a heard team talking about as they come into this room, what do we want to hear from them? do social issues matter more as it has in the past or do economic issues matter more to this crowd this time around? and overwhelmingly i found that the folks coming in here, john are, saying economic issues are their number one concern, even in this kind of forum at a faith and freedom forum, they want to hear about economic issues first, john? that s important. i m glad you re also getting early campaign experience in talking over a good happy raucous political crowd. jesse, what about who is not there? governor huckabee is not there? governor palin is not there. governor romney, a big question whether he ll play in iowa at all. not there. do the people in the crowd, are they saying those who don t come to an event like this will be punished? they say it s still early. and so they re allowed to slowly filter in. but you know, iowans expect everybody who plans to run to make a good early sho
if they don t start showing up soon, some of those other potentials, there will be some hurt feelings in this crowd, and the folks remember that come caucus day, john. i know the night is young and our reporting on this nation campaign is young, but are those iowa activists, many whom we have met over the years and years, are they happy with this field or are they look around saying we re missing something? so far they re still they have an open mind. they are so angry in this audience with president obama that there is a lot more no matter what you ask, that s where the conversation goes. they just want a change. they say we just want a change. and not a lot of criticism of the candidates, the potential candidates they re seeing at this time. but they say we have to see what they say, and then we ll make up our mind. and you know iowans will, and they speak their mind when they made it up, john. that s why we love them. iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, the voters aren t
reserves? what s that? well, the united states government has strategic reserves. about 727 million barrels kept in four places right here along the gulf coast. you see them right there. the average price the government paid for that way below what it s selling for mao in the market, about 29, $30 a barrel. you tap it, that oil can be on the market in 13 days. cost the government about $22 billion to build up the reserves. it has been done before, largely to make up for disruptions in the market like after hurricane katrina, desert shield/desert storm. essentially, the government puts some oil on the market until the companies can replace it. is it a good idea to tap in? that s a question i put in to john hofmeister, the founder of citizens for oil. you hear some of the politicians saying the price of gas is up, the president should tap the strategic reserves. good idea? , no it s not a good idea at all. that s not the purpose of the strategic petroleum reserve. the reserve exists for
up to what they said then? as we all know, mitt romney has an issue with many conservatives. they don t like the health care plan he signed as governor. it has a mandate. it requires people to get insurance. listen to romney describing his plan over the weekend at a carroll county republican event in this very, very important state of new hampshire. now our approach next a stat state problems in ways that were unique to massachusetts. now, our experiment wasn t perfect. some things worked, some things didn t. some things i d change but one thing i would never do is usurp the constitutional power of states with a one-size-fits all federal takeover. got it? state plan. unique to massachusetts. he would never usurp. here s what he told our jim acosta in 2009. there are a number of features in the massachusetts that could inform washington on ways to improve health care for all americans.
ofnal emergencies, which could include shortages or outages. and frankly, there is no shortage of oil in the united states today. we have record inventories in cushing, oklahoma. there are no areas that i m aware of that don t have an ample supply of crude oil. the idea of opening it up to impact price is a non-starter. why it is every time you see a spike in prices, this spike cause by the uncertainty in libya and the middle east more broadly. but why is it every time we see a spike, some politicians say open the reserves? well, some people like to give lollipops to angry children to calm them down. and they think that might be a way of getting voters to back off. because no question, when elected officials go home today and they face voters who are paying through the nose for gasoline at the pump, they don t want to say look, it s our fault. we re the politicians that refuse to drill american oil. we re the politicians that have refused in the last two congresses to change our en