Gingrich woos voters with prospect of $2 gallon gas

TULSA, Okla. — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is dangling the prospect of gas as low as $2 a gallon if he's elected.

"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 boasted that gas cost as little as $1.13 per gallon when he led the House and that the national average was less than $2 when President Barack Obama was inaugurated.

"Why do we have this assumption all of a sudden, `Oh gee, that's the distant past,"' Gingrich said. "He hasn't been president that long."

The former House speaker has spoken in the past of gas dropping to $2.50 a gallon under a Gingrich administration. Monday's prediction, coming as he campaigned in Oklahoma, contrasts sharply with rival Rick Santorum, who told an Ohio audience that big-city Americans should brace themselves for $5-a-gallon gas.

Both candidates are citing new sensitivity over rising pump prices to push for relaxed regulation on domestic oil production.

According to AAA's daily fuel gauge, the national average Monday for a gallon of regular gas was $3.56.

Gingrich and Santorum have been highlighting oil exploration in North Dakota and slamming the Obama administration for delaying a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline.

Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator, blamed Obama for failing to drill aggressively for more oil and gas in the U.S.

Santorum said the economy has begun to improve slightly but "all of a sudden we're going to be hit with the same force of wind that hit us in 2008, in the summer, that caused us to go into a recession, all because of the radical environmentalist policies of this president."

Both candidates are citing new sensitivity over rising pump prices to push for relaxed regulation on domestic oil production.