The party is showing some sings of regaining its sanity. This might not be a lost cause yet, if Republicans keep 'drilling' voters and the Democrat Congress on this issue. It is my belief that this issue alone can carry the Republican Party to the Presidency and to gains in Congress. It is, hands down, the single most important issue of this campaign, and if Republicans play their cards right that fact will only grow.
From The Hill:
Senate Republicans have threatened to block nearly all other bills pending before the August recess if Democrats refuse to vote with them on expanding offshore drilling.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said bills that do not pertain to energy can wait until after the August recess, with gas prices now surpassing $4 per gallon. McConnell and top Republicans indicated Wednesday they would oppose any procedural votes to take up other legislation, which require 60 votes to succeed.
“We think there is nothing more important that we can do right now than to deal with the Number One issue of the country,” McConnell said. “This is the biggest issue since terrorism right after 9/11. People are pounding on their desks, saying, Why don’t these people get together and do something about this problem?”
The hardball tactics reflect Republican confidence that they can pull off a major election-year victory with gas prices at record highs, after they have been battered at the polls and have lost on several recent high-profile legislative battles.
The other huge benefit to this strategy is that even if the Dems don't cave on drilling, nothing will get done in Congress. Now this would only be a small change from Congress' current fevered business of re-naming post offices, but it would prevent any attempt by Harry Reid to meddle in the free market, and that alone is a very good thing for the country.
Democrats say the GOP is intentionally prolonging the debate in order to score political points by insisting on more than two dozen amendments to the oil-speculation bill. Democrats, who say opening up new lands won’t affect prices for a decade and are concerned about its environmental impacts, have offered the GOP one amendment to the oil-speculation bill.
Of course the GOP is intentionally prolonging the debate in order to score political points. On the very few occasions that ever come up where the other side is totally wrong in its solution to a problem, and at the same time the people of this country actually recognize that fact, there is only one reasonable strategy: prolong the debate in order to score political points. It isn't the GOP's that Democrats in Congress are bitterly clinging to their irrational argument that increased oil production won't lower prices for ten years, and that even a knowledge among speculators that increased production is coming won't cause speculators to look to better bets.
“Our goal is to stay on the subject that the American people are demanding that we do something about and finish the job,” McConnell said...
Rodell Mollineau, a Reid spokesman, shot back at the Republican threat.
“Why would Sen. McConnell’s statement be any different than his posture on most every other bill to come through the Senate?” Mollineau said. “Bush-McCain Republicans have conducted 83 filibusters so far this year and have blocked six attempts this summer to address the energy crisis. Their feigned outrage would be laughable if it wasn’t at the expense of millions Americans suffering at the pump.”
No, Democrat attempts to "address the energy crisis" would be laughable, if they weren't so potentially dangerous to the future of the country.
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