THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA'S CIRCLE OF FRIENDS
CHOOSING THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
NOBAMA MOVEMENT SPREADS ACROSS THE NATION
Posted on 08/06/2008 3:18:33 PM PDT by Libloather
How Obama and the Democrats Screwed Up on Drilling
by Steve Kornacki
August 6, 2008
The Democrats are supposed to own the issue of energy, if only because they've mastered the art of tarring Republicans as the party of Big Oil. It's a caricature that the G.O.P., with its mocking scorn for conservation, addiction to corporate tax cuts and unkickable habit of nominating oil men for national office, has done nothing to refute.
Of course, the Democrats are also (supposedly) the masters of the blown political save, experts at devising new and ever more elaborate means of snatching electoral defeat from the jaws of victory. So it's only fitting that now, just as energy assumes unprecedented prominence in a presidential campaign, they've gone and adopted a maddeningly incomprehensible message that threatens to forfeit the powerful emotional advantage they've enjoyed on the subject for decades.
The problem starts with the party's Congressional leadership, which first allowed their Republican counterparts to set the terms of the debate - Drill! Drill! Drill! - and then compounded this error by (a) dawdling in offering a plan of their own, and (b) finally settling on a plan that is transparently disingenuous and that - amazingly - actually reinforces the Republicans' message.
Making matters worse, the party's presidential nominee, who showed admirable courage on the issue of a gas tax holiday back in the primary season (for which he was rewarded by the voters), has opted mostly to defer to his Congressional colleagues this summer, parroting their counterproductive rhetoric and allowing John McCain to gain an edge on the issue that wouldn't have been imaginable a few months ago.
It should be stipulated the G.O.P.'s "Drill now!" mantra is, from a policy standpoint, every bit the same red herring as the gas tax holiday. It will be years before even a drop of oil is reaped from off-shore drilling, and even that won't really matter in the context of a global market in which demand is nearing 100 million barrels per day. Sure, off-shore drilling won't hurt gas prices - in the same way that returning an empty Coke can for the nickel deposit won't hurt your effort to save up for a house. The decision on whether to allow off-shore drilling is utterly inconsequential to the matter of lowering gas prices.
But policy details do not drive mass opinion. Most voters are too busy figuring out how to finance their next fill-up to concern themselves with the finer points of the global oil market. All they know is that gas is too damn expensive and that somebody had better do something about it. To their strategic credit, Republicans clearly grasp this reality, just as they understand the value of concise, superficially logical arguments repeated ad nauseam. Hence their relentless calls for off-shore drilling. Voters may not buy it as a cure-all, but it sounds to most of them like an obvious step in the right direction. The G.O.P.'s message, clearly, has been sinking in.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, showed none of this clarity and intensity. Realistically, they had two politically intelligent courses from which to choose.
They could have taken a page from Obama's primary playbook, when he stood by his opposition to Hillary Clinton's superficially-alluring cries for a gas tax holiday. Obama's response was clear and unwavering: The holiday was a worthless sham cooked up by pollsters and consultants and condemned by every reputable economist. Eventually, the public came around. Congressional Democrats could have opted to attack off-shore drilling in the same way, bashing it - over and over again, with G.O.P.-like ferocity - as useless and fraudulent, until the message sank in.
Alternately, they could have simply taken the issue off the table by saying, in effect, "You want drilling? Go ahead. It won't do anything." With this approach, the Democrats would have been spared a politically taxing fight with the G.O.P. on what is mostly a symbolic matter. And with drilling off the table, the debate could then have moved to territory more suited to the Democrats. (To appease environmentalists within their ranks, they also could have made their support contingent on the approval of individual states, something that most coastal states won't do anyway.)
Instead, Congressional Democrats charted a third course. Sensing that public opinion was with the Republicans, and worried that their more conservative members were ready to sign on with the pro-drilling crowd, House and Senate leaders devised the bafflingly asinine "use it or lose it" message, arguing that oil companies are right now sitting on leases to 68 million acres of untapped land. They should be required to drill there before we even talk about off-shore drilling, the Democrats cleared.
Not at all surprisingly, this message has utterly failed to resonate. Again, voters don't understand the finer points of how oil companies are run, but the Democrats' argument - unlike the G.O.P.'s "Drill now!" slogan - feels superficially false. Told that there are 68 million acres of untapped land, most voters assume there's a reason for this besides the conspiratorial explanation the Democrats are encouraging. (And they are right in assuming this: much of that 68 million acres is either dry or too difficult (and thus not cost-effective) to drill. There's a reason why oil companies are drilling on 23 million other acres of federal land.) Listening to this gibberish will not prompt many voters to re-think their knee-jerk support for the G.O.P.'s much simpler and more logical message.
In fact, "use-it-or-lose-it" actually reinforces the G.O.P.'s message, since it encourages voters to view gas prices as an issue of supply, and not demand. If the Democrats are advocating drilling on 68 million acres of land as a helpful step to curb gas prices, aren't they essentially admitting that off-shore drilling would also be helpful? "Use-it-or-lose-it" strips Democrats of any moral high ground they would otherwise have in attacking "Drill now!" In the end, the Republicans are the only ones most people can understand.
Obama has fallen into the same trap as his party's Capitol Hill leadership. He failed to mount a meaningful effort to turn the public against off-shore drilling, a contrast to the bravery he showed in fighting the tax holiday. And he's taken to spouting the same use-it-or-lose-it-line, just as he's embraced the D.C. Democrats' calls to free up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve - another empty gesture that reinforces the public's assumption that there is a supply-end solution to gas prices. Worst of all, he's even dusted off the party's old soak-the-rich platitudes, calling for a windfall profits tax on energy companies - another move that would do nothing to lower prices (although it probably would discourage further exploration and development by the oil companies).
In the end, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid probably won't pay a price for this stupidity. Their House and Senate candidates still have enormous built-in advantages, and Democrats will almost certainly increase their numbers in both chambers significantly. But the presidential race is a different story. Obama is playing the Big Oil card that has worked so well in the past for his party, but it's McCain who's on the offensive on energy and gas prices.
The RATS own the the issue of LIMITING energy. Just ax Algore.
No.
Now, I only see the Dims getting 3 extra seats in the Senate.
In fact, “use-it-or-lose-it” actually reinforces the G.O.P.’s message, since it encourages voters to view gas prices as an issue of supply, and not demand.
Say’s law wins every time.
OUCH! This statement just make my brain hurt. Why do these people have such a hard time understanding the supply side of economics?
(click the image for details)
Schnitt is working mightily on getting a FReep of SanFranNan down in Coral Gables, right about now. He also wants her to return to an office in DC awash in drill bits. We're talking a $2 investment here, folks.
This author either doesn't know or play down the future supply expectation. With a decision to drill now, people can expect that future supply will increase. Just see what happened when President Bush announced his lifting ban on off-shore drilling.
WOW...this libbie reporter sounds desperate....LOL
Would love to get a look at the CURRENT internal polling on this ‘debate’ that Queen Nazi won’t allow.
They must be in really BIG TROUBLE!!
Futures markets influence the spot market and you're right a big factor in the market is anticipated future capacity. With prices this high and not justified by any shortages, future expectations are a huge factor.
My thoughts as well. MSM will cover for them and oil is coming down. Over the long term their policies will hurt us but I see no short term consequences.
Here is a good reason why SanFran Nan couldn't care less - Pelosi to at-risk Dems: Go ahead and oppose me on drilling (I suggest reading the post and the source article).
Do you have any idea what a drill bit costs? Last I heard they were very expensive. Thieves were stealing them etc.
“It should be stipulated the G.O.P.’s “Drill now!” mantra is, from a policy standpoint, every bit the same red herring as the gas tax holiday. It will be years before even a drop of oil is reaped from off-shore drilling, and even that won’t really matter in the context of a global market in which demand is nearing 100 million barrels per day. Sure, off-shore drilling won’t hurt gas prices - in the same way that returning an empty Coke can for the nickel deposit won’t hurt your effort to save up for a house. The decision on whether to allow off-shore drilling is utterly inconsequential to the matter of lowering gas prices...”
Imagine you have an oil well in your back yard, and you see the price of oil going up and up and up, driven by demand from China and India, with much higher prices predicted for the future. When your oil well contractor tells you that if you give him a few bucks, he can increase your oil well flow by 20%... do you do it? Or do you tell him to wait a while, because you will get much more money for that oil later? (e.g., sell that barrel of oil now for $120, or next year for $200?)
Then ... you hear that the FEDs are going to start drilling in ANWR, and off the coast of Florida over by Cuba ... thus increasing the supply in a few years. You now get worried that the price will continue up a little bit for a few years, then fall when ANWR and Florida oil come on line. What do you do now? You probably open up your oil spigot as wide as possible to get as much money as possible while the price is high, expecting the price to drop later. Other people do the same, increasing the supply, and prices go down NOW.
Thus, announcing that we are going to start oil production in ANWR and offshore in a few years results in decreases in prices today. Unlike politician (who are only concerned about the next election) and journalists (who are only worried about making the next deadline), oil producers look long term, and act accordingly.
And Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” strikes again, providing lower prices when the government stops interfering in the marketplace.
(juxtaposed illogic as if the issue were food and not oil)
Why would they do this? There has to be a reason.
Obama: "It is going to take nothing less than a complete transformation of our economy. Energy independence will require all hands on deck from America."
Change: a complete transformation of our economy.
Ohhhhh.. I see. That's why.
Obama has brought the Stalinist Rat Party (formerly the traditional, patriotic Democratic Party) out into the open!
Nonsense. The author completely disregards the expectations side of the free market, which has demonstrated time and again that changing the expectations changes the market behavior. Expecting higher supply will have a drawdown effect on the price.
Even W's unilateral recission of the presidential ban on offshore drilling had a pronounced effect.
Just my $.02.
They have the same problem with the demand side. In the event of a supply shortage, their solution is "demand less" and not "supply more."
While "demand less" works in the short term, if the demand isn't met by an increase in supply, and if prices are capped, "demand less" doesn't work, and new supplies aren't ever brought to market, resulting in over-use of the current resources to the point of unprofitability, after which point government is forced to step in and subsidize supply, granting exceptional powers to the government in the process.
Sounds like Liberal Plan "A" to me.
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