Newt Gingrich Speech to California Republican Convention [46 minutes]
Posted on 03/11/2012 4:21:35 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Even before he was president, Barack Obama was blamed for high gas prices.
In 2008, the announcer in a John McCain ad asked, “Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?” As a photograph of Obama flashed onto the screen, a crowd chanted, “O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!”
Now Obama is running again, prices are spiking again, and again he’s being criticized — from Valley Center to the GOP campaign trail.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says Obama was partially to blame for the rising prices because he slowed down licensing and permitting processes for offshore and onshore drilling.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was more direct: “Look, if you want 9-dollar-a-gallon gasoline and bowing to Saudi kings, vote for Obama. If you like $2.50 or less and be independent, vote for Newt Gingrich.”
Experts have cited more significant causes such as inflation, speculative investors, escalating political tensions in the Middle East and the growing oil demand of developing nations such as India and China.
But statements by Obama and his Cabinet have sparked debate on the gasoline issue.
For example, Steven Chu, now the nation’s energy secretary, said in 2008 that “Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”
“Obama’s energy sec flat out stated that Obama wants gas prices to increase so we won’t depend on oil and buy electrical cars!” John Trujillo wrote on Facebook. “What an incompetent idiot you liberals voted for, millions unemployed and underemployed can’t put food on table much less buy an electrical vehicle! Can’t wait till NOV!”
It may not help that some of the president’s supporters agree that upward gas prices are a societal good.
Hugh Moore, treasurer for the Green Party of San Diego County, said he hates that people have to pay more for gas because oil companies are raking in more profits, “but the truth is we should be paying considerably more for every gallon of gas.”
Last week, Obama stressed there was no silver bullet to reducing gas prices, rebuffing attacks on his prior statements suggesting that prices should increase and dismissing what he characterized as “phony” solutions to energy challenges.
“As a country that has 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves but uses 20 percent of the world’s oil, we’re not going to be able to just drill our way out of the problem,” Obama told workers at a truck plant Wednesday in North Carolina.
Obama’s attempts to offer an “all-of-the-above” response of more domestic oil production, expansion of alternative energy sources and sterner fuel-efficiency standards have done little to appease people eager to assign responsibility for the hot-button political issue.
Sarah Bond and her husband bought their home in Valley Center, about one hour from downtown San Diego, so their two young children could grow up close enough to nature yet not too far from their favorite destinations. But with gas prices soaring, they just don’t get out as much.
“It’s no more going to the beach, no more taking drives to the mountains. It’s school and groceries and what we could do at home,” Bond said. “We might as well live in Oklahoma for what it’s costing us.”
Bond, co-founder of the SoCal Tax Revolt Coalition, said she’s frustrated with lawmakers and the president for not making energy more accessible, “not exploiting our natural resources in the clean, environmentally sound way that only Americans can do,” she said.
On Thursday, Democrats in the Senate rejected a Republican-backed effort to press ahead with the Keystone XL pipeline, a $7 billion project to bring oil from Canada to U.S. hubs. The project has been put on hold while the Obama administration studies it.
Maggie Hunt Acerra of Santee, an organizer of the San Diego County Tea Party Forum, said she believes gas prices are being artificially inflated due to the president’s green-energy policies.
“I believe he is pandering to his interest groups — the people that have invested a lot of money in this green technology — and his ideology just pushes him toward this,” Acerra said. “No one would do the things he does if they really had an understanding of what working and middle-class Americans are going through.”
According to exit polls, gas prices and the economy were the top issues on the minds of voters on Super Tuesday.
“Gas has gone up 20 cents in one week here in San Diego. Avg. $4.37 a gallon. Wow,” read a message on the Facebook page of “The Roger Hedgecock Show.”
Voters’ pain at the pump threatens to derail the delicate momentum for the Obama administration stemming from a third consecutive solid jobs report.
“Gasoline is not as big a portion of your bill as many other things, but it’s the one that hits you in the face,” said Sam Popkin, a professor of political science at the University of California San Diego. “You may spend more money on butter and beer, but you don’t notice it the same way.”
Newt Gingrich Speech to California Republican Convention [46 minutes]
I’m hoping for $10/gallon by October.
It’s really fun to watch the msm blocking for Obama on this. Last time prices were this high Bush was in office and it was disaster-news 24/7. Remember?
Now...it mostly isn’t being talked about...and when it is...it’s “just one of those things” that can’t be helped. Tune in the big network nightly news one night next week...what a laugh.
Newt to Obama: This is What a Drilling Platform Looks Like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDXkfA8DKzg
Newt Visits an Alabama Gas Station
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=f3jfc-5jQt0
I’m all for $20 per gallon gas for a few months if that’s what it takes to remove the nobama criminal gang from government. I’d even pay the gas charge for the vehicles to take them to Leavenworth.
“Gasoline is not as big a portion of your bill as many other things, but it’s the one that hits you in the face,” said Sam Popkin, a professor of political science at the University of California San Diego. “You may spend more money on butter and beer, but you don’t notice it the same way.”Anyone who spends more on butter and beer than they do on gasoline is a big fat lush.And beyond that, the president hasn’t banned husbanding cows for butter or planting hops for beer. But he has done all he legally can - and then some - to prevent people from drilling for oil to make gasoline.
Spiking AGAIN???
They went DOWN?
Where was I?? Musta missed it—still goin’ up as I see it.
How fantastic!
I want the MSM to tell us how "pontificating" Newt is boring while Obama is a vision of genius with his lecturing! Ha!
$20 a gallon for a few months? Civil unrest will occur long before the $20 a gallon mark.
Do you realise what food prices would be if gasoline was $20 a gallon?
YES!! Just like Americans have to do every week (and not more often if they're lucky) while Obama's Energy Sec Chu doesn't own a "fossil fuel burning machine" or any other form of "selfish" personal transport.
Yet the MSM media says Newt is grandstanding by making his on-site energy videos.
But the Islamic Marxist in Chief will blame on Bush and all the open mouth drooling lib zombie voters will believe it.
I sure do.
This is all about diminishing U.S. national security and shrinking our economy. The goal: Global government. A weak America can not interfere.
The only problem with that is that there are a lot of people who would go down for the count after only one or two months of that.
Too many people are already on the razor's edge and would get so jammed up it would take them years to recover. The additional problems it would cause would mean whoever replaces Barry wouldn't be able to hit the ground running and due the price impact rippling through everything for months to come. Better that gas prices hang around between $4 & $5 with quick spikes and fluctuations that threaten to go higher from time to time. That would get people to face the fact that if Barry is reelected there's no where to go but down, and down rapidly.
More power plants going off line and electricity shortages as cold weather settles in will be enough to convince all but those who are isolated by their wealth and/or blinded by their ideology that there's no way any alternatives are going to help within the foreseeable future when they know they couldn't even recharge their electric car if you gave them one. Others who can't pay their utility bills without letting something else slip will be on the same wavelength. So, worse, but not $10 a gallon worse.
JMHO
A spate of stagflation would immediately erase Obama's popularity lead and make him highly vulnerable just like President Carter was in 1980.
““Gasoline is not as big a portion of your bill as many other things, but it’s the one that hits you in the face,” said Sam Popkin, a professor of political science at the University of California San Diego. “You may spend more money on butter and beer, but you don’t notice it the same way.” “
Who said this??
he's pretty much there already, but a dose of super high prices this year will be the final nail in the coffin.
I meant: what kind of idiot would said this??
“The writer forgets to mention that candidate Obama blamed Bush”
The writer forgot on purpose. It’s that selective memory all liberals seem to suffer from.
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