Over the past two months, there has been an avalanche of economic news bombarding the American consumer/voter. Housing collapse, instability of the credit markets, higher gas prices, job losses, bear market in the equity markets, inflation... the list goes on and on. Yet, strikingly, the issue for which the political discussion has received the most penetration to the voter/consumer is the price of gas.
There is no doubt that the economy is the number one issue in the fall election. However, the political messaging and strategy on the economy has been reactionary and chasing the symptom, i.e. higher gas prices. Unfortunately, on this narrow subset of symptoms of the anemic American economy, the Republicans are winning the messaging battle. Drill now is an easy (albeit intellectually dishonest) solution for consumers/voters to embrace. After all, it is designed to code with the most elementary of economic principles: more supply equals lower prices. Whether or not this will actually affect the price of fas at the pump (which it can't in the short term and won't in the long term) has never been the point. The point has been making a weakness for Republicans (the economy) into a strength.
And it has been working, if for no other reason than it has distracted us (Democrats) from seizing the issue on which we do and should have a huge comparative advantage in the fall: the economy. Voters understand acutely this year what the stakes are in terms of their pocketbooks. The economy for most Americans isn't working. And the hope that many voters holds is that the November election will turn things around.
BUT, that hope doesn't necessarily and automatically mean that the voters will pull the lever for Democrats in the fall. In the traditional battleground states, the vote that will tip the scales is going to revolve predominantly around the economy. Voters are going to identify with the candidate that addresses the economic conditions impacting them. And at the moment, in a real way, the gas issue is the one that has seen a real world solution (i.e., not a tax cut, or a tax credit or a Rube Goldberg solution) proposed in a way that people have grasped and understood the contrast between the candidates and the parties. Now, granted, the solution (drilling) is political sleight of hand. But the beauty of it for Republicans is and will continue to be, that it has no prospect of passing Congress at the moment. Like it or not (and I do not like it), drilling has the upper hand among the undecided voters who will be looking for candidates to address the economy.
HOWEVER, there is hope and a definite way to fight back. What we should do is aggressively make our case to the American people that higher gas prices are one of many symptoms in the anemic American economy that is a result of corporate cronyism and anti-consumer legistlation that have pervaded the policy and regulatory agendas, initiatives, and choices that have been made by and during the Bush administration. Stick McCain and Bush together over and over again, not just with the tax cuts, but in the concrete ways that they have fundamentally eroded the way the economy works and relates to the average American voter/consumer. And of course, we need to provide the policy proposals.
If this election turns into a debate about drilling, I am not saying that we can't win in November. What I am suggesting is that we will have lost the opportunity to capitalize on our comparative advantage intensely. And that is the economy. We have to stop chasing the symptom. Let's pound the problem down the Republicans throats and offer real hope and real solutions to the American people.