“Newt has more power, that he can debate Obama better than Rick Santorum”

Gearing up for next week’s Primary Election, Gingrich paid a visit to Cherokee County on Thursday. The Former Speaker has spent the past week or so in his home state, campaigning aggressively his presidential bid. Gingrich received a warm hometown welcome, as crowds of supporters swarmed in the parking lot in front of the new Cherokee County Republican Headquarters on Town Lake Parkway in Woodstock late Thursday morning.

Supporter Pat Losack said he came out to see Gingrich because he believes a Gingrich presidency is what the country needs right now. Pundits argue Conservative voters seeking an alternative to Mitt Romney split their votes between Gingrich and Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Although Losack said he agrees with Santorum’s views, Gingrich, he argues,

“has more experience, knows how the system works and knows how to make the system work for us rather than against us.”

He also said Gingrich is stronger than Santorum (in ideas and speech).

Judy Griffith said she is supporting Gingrich because

“he’s our home-town guy.”

Griffith said she’s been supporting Gingrich since he was a Congressman, emphasizing that

“Newt has done so much for our local area (and) our state.”

When asked what distinguishes Gingrich from Santorum, Ethel Galyon asserted,

“Newt has more power, that he can debate Obama better than Rick Santorum.”

Among Gingrich’s supporters posted nearby, was State House Representative Rick Jasperse (12), who said that he supports Gingrich for the presidential nominee.

As the Speaker took the platform, the crowd roared in applause. From the very start, the nucleus of his talk was his idea for his American Energy Plan. He said if he wanted to, President Obama could do three things to improve American energy, to lower gas prices and become energy self-sufficient.

“First,”

he said,

“he could announce he is going to sign the Keystone Pipeline. That would bring 700,000 barrels of Canadian oil to Houston…Second, that he has reopened the Gulf of Mexico, which would be about 400,000 barrels a day. Third, he could announce that he is opening up the known area in Alaska and that would be about 1,200,000 barrels a day.”

He added a fourth to the list: fire Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, who testified before Congress, saying he does not favor lowering the price of gas in the country.

Gingrich ties his energy plan to national security. Commenting on President Obama’s recent apology for American Troops burning Korans in Afghanistan, the speaker advised,

“What the president should have said was ‘We’re really sorry that these Afghans were violating Islamic law and we’re really sorry that they were defacing the Koran, but we really hope the Mullahs will attack these vicious people who have been defacing the Koran.’ That would have been a rational, American response.”

He explained the reason the military burned the Korans was that the Islamist prisoners were writing messages to each other in them. As such, the military for security reasons burned them.

His idea, here, is that if America is energy independent, she will not be beholden to Middle-Eastern countries for oil.

“We have to have energy independence, because we have to be able to say the Saudis, ‘We are not going to tolerate you funding terrorism ever again and we don’t care what you do with your oil,”

he said.

The former speaker encouraged the crowd to visit his website and donate two dollars and fifty cents, the price of a “Newt gallon,” based on his plan to lower gas prices to this price.

“I’m grateful people say nice things about me,”

Gingrich said,

“but this isn’t about me… This is your country…We together, we need to be worthy of them,”

pointing to children in the crowd, adding,

“I came here to recruit you to save your own country.”

He said that the other candidates in the race are nice people, but they lack vision.

“Without vision, the people perish,”

he said in close, quoting The Book of Proverbs.