By David Horsey for The Los Angeles Times

Newt Gingrich is surging and the guy ahead of him, Mitt Romney, as well the guy behind him, Rick Santorum, are rattled.

Only days ago, Romney was sitting on a comfortable lead in South Carolina’s Republican primary race. Santorum was anticipating a positive bump in his numbers, thanks to the endorsement he received from top Christian evangelical leaders and the good chance that a final, official count of votes in the Iowa caucuses would show he actually beat Romney in that state.

Instead, with Saturday’s vote just two days away, the portly, aloof, intellectually promiscuous and thrice-married ex-speaker of the House seems to be winning the minds, if not the hearts, of more and more staunch conservatives in the Palmetto State.

In fact, Gingrich was even getting a bit of love, as well as respect, from a crowd of several hundred jammed into the banquet hall of Bobby’s Bar-BQ Buffet in Warrenville on Wednesday. Every seat was filled; those without seats stood along the walls and those that couldn’t get inside craned their necks to get a peek through the front door.

Gingrich spoke in front of a Model T Ford – a car only a little more ancient than a great many members of the audience. Clever lines that fell flat when Gingrich delivered them at the tea party convention Tuesday got big laughs with this much-less-grim crowd — like his somewhat-stale knee-slapper about letting Barack Obama use a teleprompter when the two debate.

They loved the parts of his stump speech that are well worn – our rights come from God and cannot be taken away by government – and a new attack on Obama spun off the day’s news – the president’s refusal to approve the Keystone oil pipeline is stupidly driving Canada into the arms of China. And they loved Callista, Newt’s exquisitely coiffed wife.

One audience “question” was this: “I think your wife would make a beautiful first lady, don’t you?”  In the receiving line after the event, a Callista fan said, “I’m anxious to see how you do Christmas in the White House.” There seemed to be a lot of warmth for the once-controversial Callista and for her candidate husband, though he is not all that good at exhibiting warmth himself.

In campaign mode, Gingrich is the polar opposite of Mitt Romney. Reportedly a bit shy, Romney, nevertheless, dives in, shakes every hand, signs every autograph, banters with everyone and smiles, smiles, smiles. It may be rehearsed and straight from some “How to Succeed in Politics” primer, but he’s as good at it as any TV game show host.

Mitt’s even good with babies. At a rally on the outskirts of Columbia on Wednesday night, he held a baby for the cameras and then pretended to walk off with her, delighting the crowd – even the child’s mother. And the baby never cried.

In contrast, Gingrich seems more like the queen of England. On Monday afternoon, at the end of his remarks at Rioz Brazilian Steakhouse in Myrtle Beach, Gingrich remained on the speaker’s platform while the crowd lined up like kids waiting to see a department store Santa. They were shuffled through rapidly; the candidate barely made eye contact, offered the tiniest of smiles and made the briefest request for support.

Is he merely reserved? Awkward? Overly formal? Or simply a man with a busy mind and a lot to get done; sort of like a college professor who resents wasting attention on the undergrads who mob him after class.

Of course, Gingrich actually is a former college professor, and his campaign speech is a lively academic ramble. He interprets history, dives into interesting new economic theories, wickedly picks apart the fallacious ideas of competing practitioners of the political arts and uses terminology that tells you he’s oh-so-much smarter than your typical governor of Texas or Massachusetts.

Gingrich drops names of the intellectual and political elite he has known and boldly lays claim to a major share of the legacy of two presidents, Reagan and Clinton. He brags that his candidacy is so historically significant and so utterly different from any other that it is nearly incomprehensible to the dullards in the media. In front of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, after presenting a litany of intractable problems faced by the nation, he said of himself, “If you have a leader who knows what he is doing, we can turn this around in a year.”

Just one year? The guy seems so full of himself that it is surprising he has caught on with so many voters. He is not the cliche candidate Americans are supposed to prefer – somebody you’d want to have a beer with because he’s just like you. Yet, here he is, still very much in the race and on the verge of messing up smiling Mitt Romney’s big-money campaign.

Filed under: Democracy, Freedoms, President Obama, United States Tagged: American Elections, American politics, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Democrats, GOP, Mitt Romney, Myrtle Beach, Newt Gingrich, Nikki Haley, Republican Party, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan, South Carolina, South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, Tea Party

For fifty years, the U.S. has debated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The 19 million acre refuge was declared a federal protected area in 1960 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1980, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), setting aside almost 80 million acres of public lands. Nearly one third of the protected areas was declared wilderness. Numerous national parks, monuments, preserves, and wildlife refuges were created or expanded by the Act. Senators Ted Stevens and Mike Gravel opposed turning over such a large amount of area to the National Park Service, claiming that it would harm the prospects for economic development in Alaska. While the decision was ultimately unpopular, the creation of numerous national park areas served to increase tourism in the state. Still, Gravel lost his seat in the next election, as constituents blamed him for the decision. Furthermore, tourism to ANWR has not increased. The park is extremely remote, with no roads leading to it. Only about 250 visitors come to the park every year (“elitists,” as Representative Don Young (R-Alaska) calls them, as we’ll see later).

While the House voted to declare the entire refuge as wilderness, the Senate differed. In the end, eight million acres of ANWR were designated as wilderness, while 1.5 million acres of coastal plain were not. Section 1002 of ANILCA called for the following in the coastal plain: a “comprehensive and continuing inventory and assessment of the fish and wildlife resources of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; an analysis of the impacts of oil and gas exploration development, and production, and to authorize exploratory activity within the coastal plain in a manner that avoids significant adverse effects on the fish and wildlife and other resources.”

A baseline study was completed by the Department of the Interior in 1987. A more recent report written in 2001 by ANWR staff is a more accurate reflection of current conditions in the park for oil and drilling, yet it is still ten years old. The USGS estimates that between 3 and 10.4 billion barrels of oil are economically recoverable at $30 [1]. With oil at almost $100 a barrel, even more oil is likely economically recoverable. Yet still, there would hardly be enough oil to fuel annual American consumption, which in 2007 totaled 15.1 billion barrels. The amount of oil is also not big enough to impact world oil prices.

People in favor of drilling in ANWR strive to draw a contrast between the coastal plain, also known as “Section 1002,” and the Brooks Mountains in the southern part of the refuge. Drilling would occur on the coastal plain, which they paint as a place that is already developed and no longer pristine. The town of Kaktovik sits on the coastal plain, and one exploratory drill was made nearby in 1985, though it was later plugged and abandoned.

Yet as a counterpoint, the USGS says:

“The 1002 Area is critically important to the ecological integrity of the whole Arctic Refuge, providing essential habitats for numerous internationally important species such as the Porcupine Caribou herd and polar bears. The compactness and proximity of a number of arctic and subarctic ecological zones in the Arctic Refuge provides for greater plant and animal diversity than in any other similar sized land area on Alaska’s North Slope.”

ANWR is the largest national wildlife refuge in the U.S.. The USGS also claims, “Such a broad spectrum of diverse habitats occurring within a single protected unit is unparalleled in North America, and perhaps in the entire circumpolar north.” [2] To the east, Canada has three neighboring protected areas. The two national parks, Ivvavik and Vuntut, are prohibited from oil exploration.

The rest of Alaska’s North Slope is already open for oil drilling. Over the past ten years, the number of Alaskans in favor of opening up ANWR to drilling has stood around or over 70%. President Obama is opposed to drilling in ANWR. However, though he has not opened up the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to more drilling, he has approved more lease sales for offshore drilling in the Arctic. Two new leases sales are planned in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas in 2015 and 2016, respectively [4]. Another lease sale is planned to take place in 2013 for Alaska’s Cook Inlet, in the south-central part of the state.

Despite Obama’s opposition, Congress seems to be moving closer to opening Section 1002 to drilling. Representative Doc Hastings (R-Washington) and Don Young (R-Alaska) have cosponsored the “Alaskan Energy for American Jobs Act,” which has been referred to the Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. It would repeal Section 1003 of ANILCA, which makes prohibits drilling for oil and gas in Section 1002.

One of the hearings on the bill got quite heated. Last Friday, Dr. Douglas Brinkley, a history professor and expert in Alaskan history, was testifying in Congress in favor of keeping ANWR closed to drilling. Representative  Young was at the hearing, and he did not like what Dr. Brinkley had to say. He treated him with disdain, and Dr. Brinkley did not take it lightly. While he sincerely appreciates the wilderness that is ANWR, Rep. Young seems not to. He said,

“The Arctic Plain is really nothing. You say it’s not the heart — it is not the heart. It is not the heart. It is part of the most deficit part of the area. And what hurts me the most as you sit there in the Rice University, when the people support drilling for their good and for the good of this nation, as a college professor in an ivory tower you can go up there and camp and spend your time. And I hope you spend a lot of money.”

The debate on Arctic drilling has sunk to new lows. While it isn’t that surprising that the most vocal champions of preserving Alaska’s wilderness come from the outside – after all, they do not stand to gain economically from drilling there – it is sad that Alaska’s sole congressional representative will not even listen to opposing views.

Sources

[1] “Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 1002 Area, Petroleum Assessment, 1998, Including Economic Analysis,” USGS

[2] “Potential Impacts of Proposed Oil and Gas Development on the Arctic Refuge’s Coastal Plain: Historical Overview and Issues of Concern,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

[3] “Alaskans Strongly Support ANWR Development,“ ANWR.org: Jobs and Energy for America

[4] “Proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017,” Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

News Links

“Historian gets into it with Don Young during Congressional hearing,” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

“A video of Rep. Don Young every American should see,” MinnPost.com