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Oily politicians are a problem

by Scott McNutt

Everybody knows that, as with the economy in general, the president can’t really do anything about gas prices, right? Complex factors— like the vagaries of exploration, the orneriness of OPEC, and the crude lusts of SUV-riding mommas desperate to suck down another load of fuel to satiate their engines of desire—conspire to make a presidential solution to high gas prices impossible, right? So, it’s just grandstanding when a candidate says the “main reason” gasoline prices are skyrocketing is the sitting administration’s inability to persuade OPEC to increase production, right? When a candidate says something like, “I would hope the administration could convince our friends at OPEC to open up the spigots. That’s what diplomacy is all about,” it’s just so much hot air, right?

If that statement is just another gassy emission, then George W. Bush is full of it because he spoke those words in June 2000, during his presidential campaign. But the truth of the matter is, the public wants to hear presidential candidates promise to do something about high gas prices. Whether they actually can do anything about them is irrelevant. We Americans want to be comforted and coddled and told that the big bad gas price demon in the closet is a figment of our imagination, and president dada will make everything OK. The question now is why the Democratic Party isn’t doing more to use Bush’s own words against him.

The Democrats may believe they have many other issues with which they can beat Bush. It’s possible they are counting on new revelations of Bush’s early fixation on Iraq to swamp him. Maybe they believe his secret discussions with Saudi Arabia prior to the Iraqi invasion will cost him the election. Perhaps they think there’s no way the American public will continue to ignore the glaring absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a rising death toll in Iraq, and an ominous lack of exit strategy from Iraq, plus a staggering number of job losses and a record deficit at home.

They may think that. But that’s because the Democratic Party is, on average, about as dumb as George W. Bush.

Sure, we Americans care about all of those things, especially about the death toll in Iraq. That upsets and saddens us. Well, actually, we really don’t give much thought to the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have died during our invasion and occupation of their country, so it isn’t the death toll in Iraq in general that upsets and saddens us. The American death toll in Iraq—that’s what, specifically, upsets and saddens us.

Still, if the Democratic Party wants to win the presidency, it will be careful about showing us more pictures of burned, mutilated Americans and issuing dire warnings of more horrendous losses to come. Why? Because we, the people, haven’t yet thought through the implications of our lingering presence in Iraq—and we’d prefer not to. If we were to think through stuff like that, it might make our concerns here at home, like record-breaking gas prices, seem rather trivial. And we don’t want our concerns trivialized. Because we take our concerns seriously.

So, the Democrats would be wise to downplay the Iraq situation. If they show us gruesome images of the horrors in Iraq, chances are that will only force us to avert our eyes and blame the messenger, because such images remind us that a high price—a terrible price—is being paid in Iraq for things more important than gas. We would prefer not to be troubled by such considerations. We have troubles of our own here at home, like those gas prices. Which is all we really want to think about.

Although the Democrats have not effectively deployed this important issue yet, it is heartening to know that presidential candidate John Kerry is criticizing the current administration for not pressuring OPEC about cuts in oil production. Through his spokesperson, Phil Singer, Kerry recently said, “If the president was so concerned about high gas prices, he wouldn’t have broken his campaign pledge to jawbone OPEC. Complaining to OPEC about its production cuts after the fact is not the same as doing something to prevent them beforehand.”

Kerry appears to understand that the way to an American’s vote is through his gas tank. Because that’s what we really care about. Right?

April 29, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 18 © 2004 Metro Pulse