Eight months before the fall elections, Republican strategists are in a dour mood.
The one thing Republican political pros are cheering right now is the rapidly increasing price of gas at the pump and the underlying cost of oil.
The conventional wisdom holds that if gas prices increase, it will inevitably chip away at support for President Obama -- and there is a good case to be made. After all, increased gas prices could siphon billions out of the pockets of consumers that they would otherwise spend on the goods and services that could help continue the economic recovery -- which is critical to the president's re-election.
But Republicans shouldn't be so quick to lick their chops at the prospect of rising gas prices.
Here's why:
1). What you see, everybody sees. The sight of Republicans rooting against America and hoping that rising gas prices will derail the economic recovery is not pretty.
The fact is that Republicans have done everything in their power to block President Obama's job-creating proposals in Congress, and they were dragged kicking and screaming to support the extension of the president's payroll tax holiday that was critical to continuing economic momentum.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell actually announced that his caucus' number one priority this term was the defeat of President Obama. The sight of Republicans salivating at the prospect of $4-plus per gallon gasoline will not sit well with ordinary voters.
2). Democrats have shown that they are more than willing to make the case about who is actually responsible for rising gas prices -- and the culprits' footprints lead right back to the GOP's front door.
Who is really to blame for higher gas prices?
The fact is that the world will inevitably experience increasing oil prices over the long run because this finite, non-renewable resource is getting scarcer and scarcer at the same time that demand for energy from the emerging economies like China and India is sky rocketing.
Every voter with a modicum of experience in real-world economics gets that central economic fact.
That would make Republican opposition to the development of renewable energy sources bad enough. But over the last few months the factor chiefly responsible for short-term oil price hikes have been the Arab Spring and Israel's growing tensions with Iran -- all of which are well beyond direct American control.
But with only 2% of the world's oil reserves, any idiot knows we can't make ourselves materially more energy independent solely by drilling for more domestic oil. In fact, it is obvious that to have any hope of controlling the prices we pay for energy in the future, we must free ourselves from the dependence on oil in general and foreign oil in particular.
We need an emergency "all of the above" energy independence program that accesses all of the domestic sources of oil that can be developed in an environmentally safe way - plus a major investment in renewable, clean energy sources that free us from dependence on oil - and especially foreign oil.
President Obama has proposed a big first step in exactly that direction, and the Republicans have answered: "Hell no -- drill baby drill."
If they are forcefully challenged by Democrats this year -- as I believe they will -- that Republican position is simply laughable.
Domestic drilling has increased substantially under President Obama's administration. And our dependence on foreign oil imports has gone down every year of his presidency. The president has put in place new mileage standards for cars that will save massive amounts of potential oil imports -- standards that Republicans have opposed for decades.
But that fact remains, that for all his administration can do on its own to increase energy independence, it is impossible to free America from the stranglehold of foreign oil dependency without the kind of massive national commitment to domestic, renewable energy that must be passed by Congress. The Republicans have said "no" because their biggest energy patrons -- the oil companies -- oppose a crash program to create renewable energy sources for one simple reason. Every day that we fail to act, the value of their oil goes up -- it's that simple.
If you doubt that Mitt Romney and the Republicans are bought and paid for by Big Oil -- just ask the infamous Koch brothers -- who finance major Republican "super Pacs" -- how much they stand to make personally every time the long-term price of a barrel of oil increases by another dollar.
Simply put, the Republicans have put the profits of their patrons in Big Oil well above the economic and national security interests of the United States of America.
The Republicans even continue to do everything in their power to block the elimination of the astonishing taxpayer subsidy of the oil industry, that continues notwithstanding the fact that big oil companies are more profitable today than any other companies in the history of humanity. And the Republicans do it all the while they blather on about how if we once again install them in the White House, they will bring us $2 a gallon gasoline.
Whoever is pushing those kinds of lines must be studying the techniques of the late, famous circus impresario, P.T. Barnum, who famously said, "There's a sucker born every minute."
But in fact, polling shows that American voters simply are not so gullible that they buy either of these preposterous positions.
3). Speculators. A final contributing factor that has recently amplified increases in gas and oil prices is the role of speculators.
In a purely competitive market, oil prices should settle in the long run at the marginal cost of producing the next barrel of oil -- currently between $60 and $70 a barrel. Oil closed last week at about $106 per barrel and ran up to twice the marginal cost of production during the Bush era 2008 oil spike.
Currently about 80% of positions on oil commodity markets are held by "pure speculators" -- who bet on changes in oil prices -- rather than "end users" who actually consume oil and use the markets to hedge against price increases.
Academic studies have demonstrated that there is a big speculative premium in oil prices, above and beyond any "risk premium" that might normally develop from fear of some immediate, short-term shortage. That speculative premium could be materially dampened if steps were taken to limit the market's domination by pure speculators.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill -- which was opposed by most Republicans in Congress and all of their presidential candidates -- allows the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to limit the percentage of market positions held by pure speculators as opposed to end users.
Already the CTFC has position limits on the percentage of positions that can be held by individual companies or investors to prevent one from cornering the market. Many economists have proposed imposing similar position limits on pure speculators as a class.
Ordinary voters don't like speculators. But far from supporting limits on speculation, Mitt Romney wants to go back to the "good old days of yesteryear" where wild, unbridled speculation led to the worst economic collapse in 60 years and costs eight million Americans their jobs.
None of this is good politics for Republicans.
Voters don't want to be held hostage by the big oil companies or foreign oil. They don't want to have their pockets picked by oil market speculators. They understand that when world oil prices go up, it benefits oil-state dictators: it's like allowing Iran's Ahmadinejad to levy a tax on American consumers. And voters sure as hell don't want to pay a taxpayer subsidy to oil companies like Exxon that made more in profits in one minute last year (about $85,000) than the average American worker earns all year long.
If Republican strategists think they can reverse their fortunes by focusing on the gas price debate, the odds are good they will be wrong.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partners and a Senior Strategist for Americans United for Change. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer.
Follow Robert Creamer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rbcreamer
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
http://news.investors.com/article/604303/201203141303/oil-abundant-in-the-united-states.htm
We would have Republican "NO!" votes on record, and it would be a great campaign tool for President Obama.
Mr. Creamer writes to us here at HP, and we get it. But so many GOPers do not, and they will buy into "Obama is responsible for high gas prices," because that's what they hear on FOX and that is what they want to believe. Without the up and down vote mentioned above, there is no way to change their minds. Even that might not be enough.
Voters with that "modicum of experience" - unfortunately - are vastly outnumbered by fanatical, vote-against-their-own-interest, low-information loo n ies.
Who are you to tell others what is and what isn't in their best interests?
Speculation is one. Who are the speculators? Who can manipulate them?
Another critical factor is how much the refiners choose to refine. Questions include: which refineries are shut down, right now, and are there plausible reasons for them to be shut down?
Frankly, I take a look at who controls the oil industry after the oil comes out of the ground, then compare those people with those who happen to have a white-hot hatred for Obama.
SURPRISE!
I see a nearly complete overlap.
If our country can be brought to its knees by a handful of 'fright wing' oil pigs, then, as odious as the idea sounds, I would suggest that it might be time to think about nationalization of the industry; our own oil oligarchs are more dangerous to the country than Al Quaeda ever was.
A critical industry run by traitors who, not only CAN bring the country down, but APPEAR to be doing so for their own political ends, is like a mugger holding a gun to our collective heads.
I once worked for an oil company on a towboat on the Inland Waterways (Mississippi) system. The guys I worked with out there all said that, at the height of the oil crisis of the early 70's, the oil transportation system from oil field to refinery was absolutely bursting at the seams with oil. The entire time.
Funny, that, huh?
Derrrrrrr........
" Remember in a rare moment of clarity, President Obama also said that under his plan of a cap-and-trade system, energy prices would 'necessarily skyrocket.' But now that the global warming hoax has collapsed and he's scrambling to save his job while the skyrocketing price he wanted so badly, he's pretending to be for an all-of-the above approach.
" Listen carefully to what Secretary Chu said - he said the overall goal is to "decrease our dependency on oil" - not foreign oil. Obama isn't giving up: under his watch gas prices nearly doubled and what is his response? Again today he called for raising oil and gas taxes, no mention that these extra costs are passed to consumers in higher prices at the pump.
"Secretary Chu told us the truth in 2008 and today he refused to retract that truth.
The post I presented was from Congressional recorded testimony.
And since you thought it appropriate to ridicule me for what YOUR PRESIDENTS Secretary of Energy says, I will simply pass it off as "misguided Youth"
Mitch McConnell is not the Senate Majority Leader. He is the Republican (minority) Leader. I believe the Democrats still have a majority in the Senate (51-47 w/ 2 independents). Surely you are not included in the 60% of voters who believe the Republicans hold a majority in both houses of Congress. Or maybe you contribute to that misimpression.
I agree with what you say and hopefully there will be some backlash to those politicians hoping things will get worse.
What about natural gas as an interim fuel for our cars to ween us off the crude oil teet?