Posted on 04/21/2006 10:16:45 AM PDT by Crackingham
Democrats running for Congress are moving quickly to use the most recent surge in oil and gasoline prices to bash Republicans over energy policy, and more broadly, the direction of the country. With oil prices hitting a high this week and prices at the pump topping $3 a gallon in many places, Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic Senate candidate in Minnesota, is making the issue the centerpiece of her campaign. Ms. Klobuchar says it "is one of the first things people bring up" at her campaign stops.
"It's a metaphor for an economy that keeps biting people despite overall good numbers," said Senator Charles Schumer of New York.
Officials at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which advises House candidates, said they sent a memorandum to candidates offering guidance on using the issue to their advantage. The memorandum includes a "sample statement" that recommends telling voters, "Americans are tired of giving billion-dollar tax subsidies to energy companies and foreign countries while paying record prices at the pump."
.......
A survey by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research organization, in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine suggests that the message could not be more timely. The survey said voters now believed that fears over energy independence rivaled the Iraq war as the leading foreign policy issue for the nation.
Daniel Yankelovich, chairman of Public Agenda, said the survey found that 90 percent of Americans viewed the lack of energy independence as a risk to security, that 88 percent said problems abroad were endangering supplies and increasing prices and that 85 percent believed that the federal government could do something if it tried.
"If Democrats can make an explicit connection that Senator So-and-so could have done more but didn't, the message will resonate among voters," he said. "This has really become a hot-button issue."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Seems we could use the democrat vote on anwar to bury them.
Seems we could use the deomcrat opposition to new refineries to bury them.
What is the problem with the GOP?!
With the propensity of the Democrats to keep stepping in it, this should be good news. Watch oil prices start coming down. Then what are they going to say?
I bet they are going to talk up how Bush failed to drill in Alaska and Florida...
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
What is the problem with the GOP?!
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If I recall correctly....it's called the Peter Principle.
And I quote:
in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence".
Reckon the democrats will take off the taxes? heheh
ANWR is not the answer to energy independance.
They are eager to exploit high gas prices and blame Bush, yet they don't want the US to drill anywhere for more oil. Figures.
Starbucks they sell “Ethos” brand bottled water for $1.85 a bottle.
The bottle contains 1.5 pints of water from the Tomhicken Mountain Springs—which happens to be in Pennsylvania, near Pottsville. Cost: $1.23 a pint.
There are 8 pints in a gallon.
So the Starbucks customer is paying about $9.85 a gallon…for water that comes from a self-replenishing spring, gets put into bottles and shipped to the store as is.
Yet that same Starbucks customer is going to complain bitterly to Senators Dodd and Domenici that it now costs $3.25 for a gallon of gasoline that has been shipped via crude oil tanker from depleting oil fields in Saudi Arabia across 3,000 miles of ocean to an offshore tanker port, pumped through pipes to a refinery in the Gulf Coast, refined via an energy-intensive distillation process into a variety of fuels—jet fuel, diesel fuel, kerosene and even asphalt, not to mention three types of gasoline—and then shipped by pipeline to distribution terminals from whence it has been loaded into tank trucks and hauled up an Interstate Highway to a gas station for the Starbucks customer who is complaining about the High Cost of Gasoline to Senators Dodd and Domenici…
…and doesn’t think twice about paying $9.85 for a gallon of water.
http://tinyurl.com/h37gn
As if the 'Rats have a great record on energy! Look how well Jimmy Carter and Jerry Brown handled energy issues.
More pot calling kettle stuff. The environmental wackos within the Demonrat Party have contributed in no small measure to our energy dependence which directly correlates to high gas prices.
Gasoline prices always come down after Labor Day when the oil companies switch back to a winter blend.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
and doesn’t think twice about paying $9.85 for a gallon of water.
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Please stop with the bottled water and milk analogies I hear all the time. We don't use 2 or 3 gallons of water or milk to drive to work. You also have the option to drink tap water or powdered milk. You have NO option with GAS.
You could not be more correct, and throw in the OPEC'rs.
Any one field can't meet our energy needs. If we shut down every oil field that didn't by itself meet our needs, we would have no oil at all.
Trouble is, this argument will carry with many of the great unwashed. Ignorance is a prime weapon in the Demonrat arsenal.
Seems we could use the democrat vote on anwar to bury them.
Seems we could use the deomcrat opposition to new refineries to bury them.
What is the problem with the GOP?!
The same thing that's wrong with the democrats, both kneel before the oil lobyyists and to hell with US.
Effing jerks... I'm waiting for the day they are on CSPAN or something and I can call and ask them blankly: "how in the hell they have the balls to complain about gas prices when they are so myopic and closed minded to drilling for our own oil"
Seems we could use the democrat vote on anwar to bury them.
Seems we could use the deomcrat opposition to new refineries to bury them.
What is the problem with the GOP?!
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Excellent points. The GOP are a bunch of lilly-livered wimps scared to death of the MSM and a real fight. A huge problem we have with this administration and the Repub Congress. A bunch of white-handkerchief 'pozzies'. Arrrggh!!
Thats not the point. The point is that the dems are so myopic and close minded, they don't care at all about gas prices. They care about making the republicans look bad, they want a polical point not a soltion or worse yet, lack of a problem in the first place.
Drilling in ANWR and the Gulf wouldn't be a solution, but it would be a start. Plus ALOT of the oil price is so much on speculation. Anything that 'distributed' the near-nerm supply of oil away from the ME would help greatly there IMO.
Reduce the amount of taxes on a gallon of gas and the problem would be lessened as well. But no, folks would rather try to have the gubmint enforce price and wage laws....which have amazing success historically I might add (sarc).
It should be easy to shut up these Democrats...they supported Al Gore who wanted $5 a gallon gasoline and would have implemented that price as soon as he became President.
6 years later it's only half that price because Gore lost.
Wasn't it the Democrats who blocked every attempt to expedite drilling for oil in this country and Alaska. I seem to remember that this was on the Bush agenda to keep us from having an oil crunch? Sure was not on the Democrats program, was it.
The only thing to do is make em vote. Legislation is the answer. Want to lower gas prices, fine. Make the dems vote against lowering the federal gas tax. Make them vote against ANWR. Make them vote against building nuclear power plants. Just make them vote and vote and vote!!!
""It's a metaphor for an economy that keeps biting people despite overall good numbers," said Senator Charles Schumer of New York. "
This is what Bush should say in a press conference:
"The US Government collects 18 cents per dollar in gasoline taxes. As of tomorrow, those taxes will no longer be collected." In addition, states that create laws that force oil companies to produce boutique blends of gasoline will be charged a 18 cents per dollar to offset the costs to the rest of the country."
"Helen, you have a question?"
I thought kcvl made an excellent point with regard to the hypocisy of the trendy, consumerist Left who will not question the price of water, (or of coffee) but have a major hissy over the price of gas.
Reduce the amount of taxes on a gallon of gas and the problem would be lessened as well. But no, folks would rather try to have the gubmint enforce price and wage laws....which have amazing success historically I might add (sarc).
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This point is true. Very true
I don't think the Dems have learned a thing from minority. They're "eager to exploit anger" but haven't come up with a single program to address the problem. It's all about the latest clever slant in bashing the opposition. A party without programs is a party without power.
"ANWR is not the answer to energy independance.'
However, if you combine ANWR with burning cleaner coal and building nuke plants as well as other alternative energy strategies, you will create energy independence.
All the governement has to do is tell the Sierra club to piss off and get a favorable ruling from SCOTUS. However, like abortion, this will never get to SCOTUS because the left knows if it goes there they will lose.
I believe Karl Rove and the President will ram the Dem's inconsistencies down their throats and that will help prevent this election from being a disaster. I noticed Brit Hume spelling out Dem's inconsistencies on immigration. They can successfully be painted as flip-floppers or some other ridiculing word.
The good news is that contrary to the impression the NYT gives, the great unwashed is a shrinking minority.
People might say they hate Republicans, but they keep electing Republicans for governors, presidents, and to congress.
Mr. Gallup's theory is that everyone hates Democrats more. My theory is that Americans aren't stupid.
First of all, you don't know that, and second of all, that's not the only source of domestic oil we have available.
And finally, your attempt to make it sound like that's a low number is the same type of nonsensical garbage we get from the Democrats. Having that amount that would serve us in a year eliminating all other sources is indeed a significant amount of oil. Over time with that source entering our market without the other sources being eliminated would indeed make a major difference, not to mention the multiplier effect from the jobs and revenue it would generate.
" burning cleaner coal "
Didn't clinton turn some of the best coal territory into an un-wanted park?
If Ole Chucky Schmukie keeps getting his quotes like this published he's going to give Biden a run for his money as the dumbest man in senate.
Opps -- I meant to say: "... the demand for oil is ...". So is the supply -- but, in this case, it is the demand that's the issue.
Good point. But since I'm in contruction, it might be a pretty tough ride.
LOL! That would take a lot of guts to show up on a construction site with that!
It's a made-to-order campaign issue. Seems to rank about four levels above illegal immigration. Iran is not even on the chart.
LOL! That would take a lot of guts to show up on a construction site with that!
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ROFL, I just imagined that picture. Thanks
LOL
Exactly? Anwar? It's because of liberal weenies that we are as dependent as we are on foreign oil.
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