Stereotyping South Carolina; Fighting Obesity
BURNETT: So just five days until the South Carolina primary and if you listen to pundits and Washington insiders you might think to quote our own John Avlon, South Carolina is a quote "swamp of sleazy politics and brutal attack ads" -- you say it better than I do -- and quote "bible belt bashed (ph) of rednecks and racism", but Avlon who is from South Carolina would say you are dead wrong. He's OUTFRONT now to debunk the top three myths about South Carolina politics.</s>JOHN AVLON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, they're all-this is that time of year, you know, these ugly stereotypes disfiguring a beautiful state, so we're going to take them on --</s>BURNETT: All right, so let's take on stereotype number one. Rural, white social conservatives rule.</s>AVLON: That's right. This is the old stereotype for back in Strom Thurmond days, but it doesn't fit the facts of how the state has changed. Just take a look at how the state has changed enormously. It's got a 15 percent population growth in the last 10 years alone. Those</s>BURNETT: And a lot of those people are coming from the north --</s>AVLON: From the north, the northeast, a lot of jobs, manufacturing plants as well, so it changes the complexion of the state. That's not all. We've got an Indian American governor, Nikki Haley, James Clyburn and then the new representative from South -- from Charleston, Tim Scott. This is a great symbol. He's an African- American Tea Party leader representing the first district. He beat Strom Thurmond's son in the primary, so you've got an African-American Republican representing the district of Fort Sumter</s>BURNETT: All right and let's get to stereotype number two then, and this one has a lot of staying power, oh, they say, South Carolina, it's all about evangelicals. Is it?</s>AVLON: No. This is -- Bob Jones University seems to become shorthand for the entire state's politics and it's just not true.</s>BURNETT: That's right.</s>AVLON: In fact, in 2008, these are the returns, you see John McCain won the state. He didn't have evangelical support, but he was able to win those coastal areas -- cities because the majority of people do live in the cities in suburban areas. Mike Huckabee did well in the rural areas. Mitt Romney had gotten Bob Jones University's endorsement. He came in fourth. So the point is that there's a lot of room for a strong center right candidate to play in South Carolina.</s>BURNETT: All right. And now let's go to myth number three. You mentioned her, Indian American Governor Nikki Haley. Nationally, lots of attention --</s>AVLON: That's right.</s>BURNETT: A darling, but locally, darling ruler of the Tea Party?</s>AVLON: No and this is one of the most fascinating things. She's a national rising star, but her reputation is out stripping her current poll numbers in the state.</s>BURNETT: Wow.</s>AVLON: Her poll numbers right now only 35 percent approval. To put in context that's less than Barack Obama in the state of South Carolina right now, so while it's a great endorsement to have and Mitt Romney's saying it and signifies Tea Party support, not so fast. In fact, the numbers tell a very different story.</s>BURNETT: And this means that well we'll see how it'll go this weekend.</s>AVLON: That's right.</s>BURNETT: People think the evangelical sign-on means everything or Tim Scott means everything, no.</s>AVLON: No.</s>BURNETT: All right, well --</s>AVLON: Stop the stereotypes --</s>BURNETT: We shall see. All right, thanks very much to John Avlon. "Under Surveillance" tonight, your children, the government is monitoring the weight of students. Now this is an effort to curb childhood obesity. Schools are giving kids high-tech watches to help them count calories and lose weight. Now school officials then track the data, but it's unclear where the information actually goes from there. According to several published reports, students have received the devices in New York, New Jersey and St. Louis.</s>BURNETT: Joining me now is CNN legal contributor Paul Callan and Meme Roth, president of National Action against Obesity. OK, good to have both of you with us. I got one of those watches.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very nice -- very nice.</s>BURNETT: It's actually pretty cool. I would think a kid would like to have this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.</s>BURNETT: I would have loved to have this, especially if it came in you know pink or yellow or something like that. All right, so what do you think about this whole idea?</s>PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, on the surface, I think it's not a bad idea. Obviously we want to encourage fitness among our kids and this is a way to monitor it, but I worry about the privacy implications. Do we have the right for instance to find out how active a kid is after school, track his sleep patterns? You know these devices are getting very sophisticated now and I'm wondering if maybe they're going to get too intrusive and we're going to become a nanny state with the schools raising the kids.</s>BURNETT: Meme, what do you think about this and I will only say this in the context of the percentage of childhood obesity has tripled in the past 30 years. Kids between 6 and 11, with seven percent of them in 1980 were obese. Now, it's 20 percent.</s>MEME ROTH, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ACTION AGAINST OBESITY: It's awful and I love how Paul invokes the word, nanny state. Well, where -- you know what about the people who pushed these kids into becoming fat in the first place?</s>ROTH: Wait -- wait -- let me have my moment to answer -- no, I just think that you know --</s>CALLAN: Teachers are responsible for that --</s>ROTH: Look these kids got -- these kids got fat and it was adults who did it to them. That's what I'm saying. So I think it's a great thing and this is why it's a great thing. It's information. Teachers can use the information, the parents can use the information, and interestedly the kids have access to this so they can involve themselves in making good decisions based on the information they're getting back from these devices, so I think that's great.</s>CALLAN: Fitness is a great idea and anything that will encourage it, I'm for, but we of course have to worry that some of the information could be leaked to sources that maybe shouldn't have access to it.</s>BURNETT: Well let's put one of those sources out there.</s>CALLAN: Sure.</s>BURNETT: The insurance company. Kid who and again, this is an issue of whether it's the kid or the parent or the teacher. But is not exercising, isn't doing what they're supposed to do and is eating too many Twinkies.</s>CALLAN: Yes, we would worry about that --</s>CALLAN: Now I spoke to --</s>ROTH: Let me tell you what's not going to be news to the insurance company that the kid is fat, which means diabetes, which means probably stroke, heart condition. They're already tallying up that bill before they find out this other information. These kids are doomed.</s>CALLAN: Meme has -- Meme has very little appetite for privacy, so let's get back to --</s>ROTH: Wait. Where do you get that from? I didn't say anything about that. I think they should --</s>CALLAN: You know I wanted to add another thing to this that I think -- I found to be very interesting today. I was talking to Dr. Michael Nagler (ph) who is the superintendent of one of the largest school districts on Long Island. He was telling me you're thinking of this as monitoring the kids. You know what this is really about, it's monitoring the teachers because we're looking for a way to figure out how for instance, Phys Ed teachers are doing with respect to their kids. Well they are not taking a math test these kids, but these watches are saying what the heart rate is and how fast they move and how much activity there is --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- get more than a treadmill used to get.</s>CALLAN: We're not arguing here. We're not arguing here Meme. What we're saying is this information is flowing in both directions. We're monitoring the effectiveness of teachers and whether the kids remain fit.</s>ROTH: Here's what I have to say.</s>ROTH: Forget all this other stuff. These kids are doomed if we don't intervene. I applaud New Jersey and Long Island, New York for doing something to intervene. These kids deserve a chance to have -- have the right and the chance to grow up healthy.</s>BURNETT: All right, thanks to both. We'll hit pause on this, everyone let us know what you think. Paul v. Meme, we'll tell you who wins in the</s>CALLAN: Until the next time --</s>BURNETT: All right, until the next time. OUTFRONT next, three Iranian nuclear scientists assassinated. Iran says it has proof the CIA was to blame and how many guns did Americans buy at Christmas? We'll be back.