Energy - Republicans find a Campaign Issue

This campaign season has been a time of awakening for Republicans. They have come to realize we are facing an energy crisis. Many of them even agree that global warming is a real phenomenon and that climate change threatens the stability of land masses and the health of the planet. Mostly, though, they have discovered a great new campaign issue.

Diehards like Republican Senator Inhofe still call global warming a hoax. That point of view makes the pursuit of in-country fossil fuel sources the best way to alleviate our dependence on foreign oil and to ignore kinder and gentler approaches for fueling our cars and heating our homes. Although Senator McCain acknowledges the threat of global warming, he is less inclined to support funding innovative approaches than to promote policies like drilling for oil and developing "clean coal" technologies. And his support of nuclear energy doesn't include a realistic plan for disposing of nuclear waste.

In any case, consumer angst about gas prices has driven McCain and the Republican Party to address an issue they think can work for them. And, to the amazement of anyone who's been paying attention, they blame high gas prices and lack of a comprehensive energy plan on Democrats. In his weird concoction of a campaign McCain makes much of the fact that Barack Obama hasn't been in the Senate very long and doesn't understand the issues. Yet Obama and most Democrats are committed to energy reform while Republicans have blocked everything from higher CAFÉ standards to funding for wind and solar alternatives as emphatically and for as long as anyone can remember.

As the NY Times noted (8/2/08), when President Clinton "proposed stronger standards for light trucks ... S.U.V.s and minivans, Republicans ...led by Newt Gingrich, responded with a rider that banned such improvements and effectively killed any serious discussion of the issue for years." In fact, when Bush took office, he supported the loophole stipulating S.U.V.s and light trucks were not required to meet CAFÉ standards for other vehicles. In addition purchase of an S.U.V. was a deductible small-business expense, even if used by lawyers or accountants who were defined as "small businesses."  

But whatever else McCain says, his insistence that we drill and mine as fast and as much as possible guarantees dependence on fossil fuels - - small wonder that domestic energy companies have contributed so heavily to his campaign. It's the same old runaround; still those who are suffering from the effects of high gas and oil prices want desperately to believe. Some of them will age considerably while waiting for that magical brew off our shores to afford them relief, but McCain's urgency is the siren song of the season.

Clearly McCain and his party are on the same page about the drilling thing. It escapes all of them how incongruous blocking a defense spending bill is in light of their claims to be so defense-minded. Congress adjourned for its summer recess without passing the bill because Republicans weren't allowed to attach their oil-drilling proposals to it and so they prevented its passage. Republican Whip, Roy Blunt informed the mainstream media in a series of interviews that Democrats are to blame for the impasse and don't grasp the severity of the crisis. The president jumped in to add similar criticisms.

It is ironic that, for most of two terms, President Bush and loyalist members of his party in Congress never paid much attention to the nation's energy problems. It wasn't until high gas prices and a sluggish economy forced the administration, McCain and Republican office holders not so much to find real solutions but to make it look as if they are hard at it.

Obviously there is nothing McCain won't do to satisfy his presidential ambitions. As in the past, Republicans have found a way to politicize national concerns and demonize Democrats in the process. Whatever issue is most easily manipulated is the strategy McCain employs, and it isn't all that important in his eyes for integrity and ethical standards to inform the campaign of a candidate running for the highest office in the land.

Last week Senator McCain was asked about the Spears-Hilton-Obama commercial. ‘We like to inject a little humor into our ads' he said. Perhaps he doesn't understand the implications of the video or he does and thinks it funny nonetheless. Either way, his was the reaction of someone with a warped sense of humor, a man too small-minded to deal with the complexities he would face in the White House as Commander-in-Chief.