By Alan Caruba
On July 29, I posted “Why John McCain Will Win” and it is already time to expand on this theme with Part Two or as I will call it, Part Duh!
Sen. Obama has entered the phase of his campaign where he is beginning to babble about ending “the age of oil” by the end of his second term. This from a candidate who hasn’t even won his first term. There’s confidence, there’s arrogance, and there is the state of self-delusion where you begin to actually believe the stupid things you’re saying.
Meanwhile, the August 7 Rasmussen Report revealed that “Americans overwhelmingly believe there is an urgent national need to find new sources of energy, and this need is more important than reducing energy usage, according to a new national telephone survey.”
Fully 81% of Americans “see development of new energy sources as an urgent priority. Only 9% disagree.”
That is such a staggering number of people, extrapolated to the entire voting population, that it virtually dooms all that blather about “conserving” energy. One can stock the house or apartment with “energy saving” devices, but in the end you either use energy or you don’t. If you are not using it, you are not “conserving” it.
“For nearly two-thirds (65%) finding new sources of energy is more important than reducing the amount of energy Americans now consume. Twenty-eight (28%) think reducing current usage is more important.” Do you want to bet that those folks who think reducing current usage aren’t doing much in their personal lives to reduce it?
The biggest environmental hypocrite is Al Gore with his energy monster of a house and his lifestyle that includes limousines whose engines are left running to keep the air conditioning going while he’s delivering a speech about how EVERYBODY ELSE has to reduce their use of energy. Now multiply Gore by that 28% of tree-huggers and you have the truth. They're lying.
In early June Sen. McCain, a pretty Green fellow himself, stumbled into the issue of finding and extracting more energy when he suggested that drilling offshore wasn’t a bad idea. Then Sen. Obama told everybody the U.S. could save millions of barrels of oil by just inflating the tires on their cars. Which one do you think sounded like a complete idiot?
Americans do not like paying $4.00 or more a gallon for gasoline. They want to drive wherever and whenever they want. The rest of the world thinks we are a bunch of spoiled brats. We probably are, but they want to be too! The more Sen. Obama preaches austerity, the worse his poll numbers will get.
Americans, however, are in for a few more shocks before they fill the streets of Washington, DC, howling for the heads of Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, both of whom lead a Democrat Party that is opposed to any drilling anywhere.
My guess is that the first big shock will come just after the election on November 4. Shortly thereafter Israel, with the blessing of the White House, will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to destroy or at least delay its program to develop weapons. They wouldn’t let Saddam Hussein do it in 1981 and they wouldn’t let Syria do it in late 2007. Anyone who thinks they will let Iran do it is deluding themselves.
The flow of oil out of the Middle East will be briefly shut off and, at that point, Americans will turn their eyes toward the land of the caribou and loon, the polar bear and fur seal, and demand that ANWR be opened to drilling.
It won’t be five years or ten years as the Democrat Liars Committee will unanimously tell you before that black gold is flowing. All that is needed are some rigs and a 74 mile pipeline to link up with the one connecting the North Slope to the ports where tankers will bring it to the lower 48. That 800 mile pipeline only took three years to build. How long do you think it would take to build one just over 70 miles?
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why John McCain will win.
Here is my guess, Alan: It is going to be a foot race between today's declining oil prices (will pump prices be $3/gal by November?) versus the onset of winter. If the first time a New Englander has to buy his first stash of winter heating oil at today's prices, AND the timing is right before the election, then the election will be McCain's. But if oil is @ $3/gallon by then, the election will revolve around a different issue.
ReplyDeleteWord from the blogging community is that "the evil oil speculators" are awash in high-priced oil futures and are dumping them in droves now, which is the reason for the recent decline in oil futures. The oil bubble may have burst, but it's still too early to tell.
Even if oil prices decline, voters should remember the democrats retarded responses to the problem. Demand destruction is a big factor, but I think that even the talk of producing more oil of our own has scared the speculators out of their long positions. Bravo, pres. Bush.
ReplyDeleteAnd bravo, Alan Caruba , for your insightful articles and clear exposition of common sense.
I feel that an important part of public tolerance of global warming hysteria is due to an inaccurate faith in the practicality of alternate energy. People don't understand that energy is lost with each conversion, and wasted in long distance power lines (10% per 60 miles?) so an electric car is actually a low efficiency coal fired car. Hydrogen fuel is a huge waste of natural gas.
I think you could do a big service by explaining more of the basic science, and how most alternate energy will always be high cost energy. Without low cost carbon based energy used to make windmills and solar cells, they'll only get more expensive. and inherent limitations on the efficiency of conversion and storage of energy are unlikely to be overcome by a "manhattan project" - but it'll make public sector supported researchers happy.
Even if oil prices decline, voters should remember the democrats retarded responses to the problem. Demand destruction is a big factor, but I think that even the talk of producing more oil of our own has scared the speculators out of their long positions. Bravo, pres. Bush.
ReplyDeleteAnd bravo, Alan Caruba , for your insightful articles and clear exposition of common sense.
I feel that an important part of public tolerance of global warming hysteria is due to an inaccurate faith in the practicality of alternate energy. People don't understand that energy is lost with each conversion, and wasted in long distance power lines (10% per 60 miles?) so an electric car is actually a low efficiency coal fired car. Hydrogen fuel is a huge waste of natural gas.
I think you could do a big service by explaining more of the basic science, and how most alternate energy will always be high cost energy. Without low cost carbon based energy used to make windmills and solar cells, they'll only get more expensive. and inherent limitations on the efficiency of conversion and storage of energy are unlikely to be overcome by a "manhattan project" - but it'll make public sector supported researchers happy.