Obama “evolves” position on off-shore drilling
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Seems like $4/gal. gasoline is getting the Democrats attention, despite objections from their left base.
Just like Mark Warner, who vetoed drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf while he was governor, is now running an ad that says he’d keep it open as an option, Barack Obama is now also saying he’d consider off-shore drilling. This in spite of uber-lib organization MoveOn.org now mocking Sen. John McCain with an ad, calling it a “gimmick” and Obama himself calling it a “scheme.”
“My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post.
“If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage - I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.”
I wonder what the Sierra Club will say about this?
Here’s what Obama said about it in Springfield, MO just a couple days ago on July 30:
i’m hearing crickets in lieu of mccain’s “flip-flopping” on offshore drilling.
but i guess when he flips from a “maverick” position opposing offshore drilling for decades to being in favor of offshore drilling as a pander to the dead-enders that constitutes manliness or something.
I think there’s a couple factors at play here. For one, Obama has cultivated the image of being above partisanship. Here we have a bipartisan effort in the Senate that produces a proposal which contains drilling. This is exactly the sort of thing that Obama claims to offer - working across party lines. He’d come off as hypocritical to not be behind this.
For another, the same bill (AFAIK) eliminates the 30 billion in tax breaks currently provided to oil industry, a prize the left has long been seeking. And puts that reclaimed revenue towards developing renewables, thereby providing funding for a major part of his energy platform, while adhering to the pay-go system he has also supported.
While it may (or rather will) earn him some howls from the environmental left, his support of this proposal will help burnish his image as a reconciler, someone willing to negotiate to get the job done, and probably play well to the independent crowd. Plus, by coming out so soon, he’s beating McCain to the punch, in some ways attaching himself to this compromise in the public perception. I haven’t yet heard any statement from McCain on this.
While it’s certainly possible to paint him as a flipping his position on this, its complicated by the fact that McCain himself was previously opposed to drilling. Indeed, because of the bipartisan nature of this, its even easier for Obama to paint this as more a compromise than a flip. McCain has no such similar convenience to his change in support for off-shore drilling.
Personally, i see this +1 Obama (and good timing to boot, after McCain winning the media war last week).
mccain “won” the media war last week because the media ran with his ridiculous smears, not because he had any legitimate arguments.
There’s a reason people run negative campaigns - they often work. When someone promotes a guy who learned at Karl’s knee to co-manager of their campaign, you have to figure the smears are a-comin soon after.
I just hope that the Dems start fighting back. I’m tired of the Democrats operating above the fray while the GOP/ Rovites attack, slander and smear.
I still can’t believe that John Kerry, a true war hero, was slandered by a candidate who arguably hid in the National Guard to avoid service in Vietnam - and was AWOL, drunk and on coke during that war - and the American electorate bought it b/c Kerry didn’t want to fight at their level. Enough is enough, the Democrats need to learn how to fight back.