small business owner, kevin flanagan. >> how long you been doing this? >> i've been flying hot air balloons for 28 years now. i've been one of the luckiest guys around. >> but kevin's luck is running out. >> there's 105 thousand feet of cubic space. the propane heats the air and makes it fly. whenever the gas prices glo o u propane prices shoot up. now it's $2.99 a gallon overnight. >> so how does that affect your profit? >> it takes any profit away. right now i would say most companies are operating to break even. >> so that's the view from 1,000 feet above. but what about on the ground? we decided to come to the desert's edge rv camp. this is where folks travel across the country in the trailers and rvs. these are the people who are really impacted by the rising price of gas. this is home for now. yeah? >> this is our home. our vacation home. >> it's fantastic. i love it. >> home away from home. >> it's huge. it's really big. tell me a little bit about, what does it cost to fill the tank? >> well, it's a 100-gallon tank. it will cost $4 a gallon. $400 t

. >> small business owner, kevin flanagan. >> how long have you been doing this now? the luckiest guys around. >> but his luck is running out. >> the propane heats the air and that make it is fly and it seems like whenever the gas prices go up, the propane prices shoot up as well. just a few years ago we were less than -- we were about $1.85 a gallon and now it's 2.# $9 a gallon. >> so the bottom line, how does that affect your profit in. >> it kind of takes any profit away. so i would say most companies are operating at break even. >> suzanne malveaux joins us live from phoenix. you go to great heights in order to tell this story. unbelievable. >> a thousand foot view, i guess. >> yeah, it's fantastic. >> story. >> a great view. >> so do you think the candidates can solve the problem of the rising gas prices? >> kevin flanagan doesn't really see any of these republican candidates coming up with a solution that's going to solve this problem. they're looking at everybody, they're looking at romney, they're looking at santorum, as well as newt gingrich. but they called

small business owner kevin flanagan. how long have you been doing this? i've been flying hot air balloons for 28 years now. i've been the luckiest guy around. >> reporter: but kevin's luck is running out. >> the propane makes it fly, and it seems whenever the gas prices go up, the propane prices shoot up as well. a few years ago we were at about $1.85 a gallon and now it's 2.99 there are a gallon, just kind of overnight. >> reporter: how does that affect your profits? >> it takes any profit away. i would say most operators are at break even. >> reporter: we decided to come here at the desert rv cam. people travel here with their trailers, their rvs. these are the people really impacted by the rising price of gas. this is home for now, right? >> this is our home away from home. >> reporter: it's fantastic. it's huge. it's really big. what does it cost to fill the tank? >> it's a 100-gallon tank, and it will cost $400 to fill the tank at $4 a gallon. >> reporter: for dean, that means cutting back on family vacations, but the expense is still worth it. >> li

i'm high above phoenix, arizona, with kevin flanagan to talk about how his small business is trying to stay afloat in these tough economic times. >> all right. make sure you join suzanne, 11:00 a.m. eastern next week right here on cnn. >>> the republican candidates have hammered president obama over his handling of the koran-burning incident in afghanistan. and some have compared the controversy to the uproar over abu ghraib. remember that? paula broadwell is back with me to discuss whether this is fair. what do you think, paula? is this comparison accurate? is it flawed? is it fair? >> don, i don't think it's quite accurate to say that they're the same. as we've noticed, there haven't been the same sort of wide-scale protestation that we've seen in the arab spring. so there have been protests, and there have been a lot of afghans standing up. you know, there is the threat of more violence, but it's not the same as abu ghraib. it wasn't sanctioned, additionally. so in abu ghraib, we saw that these troopers intentionally did this sort of egregious act. in afghanistan, at the bagram air