Chad’s Morning Briefing: Battle at Lubbock City Hall and More
Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of January 31st, 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.Battle at City Hall (link)
Is a battle at City Hall brewing? It appears so and if you are wondering what the tipping point was, it was swimming pools. Talk about swimming in the shallow end. The City of Lubbock has four city run pools. Two of those pools will be shutdown because the City enacted Stage 2 Water Restrictions. The other two pools run off well water, but some of those at City Hall say that in the interest of fairness, we should close down all four pools.
Councilman Victor Hernandez is not happy about this proposal at all. Councilman Beane supports Mayor Tom Martin on the issue and called out Hernandez on Monday's segment of "The Way I See It". Hernandez responded in an email calling Beane a Tom Martin attack dog. You can read the email and Facebook postings in the link above.
Tension has been brewing between Beane and Hernandez for a while and we could see a long battle ahead between these two.
As far as closing the pools go, I can see both sides of the issue. No one has a right to use a pool, but at the same time if it isn't hurting the water supply what is the problem. We will discuss it today on the show.
2. Florida Primary Tonight
The Florida Primary is tonight and if recent polls are correct, Mitt Romney is cruising to victory. According to Reuters, Mitt Romney has opened a 15 point lead on Newt Gingrich heading into Tuesday's primary. As far as Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are concerned, Florida doesn't matter.
Two other contenders for the Republican nomination, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and Texas congressman Ron Paul, were well behind the two leaders. Santorum's support was at 12 percent, down from 16 percent in Sunday's results. Paul was backed by 5 percent of survey respondents, down from 6 percent on Sunday.
Paul has not been campaigning in Florida.
"We're starting to see the impact of Santorum suspending his campaigning in Florida," Jackson said.
Santorum said on Sunday he was canceling his campaign events in Florida after his 3-year-old daughter was admitted to a hospital in Philadelphia.
Florida allows early voting at polling stations and by mail, and more than one-third - 35 percent - of respondents to the online poll said they had already cast their ballots. Romney's lead was particularly strong among that group, at 48 percent to 26 percent, 22-point margin.
Both Romney and Gingrich have been campaigning hard in Florida and it looks like it will pay off for Romney. If Romney wins by 12 or more points, I think that could do serious harm to the Gingrich campaign. If Newt can stay within 10 points, let the bashing and negative ad war continue.
3. Reagan's Torch (link)
Has Newt Gingrich been taking the torch quote out of context? According to some at NBC News, the answer is yes.
Calling himself “the legitimate heir to the Reagan movement,” Newt Gingrich recently cited a 1995 speech by Nancy Reagan in which the former First Lady said that her husband “passed on the torch” to him.
“In 1995, Nancy Reagan at the Goldwater Institute was very generous,” Gingrich told voters in Florida on Sunday. “And she said ‘Just as Barry gave the torch to Ronny, Ronny has passed on the torch to Newt.’”
But as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports, Gingrich appears to be taking that comment out of context.
Sources close to Nancy Reagan said the speech itself was written by the host at the Goldwater Organization – where Mrs. Reagan delivered the remarks - and that she was referring generally to Congress and not specifically to the former Speaker, Mitchell reported on her MSNBC program.
Okay, so what? Why does any of this matter? Friends, sit down while I tell you this. None of these guys are Ronald Reagan. Hearing Romney, Gingrich, and others go back and forth over this issue of Reagan is like two school kids fighting over last years prom date. "No! She liked ME more!!!" That's all I hear. If Newt really was the guy to carry the torch, where has he been until now? I really don't care is Reagan loved Newt Gingrich. Who is the best person to take on President Obama? That's what I care about. I don't think either side is winning anyone over with this Reagan War.
4. Dumb story of the morning (link)
Here is a story about Occupy Oakland.
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said she’s had it with a small, violent fringe element within the Occupy Oakland protests and claimed it is using the city as a “playground.”
Quan spoke Monday in an interview following another chaotic round of street protests in which police units from surrounding areas were on hand to support the cash-strapped city’s police department.
“They’re taking away resources from my city and creating a situation where it’s making it more difficult for me to keep the city safer,” Quan said.
This reminds me, when will authorities do something about the trash at 19th and University? Oakland and Washington, D.C. are trying to throw their campers out, why not Lubbock?
Other Top Stories:
These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of Lubbock’s First News with Chad Hasty. Tune in mornings 6-9am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App.
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