{"id":15714,"date":"2008-05-31T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2008-05-31T13:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15714.html"},"modified":"2008-05-31T09:00:05","modified_gmt":"2008-05-31T13:00:05","slug":"the-moral-imperative-to-sabotage-your-own-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-moral-imperative-to-sabotage-your-own-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"The moral imperative to sabotage your own campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Post by Morbo<\/a><\/p>\n

I am very weary of newspaper columnists who carp about why Candidate X won’t tell the American people the hard truth about Issue Y when they know full well any candidate who did that would see his or her political career end.<\/p>\n

These columns spring up like weeds during every presidential election year. A recent example is Thomas Friedman’s Wednesday column<\/a> in The New York Times implying that Barack Obama should give a tough speech about energy. Friedman proposes that Obama (or some hypothetical candidate) propose establishing a floor price for gas at $4 per gallon. That is, even if gas dropped below $4 per gallon, the government should impose taxes to keep the price there. The idea is that this would encourage production of more fuel-efficient cars and hybrids.<\/p>\n

We need to make a structural shift in our energy economy. Ultimately, we need to move our entire fleet to plug-in electric cars. The only way to get from here to there is to start now with a price signal that will force the change. Barack Obama had the courage to tell voters that the McCain-Clinton summer gas-giveaway plan was a fraud. Wouldn’t it be amazing if he took the next step and put the right plan before the American people? Wouldn’t that just be amazing?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sure, it would be amazing. It would also be political suicide. Obama is under no obligation to take a step that would cut his own throat politically — especially when he has the option of using other arguments and approaches to get us toward a sane energy policy.<\/p>\n

Coming out as the candidate in favor of perpetually high gas prices is not the way to do that. A huge segment of the voting population embraces childlike magical thinking: The gas fairy will come back and lower prices soon, right? Deep down inside, many probably know the gas fairy isn’t coming back, but they continue to hope. Rather than gloat over the death of the gas fairy and hand a big, soft target to the Republicans, Obama and other Democrats can work toward a rational energy policy.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot to be said for easing into it.
\n
\nObama or another candidate could say, “You know, gas prices don’t seem to be coming down, but there are things we can do to cushion the blow. If we buy more fuel-efficient cars, automakers will sense the demand and produce even more. We can expand our public transportation network. We can encourage businesses to let people telecommute.”<\/p>\n

This is a lot better than standing up and promising to take steps to make sure that gas always costs at least $4 per gallon. In this climate, any candidate who does that has consigned himself to the political graveyard.<\/p>\n

Obviously candidates should steer clear of pandering. The John McCain\/Hillary Clinton “gas-tax vacation” plan is pandering of the worse type. It should be avoided. But that does not mean a candidate is required to unveil proposals that are likely to be despised by the public and that leave him or her open to easy attacks from the opposition party.<\/p>\n

It’s easy for Friedman to insist that candidates should do this. Comfortable in his sinecure at The Times, he’s not running for anything. A column proposing an unpopular idea might lead to him getting a few nasty e-mails. For Obama, it could mean losing the election — and the opportunity to begin addressing, in a less inflammatory way, the issue Friedman claims to care so much about.<\/p>\n

I am reminded of a candidate who once boldly told the American people that yes, he would raise their taxes. He was right, taxes did have to be raised — and it was gutsy to say it during a televised debate. Gutsy and foolish. People didn’t want to hear it, and you might recall that in November of 1984, Walter Mondale did not do very well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest Post by Morbo I am very weary of newspaper columnists who carp about why Candidate X won’t tell the American people the hard truth about Issue Y when they know full well any candidate who did that would see his or her political career end. These columns spring up like weeds during every presidential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}