New polling from Rasmussen confirms current D.C. scuttlebutt: Republicans are winning on energy.
The reason can be boiled down to this: Voters overwhelmingly want prices brought down, they're convinced that increasing supply is the way to do that, and Republicans are the ones most vocally calling for increased supply.
There's lots in recent survey results to mull over, but the most important is this, the central truth of energy politics in the U.S.:
By substantial margins, voters believe that the Republican candidate's top priority is finding new sources of energy while his Democratic opponent is more focused on reducing the amount of energy we consume. Yet a separate survey found that for nearly two-thirds (65%), finding new sources of energy is more important that reducing the amount of energy Americans now use.
This is bedrock. American energy policy has had an extreme supply-side bias for a long, long time, and that's the language that dominates energy politics. Republicans embrace and reinforce it. Some Democrats, some of the time, in relatively ineffectual ways, try to push back against it. Other Democrats, some of the time, in relatively ineffectual ways, reinforce it. They hedge.
As a result, Dems have convinced the public that supply is not their priority. What they haven't done is make the positive case that efficiency and conservation are better strategies -- smarter, better for national security, more conducive to economic growth, more likely to lower total costs for consumers, etc. Consequently, public trust is swinging toward McCain on the issue.
If the public is convinced that supply is key, there's no way to avoid results like these: 64% in favor of offshore drilling (only 20% opposed), and 55% in favor of new nuclear plants (32% opposed). After all, these questions are tantamount to asking: do you want more energy? Of course you do!
Now, as former Gallup pollster David Moore has been pointing out, these surveys do not measure intensity of voter opinion. He thinks support for drilling is soft, and that the public would just as soon support renewables. I suspect that's true; given the choice between two new supply sources, respondents will favor the shiny new green ones.
But I also suspect -- though as far as I know nobody's measured it -- that the intensity of voter support for supply is generally high, and intensity of support for demand reduction, to the extent there is any, is low. I doubt all that many voters oppose demand-focused responses, they just don't understand them, don't know what to make of them, and don't think they'll achieve the goal, which is lowering prices. They are marginal to voters.
This is the state of play, party affiliation wise:
Democrats are more divided than Republicans on which is more important. While 57% of Democrats say finding new sources should be the priority, 36% believe that about reducing energy use. By contrast, Republicans lean far more heavily toward finding new energy sources 79% to 15%.
Among unaffiliated voters, 61% say finding new sources is more important, while 31% believe it is more essential to reduce the amount of energy Americans now use.
It's noteworthy that independents are closer to Dems than Republicans on this, but all three groups favor supply.
That's not shocking. People get supply. It's intuitive. Prices are high for stuff? Get more stuff! If Dems want to educate voters about the benefits of efficiency and conservation, they're going to have to stand behind that strategy and really make the case. That's hard to do when you're hedging and fudging about the SPR, "use it or lose it," etc.
It's a big gamble, and I suspect most Dems would be much more willing to take it after the election. But the ongoing energy battle is cementing the frames and hardening the battle lines. It's going to be hard to undo what's being done right now.
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Wolverine Posted 11:48 am
14 Aug 2008
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randino Posted 8:54 pm
14 Aug 2008
His answer speaks to us today. "We spoke to their minds. The fascists spoke to their hearts."
Randy Cunningham
Cleveland, OH
Randy Cunningham
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justlou Posted 4:39 am
15 Aug 2008
Cheney/Bush gave Americans the energy policy they asked for. While the Democrats just keep telling us they want us to live more virtuously, , conservatively, and frugally.
The seduction of the endlessly amusing machine has us by the balls. Why should we ever bother to learn to live on earth? The Republicans have the wheel on the forward stampede. Full speed ahead on the razzle dazzle, alien express.
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Wolverine Posted 5:43 am
15 Aug 2008
Buddhism seems to have provided the answer to this, with its admonition to shed our desires, beginning with desires for needless material things. Siddartha advocated this 2,500 years ago, but unfortunately, with the exception of a few monks, no one listened. The average Buddhist is just as materialistic as anyone else. The New Testament reiterated this idea, but again no one listened with a few rare exceptions, so that even though Jesus* said things like it would be harder for a rich person to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, we now have rich Christians, which includes the majorities of the U.S., Canada, Australia, and western Europe.
As one of those in the endangered tiny minority, I don't understand why people don't get that both they and the planet would be much happier and better off if they lived a lot more simply and naturally. I fully get the lure of material goods, we're all subject to those temptations, and I get the natural animal desire to work as little as possible (i.e., drive instead of walk, for example), but it seems obvious and clear to me that the rewards of the simple, natural lifestyle easily trump those of our destructive, materialistic one.
And for those who would say that I'm just ignoring the desires of others so that I don't understand what makes them happy or unhappy: As Siddhartha taught, desires are an endless cycle; the only way to happiness is to shed them, not to try to realize them, because the more you get, the more you want. My dad taught me that about rich people when I was about seven, and I learned Siddhartha's lesson by the time I was 20, so what's the big deal? This seems as elementary as 2+2=4.
* It seems far more likely, considering the evidence and from studying the full context of the New Testament, that "Jesus" was not a person but instead was a symbol. My invocation of Jesus was not meant to imply that I believe that Jesus was actually a person.
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justlou Posted 10:55 pm
15 Aug 2008
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08152008/transcript1.ht ...
An excerpt which adds great insight to our thread:
BILL MOYERS: Now you go on to say that there was another fateful period between July 1979 and March of 1983. You describe it, in fact, as a pivot of contemporary American history. That includes Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, right?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I would be one of the first to confess that - I think that we have misunderstood and underestimated President Carter. He was the one President of our time who recognized, I think, the challenges awaiting us if we refused to get our house in order.
BILL MOYERS: You're the only author I have read, since I read Jimmy Carter, who gives so much time to the President's speech on July 15th, 1979. Why does that speech speak to you so strongly?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, this is the so-called Malaise Speech, even though he never used the word "malaise" in the text to the address. It's a very powerful speech, I think, because President Carter says in that speech, oil, our dependence on oil, poses a looming threat to the country. If we act now, we may be able to fix this problem. If we don't act now, we're headed down a path in which not only will we become increasingly dependent upon foreign oil, but we will have opted for a false model of freedom. A freedom of materialism, a freedom of self-indulgence, a freedom of collective recklessness. And what the President was saying at the time was, we need to think about what we mean by freedom. We need to choose a definition of freedom which is anchored in truth, and the way to manifest that choice, is by addressing our energy problem.
He had a profound understanding of the dilemma facing the country in the post Vietnam period. And of course, he was completely hooted, derided, disregarded.
BILL MOYERS: And he lost the election. You in fact say-
ANDREW BACEVICH: Exactly.
BILL MOYERS: -this speech killed any chance he had of winning reelection. Why? Because the American people didn't want to settle for less?
ANDREW BACEVICH: They absolutely did not. And indeed, the election of 1980 was the great expression of that, because in 1980, we have a candidate, perhaps the most skillful politician of our time, Ronald Reagan, who says that, "Doom-sayers, gloom-sayers, don't listen to them. The country's best days are ahead of us."
BILL MOYERS: Morning in America.
ANDREW BACEVICH: It's Morning in America. And you don't have to sacrifice, you can have more, all we need to do is get government out of the way, and drill more holes for oil, because the President led us to believe the supply of oil was infinite.
BILL MOYERS: You describe Ronald Reagan as the "modern prophet of profligacy. The politician who gave moral sanction to the empire of consumption."
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, to understand the truth about President Reagan, is to understand why so much of what we imagined to be our politics is misleading and false. He was the guy who came in and said we need to shrink the size of government. Government didn't shrink during the Reagan era, it grew.
He came in and he said we need to reduce the level of federal spending. He didn't reduce it, it went through the roof, and the budget deficits for his time were the greatest they had been since World War Two.
BILL MOYERS: And do you remember that it was his successor, his Vice President, the first President Bush who said in 1992, the American way of life is not negotiable.
ANDREW BACEVICH: And all presidents, again, this is not a Republican thing, or a Democratic thing, all presidents, all administrations are committed to that proposition. Now, I would say, that probably, 90 percent of the American people today would concur. The American way of life is not up for negotiation.
What I would invite them to consider is that, if you want to preserve that which you value most in the American way of life, and of course you need to ask yourself, what is it you value most. That if you want to preserve that which you value most in the American way of life, then we need to change the American way of life. We need to modify that which may be peripheral, in order to preserve that which is at the center of what we value.
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salemguy Posted 5:26 am
16 Aug 2008
A rising dollar is part of it, but I have to wonder if the stronger dollar correlates with using less fuel, hmm?
Are we Americans so dense that we can't see this? Reduced demand leads to reduced prices. Surprise!
More conservation and greater efficiency are the quickest ways to reduce fuel costs AND to reduce our environmental impact.
Somewhere here in this mess of politics and attitudes I hope these fundamentals will be recognized.
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Wolverine Posted 1:28 pm
17 Aug 2008
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justlou Posted 10:32 pm
17 Aug 2008
I hope by writing here again that others who might have missed my earlier excerpts from the Moyer's program on Friday evening will scroll up the read the earlier posting.
Bacevich's analysis of "freedom" as many Americans understand it as our rights to consume lies at the heart of many of our foreign and domestic problems. Our way of life is not negotiable. Indeed. This lies at the heart of much of the appeal of right wing ideologues represented by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, Dick Cheney and now John McCain, the faces of current Republicanism.
George Bush repeated a thousand times that the terrorists attacked us for our "freedoms". It is interesting that after 9/11 Bush told the American people that, in response to the terrorists, we should continue on exercising our freedoms like taking the kids to Disneyland and going shopping. Implicit in that message was to go on with our profligate ways and increasing our debts and our dependencies.
So, which "freedoms" are most vulnerable to attack from the terrorists? Those stewarded by the likes of Bush and McCain. Or the real freedoms envisioned by our founding fathers and stewarded by the likes of Jimmy Carter? Which kind of leadership will bring true security to the US?
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justlou Posted 11:01 pm
17 Aug 2008
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spaceshaper Posted 11:08 pm
17 Aug 2008
Wolverine, I'm curious where and how you do your hunting and gathering. And especially where you hunted or gathered your computer and online access.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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justlou Posted 11:34 pm
17 Aug 2008
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