On Wednesday night, there were basically two messages coming from Republicans in St. Paul: 1. CEOs and mayors make great presidents; 2. Increasing domestic oil drilling will immediately lower gas prices and somehow be the magical cure to both our national security interests and our economic stagnation.

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“So, do you want to put your country first?,” asked former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. “Then let’s reduce our dependency on foreign sources of oil and promote oil and gas production at home. In other words: Drill, baby, drill! And drill now!,” he said. Steele is one of the Republican Party’s few prominent African-American politicians in a year where a very low 1.5% of Republican Party delegates are African American.

Mitt Romney chimed in on the the major themes of the night, as well. In a little call-and-response game he asked delegates, “Is a Congress liberal or conservative that stops nuclear power plants and off-shore drilling, making us more and more dependent on Middle East tyrants? — It’s liberal!” He then went on to add a final curiously formulated jab at former Vice-President Al Gore “one more recommendation for energy conservation — let’s keep Al Gore’s private jet on the ground!”

Former New York City major Rudy Guliani picked up on Steele’s hook from earlier in the night. Talking about John McCain, the former Republican candidate for president said, “He will lead us toward an America that will be independent of foreign oil by an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach, including nuclear power and off-shore drilling,” said Giuliani.

Egged-on by delegates on the floor of the Xcel Center Giuliani said, “Drill, baby, drill,” a little tentatively at first, which was then followed by a more robust “Drill, baby, drill.”

Photo: VictoryNH via flickr under a Creative Commons License