candidates are today. front-runner mitt romney has two stops after arriving from new hampshire this afternoon. newt gingrich, rick perry and michele bachmann each have two events as well. rick santorum who just surged in the polls puts in the drive time with five stops throughout the state of iowa. one face missing from that map of iowa, ron paul. he says he ll ring in the new year at home in texas. two fresh faces you will see in iowa, cnn s political editor paul steinhauser and political director mark preston. they are both out at our forward operating base in des moines. paul, it s down to the last few hours there. good to see you with that beautiful backdrop behind you. break it down for me, what is the logic behind the two front-runner strategies, is ron paul heading back to texas this weekend? mitt romney not leading after spending a whole lot of time in iowa in the first place. good question. that s surprising to people. there s the state capital behind me. let s s
oh, my god. you all right? there s a madman and hollywood rampage caught on tape. a crazed gunman firing into cars. we ll talk about what set him off on this american morning. captions by vitac www.vitac.com and good morning, everyone. it s monday, december 12th. wow. december 12th where has the year gone? carol is off. i m christine romans. and i m ali velshi. good to see you again. haven t been here a while but come back into much news. tell me your abu dhabi in case you missed it, republican front-runner newt gingrich must have felt like everyone was ganging up on him because they were. calling the palestinian an invented people. this is a propaganda war in which our side refuses to engage and we refuse to tell the truth while the other side lies and you re not going to win if you re afraid to stand firm and stand for the truth. you stand firm and speak for the truth but you don t stand for israel. if bb netanyahu what s to say what you say, let h
so far there is no information on a possible motive. chris johns lives at the intersection. he shot video of the gunman and even engaged him in conversation to try to get his attention and he join us from los angeles. thank pup what were you thinking at the time in first of all, what drew your attention in the noise? yeah. basically, i heard pop, pop, pop. you know, i heard the gunshots. so that kind of drew my attention. i looked at the video and you said, hey, over here. look over here. why were you why were you trying to get him to come? you were asking him to shoot at you. yeah. i thought that i made a calculate calculated, kind of comparison. i thought, if people down there at point blank range to the shooter were going to get shot, you know, they were kind of helpless to avoid being killed. you know, me, i m four stories up, if i could take any of his attention and divert it towards me, any gunshots that he would shoot at me, i would have an opportunity to get
already responding. let s bring in cnn political producer shawna sheppard following the gingrich campaign. following us from des moines. you got the statement from newt gingrich. what else is he or his camp saying? moments ago we heard from newt gingrich s campaign press secretary. he sent a statement to cnn to clarify the former house speaker s remarks. he said gingrich supports a negotiated peace agreement between israel and palestinians. which will necessarily include agreements between israel and the palestinians over the borders of palestinian state. however, to understand what is being proposed and negotiated you have to understand decades of con complex history which is what gingrich is referencing during the interview with jewish tv. this is something the gingrich campaign often will comment on, the fact he was a former professor, and study of history. so we will see if he if he clarifies his remarks even more, challenging them even more at the debate tonight.