Energy ads dominating in swing states

Washington Post:

Energy issues don’t spark much excitement among voters, ranking below health care, education and the federal budget deficit — not to mention jobs and the economy. 

And yet those same voters are being flooded this year with campaign ads on energy policy. Particularly in presidential swing states, the airwaves are laden with messages boosting oil drilling and natural gas and hammering President Obama for his support of green energy. The Cleveland area alone has heard $2.7 million in energy-related ads. 

The disconnect between what voters say they care about and what they’re seeing on TV lies in the money behind the ads, much of it coming from oil and gas interests. Those funders get the double benefit of attacking Obama at the same time they are promoting their industry. 

Democrats also have spent millions on the subject, defending the president’s record and tying Republican candidate Mitt Romney to “Big Oil.” 

Overall, more than $41 million, about one in four of the dollars spent on broadcast advertising in the presidential campaign, has gone to ads mentioning energy, more than a host of other subjects and just as much as health care, according to ad-tracking firm Kantar Media/Cmag. 

In an election focused heavily on jobs and the economy, all of this attention to energy seems a bit off topic. But the stakes are high for energy producers and environmentalists, who are squared off over how much the government should regulate the industry. And attention has been heightened by a recent boom in production using new technologies such as fracking and horizontal drilling, as well as a spike in gas prices this spring just as the general election got underway. 

When asked whether energy is important, more than half of voters say yes, according to recent polls. But asked to rank their top issues, fewer than 1 percent mention energy.

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 The policy debate coincides with a flurry of criticism of the Obama administration’s loan guarantee for Solyndra, a bankrupt solar-power company that defaulted on more than $500 million. Among the company’s investors was the family foundation of a major donor to Obama. 

“Half a billion in taxpayer money gone, and Obama said this was a model of growth,” says an ad from the conservative group Americans for Prosperity. “Tell President Obama that workers aren’t pawns in your political games.”
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Energy is about jobs and the economy.

Without energy jobs outside the control of Obama, the unemployment rate would be even higher.

Obama continues to outsource energy jobs to places like Brazil where he financed offshore drilling while blocking it in US controlled areas.  He is outsourcing jobs to Venezuela and mad men like Hugo Chavez.

He is still following the idiotic policy of blocking drilling in ANWR.  There is no ration excuse for blocking drilling in ANWR or in other offshore ares of the US.  He is investing in inefficient energy projects that are going belly up while he is blocking production of more efficient energy.