| Jobs, gas prices and candidate scorn goes south |
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Frank Cotolo
March 11, 2012 |
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A few days after Mitt Romney scored with six states on Super Tuesday primary battles, a Labor
Department job report revealed another month of growth in the private sector. Candidate Romney was
not impressed.
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"We need more jobs," he told a crowd in Mississippi, the site of the next primary test. "This
president promised more by now, not this many by now, so this many are not enough."
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Southern-press reporters asked what number would please Mr. Romney.
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"A larger one," he said.
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"Yes," said candidate Newt Gingrich from another part of the state, "Romney means larger by a few
hundred, maybe? A moderate like Romney would never demand that a million jobs added would be the
only number acceptable."
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Gingrich was in Tupelo touring gas stations, claiming that if he were president now the price of
gas per gallon would be $2.50.
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"The price of gas would be less under President Gingrich," he told a few people pumping at an
Exxon station where his bus stopped because it ran out of gas. "If we had a pipeline from Canada
and drilled many wells in our own backyard we could save exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents
per gallon. Plus, we would add a million jobs a month in the process."
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Gov. Romney laughed with reporters when he was told what Gingrich said.
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Meanwhile, candidate Rick Santorum called for Gingrich to do some other math.
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"Why doesn't Gingrich add the number of delegates I would get if he was out of the race?" Santorum
said.
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An organizer of Santorum's Super Pac said, "Gingrich should leave the race immediately. He is a
bigger package of gas than any priced gallon and if he cared about his country he would let Rick
face Romney alone and duke it out so that Romney would lose."
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Gov. Romney laughed with reporters when he was told what Santorum's Super Pac source said.
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The fourth candidate still looking for delegates is Ron Paul, who has yet to have one primary win
but is still aiming to be at the convention in August. In Alabama, where Mr. Paul was seem with a
banjo on his knee, he was asked what he thought about the new job report and the price of gas.
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"The government shouldn't be setting gas prices or promising jobs," he said while plucking an old
Stephen Foster tune for the knee-slapping crowd. "The president should be doing what I am doing
now, meeting with people, having some good corndogs, singing and letting the individual states
handle jobs and gas and work and cars and all those things."
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Frank Cotolo can be found
hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles.
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