Chad’s Morning Brief: Newt Gingrich Suspends Campaign, Jim Gerlt Complains About Paul Beane & More

Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of May 3, 2012. Give us your feedback below and tune in to Lubbock’s First News with Chad Hasty for these and many more topics from 6-9 am.

1. Newt's Wild Ride is Over (link)

Newt Gingrich officially ended his campaign yesterday ending his "wild ride" and his hopes for ever becoming President of the United States. Truth is, Newt was the smartest of all the candidates and if he would have been able to run a national campaign, he would have won the primary easily. Mistake after mistake doomed his campaign and he never could beat back the Romney machine. Gingrich's good-bye was classic Newt, long and drawn out. According to Politico, here is just a sample of what he had to say.

Although he did not officially back Mitt Romney, he offered lukewarm words of praise for the man who beat him, saying that “this is not a choice between Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan.” Given that it is a choice between Romney and President Barack Obama, Gingrich argued “the gap” between the two “is as wide as any point in American history.”
He called the campaign a “truly wild ride,” and while thanking family and supporters, he singled out wealthy casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his family, who nearly single-handedly bankrolled the pro-Gingrich super PAC that kept him in the game.
Going forward, Gingrich said: “Callista and I are going to focus on a series of key issues … and try to educate and move policies in Washington, D.C. Probably central to this is a deep commitment to American exceptionalism.”
He provided few specific details about his plans, but during his lengthy suspension speech recapped the entirety of his policy positions and vowed to continue to work on them.
He said he will continue his media pursuits, writing books and producing movies.
He added that the couple would also focus on religious liberty and domestic energy independence as well as traveling to college campuses to talk about saving for retirement.
“In a very real sense, we can be free of radical Islam, Saudi kings and Chinese bondholders” if we reinvent our domestic energy policy, he said.

Gingrich is expected to officially endorse Romney soon. I think the Gingrich campaign made Romney a better candidate. He pushed Romney and made Romney a little more ready to go against the Obama Campaign.

2. Jim Gerlt Files Complaint Against Paul Beane (link)

It looks as though the Jim Gerlt campaign is in panic mode. On Wednesday Gerlt filed a complaint about Paul Beane and Beane's radio commentary that airs during LFN. According to the AJ:

Jim Gerlt, District 4 challenger, alleges incumbent Paul Beane failed to disclose advertising expenditures for the councilman’s appearances on KFYO-AM 790, also that Beane failed to mention each appearance as political advertising, as required by law.
Beane countered by saying his commentaries aren’t political in nature, and he has paid for the air time. He pays $1,000 per month, according to copies of checks provided by Beane.
“Mr. Jim Gerlt is trying to imply that this two minutes on KFYO is paid for out of political donations; he could not be more wrong,” Beane said.
But before Friday, Gerlt said he was not going to concern himself with Beane’s radio appearances. It’s the fact Beane said he has been paying for the appearances when they aren’t listed on his campaign finance report that finally got to Gerlt – just days before the election.
“At some point we draw a line in the sand and say ‘this is what’s right, this is what’s wrong,’” Gerlt said Wednesday, “and the ethics commission won’t do anything unless there’s a complaint filed. So that’s why (I filed the complaint).”
David Langston, former Lubbock mayor and the attorney who advised Gerlt on the matter, said the clips he heard are political advertising.
“Some of (the clips are of) him justifying position, some of them fundraising, some of them talking about how he does not like to do fundraising; those type of things of course are in the nature of advocacy,” Langston said.

Jim Gerlt seems like a good guy to me, but he is being led down a bad and wrong road by David Langston. Is Gerlt being taken advantage of by the Langston/Miller crowd? Possibly. What I can tell you is that what Paul Beane does is on the up and up and completely legal. I can also tell you that Jim Gerlt has not once asked to appear on Lubbock's First News for equal time. We have interviewed Gerlt once on the show, just like all the other candidates, and he was even hesitant about coming on then.

This to me is just a move by the Langston/Miller crowd to create a controversy during the voting process. They should be ashamed, but we know they aren't.

We will discuss this more on LFN today.

3. Obama's Fake Girlfriend (link)

This is just weird.

One of the more mysterious characters from President Obama's 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father is the so-called 'New York girlfriend.' Obama never referred to her by name, or even by psuedonym, but he describes her appearance, her voice, and her mannerisms in specific detail.
But Obama has now told biographer David Maraniss that the 'New York girlfriend' was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago.
"During an interview in the Oval Office, Obama acknowledged that, while Genevieve was his New York girlfriend, the description in his memoir was a “compression” of girlfriends, including one who followed Genevieve [Cook] when he lived in Chicago," Maraniss writes in his new biography, an excerpt of which was published online today by Vanity Fair.

Maybe that hope and change stuff was supposed to be fake too.

4. One in Seven Thinks It's All Over (link)

Is the world coming to an end? A new poll finds that one in seven people think so.

Nearly 15 percent of people worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime and 10 percent think the Mayan calendar could signify it will happen in 2012, according to a new poll.
Responses to the international poll of 16,262 people in more than 20 countries varied widely with only six percent of French residents believing in an impending Armageddon in their lifetime, compared to 22 percent in Turkey and the United States and slightly less in South Africa and Argentina.
But only seven percent in Belgium and eight percent in Great Britain feared an end to the world during their lives.

What do you think?

5. Dumb story of the morning (link)

Seriously? You can't put a swing set in your own back yard?

A homeowner’s association is suing a returning Army veteran for having a swing set for his kids in his backyard.
The Spring Lake Homeowner’s Association has filed a lawsuit against Bill Fry, an Army National Guard captain who just recently returned from Afghanistan after serving overseas for a year, and his wife, Candi Fry, for not getting approval to put up the swing set.
“The way the homeowner’s association has treated us and portrayed us to our neighbors, it has caused a fairly sizable rift,” Capt. Fry told WFAA-TV.
Candi Fry says they got permission to build the $1,200 swing set for their children in their backyard last year, but the homeowner’s association claims that is not true.
“They’re in the wrong only because they declined to make the proper application and submit the drawings,” homeowner’s association chairman Harold Lemmon told KLTV.
The lawsuit states that the swing set is “not in harmony with the design and location in relation to surrounding structures and topography,” according to The Mineola Monitor.