Governor Palin 4 President

More Obama Lies

It’s unbelievable (literally) the rhetoric coming from President Obama today. This is coming from he who is manipulating the U.S. energy supply. President Obama is once again giving lip service to a “new energy proposal”; but let’s remember the last time he trotted out a “new energy proposal” – nearly a year ago to the day. The main difference is today we have $4 a gallon gas in some places in the country. This is no accident. This administration is not a passive observer to the trends that have inflated oil prices to dangerous levels. His war on domestic oil and gas exploration and production has caused us pain at the pump, endangered our already sluggish economic recovery, and threatened our national security. Through a process of what candidate Obama once called “gradual adjustment,” American consumers have seen prices at the pump rise 67 percent since he took office. Meanwhile, the vast undeveloped reserves that could help to keep prices at the pump affordable remain locked up because of President Obama’s deliberate unwillingness to drill here and drill now. We’re subsidizing offshore drilling in Brazil and purchasing energy from them, instead of drilling ourselves and keep those dollars circulating in our own economy to generate jobs here. The President said today, “There are no quick fixes.” He’s been in office for nearly three years now, and he’s about to launch his $1 billion re-election campaign. When can we expect any “fixes” from him? How high does the price of energy have to go?

• Many Americans fear that President Obama’s new energy proposal is once again “all talk and no real action,” this time in an effort to shore up fading support for the Democrats’ job-killing cap-and-trade (a.k.a. cap-and-tax) proposals. Behind the rhetoric lie new drilling bans and leasing delays; soon to follow are burdensome new environmental regulations.  Instead of “drill, baby, drill,” the more you look into this the more you realize it’s “stall, baby, stall.”

• Today the president said he’ll “consider potential areas for development in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic.” As the former governor of one of America’s largest energy-producing states, a state oil and gas commissioner, and chair of the nation’s Interstate Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, I’ve seen plenty of such studies. What we need is action — action that results in the job growth and revenue that a robust drilling policy could provide.  And let’s not forget that while Interior Department bureaucrats continue to hold up actual offshore drilling from taking place, Russia is moving full steam ahead on Arctic drilling, and China, Russia, and Venezuela are buying leases off the coast of Cuba.

• As an Alaskan, I’m especially disheartened by the new ban on drilling in parts of the 49th state and the cancellation of lease sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. These areas contain rich oil and gas reserves whose development is key to our country’s energy security. As I told Secretary Salazar last April, “Arctic exploration and development is a slow, demanding process. Delays or major restrictions in accessing these resources for environmentally responsible development are not in the national interest or the interests of the State of Alaska.”

• FACT: The recent Washington Post/ABC news poll that is the basis the “losing ground” comments still shows Palin on the right side of the favorable/unfavorable scale with 58% having a favorable impression and 37% with an unfavorable impression.

• FACT: When a national survey asks self-identified Republicans “For whom would you vote for in the Republican primary,” the field is wide open.  When the leader is polling south of 20%, no one is even come close to locking this up. 

• FACT: The “self identified Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents” are very different from the actual caucus goers and Republican primary voters who will determine the Republican Presidential nomination.  Fewer than five percent of these voters will actually be Iowa caucus participants or vote in one of the three or four early primaries that will be critical in deciding the next Republican nominee.

• FACT: At this time in 2007, the same national polls showed Rudy Giuliani as the prohibitive favorite for the Republican nomination and they continued to show him with sizeable leads even as it became increasingly clear he had no chance to become the nominee.

Katrina Trinko from National Review Online reports:

Sarah Palin’s decision to deliver a speech in Colorado the same day as the first GOP presidential primary debate does not signal that she will not run in 2012, says an official with Palin’s PAC.

“It has nothing to do with a decision [about running for president in 2012]. The Governor said the other day that she will make a decision about that in the coming months,” Tim Crawford, the treasurer of Palin’s PAC, told National Review Online.

Palin will be the keynote speaker at the Colorado Christian University’s “Tribute to the Troops” event, which the university describes as “a military and veterans appreciation rally and charity benefit.” The benefit will be held in Lakewood, Colo. on May 2, the same day Politico and NBC News have scheduled the first GOP debate at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

Good politics, actually, and if not for the location, I’d say it was great politics.

SarahPAC’s treasurer tells NRO that the scheduling had nothing to do with the debate. Okay, but raising money for families of deceased vets on a night when the Pawlentys and Gingriches of the world are chasing their personal ambitions on national TV is a pretty sweet contrast to draw. It’s also an opportunity to enlarge the shadow she’s cast over the field. Her absence at the library will be felt regardless, but if she says something provocative in her speech at the fundraiser that gets the media’s attention, she might steal the spotlight away from the debate the next day. That’ll drive her rivals nuts and build momentum for a splashy late entry into the race.

The only potential liability is that skipping a photo op with Nancy Reagan makes it a bit harder to claim the Reagan mantle. Even that’s a minor concern, though: None of the other top-tier candidates seriously present themselves in the Reagan mold, and since the debate’s being sponsored by two media outlets that grassroots conservatives loathe, her decision to skip the event is easily forgiven. It’s all upside. Exit question: If it’s wrong to read any political significance into the scheduling of the May event, is it okay to read some significance into the scheduling of this event in October?

Palin, who will speak at the conference on Oct. 8, was sworn in as the first female governor of Alaska in December 2006. In August 2008, she was named as Sen. John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, making her the first woman to run on the Republican Party’s presidential ticket. She was named in TIME magazine’s 2010 list of “100 Most Influential People.”

If Governor Palin wouldn’t be running she wouldn’t have gone out of her way to have an event on that night to avoid the debate. If she isn't a candidate, she wouldn’t attend the debate anyway and would have just stayed at home to watch it so she could make an educated decision on which other candidate to support. The fact that Tim Crawford gave his statement suggests that the Governor wanted the message out loud and clear.