According to this article by “The News Agency Who Shall Not Be Named,” Nancy and the Democrats have backtracked from their earlier commitment to shove a renewal of the offshore drilling ban into a continuing resolution bill.
A continuing resolution bill is necessary because the “Do nothing Congress,” headed by Pelosi and Reid have, well, done nothing all session. Included in their “nothing” is not passing spending bills that will allow the government to function next year. So, like college students who wait until the last day to do their assignments for the quarter, the Democrats are negotiating for a way to finish their work after the session is done.
You may remember that the House passed a bill last week that was touted as a “drilling bill.” In fact, the bill would have done next to nothing for drilling while putting onerous additional taxes on oil companies and redirecting billions of dollars to thus far, unproven and terribly inadequate “alternative energy” sources.
While the Senate hadn’t taken up the “drilling bill,” the House had promised that they were “going to the mats” and planned to insert a resurrection of the drilling ban into the continuing resolution. The thinking was that Bush wouldn’t have the political capital to veto a bill that keeps the government running. If he did, the thinking went, the Republicans wouldn’t dare sustain a veto when, in just a few weeks, they would have to face voters and explain why they had “shut down the government.”
As an aside, I for one am generally for a shut down of the government. Congress has been pretty much shut down for two years. As far as I can tell, many things, including the lapse of the oil drilling moratorium have improved, while issues like the current economic situation, surely wouldn’t have been changed.
So why did Pelosi change her mind? She seemed to have a good political position to at least give the Republicans a black eye. She obviously was against expanding drilling. She’s never done anything but what she found politically expedient so it couldn’t be that she is bowing to the will of the American people who support drilling by overwhelming numbers!
I’ve thought about this all day and can only come up with one answer: The sudden and dramatic closing of gaps and, in some cases taking the lead, by McCain/Palin in numerous “swing” states, may well portend greater momentum towards McCain than current polls can capture.
Additionally, a dramatic surge in preference for Republicans shown in a recent Gallup poll, has the Republicans down only 3 points in the generic Democrat/Republican ballot. Just 30 days ago, the Republicans were down 11 in the same generic ballot. This could portend fewer House losses and, dare I hope, maybe some surprise Republican pickups?
I think Nancy’s afraid for her job!
I don’t mean afraid in the sense that the Republicans retake the house, although that would be great! I mean afraid in the political sense where she gets a significant mandate against her positions thus making her politically meaninglesser (can you be meaninglesser? Can Nancy be any more meaningless? Let us count the ways that she has been meainingless just this year: FISA, War funding, Surge, S-CHIP and, lest I forget, the drilling moratorium!)
I think Nancy did a calculation. Nancy added McCain’s gains in swing states with the point gain in the generic ballot. She took that number and divided by 74% which is the ratio of Americans who want offshore drilling expanded. She took that result and raised it to the 59th power which is the percentage of folks who support drilling in ANWR. Nancy calculated that a certain way to galvanize support for Republicans was to “play chicken” with the drilling ban.
It turns out that Nancy did what Nancy always does, she made her decision not based on what is best for the American people. She made her decision based on what is best for Nancy!
