Unilateral Disarmament

On our radio show yesterday, we talked about the fact that by rights, the soaring price of gasoline should be an issue that would allow Republicans to take back Congress and retain the Presidency. Historically, it is Republicans, not Democrats, who have voted to allow energy companies to expand the nation’s supply of petroleum. What we are seeing today is the fruit of three decades of the Democratic Party’s policy of deliberately shrinking America’s energy supply.

Unfortunately, however, John McCain has bought into the global warming folly, thereby largely disabling Congressional Republicans (not to mention McCain himself) from putting responsibility for high gas prices where it belongs. This was painfully illustrated this morning on Fox News Sunday, where Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty and Virginia’s Tim Kaine appeared as surrogates for their respective parties’ nominees.

Chris Wallace asked Pawlenty whether McCain isn’t in sync with the Democrats on energy. Pawlenty is an able spokesman, but you can see how feeble his response–dictated by McCain’s global warming blunder–is:

WALLACE: Governor Pawlenty, McCain is almost as liberal on a lot of these energy issues as Obama. He opposes drilling in Alaska. He would leave it up to individual states as to whether to allow offshore drilling, which in most cases means that they wouldn’t do it. He wants a 60 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. He talks about a national campaign for energy independence, but he’s even less specific than Obama is.

PAWLENTY: Well, Chris, he’s been very specific on a number of things, and I would also say this is another example of separating the rhetoric from the reality.

Senator McCain has led on this issue, much to the chagrin of some parts of the Republican Party. Senator Obama continues just to toe the line robotically with the Democratic caucus in Congress.

He votes 95 or so percent every year. What change has he really led? What big thing has he crossed over and said, “I’ll work with the Republicans on?” The answer is nothing. Here you have Senator…

The best Pawlenty could do was change the subject. It’s a sad harbinger of what is to come in the fall, I’m afraid.

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