With a hat tip on this to David Postman, I took a look at Maria's 1st ad. From a neutral political perspective it's a pretty solid intro of the candidate, though I noted this at the end: "Approved by Maria Cantwell Paid by Washington State Democratic Central Committee and Authorized by Cantwell 2006." I recall they have a joint fundraising committee, but need to dig into that some more (take that as a bleg: I'd welcome more complete information on such joint efforts in the comments or via email at ericearling at gmail dot com).
But, the riff in the ad about Maria protecting us from those nasty big oil companies reminded me of this editorial in the Seattle Times and this editorial cartoon as well. It is a safe rule of thumb that you have erred as a Democratic elected official when you are being chided and mocked by the Seattle Times editorial page.
Posted by Eric Earling at July 11, 2006 08:05 AM | Email ThisI quit listening to KVI because they let their left-leaning colors show too often. Looks like SoundPolitics.com is making the same admission.
Too bad. Some of the posts on this site are pretty good. I'll miss them.
Does anyone know of a good, conservative blog that covers the Northwest? This one is too far to the left for my taste.
Posted by: Republican (by default) on July 11, 2006 09:51 AMIf you want a radical far-right blog you might try The Reagan Wing: http://www.reaganwing.com/
Posted by: Stohn Nishino on July 11, 2006 10:29 AMBush wants everything and he vetos nothing. He even wants to spend billions on a misson to Mars.
Posted by: Jacob on July 11, 2006 01:44 PMSo we should never have spent all that money sending men to the moon?
Posted by: Mike H on July 11, 2006 03:08 PMYes, the Republican-led Congress has spent too much money. It isn't but a fraction of what Dhimmicrats would spend, if ever again given the chance.
I paraphrase Churchill (the authentic one, not the phony liberal one): Congress may wake up tomorrow and mend their spendthrift ways, but Dhimmicrats will always be irresponsible. Cant~Vote~Well is hopelessly incompetent (although not as mind-numbingly stupid as her colleague Patty "The Moron In Tennis Shoes" Murray.
Thanks for reminding us how insipid the Dhimmi's are...
Posted by: alphabet soup on July 11, 2006 03:29 PMStarting from ~0.744 for a gallon
Add 0.184 for Federal gas tax
Add 0.28 for State gas tax
Add 0.10 for gas station profit
Add 0.02 for transportation
Now increases since 2002
~0.83 increase due to a 40% drop in the value of the dollar
~0.50 limited supply and increase in demand
~0.34 oil company profit per gallon.
Which begs the question who is protection us from government price gouging on a gallon a gas since the government makes more per gallon then big oil?
Interesting the Dave Reichert is going after Big Oil the same way Maria Cantwell mentions.
Adminstrations that spent less than Bush Jr on domestic stuff as a percentage of gov spending are.
Clinton II
Clinton I
Bush Sr.
Reagan II
Reagan I
Carter
Ford
Nixon II
Nixon I
Putting aside the gas price analysis, which I believe we've seen before and still doesn't show what math you're using to get to those numbers, could you give some evidence to back up your assertion about Reichert. The only item of interest on his official website talks about his support for a bill that passed the House in May regarding how the FTC looks at price gouging issues. That was pretty tame stuff; nothing compared to Cantwell comparing oil companies to Enron - for which the Times chided her. If you have something else, let me know.
Posted by: Eric Earling on July 12, 2006 12:06 AMWhat you are referring to on Reichert's site is exactly what I'm referring to.
Reichert's exact title on the press release are "Reichert Pushes for Passage of Price Protection Act" "Reichert: "Consumers at the mercy of energy companies have to be protected." this sound a lot like Maria Cantwell's ad.
That sounds to me like demonization of the big oil companies.
The number I used was 40% devaluation of the dollar. The dollar has dropped against most major currencies since 2002 in general ~40%. Therefore, imported goods are 40% more expensive, except from countries that tie their currency to the dollar like China. Oil is an imported good for the most part. Thus the price of gas has gone up 40% due strictly to the value of the dollar going down 40%. This is true of virtually all commodities since 2002, for example gold has a very high price now and it is not in short supply. However, if you were from Australia the price of gas, gold, and other commodities have barely risen since 2002 ... you would be asking yourself "what gas crisis?". This is because Australia has a balanced budget, excellent economy, and a strong currency as a result.
At any rate the biggest contributor to the increase in the price of gas is the US budget deficit devaluing the US dollar. There is no free lunch.
This issue with Reichert is I think but another example of you getting bent out of shape for the wrong reasons. The bill in question passed 389-34 in the House, thus it was hardly a partisan rant against big oil; the House not being known for being unfriendly to such companies in the past few years. The actual language in the bill is more technical direction to the FTC, but obviously various members used it for political purposes given the timing of the bill with the late spring spike in gas prices as MBTE was eliminated as an additive in gas. You'll recall the public outcry about the spike at the time, so the House action hardly seems irresponsible.
In contrast, Cantwell took things a lot further, not only with the Enron analogy I noted above, but in playing loose with the facts about an FTC report on gas prices - which was the cause for the Times' editorial noted in the original post.
As usual, I suspect we'll have to agree to disagree.
Posted by: Eric Earling on July 12, 2006 07:51 AM"working to stop the big oil companies from gouging consumers" - M. Cantwell
Eric, those are the exact quotes, I guess we will just have to let others decide if the headline sentence and ad sentence are the same or not.
Remember Reichert's sentence is in the headline of his press release thus it must be important to him. Perhaps Reichert is trying to have it both ways on this issue ... being against oil companies and bashing them publically i.e. his press release, but supporting them privately by outsourcing the problem to the FTC until consumers get used to $3/gallon?
If you don't think Reichert's sentence is negative to oil companies then read the sentence like this with just a few nouns switched.
Children at the mercy of Eric Earling have to be protected -- not very flattering right? I would say that Reichert's press release was an attack on oil companies just the same as Maria Cantwell.
So we can lump "Consumer Advocate" Ralph Nader -- "Consumers need to know why tens of billions of dollars are being transferred from their wallets to the oil companies." Dave Reichert and Maria Cantwell all together in their hatred of oil companies.
Perhaps Dave Reichert would like to stop using oil products for a week since he thinks oil companies are evil ... or he could retract his comment.
Posted by: John McDonald on July 12, 2006 08:38 AM