What’s With the GOP’s “all in” Bet in Gasoline Prices?
Mitt Romney recently had this to say about the documentary on Obama’s first term directed by Davis Guggenheim:
“I’ll give you some help, Mr. Guggenheim,” Romney said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “You can make a call to some of the moms that are having a hard time paying for gas as they get their kids to and from school and practice and music lessons. And you can also talk to the people who are having a hard time getting to and from work, given the price of gasoline.”
It is all gasoline all the time with these guys. Newt can’t shut up about gasoline and I recently saw a clip of Santorum holding up a piece of shale and claiming that the shale was chock full of “light sweet crude.” I thought Santorum was about to jam a straw into the shale and suck out the crude like it was a Capri Sun. Seriously, I haven’t seen a bunch of guys having this much fun with gasoline since Zoolander. But… really? Gasoline? that’s the ticket to another Republican in the White House? I don’t see it.
Granted, they are pretty thin on issues. President Obama has mostly taken “national defense” out of play for them, and in spite of the chicanery of congressional Republican, the economy is rebounding from the fiasco created by George Bush, so there are not a huge number of issues that they think can play “to the middle.”
Forget birtherism and contraception, those are for GOP primary audiences only. The GOP wannabes need a kitchen table issue and they all think gasoline is it. Dean Baker puts it like this:
…Republicans are betting that they can get away with their story nonetheless. The public is almost completely ignorant of the dynamics of world oil markets. It is widely believed that prices are determined domestically and that if upscale environmentalists did not get in the way, we could drill out enough oil so that gas prices would be cheap again.
Since the media consider it to be their job to report what candidates say and not access its accuracy, it is likely that the public will go the polls believing that we can again get cheap gas if we just destroyed the environment. The reality is that we have the ability to do the latter.
Will it work? I don’t know. But I think we all know that waiting for the media to do more than simply transcribe Romney’s outrageous bullshit is a mugs game. So that leaves team Obama as the gatekeepers and so far I like their parry. First he mocked Fox News for bringing it up in a press conference then he went on to sound like a President of the United States:
“There is no silver bullet.” he said. “There never has been. But while we don’t have a silver bullet, what we do have in this country are limitless sources of energy, and a boundless supply of ingenuity and imagination that we can put to work developing that energy.”
I guess, ultimately the GOP’s gasoline fever looks like it will accomplish something. When America goes to the polls, we’ll either be voting against the socialist egghead enviro-Nazis keeping us from cheep gas with all their hippie tree hugging, or for the guy who says that we are still country that can think its way out of problems.
The great thing about this issue is that gasoline prices drop significantly at the end of each summer… This year it will be just in time to make Obama look good for the election. Obama just needs to find a way to take credit for the pending price drop.
Let’s not kid ourselves. The Obama administration wants higher gas prices to further the acceptance of electric cars and other profitable(for a chosen few) renewable energy sources.
Obama has admitted in the past that speculative oil investors drive the market and yet he creates an environment and future outlook that makes these investors drive oil prices even higher.
Why does every wingnut comment nowadays require you to buy into some kind of elaborate conspiracy? Oh yeah. they’ve got nothing. Now I remember.
@fbh “The Obama administration wants higher gas prices to further the acceptance of electric cars”
Damn right. We’re tired of bleeding our economy by giving oil money to people with crazy religions who hate us. Electricity is made in USA! (one way or another). And we’re sick of using taxpayer money to prop up the oil companies. It’s $$$Billions$$$ of corporate pork. You just pay it at tax time instead of at the pump, BUT YOU STILL PAY IT. And it’s FAR FAR more expensive than anything Obama has done for electric cars or for alternate energy.
Why do conservative wink at big money going down the drain (corporate pork, bloated military spending, sloppy government contracting in war zones,…), but scream and yell about really cheap stuff that are actually designed to make America more innovative?? Small dollar amounts…
All that we need to make electric cars take off like a rocket in the US is a FAIR energy playing field. The game is stacked in favor of big oil, and we’re paying for that in oh so many ways.
Oh yea. I should mention….
I bought a LEAF, and I really love it. Quickest little car I’ve ever owned. And I’m now paying about 3.5 cents per mile. Delmarva is great for these cars (flat). It’s everything a car should be: clean, quiet, quick, advanced, and it doesn’t fart pollutants.
My usual run would have cost me about $50 in gasoline costs at today’s prices. It now costs about $8 in electrical costs, and most of the charging stations out there are still free to use (but there are way too few of them still). Nice.
I was running it in my garage with the garage door closed… and was laughing. That would be deadly in a gasser. And now I can insulate my garage and not worry about fumes. Nice.
Another nice feature… I can kick on the climate control from my cell phone usually 15 minutes before I go to the car. No more very cold or very hot car. Nice.
Oh.. and if I need to drive a long distance or haul lots of stuff, I still have 4 registered diesels of various sizes… But on most days, I’m driving the LEAF.
Congratulations on your new toy, Liberal Elite, but be careful when you run it in your closed garage. You may choke on all the smug that’s being emitted.
Comment by Liberal Elite
“Damn right. We’re tired of bleeding our economy by giving oil money to people with crazy religions who hate us”
Oh, you mean Islam. Nice bigotry…lol.
Probably the main reason for theor ‘all in’ bet on gas prices is that it is the only thing they have left. As I’ve said too often, I was born in 1946 and was alive and paying attention during the early 70s, and I watched the whole ‘rebellious youth’ phenomenon disappear almost overnight — actually I see it in the period between Altamont and the reelection of Nixon. (Altamont sort of finished the dream that had been dying as we heard how the Haight had been invaded by the ‘bad drugs,’ as we watched Jimi and Jim and Janice all die, etc. — but Altamont was the last straw.)
The key then — which I think people missed entirely and which caused us to ‘lose control of the dialogue’ for the last 40 years — was that the “Rebellious Youth” greoup did not, mostly, return to a center-left position that some of us never really left. Instead they fled politics entirely for ‘self-improvement’ and ‘spirituality’ and similar stuff — this was the time of EST, “What’s Your Sign?” and eventually the Jesus Freak Movement.
I think the same thing is happening on the right now with the TPers. I only hope we are aware of it and can make use of it the way the Republicans did in the 70s. And that’s not a ‘wild guess’ or a fee;ing. I’ve been scanning all the newspapers of p[articular states to see what the feel is like — I’d looked at them in the past to get the background to stories instead of relying on the blog punditocracy.
I went through every available online site — over a hundred in total — of a newspaper or tv station in Alabama and — unlike the past where there were comments condemning Richard Shelby as a RINO — there was no TP stuff at all. (There was in the first few papers I checked in WV and OK, so it wasn;t my rose-colored reading glasses.) Two comments about ‘Obama being a Muslin’ and one of those was probably snarky “what a choice, a Muslim or a cult member.” A couple of columns by Congressmen. But no ‘letters to the editor’ or comments on political ideas that came from the TP warped view.
Not only are the FOX outlets — based on their websites — authentically ‘fair and balanced’ but even the reprinted sermons have gone back to “Christian” generalities, not politics. (Even the local FRC outlet did a piece on ‘character vs likability’ that was, if anything, aimed at Romney and Gingrich, not Obama.)
The ONLY issue that the locals were mad at — other than those who bought into the ‘religious freedom’ side of the contraceptive argument — was gas prices. That’s all the Republicans have left, now that they’ve brought out their candidates and the best they can do are Plastic Man, Nasty Newt, and Little Ricky, the Perpetual Altar Boy. (Next to them even Obama is looking good to even strongly conservative Republicans — and the recent poll that showed 20% of Republicans saying they will either stay home or even vote for Obama over the current candidates is very credible. I’ve been predicting it at various venues ever since Romney failed to get any boost when the other candidates started sropping out.)
Which means that, if gas prices do drop — and if the Democrats are actually awake enough to take advantage of it — a less likely scenario — even states like the Southern ones that are on;y ‘leaning Republican’ by now, not sure losses, come into play. It’s not going to be a McGovern-level loss (if the candidate is Romney, Little Rickey might lose every state), but I can’t see Romney winding up with more than six states, WV, KY, UT, ID, OK, and WY — with KS and NB ‘too close to call.’
(If the “Massachusetts Mauler” needs to use every bit of his skill and cash to put away Little Rickey — a welterweight at best — how is he going to last one round against the current Heavyweight Champion?)
Now if we only stop worrying about every flicker in the polls, stop seeing disaster as inevitable, and start concentrating on down-ballot races (which will be hurt more by stay-at-homes), we could make this a major turning point election.
@fbh “Oh, you mean Islam. Nice bigotry…lol.”
Not just Islam. But that was certainly included in that lot.
But quite honestly, I think that any religion that espouses a list based morality and that sacrifices reason for “faith” falls into the category of “crazy religion”.
I’m no fan of Sharia law, but where I disagree with the Tea Party: I think it is fundamentally wrong to deny it to those who want to use it for arbitration (with perhaps the exception of prenuptial agreements where it is used as a tool to oppress women).
@fbh “Congratulations on your new toy, Liberal Elite, but be careful when you run it in your closed garage. You may choke on all the smug that’s being emitted.”
Did I mention that I never have to deal with oil changes, transmissions, mufflers, fuel filters, tuneups, emissions testing,….
If you see one on the road, I’ll bet you’re looking at a happy owner.
They’ll catch on… especially for commuting. Five major factors:
1. Cost reductions for BEVs and PHEVs due to mass production
2. Increasing costs and future turmoil for oil production
3. New battery technology promises to triple the range
4. New charging technology for rapid recharge without battery fatigue
5. Completion of a decent charging station network
If I drive 10k miles per year, I get $2000 fuel cost savings per year (relative to the cost of a 25MPG car). The car nearly pays for itself over its lifespan.
And that’s $2000 that stays right here in America!
Not to mention your $7,500 federal and $5,000 state tax rebate. That’s a real steal… literally.
I’m happy to be part of kickstarting this effort. It will be good for America.
I consider that money as a field-leveling apology for not getting the benefit of an oil depletion allowance, not getting the benefit of mass production, and having to put up with a lousy charging network.
Shall we talk about the corporate pork to oil companies that are sent on YOUR behalf?
The name of the car “LEAF” is my favorite. It’s so direct and catchy. It gets right to the point doesn’t it.
Other companies just use that little green leaf that we see on so many products these days to get people to buy their stuff. Not Nissan though. Nissan one upped them all and just called it the “LEAF”. It’s brilliant.
“I’m no fan of Sharia law, but where I disagree with the Tea Party: I think it is fundamentally wrong to deny it to those who want to use it for arbitration.”
Two parties can use the @#$*%&& law behind closed doors to arrive at a stipulated agreement (a stip) for all I care. But the only thing the court should recognize is the stip, not any underlying or foundational body of law that was used in creating the stip.
@Dave “But the only thing the court should recognize is the stip, not any underlying or foundational body of law that was used in creating the stip.”
I can’t see any difference. And the Tea Party IS trying to prevent Sharia law from being used in arbitration. That’s the ONLY way Sharia law has been used in the US.