When issues 'complicated' Democrats are on wrong side of voters

NY Times:

The politics of energy are convoluted and volatile in Congressional campaigns across the United States this summer, as candidates search for a Goldilocks approach that is neither too hot nor too cold, and that voters will believe is sincere.

In Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, Representative Lee Terry, a Republican, this week began airing an advertisement in which he points to the images of three Saudi officials and gruffly says, of rising gasoline prices, “these guys benefit.”

In Kansas’s Third Congressional District, Nick Jordan, a Republican, has a “Dennis Moore’s Vacation From Energy Solutions Clock” ticking away at the top of his Web site, referring to the Democratic incumbent there.

Here in Colorado, where Democrats gather next week for their convention, candidates have sparred relentlessly over energy. By most accounts, it is the No. 1 issue in the Fourth Congressional District, a mostly rural area that sprawls across Colorado’s boundary with the Great Plains.

In the small towns and wind-swept farms of the Fourth District, it is easy to find people like Rod Diekman. Mr. Diekman is outraged about the particulars of the energy crunch, including the prices for fuel and fertilizer that are battering his 3,500-acre wheat and millet farm just north of Cheyenne Wells, and the lack of electricity-transmission capacity that is blocking construction of a wind-turbine plant on his property.

But like many voters, Mr. Diekman also has plenty of scorn left over for the politicians.

“They’re all just saying what they think I want to hear,” said Mr. Diekman, 53, standing at the door to the repair shed where he rebuilds tractor-trailer rigs as a sideline to make ends meet.

The fierce tactical positioning of candidates here and elsewhere — some call it pandering and waffling — is producing a convergence of sorts around the idea that more is better, that an expansion of energy production from all sources and places will somehow fix things, lower prices and restore stability to the economy.

“It’s a very fine line to walk,” said Betsy Markey, a Democrat who is challenging Representative Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican, here in the Fourth District.

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It is a fine line for Democrats because they are on the wrong side of it. Anyone who is concerned about getting adequate energy would be making a mistake to vote for any Democrat who is going to vote for Pelosi as speaker because she clearly can not be trusted on the issue.

She thanks she is on a mission to save the planet and will resist the all of the above formula that the Republicans have put forward.

A vote for any Democrat in the House is a vote against drilling offshore and in ANWR. The Democrats have lost the debate on this issue and they are now just fighting a rear guard action to give as little as possible.

To call this a fine line is to say you will only do the minimum needed to save your seat. It is not a commitment to expanding the energy available to voters. There is no fine line. You are either for exploiting all forms of energy or you are not.