Place Newt Gingrich in office, and he vows to get gas prices down to $2.50 a gallon. Place a liberal in office, and Gingrich vows that energy progress will fall victim to fear.
In a radio interview on Tuesday, Gingrich blasted the left on oil, drawing upon some of the greater moments in American history to make his point.
"The Left has believed for at least forty years now in a concept called Peak Oil that says 'gee, we're about to run out.' Well, it turns out that our reserves in the U.S., because of new technology, which is something that the Left rejects - they don't believe the Wright Brothers invented flying, they don't believe Edison invented electric light, and they don't believe we're about to invent the next generation of interesting things."
President Barack Obama countered Gingrich's rhetoric in his Thursday energy policy speech, directing a similar charge against the GOP field. Speaking at a community college in Largo, Md., Obama labeled Republicans as the ones unwilling to embrace alternative energy sources, injecting his own dose of history in the process.
"They dismiss wind power. They dismiss solar power. They make jokes about biofuels. They were against raising fuel standards. I guess they like gas-guzzlers. If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail, they probably must have been founding members of the flat earth society. They would not believe that the world was round."
Energy is not the first instance of Gingrich inserting the Wright Brothers into political discourse. Last month, the former House Speaker made an Ohio campaign stop at Orville Wright's home in Dayton. Gingrich likened his space plan to the same innovation captured within Wright's aviation achievements. If elected to the White House, Gingrich has vowed to establish a moon colony, among other things.