Obama's reply: "I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly U.S. automakers, then I think ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now."
The freshman senator was parroting the environmentalist line that oil and gas prices need to rise to much higher levels to make new heavily subsidized technologies financially cost-effective.
Even Obama's news-media friends find his benign approach to higher gas prices beyond the pale. "The mantra from the Democratic Party -- from the presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, on down -- has been a variation on 'We cannot drill our way out of this energy crisis,'" the Washington Post editorialized this week.
While the industrialized nations of the world are drilling deep-water oil wells to meet their own energy needs, "it's hard to explain why the United States should rule out careful, environmentally sound drilling off its own coasts," the Post said. Exactly.
Democrats have criticized McCain for flip-flopping on his long-held opposition to drilling offshore (though he still opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). But his change of heart proved that he was not rigidly wedded to some fixed ideological position in the face of an untenable situation.
So, as oil and gas prices continued to spiral upward this week, McCain was, as Abraham Lincoln said, thinking anew so we can act anew, bringing market forces to bear on a supply-and-demand solution. Obama, however, remained stuck in a bureaucratic, liberal mind-set that sees higher taxes, increased federal regulations and costly business mandates as the only answer to all our energy ills.
It is more than likely that gas prices are going to rise higher between now and Election Day and play a larger role in the presidential-campaign debate.
McCain clearly occupies the higher ground in this debate, and Obama faces increasing public opposition to his anti-drilling position. "Nearly all voters are worried about rising gas and energy prices, with 79 percent very concerned and 16 percent somewhat concerned," according to a Rasmussen poll.
A solid 64 percent of Americans believe that gas prices will go down if offshore oil drilling is allowed, Rasmussen said. This is a powerful issue for McCain and maybe the deciding issue of the campaign if forecasts of $5- to $6-a-gallon gas prices become a reality in November.