Elect me and oil prices instantly drop, says Hillary Clinton in Iowa

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Hillary Clinton predicted Saturday that just electing her President will cut the price of oil.

When the world hears her commitment at her inauguration about ending American dependence on foreign fuel, Clinton says, oil-pumping countries will lower prices to stifle America's incentive to develop alternative energy.

• "I predict to you, the oil-producing countries will drop the price of oil," Clinton said, speaking at the Manchester YWCA. "They will once again assume, once the cost pressure is off, Americans and our political process will recede."

Clinton argued that former President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s actually started moving in the right direction toward energy independence, but his successor, Ronald Reagan, "dismantled" that work.

• "Because costs were low, people didn't care, didn't complain," she said.

She warned that folks shouldn't be grateful now if oil countries cut prices from near $100 a barrel to $60 or $70, and compared it to trying to boil a frog.

"You put him in hot water, it jumps right out, you put him in cold water and turn up the heat - he's a goner," she said. "We've got to figure out how were going to not be the frog in the cold water anymore."