High gas prices: bad for America, good for an election

Marita Noon

I don’t need to use a lot of space telling you why high gas prices are bad for America, but I contend that they are good for an election. Until the current precipitous price increases, energy seemed absent from the overall debate. Now the GOP candidates are all talking about how they would maximize American resources to bring down the price of gas and, rightly so, putting President Obama on the defense. Press Secretary Jay Carney has recently repeated that there is nothing the White House can do. President Obama uses the high prices as an excuse to keep throwing good money after bad to develop “alternatives” like the now fabled Solyndra and this week’s Abound Solar announced lay-offs and delays—even though solar energy, if it ever became viable, has virtually nothing to do with transportation. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is now having to defend his comment in response to a question regarding whether or not the Administration’s goal is to lower gasoline prices: “No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil.”

Jay Carney

While it might appear that the White House was broadsided by the energy conversation, President Obama is very well aware of the importance of energy in the 2012 election cycle.

Back in November when President Obama announced he’d delay the decision on the Keystone XL pipeline for more than a year, until after the elections, Republicans were outraged. The pipeline represents up to 20,000 direct jobs and untold thousands of follow-on jobs in hotels, restaurants, retail, and more. In an attempt to force the issue, Republicans inserted a Keystone decision into December’s payroll tax-cut extension bill. Weeks before an end-of-February answer was needed, President Obama handed the Republicans the makings of a campaign commercial. He claims to support job creation, yet here, with no government funds involved, were thousands of jobs—and he killed the project! Does he really care about out-of-work Americans and the economic boost those jobs would provide? Read rest of the column here: News New Mexico

High gas prices: bad for America, good for an election