jessica yellen, cnn, new hampshire. >> who won? insiders says mitt romney didn't do anything to hurt his frontrunner status last night, and that's what his goal was, obviously to do no harm. 51% saying he was the biggest winner. congresswoman michele bachmann also scored some big points as well, coming in second when people were asked, who won, 21%. she was the only other candidate in double digits. >>> and joining us now from new hampshire, from manchester, cnn's political analyst gloria bornlger. what's your take away from all this last night? >> well, what i think about having had a few hours to reflect on it, this is a completely different feeling i get from this republican field than from the republican field four years ago. it's much more conservative, it's much more noninterventionist. i remember john mccain, of course, the leading candidate and a nominee last time, you don't have that sort of mccain intervention weighing of the party. you have social conservatives, fiscal conservatives. if i'm an independent voter looking a

. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>> i'm jessica yellen sitting in for john king. an attack on the intercouldn't knell hotel in afghanistan. attackers including suicide bombers stormed the hotel a few hours ago. late word into cnn is that at least ten people are dead. a coalition spokesperson reports that nato helicopters fired on and killed three of the attackers on the roof top of that hotel. cnn has confirmed that all the attackers there have been killed. the taliban claimed responsibility for today's hotel attacks sending a message to the united states military and afghan officials that they are still a viable force in afghanistan. the white house says president obama has been briefed on the violence. we are joined on the phone by a journalist who is near the scene. we are not naming her for her own safety. please tell us, what is the very latest there? >> reporter: i'm on the scene now. it appears that the intercontinental hotel is on fire. it's quite a large fire. i just heard another explosion. it's unclear where the explosion came from or what it was. it ma

let's discuss the bachmann factor with victoria borger, jessica yellen and chip. when you see michele bachmann get in the race, we know what happened in 2008. a lot of people are looking at this race saying if she can hold iowa, what happens to minnesota governor tim pawlenty? what happens to the canadacy of the former speaker newt gingrich? what happens to lesser-known candidates like senator santora? >> she can be the front runner in iowa for six months. if that's all she does, it won't get very far. she is probably going to move on to south carolina and play like an iowa south carolina two-step which is what governor huckabee tried to do four years ago. the special thing about iowa, anybody can compete there. the iowa straw polls coming up in august. 10,000, 15,000 people. she is clearly expected to win that by a big margin. who is going to catch on next? who is going to get that next big oxygen burst out of iowa? there is a lot of play here. it's a long time to the caucuses there. >> she is leading the pack. a lot of people say she is a tea party favorite. peo

jessica yellen? congratulations. huh? your first question here. >> thank you mr. president. >> no question? you're going to do great. [laughter] >> yes. thank you. your administration has laid out four different dates by which you said that the debt ceiling must be raised or the u.s. would face potential dire consequences. three of those days have gone, and we have facedfinancial calamity. some of your critics say these are scare tactics to force a deal. why should americans believe august 2 is the final deadline and would you spell out for us what you believe will happen if the debt ceiling is not raised by that rate. >> jessica, let's be clear. we have not given out four different dates. we have given out dates that are markers to that will get us into trouble. equivalent lent to driving down the street and the yellow light starts flashing. now, it hasn't been a red light yet. so tim geithner says technically speaking, you know, we're in a position now where we're having to do a whole bunch of things to make sure that our bills are paid. by august 2, we run out