Last night here and the night before over at Q&O, I wondered if Nancy Pelosi wasn’t setting us up for some reason. At Q&O [1] I said:
She’s got better access to the numbers than any of us, and she knows full well the numbers are against her in the congress… Else she’d not be playing this stonewall act the way she is… and in the general public, as well. She knows that she’ll lose if this gets to a vote.
Hell, half her own party wants to bypass the environuts and drill… saving a massive change of position, this has got to hurt the Democrats chances like none other, particularly in the swing states…. Indeed, I can see the Republicans looking at this as a Godsent issue for them.
Why would she risk such? Only thing I can think of is we’re being set up for something, but what?
I see Obama’s supposedly bringing out his ‘energy plan’ next week. Is there a link there?
So, imagine the look on my face this morning when in my morning rounds I stumble over this article [2]in The Politico:
California Democrat Nancy Pelosi may be trying to save the planet — but the rank and file in her party increasingly are just trying to save their political hides when it comes to gas prices as Republicans apply more and more rhetorical muscle.
But what looks like intraparty tension on the surface is part of an intentional strategy in which Pelosi takes the heat on energy policy, while behind the scenes she’s encouraging vulnerable Democrats to express their independence if it helps them politically, according to Democratic aides on and off Capitol Hill.
Pelosi’s gambit rests on one big assumption: that Democrats will own Washington after the election and will be able to craft a sweeping energy policy that is heavy on conservation and fuel alternatives while allowing for some new oil drilling. Democrats see no need to make major concessions on energy policy with a party poised to lose seats in both chambers in just three months — even if recess-averse Republicans continue to pound away on the issue.
Politico suggests Senate Democrats are playing the same game as Pelosi:
Reid, like Pelosi, is expecting to have a much stronger governing majority in the Senate next year, so he has little incentive to give in to Republicans on energy policy as long as he thinks it won’t hurt Democrats.
So, what’s happening here… the reason we’re paying over $4/gal for gasoline is so that the Democrats will have another political card to play come November. That’s all this has ever come down to. The Demorcats are playing the American people for saps.
I’m getting a little tired of that, aren’t you?