This was the headline that caught my eye in my morning reading and I'm sure it's nothing new.
ECONOMIC SABOTAGE The GOP's only hope
over at The Daily Beast where Michael Tomasky argues that this is their strategery. This should not come as a shock to anyone? What may shock you is what gas prices were doing during the last Presidential election when the Republicans were the incumbents in the White House? Let me take you down memory lane below.
Here is the summary:
Every month brings improved job news—and bleaker prospects for the Republicans in November. Which is why they’re contemplating economic sabotage as their only hope.
The fact that it is at least now being openly discussed by the media is a pleasant surprise and one that should be nurtured aggressively.
While Tomasky makes a number of additional points regarding the Transportation bill and their continued efforts to shrink public jobs through more draconian budget cuts and potentially reneging on the budget deal from last year and seek even more budget cuts, thus adding to unemployment, I would like to pay a little bit more attention to gas prices. You see, the impact of gas prices is more than just economical...it is psychological also. And thus the politics. I raised this issue in an earlier diary here $2.50/gallon gas - Today!!! http://www.dailykos.com/... and Tomasky makes the same exact points.
Here is his summary of their strategery(bolds mine):
We’re just under eight months away from Election Day now, which means that the GOP is starting to run out of time to think up new ways to ruin the economy so that Barack Obama doesn’t get reelected. The Republicans have to do this delicately, of course; they can’t be open about it lest it become too obvious that harming the economy is their goal. But they have to be aggressive enough about it for their efforts to bear some actual (rotten) fruit. There are three fronts—gas prices, jobs, and the budget—on which we should keep our eyes open for signs that the Republicans are trying to achieve Mitch McConnell’s No. 1 goal for America.
He goes on to make some of the points that I raised in my earlier diary and other have now started to raise as well:
.....What is causing these high prices? Not low supply and high demand, which is what they teach you in school. ........experts blame a lot of the increase on fervid speculation in the oil markets, and a chief reason for a lot of that speculation is anxiety in those markets about a possible war with Iran. Said anxiety, in turn, is heightened every time a politician blusters about how we have no choice now but to go start that war. So this kind of rhetoric is a nice little two-fer for Republicans, who get to sound like tough guys and can also take comfort in knowing that the more they talk up attacking Iran, the more they’re doing their small part to keep prices high.
And here is the sinister part:
Every out-party does a little discreet cheering for the economy to be weak. But the GOP has put itself in a unique position. By opposing everything Obama wanted with such ferocity; by saying all those thousands of times that he had no clue about the economy; by sending out a parade of presidential candidates, from the semi-serious to the clown posse, all of whose central criticism of Obama is that he killed the economy—in all of these ways the party has more invested in economic failure than any out-party I can remember in my lifetime. Its best hope for now is gas prices, but even they eventually get lower, usually by late summer. Beyond that, all the GOP has to rely on is Mitt Romney’s unstoppable charisma.
Now let's go down memory lane a little bit:
Q4 2007 Gas price: $4.12
Q4 2008 Gas price: $1.60
WOW!! DOUBLE WOW!! What the heck was going on during that time???
....wait for it
...wait
.....wait
....it'll come to you
......give it another second.....
BAZINGA!!! The last Presidential election cycle. And who was the incumbent part in the White House...yup, the GOP. A conspiracy nut you call me?? You may be right.
A Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy you shout! Perhaps.
Oh by the way, gas prices start climbing AS SOON AS THE ELECTION IS OVER! And, that now established the anchor from which Obama is evaluated. Obama took gas prices from $1.60 to where they are today!
It at least ought to make you think and also worry about what this will do to our economy and the global economy as a whole.