaders are there and then when they are gone you have equal measure fear that they will be vacuum and lead to in-fighting and then it will lead to instability versus hope that the new leader might be more opened to the outside world. where do you think this falls? >> well, there is some good signs. the good sign is that the new leader, kim jong-un, did meet with south korean leaders, two women leaders that came to pay condolences. he was very proper. and, secondly, he did convey to them the need for south korea's investment in north korea. so he's already acting like a leader. those are two initial good signs. but what you want to watch in the next few days is north korean military leadership, the socialist worker party. those are the two entities that have the power in north korea. especially the military. but it looks like they are anointing kim jong-un, the young man. they are getting behind him. i think the message of the ceremony, the funeral, is unity, the call to personality continues and it's very, very, very closely, tightly held. so even somebody like myself who has been there eight times, you've got to watch these clues and the clues are that the young man is stepping into the most powerful position for now. >> we'll watch it very closely and hopefully you will help us interpret it as we get more signals. governor bill richardson, always a pleasure to see you. >> thank you. when a leader dies, we put together a package celebrating the achievements of their life but it's been difficult to find what is fact and what is fiction when it comes to the claims made by and about kim jong-il. so, please, while watching this keep in mind, some of these things might not be true. ♪ >> double rainbow all the way across the sky. >> "outfront" next, erin's interview with the prime minister of the uae sheikh mohammed. they discuss dubai, iran and the future of the middle east. and the obama administration asks congress to raise the country's debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion. there is nog funny about that. and america's new favorite comedian, arlen spector? with your mortgage, worried about foreclosure. we can help you keep your house. all we ask for in return is that you submit to our plans for galactic domination. [laughing] [laughing hesitantly] [laughing evilly] sign. announcer: if you're facing foreclosure, talk to the right people. speak with hud-approved housing counselors free of charge at... the obama administration is asking congress to raise the country's debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion. let's bring in cnn's congressional correspondent dana bash, who joins us from washington. dana, this wasn't entirely unexpected. is the administration going to face the same obstacles that it saw this summer in getting it approved? >> ali, the answer is no. no doubt that the debt ceiling will be raised and it will happen without the flail-biting political drama we saw in the summer because at the end of the that debt debacle, fair to say it was a debt debacle, the debt ceiling will go up with no economic disruption and in a way that spares these politicians in both parties the political pain of voting for more spending in an election year and what the law says is that if the treasury department determines that the u.s. is within $100 billion of the debt limit, the president has to ask congress for an increase. but here's the catch. congress only has to disapprove about that and has 15 days to do it. and guess what, congress is not here. even if they were here, they probably wouldn't have votes in the senate. but congress is not here. >> despite the fact that this has been prearranged, to come degree, has there been a gop reaction to this request? because you would think that it would at least present an tune for those who voted against it last time to be able to say, this is just more of the same nonsense. >> exactly. and there are definitely a lot of republicans, despite the fact that this was scripted, that are not very happy about not having the opportunity to have this debate on the floor of the house and the senate to rail against spending. and they say they are not happy because this is kind of a power play by the president. he could have easily waited to make this request so that congress is in town but the obama administration knows full well that congress is not here. you may hear a demand from republicans for the senate democratic leader to call the senate back in for the house to do the same but i was told that that's unlikely. but this is campaign candy for those republicans out in iowa who are railing against president obama as a liberal spender. >> it will be one more example that they will use. dana, thank you. >> you too, ali. disturbing details about the final moments of the family killed in a christmas day house fire. we have the autopsy results. then, iran's plan to block the world's most strategically important oil choke point, the strait of hormuz. a real threat or military posturing? and erin's exclusive interview with the prime minister of the uae, sheikh mohammed. she asked him about iran. "outfront," next.te to see ithrough. today, while our work continues, i want to update you on the progress: see ithrough. bp has set aside 20 billion dollars to fund economic and environmental recovery. we're paying for all spill- related clean-up costs. and we've established a 500 million dollar fund so independent scientists can study the gulf's wildlife and environment for ten years. thousands of environmental samples from across the gulf have been analyzed by independent labs under the direction of the us coast guard. i'm glad to report all beaches and waters are open for everyone to enjoy. and the economy is showing progress with many areas on the gulf coast having their best tourism seasons in years. i was born here, i'm still here and so is bp. we're committed to the gulf for everyone who loves it, and everyone who call