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CNN Saturday Morning News

No Gingrich, No Perry in Virginia; Shoppers Riot for Air Jordans

Aired December 24, 2011 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you all.

Seven a.m. Eastern Time, 7:00 a.m. here on Atlanta, on this Christmas Eve. Hope you're having a good weekend so far. I'm T.J. Holmes.

Going to get you caught up on everything you need to know. Some weather you need to know about today as well.

But also a big political story, this is not a good Christmas gift for these guys -- Gingrich and Perry. Some bad news, their name will not be on the ballot in a key state after these two failed to qualify.

Also, a lot of people will be out shopping. But look at this. Violence erupted at several places across the country yesterday. These folks aren't after the hottest Christmas gift, they're after that pair of shoes.

We're asking you this morning, what would you go crazy and stand in line for?

Also, did you fall into some spending traps this year? We're going to make sure you don't fall into those same traps in the New Year.

(MUSIC)

HOLMES: That battle for the Republican nomination for president maybe got tougher for Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. Both candidates failed to qualify for the Virginia primary in March. Neither of them came up with enough valid signatures.

Virginia is not only an important Super Tuesday state, it is the state Gingrich currently lives in.

Let's bring in our Athena Jones.

Just how big of a deal is this?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's a big deal for Gingrich and Perry. I mean, as you mentioned, this is the state where Gingrich lives. He lives in a suburb just outside of D.C. The deadline was Thursday, he told a GOP fund-raising breakfast in the state that he would have 12,000 to 14,000 signatures. And so, clearly his campaign thought that he was in the clear. But it turns out he isn't. We learned this, incidentally, overnight, T.J., on Twitter. That's where the Virginia Republican Party first made this known.

It's interesting stuff. Virginia has stringent rules compared to other states. A candidate needs 10,000 signatures as well as 400 from each of the state's 11 congressional districts. So, it's a little bit more complicated.

And you know, recent polls have shown Gingrich was a little bit ahead of Romney in the state by about five points. So, it's not looking good for him. This is a state he could have done well in, and 49 delegates are at stake there, T.J.

HOLMES: OK. Who did qualify?

JONES: Well, right now it's just Romney and Ron Paul. Only four candidates even put in the petition. So, Santorum, Bachmann and Huntsman didn't even offer signatures. But Perry and Gingrich did. As it turned out over the course of Friday, as you had the Republican Party looking closely at those signatures, it turns out only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney will end up on the ballot. So, good for them, possibly, very good for them; and bad for Gingrich and Perry.

HOLMES: All right. Athena Jones, some bad Christmas news for these two campaigns. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you again.

Reminder to our viewers this is coming up, I know you're dealing with the holidays, but January 3rd, finally it's time to start voting. Special America's choice, coverage of the Iowa caucuses right here, CNN, 7:00 Eastern Time.

Meanwhile, President Obama, his reelection campaign is saying, no, that's OK to some money. This money is from former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. The campaign returned more than $70,000 in campaign contributions following the collapse of Corzine's financial firm, MF Global. The FBI is now investigating the firm and the more than $1 billion in client money that just went missing.

Four minutes past the hour now.

Take a look at these pictures. These folks are after a pair of shoes. A pair of shoes named after a guy who hasn't played basketball in nine years. I know it's Michael Jordan but come on, folks.

Yes, the latest pair of vintage Air Jordans sparked scenes like this all over the country. This is not just one place. This is Indianapolis, yes, but we see scenes like this in Seattle, Kansas City, Atlanta. Reports even police officers had to use pepper spray to get people under control, reports of officers being injured, people being injured, arrests being made because people are after this new version of an old shoe.

Also this morning, Britain's Prince Philip will spend Christmas Eve in the hospital. He is, of course -- you're seeing him there -- Queen Elizabeth's husband. He underwent a procedure yesterday to unblock a coronary artery. Prince Philip is 90 years old. Well, a lot of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you haven't finished your holiday shopping. No, a lot of people wait until the last minute. That's OK. And don't worry, you're certainly not alone.

Alison Kosik, she's done with her shopping, but she has the assignment to be out there on the midst of the shopping. I'm told we just lost her signal. I told you it's crazy out there, everybody doing their last minute shopping.

Alison, we're told, has a technical issue. We suspect, though, she had to run in and actually buy something, Reynolds. We'll try to get her back up in a minute.

Reynolds is over there for me.

Reynolds, are you a last-minute -- one of these procrastinators? Very last night.

REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Everything I do is last-minute. I just turned around to hear you last-minute. Come on. That's the way we've done the show. It's always been this, you know, really quick, really fast, really insane.

You guys can walk by. It's OK. This is a fluid thing. Seriously, feel free to walk by.

Yes, we are active here in the weather office and with good reason. We've got some crazy weather going on today. Everyone wonders, T.J., as to whether or not they're going to see a white Christmas or not. There are a lot of places that have snow on the ground.

A few places may actually see snowflakes in the air. We're going to tell you who is getting what coming up.

Back to you, T.J.

HOLMES: All right. Reynolds, thank you so much.

I'm told now that our Alison who is in Jersey City, keeping an eye on things. I can see you now, Alison. I was assuming --

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, T.J.

HOLMES: -- that you stepped away from the camera, because you had to do some shopping. But is that the truth?

KOSIK: I was -- I was really tempted to because five minutes ago the doors opened. We are near one store at least. The doors literally just opened. And, believe it or not, it's 7:05 in the morning. Would you believe people are out here shopping this early? You know, we are in the home stretch before Christmas, the final day, the final hours before the big day.

And, yes, if you're a procrastinator, today is your day to focus. That shining light is on you if you are the procrastinator. In fact, I ran into one procrastinator here, and this is Ed. Ed, you came out this morning to go some shopping. What have you been waiting for?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a last-minute shopper, you know? It's like sometimes you get the best deals, so you come to the malls where you can hit everything quick at once.

KOSIK: Is that some sort of strategy? Do you actually plan to wait until the last minute?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't plan to wait until the last minute but it happens because you're busy. But you try to come here as early as possible, so you can miss a lot of rush and get out of here quick.

KOSIK: There are some benefits to waiting, isn't there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. You get better sales at times, stuff is flying off the shelves right now, get the biggest discounts. So, sometimes it does help.

KOSIK: All right. Ed, I'll let you go. Start your shopping.

And you know what? He's not alone. There's a "Consumer Reports" survey, T.J., that shows 25 percent of people who responded as of Thursday say they have not even started their Christmas shopping yet. That's up from 17 percent last year.

So, Ed is not alone. If you're watching this and getting ready to go out and go shopping, just know you're not alone -- T.J.

HOLMES: All right. Well, thank that guy for us for taking the time out. I know he's got a busy morning. Thanks for grabbing him.

Alison, we're going to continue to check in with you. I assume it will get busier and busier as we do check in with you. Thanks so much.

And to the last-minute shoppers out there and also people trying to get somewhere, get to that family gathering, you need to hear Reynolds Wolf. He's coming up in just a moment. We'll have the latest on the forecast which is going to be causing a few problems for some of you.

Stay with us.

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WOLF: With the loose laces. That never made sense. We are talking about shoes.

HOLMES: Yes.

WOLF: The Michael Jordan.

HOLMES: Michael Jordans. It's amazing that you're saying, some of these kids and those violent scenes, they weren't alive to see him or -- they never saw him play. They never saw him play and they're pushing, shoving, trampling each other for these shoes.

WOLF: 2003 was his last game in the NBA and here we are going through (INAUDIBLE) over shoes. Look at them. It's coming -- it's great. I mean, you love -- hey, it's capitalism, going in to get a product, but, I mean -- come on, folks.

HOLMES: A hundred eighty dollars, by the way. We're going to get more on this in the next block. But, again, $180 shoes. We will have some of your comments about what would go crazy for. But, right now, people would love a white Christmas. But hey --

WOLF: Would you wear your Michael Jordan shoes -- would you wear Air Jordans out in the snow, to cleanup snow?

HOLMES: No.

WOLF: Because people in New Mexico will be doing that. Not wearing their Air Jordans but they're cleaning up snow.

Same deal in Colorado. Let's hop over here and show you what I'm talking about, T.J. Everything on this map that appears to be this purplish color, this pinkish color, that's where the heavy snowfall happens to be. Some of this fell in feet, especially in places like Boulder, Colorado, just 72 hours ago.

The snow was incredibly, incredibly heavy. We're going to see more of that begin to shift over into parts of Texas. Not impressive again in terms of snow on the ground, but that is all going to come.

In fact, as we look at our radar. We put this into motion. We're going to zoom in on the Lone Star State, where on one side, you got rain, you got a little bit of sleet and snow. We have that kind of mix of things.

The back half of the system, everything is frigid there with the moisture. You have some snow in the Apache Mountains, parts of the Pacific Northwest, straits of Juan de Fuca and back over towards, say, Seattle, it's mainly going to be rain. But when you get up to, say, the Cascades, not rain. You will see that switch over to snowfall.

And speaking of snow, we got a lake effect snowfall action. What's happening here, we got wind that is coming in from the Northwest, and as it picks up that moisture from the lake, it drops the low lying -- low level of the atmosphere with temperatures right at or below the freezing level. So, that moisture falls as snow. And it's going to pile up along parts of 90. Keep that mind anyone taking a drive out there.

Now, the big weather-maker we have in parts of the Northeast, of course, is going to be that wind. The wind that we're going to have across parts of the Northern Plains, Northern Rockies. That's going to be a transferring mechanism that's going to bring a blast of very cold air into places like Denver, Colorado, where we can expect daytime highs to rise to 41 degrees.

With the wind, it's obviously going to feel a bit cooler -- 39 degrees in Chicago, also 39 degrees in Minneapolis, 51 for Houston, 63 in New Orleans, 61 in Atlanta, 40s in Washington, D.C.., same deal over towards Richmond. But when you get into New York and Boston, back into the upper to low 30s, 80s in Tampa and Miami. When it's 81 near Miami, you don't have any problems at all. It's going to be a great day for you, maybe some scattered showers, maybe a delay or two at the airport, but nothing major. Seventy degrees in Los Angeles, 62 in San Francisco, and 34 in Los Angeles -- 74 in Los Angeles.

T.J., something else we have to talk about this morning is we've got football that's going to be back. A lot of NFL football games. Some games inside, even some forecast for some of the domes where people will be tailgating outside. So, we've got that coming up, straight ahead.

HOLMES: Thank you, kind sir. We'll see you here again shortly.

And a special lineup of programming for you tonight on CNN. Seven o'clock, a look back at the best and worst of 2011 in politics, pop culture, sports and web stories and a whole lot more. And then at 8:00, "On the Front Lines." That's an Anderson Cooper special, recapping the war's disasters and demonstrations that marked the very turbulent year. And also at 9:00, Piers Morgan revisiting his favorite moments with the year's hottest music-makers.

Also this morning, we've been asking you to weigh in on this story. A frenzy out there, even a violent frenzy for the newest Air Jordans, actually an update of an old model. But, still, you know how this goes. Classic Air Jordans going on sale sparked scenes like this over the country.

We've been asking you what would you stand in line and go crazy for? That's next.

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HOLMES: All right. Quarter past the hour. Let's show this video once again. And then we're going to get to Reynolds comments on what he would stand in line for here in just a second. But, hey, really? Look at this, this frenzy over the new Air Jordans -- the old Air Jordans what they are, but they re-released, Nike does -- or Jump Man, or whatever you call it now -- they re-released these Jordans. That's ridiculous.

So, they released the Air Jordan 11 version yesterday. People had to break up crowds, pepper spray crowds. They said they had to break up. There was violence. Police officers injured. Several people arrested.

Bhis was all over the country, to the just in one place but literally stores across the country. The shoes are 180 bucks.

So this sparked a question this morning, what would you stand in line for hours to get and maybe go crazy about?

Here are a couple of your comments. One said, "I would stand in line for hours for something of lasting value, like a house or successful business. Definitely not shoes." Makes sense.

Sheena summed it up saying, "Nothing."

Another here saying, "Free health insurance. Free car insurance. For life." That's a good one.

Here's one from, should I say the name, Grown Sexy85. Stand in line for prince tickets.

But, Reynolds, I was asking you as you're walking up, had you ever done this before? You seemed to suggest, yes, you stood line --

WOLF: I wasn't going to say anything. I was in there minding my own business and got dragged back in here. OK.

HOLMES: What was it?

WOLF: 1997, Fatboy's greatest hits album.

HOLMES: You stood in line for it?

WOLF: I actually did.

HOLMES: There was a line for that album?

WOLF: I mean, actually, I was doing a story, and there was a line for Fatboy's greatest hits.

HOLMES: Are you serious?

WOLF: So, the shoes. The main thing about the shoes is that a lot of people are actually going -- you're going to see those shoes on eBay. You're going to see people --

HOLMES: They are popping up already, 500 bucks, things like that.

WOLF: If you just wait -- if you have a delayed gratification, if you can wait until February, April --

HOLMES: They might be out.

WOLF: Absolutely. Or go with the canvas Converse Chucky Tailors, whose always a great look. I don't care who you are.

HOLMES: They never run out of stock.

WOLF: You can get some markers and just design your own, just make your own scheme.

HOLMES: There's an idea, folks. But please calm down over the shoes. I love them, too. We all love them, but calm down over the shoes.

Our Clyde Anderson, he's going to -- coming up next: he's going to help you avoid some of the traps you may have fallen into in 2011. Don't make do the same thing -- you make the same mistakes in 2012. Maybe have some advice about tennis shoes as well. Stay with us.

WOLF: Fatboy's greatest hits was a great album. It was an amazing album. I still cry when I think about it.

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HOLMES: Twenty past the hour.

Clyde Anderson, our financial analyst. And he's here to tell people they have been doing some stupid stuff in the past year.

CLYDE ANDERSON, FINANCIAL ANALYST: I wouldn't say stupid.

HOLMES: What would you call it? Falling for it?

ANDERSON: Falling for it. Falling for the (INAUDIBLE).

HOLMES: Well, a little strong maybe.

ANDERSON: Yes, yes.

HOLMES: OK. The stuff we did, we need to make sure we don't make the same mistakes. Financial traps, right, for 2012. What do you got?

ANDERSON: We're falling to several of these traps. One of them is that deal of the day, you think you get all the time, the deal of the day, the Groupon, telling you that this is on sale, if you buy it right now, you can get it for this price.

HOLMES: That's not right?

ANDERSON: Well, happen is it's not on your list. If it wasn't on a needs list, now it becomes something you want, because you're seeing it and it seems like it's a great deal. So, you for it.

HOLMES: Sometimes, is it a great deal, we just don't need it?

ANDERSON: If you need it, it can be a great deal. If it's something you don't need -- now we get driven by the excitement and the chase of the deal that we spend this money that we didn't have to spend.

HOLMES: What if I don't need a car and it's on sale for 5 grand.

ANDERSON: That's a different situation. It depends on what kind of car it is and what you can do with the car you already have.

HOLMES: All right. What's next -- you know (INAUDIBLE) -- what's next on your list?

ANDERSON: Well, the next thing that we'll have to look at is a lot of times, what we're seeing is people that are buying -- they're going out finding all these deals that they think are good deals, but they spend hours shopping for these deals.

HOLMES: OK. ANDERSON: So they exhaust all possibilities for the sale.

HOLMES: OK.

ANDERSON: So they're going out and they say, hey, I'm going to look and will spend five hours looking for this thing. Well, you think about the opportunity cost. How much is your hour worth? So, if I spend five hours and I make $100 an hour, I spent $500 looking for this item that I need.

So you really wasted time, you wasted money, instead of just buying it and maybe saving, what, you know, 10 bucks or 5 bucks. Is it really worth it?

HOLMES: Is it worth your time? I never would have thought about it that way.

ANDERSON: Is it really worth your time?

HOLMES: All right. Let's get that list back up. What was next there? The trap we need to avoid for the next year.

ANDERSON: The next trap we need to avoid is buying on emotion.

HOLMES: OK.

ANDERSON: You know, this year has been a roller coaster. We've seen the stock market go up. We've had the debt ceiling debates. We've got all these things going on that people are tuned into, and so it's driving them to make a decision to buy or not to buy.

So, when the stock market is up. We feel good and want to go and buy. Everything is great. The economy is good.

If they're down, we don't want to buy.

So, we're driven by these things, and we got to kind of step away from that and don't make buying decisions based on how you feel emotionally.

HOLMES: I saw big bank fees on the list there. Are we going to be able to avoid this?

ANDERSON: Yes. Well, I mean, that's one things also that we have fallen for because of the big bank fees. We've seen that some banks have come in with new charges and then they removed the charges. And what happened a lot of times is because we are using those debit cards, that we talked about before, we are charged. We pay additional charges. I'm a big advocate of using cash when you can.

So, really got to be strategic about how we do things and not caught up in what the banks are doing to dictate how we spend --

HOLMES: I saw the last one on the list, and I think I hear this all the time. Is it we're talking about, the 10 percent discount? What is it? ANDERSON: Well, no, this is actually savings. This is save before you spend, save before you spend.

We do it backwards. We got to turn around. We're actually spending and then try to figure out how much we can save. We've got to actually try to save 10 percent. Save 10 percent before you go out.

HOLMES: No matter what.

ANDERSON: No matter what. Save 10 percent and then go out and do your spending. Don't do it the other way around and try to put some money together after you're going out and spend it all and try to figure out how much I can save now.

HOLMES: No matter how little you might have or how much you might have. You know, time is tough for a lot of people.

ANDERSON: Exactly.

HOLMES: Putting stuff aside when you say, hey, I need it right now.

ANDERSON: Exactly. Start with something, save something. And you'd be amazed at the momentum happens. We call it the snowball effect. When you start saving something, next month save a little bit more. It becomes a game you play with yourself, see how much I can save, if I can beat my last month's saving.

HOLMES: But if the car is on sale, Clyde -- no, teasing.

ANDERSON: Depending on how much. The number is -- the magic number. That's the key.

HOLMES: Clyde, it's been a pleasure. We've been working together for years here now. This is our last segment we'll have here as I wrap things up tomorrow. But, really, it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much.

ANDERSON: Always a pleasure.

HOLMES: We're good friends and we'll be seeing each other more now that I'm gone probably than when I was here. Thanks as always, my man.

ANDERSON: Thanks to you.

HOLMES: We're getting close to the bottom of the hour, tourists, they come for the religious experience but the government wants their money. Up next, Bethlehem's battle with tourism dollars.

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HOLMES: Tourism is big business in the West Bank city of Bethlehem this time of year, but the season's good cheer is fading pretty fast.

Kevin Flowers explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SINGING)

KEVIN FLOWER, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): It is not hard to tell it is the holiday season in Bethlehem. A giant tree stands in the center of Manger Square. And all around, the sights and sounds of Christmas can be found in abundance.

And at the nearby Church of the Nativity, built at the site where Christians believe Jesus was born, visitors around the world gather for this important stop in their religious pilgrimage.

UNIDENTIFIED TOUR GUIDE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

FLOWER: They are among the over one million Christian pilgrims who come to the Holy Land each year, and represent the fastest-growing sector in the tourism industry.

(on camera): While the number of tourists visiting Bethlehem is up compared to last year, Palestinian tourism officials say it's hard to get them to spend their money here, sighting what they say is stiff and unfair competition from Israel.

(voice-over): Kholoud Daibes is the Palestinian minister of tourism. She says Israel uses its control of the Holy Land gateways -- airports, ports and land crossings -- to unfairly direct tourists toward spending more time at religious sites under Israeli control.

KHOLOUD DAIBES, PALESTINIAN MINISTER OF TOURISM: We still have 5 percent of the revenue, 90 percent is spent on the Israeli side. This is a very unfair distribution I believe, even for Israel, unfortunately, because they use us only as a bridge to develop tourism into Israel.

FLOWER: Israeli tourism officials downplay that criticism, saying increased tourism benefits both sides, and that locations like Bethlehem are an integral part of a religious experience here, which also includes sites in Israel like Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee.

OREN DRORI, ISRAELI TOURISM MINISTRY: We are certainly highlighting and giving the possibilities within the areas which we have control of, but we have no problem with people will go backwards and forwards between those two or three locations.

FLOWER: Back in Manger Square, olive wood merchant, Nabil Giacaman, says there are enough tourists coming through Bethlehem, but the problem is getting them to stay.

NABIL GIACAMAN, BETHLEHEM SHOP OWNER: Most of the groups they come to Bethlehem five minutes inside the church, then they take them to the big shops where they get the commission. The guys and bus drivers, 40 percent commission.

FLOWER: Giacaman says he and other merchants are deeply discouraged, and that both Israelis and Palestinians need to do more to help Bethlehem live up to its Biblical potential. GIACAMAN: We can make Bethlehem like to this guide. This is what they should do.

FLOWER: The Christmas wish shared by the residents of this little West Bank town.

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FLOWER: Kevin Flower, CNN, Bethlehem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: I'll be back with you at the top of the hour with more live news. Right now, time for the good doctor.