Summary

FTG OF REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE NEWT GINGRICH ADDRESSING THE ALABAMA REPUBLICAN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL FORUM AT THE ALABAMA THEATRE IN BIRMINGHAM, AL 031212 ***NOTE: Most of Q+A not logged*** 19:21:07 Gingrich is introduced but doesn't come out. 19:21:18 Man goes back behind the curtain to find Newt. 19:21:30 Man: "He's coming. He's on his way. He's on his way. I didn't talk long enough." 19:21:21 Ah, there's Newt! *****19:22:39 Gingrich: "Well, thank you for that very warm welcome. As somebody who went to high school in Columbus, GA, right next to AL, and then taught at West GA College, right next to AL, I kind of feel relatively at home. In fact, this morning, when I had grits, I thought it was a very normal thing to do. (applause) Although, I have to confess. I was down along the coast, so I had grits and shrimp, which is not exactly the Atlanta version.***** I'm delighted to be here. Callista and I are both thrilled by the very warm reception we've gotten everywhere, and I wanna take a couple of minutes of your time. Most of you know I almost never use written stuff, and I don't own a teleprompter, so I have to do a lot of stuff just off the cuff, (applause) but the President's Press Secretary today basically attacked me, because as many of you know, I've been talking about the need for an American energy policy, and the idea that we should develop our capacity for oil to a point where no American president would ever again bow to a Saudi king, (applause) and *****I have suggested that if we developed our energy capacity to the degree that we could, that that would bring down the price of gasoline, on the theory that supply and demand works. This is not something Obama's very used to. This is not a bureaucratic, trickle-down, shovel-ready, Solyndra-investment, 'let's go bankrupt together'- policy. (applause) And the president has made four, three speeches and a press conference on energy, which I'll come back to in a minute, but today I'm taking a particular note that Jay Carney said the following, talking about the President: 'What he is not willing to do is look the American people in the eye and claim there is a strategy by which he can guarantee the price of gas will be $2.50 at the pump.' He went on to say the following: 'Any politician who does that is lying, because that strategy does not exist. It is a simple fact that there is no such plan that can guarantee the price of oil or the price at the pump' Close quote."***** *****19:25:08 "That's been interpreted by the news media, since I am t eh only person talking about $2.50, as probably being an attack on me, so I wanna take this moment to respond to the President and to his Press Secretary, and say, first of all, Mr. President, I would be happy to debate you anywhere in the country, anytime on energy. (applause) I believe your energy speeches have been so patently incoherent that they are indefensible. I'd be glad to meet you at an oil rig somewhere. I'd be glad to meet you at a refinery. I'd be glad to meet you at a gas station. Id' even be willing to go to a university campus, where you'll feel comfortable, (applause) and I would be happy in advance to agree that you can use a teleprompter,***** but by pure luck there was a column over the weekend in the WSJ entitled 'Newt is Right on Gasoline,' and that column actually outlined the case pretty well, but this morning Stephen Moore had something in the WSJ that is so astounding that I wanna beg your indulgence. Now, this is not a standard political speech, but I've never been a standard politician anyway. This is what Stephen Moore wrote: 'In 1995 the US Geological Survey estimated 150 million technically-recoverable barrels of oil from the Bakken shale.' That's ND. 'In April 2008 that number was up to about 4 billion barrels, and in 2012 geologists and Continental Resources, the major drilling operation in ND, put it at 8 billion. This week, given the discovery of a lower shelf of oil, they announced 24 billion barrels of oil are in ND. (applause) Current technology allows for the extraction of only about 6% of the oil trapped 1-2 miles beneath the Earth's surface, so as the technology advances, recoverable oil could eventually exceed 500 billion barrels.' This is ND. There are bigger plays under development now at Eagle Forge Shale in south TX and Wolfcamp Shale in west TX. Now, to give you examples, the Monterey formation in CA may contain 80 billion barrels, *****so let me start with something Washington doesn't want to deal with, and particularly liberals don't want to deal with. The idea of peak energy is a stupid idea. It does not exist. (applause) It is a technologically limited model. It has been the basis of American energy policy for 40 years, and it is wrong."***** 19:27:55 "Now, the President will never learn this for a variety of reasons. One's ideological, the other's his choice. He appointed as the Sec. of Anti-Energy (laughter) Dr. Chu, and Dr. Chu had said before he was appointed his. He's an academic physicist, a research scientist. His commitment was that the US, Americans should pay the same price of gasoline as Europeans. That's $9or $10 a gallon. (boos) Dr. Chu was asked last week what he thought the right price. Was he willing to try to lower the price of gasoline, and he said no, he is not in the business of lowering the price of gasoline. He is in the business of developing replacements for gasoline. He then explained about some breakthrough in battery research, which I suspect, in 15-20 years' time, will be useful, but most of us don't have 15-20 years to fill up our cars. Now, I believe. (applause) o first of all, I believe the lesson of where we are is that we should abolish the Dept. of Energy as a grotesque failure. (applause) So I simply want to start with the premise no more Solyndras, no more boondoggles. (applause) Now let's talk about energy. The President said there are no silver bullets. He's right, but there is a presidential pen. He could sign three documents and change the oil trajectory of the US. First, he could approve the Keystone XL pipeline. (applause) That is 700 thousand barrels a day of Canadian oil coming into Houston, and it opens up and improves delivery of ND oil, delivery of KS, AR, OK, and east TX oil, so it lowers the price of all of them. (applause) In OK they told me it's probably worth $6-$8 a barrel by lowering the cost." 19:30:11 "Second, he could approve the reopening of areas off TX and LA in the Gulf. That's 400 thousand barrels a day. (applause) Third, he could approve designated areas in AK for about a 1.2 million barrels. Now, that means in those three steps we've added 2.3 million barrels a day, over 800 million barrels a year with the US oil supply, and we've kept that amount of money at home to create jobs here, rather than sending it to Saudi Arabia. (applause) Now, the President, in his speeches, has emphasized that drilling is not the answer, and the President offered an answer. Does anyone here know what the answer was? ("Algae") Alright, how many of you knew that the President's answer was algae? Raise your hand. Now, I believe in science and technology, I believe in bio-fuels, I think the research is terrific, and I think someplace down the road, eventually, algae will probably be helpful. I do not think this summer we will be putting algae in your cars. (applause) ****I think I am the one candidate who can win this race because I am the one candidate who understands how to design a very big-choice campaign.**** I worked with Ronald Reagan in '80 and '84 on it. We designed it for George H.W. Bush in '88, when he was down 19 points. He won by six. One out of every five American. One out of every four Americans switched their position between May and November. The 1994 campaign was a very big choice. The 1996 campaign. Even while a moderate was losing the presidency, we were getting reelected to the House for the first time since 1928, so... (applause) So let's take an obvious big choice." *****19:32:09 "I wanna run this fall on the following energy policy: You can elect Pres. Algae and have $10 a barrel, you can elect Pres. Drilling and $2.50 a barrel. You decide which future's better for your family. (applause)***** Now, this is why I wanna debate Obama this fall. If I become your nominee, I will challenge him to seven Lincoln-Douglas-style three-hour debates which a timekeeper but no moderator. (applause) I think the difference is so wide. He believes in the writing of Saul Alinsky. I believe in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the US. (applause) He believes in apologizing to those who are killing our young men and women. I will never apologize to those who are. (applause) *****We need a candidate who is capable, first of all, of running a campaign that eliminates his, Obama's billion-dollar ad campaign, by proving to people. For example, gasoline. You can't buy enough ads to convince the American people that they're not paying too much. (laughter) And that's the kind of campaign you have to run. I watched Ronald Reagan. I worked on the Reagan campaign in '80. I understand how you pick the right fights at the right level, and how you make the choice vivid, but then you also need somebody who can work with the Congress to g et something done. (applause) We are not just in the business of defeating Obama. We are in the business of replacing the bureaucracies, replacing the laws, correcting the judges, and getting back to a country that's on the right track." (applause)***** *****19:34:21 "That requires far more than just having good consultants, negative advertising, and an ability to read somebody's notes. That requires understanding the Constitution, understanding how to take 435 House members and 100 senators and know how to work with the American people, because in order to change Washington, you have to be active as citizens. We can impose change in Washington, but Washington will never voluntarily change itself. (applause)***** So if I become the nominee with your help tomorrow. If I end up as the nominee, I will ask every candidate running on a ticket with me to pledge that they will stay in office on January 3rd, and before I am sworn in on January 20th, they will repeal Obamacare. (applause) They will repeal the Dodd-Frank bill. (applause) They will repeal Sarbanes-Oxley. (applause) And on the very first day of eh new administration I will sign all three of those repeals to clear the slate and focus on getting positive things done to create jobs in America. (applause) And on the first day, about two hours after the inaugural address, I will sign a series of executive orders. The first one will abolish all of the White House czars as of that moment. (applause) We will, in that very first day, move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in defense of Israel's right of sovereignty. (applause) We will, on that first day, reinstate Ronald Reagan's Mexico City Policy, and no taxpayer money will be spent on abortion outside the US, period." (applause) 19:36:46 "The Obama administration apologizes to radical Islamist religious fanatics while attacking the Catholic Church and right-to-life institutions in the US. On the very first day I will issue an executive order repealing every anti-religious act of this administration. (applause) And to go back to energy, on the very first day I will sign the pipeline for Canada, and I'm telling the Canadians every day don't cut a deal with China. Help is on the way. We want the pipeline in the US. (applause) I can only do all of these things with your help. ***The primary tomorrow really matters, and your vote really matters, and I hope that you'll decide that having an experienced leader who's actually helped do these things before, and who is capable of taking Obama head-on, is what we need as a party, and more importantly, what we need as a country,*** and I look forward very much to the questions." (applause) 19:38:54 Questions from the panel . ******19:48:41 Question: "That great conservative icon, William F Buckley Jr., once said that we should go to the polls and vote for the most conservative Republican who can win in the election. Can you tell Alabamians why you are that person?" 19:48:54 Gingrich: "Sure." (laughter, applause) Question: "Ok, next question." Gingrich: "Look, I don't wanna be. I mean, I didn't come here to speak ill of anybody, but there are fundamental differences, and if you look at Gov. Romney's ratings when he left MA, if you look at the size of Sen. Santorum's defeat in PA, and then look at what I've done, look at who I've worked with. I helped found and create the GA Republican Party. I worked in the GA GOP when there was no GA GOP.****** I ran for Congress in eth middle of Watergate. I ran for five years to win a Congressional seat. I turned around and took 16 years to create a national majority. I helped design, in 1980, the first Capitol steps event in history, We won six US Senate seats by a combined margin of 75 thousand votes that year, and won the Senate when nobody thought we could. In 1984 I helped design a campaign that set a record, carried 49 states, picked up 33 House seats. 1988, literally, we were behind Dukakis 19 points in May, and we designed a Reagan-style campaign. We didn't try to go to the middle. You know, George H.W. Bush had run as a moderate in 1988, he'd have gotten beaten. In fact, a she ran over here as a Reagan-conservative, promising no new taxes, and standing for national defense, and attacking the kind of MA liberalism that Dukakis represented, and we literally switched 25%of the country, one out of every four Americans during that campaign, switched their view. Now, in 1994, when nobody thought it was possible, we designed a contract campaign in which we went to the American people on a positive basis, just as I would this fall."