Huntsman Endorsed By Boston Globe; Romney Snubbed By Globe Again; Santorum Stumbles In New Hampshire; 8:30 AM ET: December Jobs Report; "Boston Globe" Endorses Huntsman
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. It's 6:00 in the morning. Get yourself out of bed, and if you're in L.A., go to bed. It's 3:00 a.m. It's an</s>EARLY START. ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's enjoy that cup of coffee, right? I'm Zoraida Sambolin. We are bringing you the news from A to</s>Z. BANFIELD: On the A part of it, the Ashleigh, the Zoraida, it's really cute. Sorry, I just had to bring that up. There's a lot going on. If you were sleeping through the day, Jon Huntsman got a big endorsement in the battle for New Hampshire, and it is a weird endorsement because it comes from the newspaper where Mitt Romney used to be governor.</s>SAMBOLIN: And have you heard about the Air Force sex scandal? Three cadets are charged with sexual assault, and you know, a total of 65 sexual assaults reportedly were made involving cadets, 2009, 2010. These numbers are going up still yet.</s>BANFIELD: Always been a controversial issue and not sure there's an answer coming anytime soon. Also want to let you know that Penn State may come out with a big announcement on who's going to replace Joe Paterno as head coach of that team. So we're keeping our eye on it for you.</s>SAMBOLIN: And Christine Romans has been keeping her eyes on this. The big jobs report for December, it comes out today. She is calling it the big granddaddy of them all and she got some bells and whistles to show us what it means and perhaps what it means for Democrats.</s>BANFIELD: Christine Romans, mayor of the morning, we'll call her. I love her. I think I maybe the only one who falls for her, but I really think she is. So, wow, can you believe Jon Huntsman, that itty-bitty state of New Hampshire. He's been putting all his eggs there and it's at least paid off in terms of the big endorsement that he got from the "Boston Globe." For vision in national unity, Huntsman for GOP nominee screamed the headlines to everybody in Massachusetts next door, but also that's the second heaviest read paper in New Hampshire. So it's a big, old deal for Mr. Huntsman who really kind of expects to pull New Hampshire off. The "Boston Globe" editor spoke to our own Erin Burnett last night.</s>PETER CANELLOS, "BOSTON GLOBE" EDITOR (via telephone): Huntsman has been bolder in the campaign. You have a real sense where he would take the country. He's engaged on the issues in a much more forceful way than Romney has.</s>SAMBOLIN: It's really important time for him, because he's only been polling in the single digits despite putting out all of this effort. They're kind of ignored Iowa and even dissed Iowa and yet didn't do so well getting up in the polls early on before the campaign. But he does say he believes his message is taking hold.</s>JON HUNTSMAN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The establishment is teeing up Mr. Romney at the choice for the Republican Party, and I say, the people of New Hampshire will not be told for whom to vote.</s>BANFIELD: I love how every state says, we won't be told how to vote. I'm not sure I know a state that likes to be told how to vote personally. Weighing in on this, Democratic strategist, Kiki McLean, one of my faves, live from Washington, D.C. this morning. Good morning, sweetheart.</s>KIKI MCLEAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good morning, Ashleigh. How are you?</s>BANFIELD: Also, conservative commentator, Lenny McAllister. I'm just awake, as you can probably tell from my tone. Lenny is live from Jacksonville, Florida. Lenny, you are moving to a different location every day. What is with you?</s>LENNY MCALLISTER, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: I'm trying to keep up with Matt Lauer, "Where in the World is Lenny McAllister."</s>BANFIELD: You were doing some frequent flying, my friend. And our CNN political editor, Paul Steinhauser live from Manchester, New Hampshire. Paul, I love the fact that you actually got out of the political center in D.C. This must be great for you being on the road. You don't have to stay cooped up in that little mushroom zone anymore, right?</s>PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Yes, I won't see D.C. for a while. Iowa for two weeks, New Hampshire -- I'm not going to see my family for weeks.</s>BANFIELD: It's going to get old soon. Trust me, my friend. I've spent a lot of time on the road. All right, let's get to the business of all of this because there's a new poll that I can read for you because every poll seems to be so outdated. So when we get a new one, we're really thrilled. Here we go. New Hampshire tracking poll, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Romney coming in at 41 percent. Ron Paul straggling away, way below at 18 percent. Rick Santorum, boom, boom. It wasn't such a great bump, bump, was it from Iowa? He's at 8 percent and then there are all the others. You almost want to call them also-rands? But I think it's unfair at this point because we still have four days to go. So let's start with you, Paul Steinhauser. I get it. I get it that this looks like a runaway state for Mitt Romney, but what does it mean for -- what does it mean for Jon Huntsman? If he doesn't pull it off in the place where he expected of any of the states he was going to pull it off, is this the end of the road, his last stand?</s>STEINHAUSER: Yes, real good question. You know, I guess, New Hampshire, the battle here is for second place. We all know Romney is probably going to win here. If he doesn't, it's a huge, huge story. So it's the battle for second. Whoever gets it is going to get a lot of momentum going into South Carolina. I was talking to some Huntsman aides last night here at the hotel where I'm staying and asking them just that. What do you need to do? If he needs to finish in second, if he needs to crack 10 percent, what is your goal here in New Hampshire that allows to you move on South Carolina where Huntsman has spent a little bit of time. However, he's basically living here nonstop, but he does get down to South Carolina. Unclear exactly what he needs to do. He knows he's not going to win here. He would like to do second place. If he's under 10 percent though -- I don't know how he goes on if he's under 10 percent here in New Hampshire.</s>BANFIELD: We'll have to watch those numbers clearly. I'm really curious to see how Governor Romney is going to do because he hasn't really broken above the 25 mark and yet he's polling at 41 percent in Massachusetts at this point. I want to show you two "Time" magazine covers, one from a month ago and one from this week. It was very, very clever of that magazine to do this. Take a look on the left. Why don't they like me? And then this week, after Iowa -- so, you like me now? Kiki Mclean, weigh in on this. I like to say, yes, that's a great headline, but then yesterday outcomes the "Boston Globe" saying, we're not so keen on our former governor.</s>MCLEAN: Yes, you know, it's kind of interesting because when you pair that up with, you know, I don't know what the strength of one editorial has even from the "Boston Globe." But it's almost like you said what it doesn't say. And then you look at the history of New Hampshire as having favorite son. There's almost kind of a favorite son moment here. So kind of doesn't matter what Romney gets because I'm not sure it does him a lot good. But underneath all of this what it demonstrates is frankly kind of what Newt Gingrich has said, which is the Republicans and conservatives just don't feel confident in what they're going to get with Mitt Romney. That's why they're not willing to coalesce and go there. That's a problem for him in the primaries. That could also be a problem for him as a nominee. People look up and say, well, you know, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had a protracted fight up until the end. But the difference there was, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were bringing lots of new participants to the game, new voters. You're not seeing that in the Republican primary and at the end of the day, that's not helpful for nominee.</s>BANFIELD: OK, Lenny McAllister, I want your ears tuned very, very closely to these next few pieces of sound I'm going to run for you. It essentially lines up a not so comfortable part of the day for Rick Santorum as he was stumping through New Hampshire yesterday. He got booed as he was leaving a stage at a college event. Take a listen. This after a, you know, sort of pitched conversation back and forth about gay marriage and his staunch position against it. And then look at this. This is at a diner. That's not good. No, that's not good. That was a place where Mr. Santorum was supposed to be. Where is the bump, Mr. McAllister? Where is the bump from Iowa for Rick Santorum and why is he getting this kind of a reception?</s>MCALLISTER: Well, the bump came when he got over $1 million in fundraising from Iowa Tuesday towards the rest of the week. However, it seems to be a prerequisite for Republican candidates that are nominated or deemed the frontrunner in this process to stick their foot in their mouth at some point in time immediately after getting that frontrunner status. Rick Santorum has done the same exact thing. If you look at the debates and the back and forth he had with the college students, there's no way to come out of that situation and look good if you're trying to be fighting with these college students. You're trying to shove your far right wing Christian conservative points of view on people that you know are moderate. He should have taken a better messaging towards this. If you look over the last 72 hours, he's defended earmarks, doesn't endear them to the Tea Party. He's insulted blacks, doesn't endear them to diversity and now he is insulting the moderate base. It's not going to endear him to the people in New Hampshire -- those three things right there.</s>BANFIELD: But it will endear him to the Evangelicals. I just had that very strong feeling. Panel, Kiki Mclean, Lenny McAllister and Paul Steinhauser, thank you all for getting up early and being so smart.</s>MCALLISTER: Thank you.</s>MCLEAN: Thanks. Have a good day.</s>BANFIELD: And it may sound like they're not smart when they take that long to answer me. It's because we have a very big delay with all of our ground crews all over the place and satellite trucks going bananas. So they're great group to get up that early. For the best political coverage on TV, make sure you keep it here on</s>CNN, 7: 00 Eastern on "STARTING POINT," with Soledad O'Brien. Eric Frendstrom, the senior adviser to Mitt Romney is going to join her and at 8:00 a.m., the "Boston Globe" editor, Peter Canellos is going to talk to Soledad about that big Huntsman endorsement.</s>SAMBOLIN: So we are expecting some good news about the U.S. economy this morning. I know Christine is because she is psyched and you've got the magic wall to tell us all about it.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Relatively good news because we're talking about six months in a row potentially of 100,000 jobs or more created. We haven't seen that since 2006. Think of that. We haven't had six months in a row of 100,000 jobs created since 2006. If economists are right that happened in December.</s>SAMBOLIN: You say that with caution, don't you?</s>ROMANS: Yes, absolutely. We're still in a very, very big hole from all the jobs that have been lost. So we're slowly climbing out of it.</s>BANFIELD: Whoa, whoa, wait. You say that. I also hear in the last six months, I keep hearing these reports of more unemployment, you know, filing. So I don't really understand how that works.</s>ROMANS: Well, every week we have hundreds of thousands of unemployment filings and even in a good economy, you have a few hundred thousand jobless -- because with such a dynamic economy, people are falling in and out of all the time. Now we're slowly seeing net job creation each month. We will continue to have jobless claims even in a booming economy. We have these jobless claims, but we're slowly crawling out of this hole.</s>BANFIELD: Let's see.</s>ROMANS: Let me show you. OK, I'm just going over to the magic wall, the John King magic wall. OK, this is what 2011 looks like. So this is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 months above 100,000 job creation, if economists are right. This is still a forecast. So we're not really sure. Remember in the middle of summer, we're talking about double dip recession. What's going on? It looks as though things have cemented here in the right direction over the past few months. Let's talk about how this is a political story as well. Because you are hearing over and over about how President Obama killed the job market and killed the American economy. When President Obama took office, this is what happened. These months was what happened in the aftermath of the financial crisis that started before President Obama took office so this is that wreckage of the financial crisis. And then things got better because of stimulus and they got better because of you know, census hiring and then it looked very sketchy again for a while. But now slowly but surely, things have been moving in the right direction, and there you go. That is what we're expecting for the month of December. So what does that mean? Well, it means if you're newly unemployed, it's getting a little bit easier to get a job. It means if you're long-term unemployed and there are 5.7 million people who have been out of work for six months or longer, that is a big number. If you're a long term unemployed, it is still the same old bad job market.</s>SAMBOLIN: Do we know what kinds of jobs are being created?</s>ROMANS: That's a good question. A lot of retail jobs, service sector jobs, low-wage jobs in many cases, but small businesses and midsize businesses are starting to hire again. It's not necessarily the big multi-nationals, about the money that's sitting in the bank. They're stretching it out of their workers, right, the big, big companies. It's small and medium sized businesses who are seeing things get a little better and they can't go on anymore without hiring. Holding out as long as they can because they are worried about the economy, but they're starting to do better.</s>BANFIELD: Can both parties grab from that? More money for job creators --</s>ROMANS: I can't wait to put them side-by-side. You can see, you know -- what they'll do is, the Republicans will say, the president's trying to take, call this a victory. We still have who too many people out of work and that's true. The White House will say things are slowly healing and we're going in the right direction. Let's not do anything to get in the way of the slow, but steady job creation --</s>BANFIELD: I want to see the graph, who wins, Christine Romans. All right, the mayor of the morning. Thank you very much.</s>ROMANS: You're welcome.</s>BANFIELD: It is now 12 minutes past 6:00 on the east. So at this time, we like to give you an early start to your day by alerting you to news happening later today. We're not just on the news. We're getting ahead of the news so you know what's going to be big tonight and here's what's going to be really big. Joran Van der Sloot is going on trial today for the murder of that young woman in Peru. Van der Sloot's lawyer says he admits to the killing of Stephany Flores, but says it wasn't premeditated. Of course, Van der Sloot was arrested in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, but he was never charged with that.</s>SAMBOLIN: And with just four days to New Hampshire, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, and Newt Gingrich, will all be in New Hampshire trying to chip away at Mitt Romney's lead there.</s>BANFIELD: And as for Mr. Romney, Governor Romney, he is holding a rally at a peanut warehouse in South Carolina in about two hours. And today at noon, a brand new CNN/ORC/"Time" poll of the race in South Carolina is coming out. We're just so excited. The others are outdated at this point. It's the first poll of the state since early December when it was, remember, Newt Gingrich with the very, very big lead.</s>SAMBOLIN: And complaining about the cold temperatures, but it's kind of toasty warm in the Midwest especially for this time of year. Right, Rob?</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Unbelievably so. Records falling across more for the past couple of days and that heat, guys, is moving off to the east, but there's a little bit snow across the northeast right now. But that's actually a warm front so temperatures are going to rise from the 20s and 30s into the 40s and 50s before too long here with this system as it makes its way towards the east. Check out some of these numbers. We showed you the records across parts of the Midwest yesterday. Look at California, 89 degrees, El Cajon 88, Escondio 85, San Diego and Los Angeles also seeing record high temperature of 83 degrees that coupled with big surf, big waves coming out. I bet there were some folks in the water. New Year records for Lincoln and Omaha. All of these is heading as mentioned off to the east. Today's high temperatures are going to be balmy. You can't find a temperature that in the 30s for daytime highs today. So nearly nationwide we're looking at this record heat, but especially across the Great Lakes and into the east. That's where this bulge of warm air is moving, 15 to 20 degrees above average over the next couple of days. You know, now, yesterday, guys, Zoraida's family came in and I had the pleasure of meeting them, especially Nikko and Sophia.</s>SAMBOLIN: You are such a doll.</s>MARCIANO: I don't want your kids to feel left out. So on behalf -- on behalf of the Southeast Bureau and the weather team, those are for your two little ones.</s>BANFIELD: My little</s>MARCIANO: Yes. Open that. That's a cute one --</s>SAMBOLIN: Look at that.</s>MARCIANO: -- right there --</s>MARCIANO: You know.</s>BANFIELD: That's very sweet.</s>MARCIANO: Now, as if Nikko and --</s>SAMBOLIN: Sophia.</s>MARCIANO: -- Sophia didn't have enough schwag, just a couple more things for them.</s>SAMBOLIN: Rob, you're such a doll.</s>MARCIANO: They are literally walking out of here with arms full of Severe Weather gear.</s>SAMBOLIN: They were. I took pictures and I'd posted them. They had such a great time and thank you.</s>BANFIELD: This could fit me.</s>MARCIANO: There you go.</s>BANFIELD: I'm just kidding. I'll give it to them.</s>SAMBOLIN: I've got to tell everybody Rob was such a doll.</s>MARCIANO: Hey.</s>SAMBOLIN: My kids are in Connecticut -- that's where you're from. And so it really helped for you to talk to my son and kind of make him feel that he's going to be OK there, even though it's different from Chicago.</s>MARCIANO: Well, when I'm back there, I'll show him my old stomping grounds.</s>BANFIELD: Come to dinner.</s>MARCIANO: Welcome to Atlanta. Sounds good.</s>SAMBOLIN: All right. It's a dinner here (ph).</s>BANFIELD: It's a date. It's a date with Mr. Dreamy and his family. See you, Rob.</s>MARCIANO: See you, guys.</s>BANFIELD: It is now 16 minutes past 6:00 on the -- on the East Coast. It's 3:15 and bedtime for you on the West Coast. We're getting you the news this morning making top headlines. "The Globe" -- "The Boston Globe" has done it again, bypassing former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and instead endorsing another Republican Jon Huntsman. The State's largest newspaper says Huntsman gives the party an opportunity to, quote, "renew itself." And if you remember, four years ago, "The Boston Globe" chose John McCain over Romney, too.</s>SAMBOLIN: The Air Force charging three of its cadets with sexual misconduct including one that is accused of rape. All three attended the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, but were reportedly involved in separate incidents over the last 15 months.</s>BANFIELD: We could also learn later today that Penn State has brand new head football coach to succeed Joe Paterno. "New York Times" is reporting that New England Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien interviewed with Penn State officials yesterday about that position.</s>SAMBOLIN: And still ahead, a new development in the girl that was deported by mistake to Colombia. We've got some developments on that.</s>BANFIELD: Actually kind of good news. She doesn't have to stay there the rest of her life. She can come back and get her USA citizenship. And also, a kind of a weird story out of the French Quarter of New Orleans. If you're under 15 years old, don't be out after dark. Curfew's coming. So why are some people saying this is racist? You're watching EARLY START.