Obama blasted other politicians for being all talk and no action on gas prices. Obama hits GOP on fuel rhetoric

President Barack Obama took the bully pulpit on Thursday as he assailed Republicans for suggesting they can cut gas prices even as he can’t, and for dismissing the development of alternative sources of energy.

Obama didn’t mention the GOP presidential contenders by name, but made it clear to the audience at the Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Md., just outside the District of Columbia, exactly who he was talking about.


“Lately, we’ve heard a lot of professional politicians — a lot of the folks who, you know, are running for a certain office, who shall go unnamed — they’ve been talking down new sources of energy. They dismiss wind power. They dismiss solar power. They make jokes about biofuels,” Obama said. “They were against raising fuel standards because apparently they like gas guzzling cars better. We’re trying to move towards the future, and they want to be stuck in the past.”

( See also: The 10 best quotes about rising gas prices)

Those same people, Obama said, would’ve thought the Earth was flat, that television wouldn’t last, that the automobile was only a passing fad.

“If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail, they must have been founding members of the Flat Earth Society,” he said. “They would not have believed that the world was round.”

For close to a month, Obama has been making at least one speech a week on his energy policy, visiting colleges and manufacturing plants in battlegrounds including Florida, Virginia and North Carolina as gas prices have risen steadily, to $3.82 per gallon on Thursday, up 30 cents from mid-February.

But public opinion hasn’t turned in his favor.

In a Washington Post/ABC News poll released earlier this week, just 26 percent of those surveyed said they approve of how Obama is handling rising gas prices, while 65 percent said they disapprove. The president did a bit better — but still not well — on his overall energy policy, with 38 percent saying they approve while 48 percent said they disapprove.

( Also on POLITICO: Democrats scramble over gas prices)

In a speech that was more campaign-like than the others he’s given on energy as he strayed off the text of his prepared remarks to attack the Republican hopefuls, Obama blasted other “politicians” for being all talk and no action on gas prices.

“We’re starting to see a lot politicians talking a lot but not doing much” about gas prices, Obama said. “We have seen this movie before. They head down to the gas station. They make sure a few cameras are following 'em. And then they start acting like we’ve got a magic wand and we will give you cheap gas forever if you just elect us. Every time. Been the same script for 30 years. It’s like a bad rerun.”

Though there will always be “cynics and naysayers” who want to “double down on the same ideas that got us into some of the mess that we've been in,” Obama insisted “that's not who we are as Americans.”

“America has always succeeded because we refuse to stand still,” he said to a roaring crowd. “We put faith in the future. We are inventors. We are builders. We are makers of things. We are Thomas Edison. We are the Wright brothers. We are Bill Gates. We are Steve Jobs. That’s who we are. That’s who we need to be right now.”

While avoiding Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum, one of Obama’s predecessors did get name-checked. “They might have even sided with one of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, who reportedly said this about the telephone: ‘It’s a great invention, but who would ever want to use one?’ That’s why he’s not on Mount Rushmore, because he’s looking backwards, he’s not looking forwards.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said on a call with reporters organized by the Republican National Committee that while it is “absolutely true” that there are “no silver bullets” on rising gas prices, “the reality is that we as a country should certainly at least be firing all the bullets we do have.

"We as Republicans do believe in an all-of-the-above strategy, unfortunately, this administration’s actions today have contributed to rising energy prices," Jindal said.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 12:28 p.m. on March 15, 2012.