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 Greetings, We hope your holiday travel plans are working out. A lump of coal landed on Republicans today. Obama's approval ratings are the highest they've been since the night Osama Bin Laden was killed. Here's what's up. THE PAYROLL TAX-CUT EXTENSION: House Republicans are girding themselves for battle over the Payroll-Taxcut extension by watching scenes from Braveheart. Seriously. As many wags on Twitter have pointed out: all that courage and revolutionary fervor got William Wallace drawn and quartered. And the GOP is already losing the public relations war. Several Senate Republicans have demanded that the House simply pass the two-month extension that passed the Senate and enjoy Christmas, then pick a fight next year. THE REPUBLICAN RACE: The contest for the GOP's nomination is in a holding pattern. People are beginning to tune out of the news. We are locked in a situation in which nearly a majority of Republicans in the early primary states do not feel their decision is final. Romney remains the candidate with the most solid support but he does not appear to be growing it in any of the early states, even as Newt Gingrich begins his slide down. Iowa and New Hampshire often bring surprises, even when they've been subject to as much coverage and polling as this year. If Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman have made their dramatic moves in Iowa and New Hampshire respectively, we may not know it until the votes are tallied. Ron Paul still looks set to win Iowa. The possibility of Paul winning is now taken as such a commonplace that anything less than first will be seen as a disappointment. THIS DAY IN POLITICS: On December 21, 1988 Pan Am flight 103 was exploded over Lockerbie Scotland. 243 passengers and 16 crew were killed. The majority of passengers were Americans. Libyan leader Muammer Qaddafi accepted responsibility for the attacks in 2003 in order to have sanctions against his nation lifted. On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley made an unexpected arrival at the White House to volunteer to help fight the nation's drug problems. TWEET OF THE DAY: From Dashiel Bennett, a healthy reminder of the date. 
WHAT'S NEXT: House Republicans are taking a beating in the press. "Republicans on the side of Tax Increases?" "Republicans Won't Save Middle Class Families $1000 next year" But every time House republicans dig in, Senate Democrats and the White House fold on something. Watch for the House GOP to kick a bill to the Senate early next week that is hard to hold up. Do Democrats have the nerve to stick to a 2-month tax-cut that everyone wants when Republicans offer them a 1 year one that they say they want. Take care, Michael Michael Brendan Dougherty
Politics Editor
Business Insider mbdougherty@businessinsider.com Please follow Politics on Twitter and Facebook. | 
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