good morning, good morning to all of you. good and bad news this morning for the gop front-runner newt gingrich. with less than thee weeks until the iowa caucuses his political director in the state stepped down after calling mormonism a cult. two gop candidates, mitt romney and jon huntsman are mormons. gingrich is already working with a bare bones staff in this state and meantime, gingrich opened a commanding lead nationally over mitt romney, but head-to-head with the president, well, that s another story. cnn political director paul steinhauser got your title wrong, paul. it s all good. you re the best guy at cnn. paul steinhauser, and you re here on this american morning. okay. let s talk about these polls. reporter: yeah. starpt with t staff with the numbers. brand new from nbc wall street journal numbers. the battle for the republican nomination. newt gingrich way ahead. 17 points ahead of mitt romney, the former massachusetts governor. everybody else in t
good morning, everyone. it s wednesday, december 14th. i m christine romans along with carol costello on this american morning. good morning. good morning, good morning to all of you. good and bad news this morning for the gop front-runner newt gingrich. with less than thee weeks until the iowa caucuses his political director in the state stepped down after calling mormonism a cult. two gop candidates, mitt romney and jon huntsman are mormons. gingrich is already working with a bare bones staff in this state and meantime, gingrich opened a commanding lead nationally over mitt romney, but head-to-head with the president, well, that s another story. cnn political director paul steinhauser got your title wrong, paul. it s all good. you re the best guy at cnn. paul steinhauser, and you re here on this american morning. okay. let s talk about these polls. reporter: yeah. starpt with t staff with the numbers. brand new from nbc wall street journal numbers. the battl