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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 ro...

endorsements but a bit of a dark cloud on the horizon. more on that in just a moment, but, first, his fight for the gop nomination. a new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll shows him with a commanding lead over mitt romney. the other candidates trailing far behind. paul steinhauser is in washington. paul, the same poll shows gingrich struggling in a head-to-head race against president obama. tell us about that. >> that horse race poll and two others indicate the same thing. way ahead in the horse race. look at this, hypothetical matchups next november. president obama versus gingric...

Time. >> can he get past the personal baggage, the affairs, the marriages? >> i don't know. >> is this an electability problem? >> i think probably. one of the things, however, i was thinking as i watched him was, you know, to young people, to 18 and 20-year-old voters, it just occurred to me, he's new. to all of us, he's been around for a long time. he left the speakership in 1998. we all covered it. to somebody who is 18 or 22, this is a new figure. they may find him quite compelling. the personal stuff, i don't know. >> mark halperin, what he's saying is fair to ask about the personal stuff...

Baggage, the affairs, the marriages? >> i don't know. >> is this an electability problem? >> i think probably. one of the things, however, i was thinking as i watched him was, you know, to young people, to 18 and 20-year-old voters, it just occurred to me, he's new. to all of us, he's been around for a long time. he left the speakership in 1998. we all covered it. to somebody who is 18 or 22, this is a new figure. they may find him quite compelling. the personal stuff, i don't know. >> mark halperin, what he's saying is fair to ask about the personal stuff, but i don't really think it's going ...

He can keep that discipline. >> peggy? >> one of the most interesting things today that i saw in your newt gingrich interview was that a very busy green room, in which a bunch of people were walking around and chatting, stopped and watched it. it was a silent green room. that tells you something. people will stop and listen to him. he is a compelling character. gingrich is one of the best explainers of generally conservative views and philosophical starting points that there is out there, so that's going to be interesting. i found him very non-defensive today, good-natured and easier, as if he...