On Kennedy & Co. and ANWR...

King makes a case that we may be too hard on Mark Kennedy for going soft on ANWR.

Even in the best case scenario we could not begin to use oil from ANWR until 2013. Even if we find the best case for oil in the area desired for exploration, this will reduce imports of oil from 70% without drilling to 64% in 2025 (1.2 mbd being the best estimate for the flow from ANWR.) It's very hard to sell that as a net price decline. What we are asking representatives to do is vote for something that has no tangible benefit for eight years versus the wrath of green voters now.

That is making the assumption (erroneous, IMO) that there would actually be a snowball's chance in hell that the greens would vote for a republican. Ever. No matter what.

All that Kennedy and Coleman have done was to disaffect their core constituency, and giving them even less of a reason to get out and vote during the 2006 elections. The argument that we won't be able to use that oil for 7 or 8 years is immaterial. We will still need it sooner or later. Development of alternative sources is still in the far-off stages, and ignoring domestic sources does us no good. There is plenty of room for both the development of domestic resources in the short term and the development of alternative energy sources for the long term. The two are far from being mutually exclusive. Republicans who swerve to the left, hoping to catch some votes are only fooling themselves. They won being Republican and running on conservative, common-sense values. They will not win by standing up the date that brought them.

King seems to think that the cost of Mark supporting drilling in ANWR may be too high

The margins these people won with in 2004 matter only a little in an off-year election where the other side may be able to mobilize a great deal of their base against you.

While that may indeed be the case, the greater danger, IMO, would be to disaffect those who elected you in the first place to the point where they just can't muster the energy to go and vote whilst holding their noses.

This is no time to be limp-wristed, folks. An off-year election is precisely the time that you need to energize your own base; something that definitely won't happen by displaying RINO tendencies.

I have nothing but respect for King and his opinions, but this is not the time to give our elected Republican officials slack.  This is the time to hold their feet to the fire.

 (filed under RINOS, Energy Madness and Elections)