Photo courtesy www.newt.org.
Oral Roberts University must be Tulsa’s mother ship for Republican presidential candidates. Rick Santorum visited Feb. 9, and today Newt Gingrich stopped by to chat with students and the public about Obama, the environment, and his plan to lower gas prices.
According to Fox News, Gingrich blasted President Obama for being the “most dangerous president in modern American history” and accused the White House of “having an attitude towards violent Islamic extremism that puts political correctness above national security.”
From Fox News:
“The president wants to unilaterally weaken the United States, he wants to cut the aid to Israel for its anti-ballistic missile defense, he refuses to take Iran seriously,” Gingrich said, addressing the 4000 people at Oral Roberts University. “We are in a world that is very dangerous, and I say this to those of you who represent the next generation because you’re going to bear the consequences. We are really at risk someday in your lifetime of losing an American city. We should be very sobered by the threats that are around the world. When Ahmadinejad the dictator of Iran gets up and says Israel can be eliminated from the face of the earth, we should assume he means Israel can be eliminated from the face of the earth.” The audience applauded in agreement.
Gingrich “mocked environmental concerns,” USA Today reported, saying “you can’t put a gun rack in a Volt,” a quip that earned him a standing ovation, according to the Tulsa World’s report. He also accused Obama of waging a “war on religion,” the paper reported.
Gingrich earned applause for his claim that his oil and gas policies would send pump prices plummeting below $2.50, according to CBS News. “The prediction… contrasts sharply with rival Rick Santorum, who told an Ohio audience that big-city Americans should brace themselves for $5-a-gallon gas,” the Associated Press reported. More:
But Gingrich’s comments resonate in a place like Oklahoma, where the oil and natural gas sector is vital to a bustling state economy.
“With Gingrich policies, what we know is we will dramatically expand our independence in the world market, dramatically expand our capacity to produce energy without regard to our foreign potential enemies and in the process prices will clearly be a lot lower,” Gingrich said. “Now, I picked $2.50 as a stabilizing price for capital investment reasons. It could easily go down to $2.”
Gingrich blamed Obama for high gas prices, saying he failed “to drill aggressively for more oil and gas in the U.S.”
According to a Tulsa World poll, Gingrich lacks support in the state, where Republicans favor Santorum and Mitt Romney first and second, respectively.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Gingrich “hopes Oklahoma can be fertile ground,” mostly because of the state’s religious population.
“Really what this battle is in Oklahoma for the next two weeks is between Gingrich and Santorum to see if any one of them can consolidate the anti-Romney vote,” GOP pollster Pat McFerron told the paper. “Quite frankly, neither one of them have much of an organizational structure in the state. It really is just a fluctuation of what’s happening nationally, though that’s starting to change.”
Oklahoma Republicans will vote for a candidate March 6.
—Holly Wall, News Editor
-
http://profiles.google.com/jenthegreat70 Jennifer Moreno
-
Ainsleygrimm
