The GOP's Winning Issue

The Republican Congress has introduced a new "fight them there so we don't fight them here" winning tagline: "find more, use less." Or as Georgian senator Johnny Issackson said about the off shore drilling issue, (roughly) "It's like we're starvin' and sittin' on a ham sandwich! Ham sandwich Chris!" I am no econ expert, but this doesn't sound like a free market propsoal. If you introduce more supply, the public will consume more (especially if it is oil). The GOP is more inclined towards voluntary conservation than any regulation. Let the free market control global warming! Anyway, assuming the GOP was to push some sort of conservation measure I seriously doubt it would bring gas prices down at all even with drilling off shore.

A decade from now when we get this new supply of oil, are we planning on hoarding it for our selves? Right now, we consume 25% of the world's oil yet produce only 2% of it. Drilling off shore will make us far from energy independent. Do you think OPEC, the ultimate cartel, will want to export to us at low, low Walmart prices while India and China are demanding it more? If we plan on having an open world market for our new oil ventures, I assume our increased output will be negiblle relative to the world wide output (and the increased demand from third world nations).

So yet again the GOP tries to appeal to our dumber, baser instincts. With gay marraige being a dead issue at the ballots, the Bush tax cuts/economic policy leaving the nation in recession, and a public growing increasingly detached from the Wars on Terror and Iraq, this is the last, best hope for McCain. Hopefully, as Bush and The Who say, we won't be fooled agian.