While President Obama wanders around the oil patch trying to come up with a coherent energy policy, he could learn a thing or two from GOP hopeful Michele Bachmann, writes energy correspondent Lisa Margonelli in The Atlantic.
Every president has tried to make the case for energy independence, the need to cut down on oil imports or otherwise find a way to slack the nation's thirst for foreign oil. Rep. Bachmann of Minnesota simply says that when she is elected president, she will hold the price of gallon of gas down to $2 a gallon.
"Under President Bachmann," she told a campaign audience, "you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again. That will happen."
What's so smart about that?:
Bachmann's genius is that she neatly pivoted away from the impossible dream of energy independence to the impossible dream of $2 gas, which is hugely important to struggling lower middle-class voters. While intellectuals heard "$2 gas" and scoffed at the hubris, many Americans heard "$2 gas" and thought such cheap fuel would be awfully nice to have and that "President Bachmann" would feel their pain more than someone mealy mouthing away about cutting imports from the Middle East. After 38 years of stasis, Bachmann managed to change the premise of the energy debate away from the abstraction of "independence" to the visceral issue of price. In addition to getting the phrase "President Bachmann" into our ears, she managed to turn every one of the country's more than 120,000 gasoline price signs into a rebuking advertisement for herself.
Margonelli says Bachmann didn't come up with the $2-a-gallon on a whim:
She's been promising it since 2008, with the issue resonating with families making less than $50,000 and seeing the pump eat up a lot of their spendable income.
For Obama, the challenge is come up with a similar ploy. In case you're wondering, the Energy Department reported yesterday that regular gas averaged $3.674 a gallon across the country, up a nickel a gallon from last week.
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