COMMENTARY | Lawrence Kudlow, writing in RealClearPolitics, suggests that one of the great issues of the 2012 election in the Keystone XL pipeline. The Republicans have positioned themselves neatly in favor of blue-collar jobs and President Obama against.
As of this writing the Republicans have attached approval of the pipeline, which would run from the Alberta tar sand fields to Texas refineries, in a bill that would extend the payroll tax cut and have dared Obama to veto it. At hazard are 20 thousand jobs in building the pipeline, 100 thousand indirect jobs caused by the pipeline, and the goal of American energy independence.
The reason Obama is in the position of opposing a shovel ready project is his obsession with destroying America's use of fossil fuels and creating an renewable energy economy. That obsession, which has taken on the dimensions of religious mania, has caused the president to do all sorts of inane things. Opposition to the building of the Keystone XL pipeline is just one of the blunders Obama has committed. The Solyndra scandal, resulting from an unwise loan guarantee, stems from Obama's faith based energy policy.
The policy has annoyed a group of people who would ordinarily be in the Democratic coalition, unionized teamsters, plumbers, pipe fitters, and other working class people. The Democrats seem to have recognize this and have decided that tossing the white working class under the bus is an acceptable political maneuver. The New York Times reported recently that the Democrats are cobbling together a coalition that includes upper middle class environmentalists-people who are opposed to the Keystone XL-and does not include the working stiffs who would benefit from building the pipeline.
The Republicans are therefore in the wonderful position of being the party of builders. Any candidate for president that the Republicans nominate will be in favor of building Keystone XL and thus the jobs that will be created. President Obama will be against it and therefore against those jobs.
It was not always so. Part of the popular appeal of Franklin Roosevelt was that he was in favor of building things. Whatever one thought about the stimulus efforts of the New Deal, at least they involved building roads, bridges, dams, and rural electrical power systems. Obama, despite his rhetoric, is in favor of none of these things. He will suffer next year as a result.
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