Is This The Clueless Campaign?

Traditionally, this is the point in a presidential election year when very little happens.

The presidential nominees have been chosen. They just haven't been officially nominated at their parties' conventions. That will come in a couple of months.

What usually happens at this time in a presidential election year is, simply, the candidates take a little time away from the public eye. They might plot their fall campaign strategies or discuss potential running mates with their advisers, but they make very few public appearances (with the exception of some fund-raising events) and generally keep a low profile.

Well, that's what's been done in the past.

Today, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama embarked on an 11-day tour on economic issues.

Many of the states that are expected to be the "battlegrounds" in this campaign have been targeted on this tour. Obama was in North Carolina today. Tomorrow, he will be in Missouri and Iowa. And he's scheduled to visit Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania during his tour.

Gas prices keep going up. In nearly half of the states, the average price now exceeds $4.00/gallon. And I've heard that a majority of Americans believe the price will go past $5.00/gallon at some point this year.

We already heard from John McCain on the subject. He wants to drop the federal gas tax this summer -- which doesn't sound like a good idea to me. It amounts to -- what? -- 18 cents/gallon, which won't make much difference to the average consumer. But it's going to cut revenue that is earmarked for road maintenance, which probably means some people will lose their jobs and a lot of repairs that need to be done on our highways won't get done.

(And if those repairs somehow do get done, they'll get done on the cheap, which is almost the same as not getting them done at all.)

Hillary Clinton favored the summer holiday from the federal tax, too.

It's a bad idea, and Obama rightfully ridiculed her for it during the primaries.

It sounds -- to me, anyway -- like a bribe.

But is Obama offering anything better? If he is, I haven't heard it yet.

Today, he suggested slapping the major oil companies with a windfall profits tax. And using the proceeds to help the poor with their energy costs.

Kind of a Robin Hood policy.

Let's see. If my memory serves me correctly, we had a windfall profits tax in 1980 -- the final year of Jimmy Carter's presidency.

A windfall profits tax may temporarily satisfy the public's desire to punish the big oil companies. But it isn't likely to raise nearly as much money as Obama says it will, and it won't do anything to improve supply, if the past is any guide.

The 1980 windfall profits tax was projected to bring in nearly $400 billion in revenue, but it actually brought in about one-fifth that amount. And domestic oil producers reduced production in the United States.

It didn't work.

And it doesn't appear to me that either presidential candidate knows what to do about high fuel prices in 2008.

Even so, David Paul Kuhn writes in Politico that record gas prices can hurt McCain in the general election. With a Republican in the White House, it is clearly to McCain's advantage to propose a genuinely workable solution to the problem.

It is not essential for Obama, but it certainly would be reassuring for voters to see him engaged in a search for a long-term solution.

"Voters usually blame a poor economy on the party that controls the presidency," Kuhn observes, "and there are few more potent reminders of hard economic times than the high cost of fuel at the pump."

Opposition Research

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"I want this to be a campaign of ideas ... and these campaigns always wind up being about a candidate's high school transcripts. ... You know, if we just took the money the campaign spent on personality contests and partisan side shows, we could solve this country's problems and shut down talk radio, all at the same time."

Matt Santos, Democratic presidential candidate on "The West Wing"

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There may never have been a time in American history when it was more important -- indeed, essential -- to have a "campaign of ideas" in a presidential election than it is in 2008.

The choices that are made this year truly will have a profound influence on the future of this country -- and the world.

But, what I'm hearing from the campaign trail is this:

• Adam Nagourney reports, in the New York Times, that Republicans are concerned "about signs of disorder in [John McCain's] campaign."
  
  McCain, Nagourney says, has tried to mollify nervous Republicans by making reassuring speeches to the National Rifle Association and making statements about national security and taxes.
  
  The emphasis of the Republican campaign, McCain's advisers tell Nagourney, will be different once there is a Democratic nominee.
  
  "'The race changes the moment [Hillary Clinton] drops out and [Barack Obama] emerges as the official nominee,' said Charlie Black, a senior McCain adviser. 'Then the focus becomes on a two-person race and that leads to us getting more equal treatment in terms of getting airtime. We’ve had to fight with one hand tied behind our back.'"
  
  I haven't seen any plans, at this point, that suggest a sense of urgency for McCain to address the economic crisis in this country.
  
  But that's what this campaign is shaping up to be about. It's not really about the Iraq War (although I believe that is a subject the American people must discuss in depth during this campaign) or social issues or personalities.
  
  
• Obama was in Florida this week, pledging to Cuban-Americans that he would meet with the Cuban leadership if he becomes president. Was he pandering? I'm not sure. After all, the crowds were pretty enthusiastic already, even before he said anything.
  
  Or, for that matter, as he told one boisterous crowd during his swing through Florida, "I haven't done anything yet." How true, how true.
  
  
• No one seems to be talking about it, but The Economist says inflation is back. "If you measure the numbers correctly, two-thirds of the world's population will probably suffer double-digit rates of inflation this summer."
  
  
• This week, the Democratic National Committee unveiled a website designed for opposition research into McCain's positions on various issues. Called McCainPedia, it's a good start.
  
  But that's all it is right now. A starting point.

I've been looking at this DNC website on McCain. But, while I've found a few entries on economics, I haven't found anything about energy.

In these turbulent times, both parties should have websites like that one that give voters access to information. Especially information about things like policies on bringing down gas prices and food prices.

Things that have a direct impact on lives.

But voters need to take it on themselves to research the candidates and learn as much as they can about what each one believes about the issues facing America today.

And nothing has an impact that is more direct or more personal than the economy.

Whatever else is happening in your life, the condition of the economy influences it.

Consider this. If you drive a vehicle that gets 20 miles/gallon and you have to drive 20 miles to get to work and 20 miles to return home (as many Americans living in the so-called "bedroom communities" near large cities do), you'll soon be paying $8/day just to drive back and forth to work.

Not too long ago, that round trip cost $4 or $5.

Which means you'll be paying $15 to $20 more per week just to drive to your job and return home. That's $65 to $86 more per month.

Did you just get a $1,000/year raise? Well, that should just about cover the increase in fuel costs -- assuming the price increases stop when we reach $4/gallon.

Oh, wait a minute. I didn't factor in the federal and state taxes that will be withheld. Guess that raise won't completely cover the fuel price increase after all.

Sorry about that.

Besides, my calculation never accounted for the increased prices for everything else. Guess you'll have to (pardon the pun) eat that loss.

Do you think fuel price increases will ever stop?

Peter Gosselin writes, in today's Los Angeles Times, that the economy may have reached a "tipping point" with the ever-escalating prices of gas and oil.

I don't think you need to be an economist to figure that one out.

Although it appears that some financial experts are just realizing that gas prices are making it harder and harder for average Americans to make ends meet.

Especially, as Gosselin reports, with "Ford Motor Co.'s announcement Thursday that it was abandoning any hope of making a profit this year or next now that sales of its gas-guzzling pickup trucks and Explorer sport utility vehicles have plunged."

I have a feeling there will be a lot of people who have been working for Ford Motor Co. who will be without jobs before long.

Would that be an economic epiphany?

This week, gas prices at the stations in my neighborhood moved closer to $4/gallon. They haven't reached that level yet, but it's really only a matter of time before they do.

The posted prices are now $3.85/gallon. That's an increase of 20 cents/gallon in less than two weeks.

At this rate, we'll be in $4/gallon territory by the time they hold the third race in thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown on June 7.

Energy in general is going to cost me a lot more in 2008 than it did in 2007. Even though virtually the only driving I do is to work and back.

I just received my electric bill covering most of the month of April. The total was a bit higher than I paid at this time last year, but temperatures and rainfall were about the same, so the increase wasn't drastic, just noticeable.

I live in Texas, and temperatures in the second half of May have been higher than usual -- so I expect my next utility bill to be higher as well. And summer in Texas is always hot. Temperatures are going to be into triple digits before long, and they will stay there for weeks, if not months.

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"If I owned hell and Texas, I would rent out Texas and live in hell."

Gen. Phillip Henry Sheridan, Union army

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With spending power as restricted as it has been, if we see temperatures that are comparable to the summers of 1998 or 1980, we'll be facing a crisis that's almost unimaginable -- thousands of deaths, most of them elderly people on fixed incomes or the unemployed who will try to rely solely on box fans to cool their homes so they can save money on their utility bills.

In some of these homes, children will die from the heat. And there will be dead dogs and cats in the homes of both the elderly and the unemployed.

That is, if malnutrition doesn't kill them first.

I went to the store on my way home from work yesterday. I paid about the same amount as I was paying each time I bought groceries at this time last year -- but I left the store with about half as much.

And there are some things I just don't buy anymore.

I'm not doing much for the Memorial Day weekend. I'm not going anywhere or doing anything special. But I decided to treat myself just a little and make hamburgers on the holiday. Nothing fancy. Just something sort of festive.

Something that reminds me of the happy days of my childhood, when my family would grill hamburgers on summer evenings and make homemade ice cream. (Just for the record, I'm not making homemade ice cream this year!)

But this year, instead of ground beef, I've been buying ground turkey meat. You can substitute it for ground beef, it costs less and it doesn't taste bad -- but turkey burgers just isn't the same, is it?

Maybe it's healthier, but it just isn't the same.

I guess the "good old days" weren't as good as we thought they were. And longing for them won't bring them back.

In 2008, we must talk about the future. About making tough choices.

We simply cannot be bogged down by side issues.

Not again.

Where Did Hillary Go Wrong?

What is the most persistent barrier to success in America today?

Is it racism or sexism?

That seems to be part of the battle for the Democratic nomination this year. I've been thinking about it since my original choice for the nomination, John Edwards, announced his endorsement of Barack Obama last week.

And I've been thinking about it today, as the voters have been stating their preferences in the primaries in Kentucky and Oregon.

I don't think there's any question that racism and sexism have been factors in the Democratic race this year.

No matter what some of the high-minded supporters of both candidates will tell you.

We haven't reached the phase of the campaign where the most popular parlor game for Democrats becomes the guessing game about the presumptive nominee's choice for running mate. The time for that will come later in the summer.

So, these days, the most popular parlor game in Democratic circles is trying to evaluate where Hillary Clinton went wrong.

Seven months ago, I was almost resigned to the belief that she would be the party's nominee. I wasn't alone. Most people seemed to assume that Clinton would be at the top of this year's Democratic ticket.

Tonight, even though Clinton has apparently won Kentucky by a wide margin (as expected) and has told her supporters that she will keep going in spite of "some pretty tough odds," I hear speculation about what went wrong for the Clinton campaign.

I've been hearing that kind of speculation for a couple of months now. And I've been giving it a lot of thought.

I've come to a few interesting conclusions.

I don't think you can blame her loss on any single thing.

Yes, I think she has run a poor campaign, one of the poorest presidential campaigns I've witnessed in a lifetime of watching presidential campaigns.

Yes, I believe she and her staff were convinced they would wrap up the nomination by "Tsunami Tuesday" in early February and failed to prepare for a campaign that would go on well beyond that point.

Yes, I feel she -- and her husband -- have repeatedly tried to "play the race card" to win white votes away from Obama.

And, yes, I'm convinced the American public has grown weary of the Bush and Clinton families and doesn't like the idea of political dynasties occupying the White House.

It goes against the grain. This country came into existence in part because the people who came to the New World didn't want to be ruled by a monarchy anymore. That desire still lives in the 21st century.

Democratic voters wanted to make it clear that no one was entitled, by bloodlines or marriage vows, to occupy the Oval Office.

And there's something else I've come to believe recently.

I've seen no exit polls that ask about this. I have no solid evidence backing it up.

And I'm not even sure people would answer the question honestly if asked.

But I believe that, deep down, Americans aren't ready to elect a female commander-in-chief in a time of war.

(They may not be ready for a black man to be commander-in-chief in a time of war, either. But I guess we won't find out about that until November.)

I don't know how significant that is as a factor in Americans' decision-making process. I don't know if it's the deal-breaker for Clinton.

But I believe, if most of the other factors are lining up against her in the voters' minds, it's the thing that could push many of them over to the opposition.

Today, we have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's always possible American troops could be engaged in another conflict -- in the Middle East or some other global hotspot -- before the next president takes office.

At a time when Americans are worried about escalating fuel prices and food prices, economics could trigger armed conflict in almost any part of the world.

That may not be the reason why the Democratic Party looked for leadership from a man and not a woman -- or even why Democrats apparently have chosen this man over that woman.

Both blacks and women serve in the military today. But Harry Truman desegregated the troops in time for the Korean War, and blacks have been serving alongside whites ever since.

Having women as part of the fighting force is a relatively newer phenomenon for Americans. I don't think women took on an active battlefield role until the Gulf War under George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s.

And, while no one will dispute that women have served ably and admirably, I don't think the majority of Americans are ready to see a woman take over as commander-in-chief and start making wartime decisions on Day One.

Does that mean a woman won't be elected president until the War on Terrorism has been resolved? I don't know.

What I do know is that America is at war in two countries tonight. And it appears, at this point, that Americans will be choosing between two men for president in November.

It could well be that Hillary Clinton cast the vote that doomed her presidential ambitions in 2002 when she joined 76 other senators in authorizing George W. Bush to use force against Iraq.

The Taste of Money

Nationally, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is $3.30. That's 7 cents more than it was last week, and it's 73 cents more per gallon than it was this time last year, when gas was selling for $2.57.

I'll admit that it may not help much to be told that gas prices in the United States still aren't as high as they are in most other countries.
That's because Americans simply aren't used to the prices they're having to pay.

It reminds me of when I was a child. We lived in rural Arkansas when I was growing up, a couple of miles from the town limits. And my parents were regular customers at a bait shop/gas station on the route to town. Gas had been selling there for about 29 cents/gallon for years and years. Then, it went up a couple of pennies per gallon.

The Arab Oil Embargo of the early 1970s led to fuel shortages in the U.S., the likes of which had not been seen since World War II more than a quarter of a century earlier. Although my parents complained bitterly about having to pay a few pennies more for a gallon of gas, we never saw gas prices that low again.

But, even though the oil price increases of the early 1970s seem mild by today's standards, the impact was severe enough at the time that forms of gas rationing were implemented in various states ... believe it or not.

It also may not help much to be reminded that, over the last three decades or so -- essentially beginning with President Carter in the late 1970s -- Americans have been warned that high prices for gasoline ultimately would be the result of not dealing with our dependence on foreign oil.

It's been nearly 35 years since the Arab Oil Embargo. And if one country seemed to prosper from the very start of its deprivation, it was Japan. Once chastised the world over for its reputation for manufacturing "junk," Japan recognized early that fuel efficiency and general construction quality would be important elements in automobile production in the future.

"Quality" was never just a buzzword for Japanese automakers, the way it has been for most U.S. automakers, who mostly cared about the quality of their profits. That led to Japanese automobiles that routinely outperformed their American counterparts year after year, whatever the prevailing price of gasoline happened to be.

Over the years, many Americans seem to have come to the conclusion that high prices for gas would decline as a part of the natural cycle of supply and demand.

But the recent increases in gas prices, which have sent rates well over $3.00/gallon, don't look like they're going to drop.

There are numerous steps that may be taken in the future to help Americans cope better with the higher prices. But long-term adjustments won't show up for awhile in the form of more fuel-efficient vehicles, or vehicles and homes that operate on fuel that we can produce in this country.

So, whether you refuse to rid yourself of a gas-guzzling vehicle or you're driving a fuel-efficient vehicle but still find it hard to pay the prices at the pump, I'd like to offer a few websites that are dedicated to directing your attention to the lowest prices in your area.

(By the way, if you're in the market for a new vehicle, do yourself a favor and read this from Forbes. It's about the top 20 most dangerous vehicles. Try to strike a balance between good gas mileage and road safety. Don't sacrifice safety for fuel efficiency.)

I'm sure there are other sites out there -- and I'm equally sure there will be more in the future. We haven't entered the peak driving season yet, and that seems almost certain to bring the price you're paying to $4.00/gallon or more.

But here are a few websites that may help you save a little while you plot your economic strategy to cope with the new reality.

And, as a bonus, here's a link that will answer your questions about how gas prices go up or come down. Don't blame the neighborhood retailer. The retailer is caught in a squeeze, too. The huge profits are being made elsewhere.

• Current Gas Prices and Price History (zfacts.com)


• Gasbuddy.com


• Fueleconomy.gov


• Gas Prices (Mapquest)


• Gas Prices (MSN)


• GasPriceWatch.com


• U.S. Retail Gasoline Prices (Dept. of Energy)

Trying Times

Today is the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War.

Usually, anniversaries are occasions for celebration. And the fifth is a milestone.

For those who are responsible for getting America ensnared in the mess in Iraq, it's more of a millstone than a milestone.

Some of the people who are responsible are no longer in power (i.e., Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell). Others -- George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice -- are still in office.

Bush gets regular reminders of what the public thinks of the Iraq War. They're called approval ratings. And Bush's approval ratings have tumbled about 40 points since the war began. That's roughly equivalent to the drop that Lyndon Johnson faced at a comparable point in the Vietnam conflict.

Oddly, it appears Bush was the only one who seems to have been saying much about the war today. Attention seemed to be focusing on Barack Obama's speech about race and Hillary Clinton's insistence that Michigan and Florida should be represented at the Democratic convention.

And people who weren't paying attention to Obama and Clinton were obsessing over Eliot Spitzer's call girl and the recently discovered video tape of her "Girls Gone Wild" auditions from 2003, when she was 18.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who, as the Republican nominee, will have to run with Bush's record and persuade Americans to support four more years of a Republican-controlled White House, had this to say: "America and our allies stand on the precipice of winning a major victory against radical Islamic extremism. ... Important political gains have also been made, but far more must be done in coming months to cement the gains made in huge cost in American blood and treasure."

Approval ratings for Bush and Congress are quite low. Gallup says Bush is at 32% , while Congress' approval rating is 21%.

But neither figure should be surprising, and the Iraq War isn't solely to blame for it.

Also according to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who now believe the U.S. economy is in a recession is 76%. That's more than twice the number who felt that way in October.

It's hard to argue the point. In October, the consumer wasn't being told that each day brought a new record high in the price of gasoline. And record gas prices mean higher costs for transporting everything. That means everything you buy costs more.

You don't have to be an economics major to figure that out.

This belief about the economy was already prevalent when Bush paid a visit to the Economic Club of New York last week. If you watched his speech -- or clips of it on the evening news -- and kept one eye on the front page of the daily newspaper, you had to wonder something.

Why was that man smiling?

"That idiotic 'what me worry?' look just never leaves the man's visage," writes Robert Scheer for Creators Syndicate. "Once again, there was our president, presiding over disasters, in part of his making and totally on his watch, grinning with an aplomb that suggested a serious disconnect between his worldview and reality."

Gail Collins wrote, in the New York Times, that listening to Bush's speech to the Economic Club "brought back many memories. Unfortunately, they were about his speech right after Hurricane Katrina, the one when he said: 'America will be a stronger place for it.'"

It's not encouraging when a presidential speech to the Economic Club of New York brings back memories of the greatest natural disaster in American history and the nation's mostly anemic emergency response to it.

So why was Bush smiling? Maybe because he realizes these won't be his problems anymore in about 10 months.

Or maybe there's a little more to it than that.

"Failure suits him," says Scheer. "It is a stance he learned to wear well while presiding over one failed Texas business deal after another, and it served him splendidly as he claimed the title of president of the United States after losing the popular, and maybe even the electoral, vote. It carried him through the most ignominious chapter of U.S. foreign policy, from the lies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to his unprecedented defense of torture by a U.S. president."

Collins puts it this way.

"The country that elected George Bush -- sort of -- because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend."

Actually, he's probably ready to kick back and start his retirement.

"Everyone here is flummoxed about why the president is in such a fine mood," says Maureen Dowd, also in the New York Times.

"The dollar’s crumpling, the recession’s thundering, the Dow’s bungee-jumping and the world’s disapproving, yet George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly, tap dancing and singing in a one-man review called 'The Most Happy Fella.'"

The ghosts of Herbert Hoover and the Depression are hovering over the campaign of 2008, writes Amity Shlaes in Bloomberg.

"[T]he 1930s have plenty to tell us, yes," says Shlaes. "But the real challenge isn't deciding who resembles Hoover. The challenge is for both parties to figure out how to avoid a whole era of mistakes."

And the challenge for voters is to find who has the answers we need before today's problems become a decade's worth of financial handicaps.

Or maybe we'd be better off with Alfred E. Neuman at the controls.

Does Daylight Saving Time Really Save Anything?

Don't forget to adjust your clocks tonight -- if you have the old-fashioned kind of clocks that you have to adjust yourself.

Some appliances, like computers, come equipped to change the time for you, when we shift to daylight saving time and when we shift back to standard time. That's a useful thing to have now that we start daylight saving time a few weeks earlier than we used to and we end it about a week later than we used to.

That's one of the problems we've had this year. Some of those appliances weren't equipped to extend daylight saving time into November. And that's caused inconvenience.

I, for one, have never been much of a fan of daylight saving time.

One of the ideas behind it was the notion that making this time shift would save people on their energy bills, but there's never been any conclusive evidence to show that consumers benefit financially. I was thinking about that today while I was filling up on gas that is now over $2.80 a gallon in my neighborhood.

I think $3.00/gallon will be coming along sooner than you might think. We might set a few more records before it levels off.

Read the editorial in today's Los Angeles Times. The Times says our insatiable thirst for oil simply enriches our enemies.

Gas Prices Going Up

The Lundberg Survey reports that the national average price for a gallon of unleaded gas went up 5 cents in the last two weeks.

But that nickel increase will pale in comparison to the increase that's coming. The price of crude oil went up 18 cents in the same two-week period, but that increase hasn't been felt at the pump because it hasn't been passed along yet by refiners, marketers and retailers.

So fill up at the best price you can get right now, because it isn't going to last.

The national average was $2.80, which is 60 cents higher than it was a year ago at this time. The best price to be found was in Newark, N.J., where a gallon was selling for $2.56. San Francisco had the highest price, at $3.17.

Here in my east Dallas neighborhood, the price ranges from $2.61 to $2.65.

Gas Prices

You may have noticed a slight dip in gas prices at the pump lately.

Don't get too excited. In the last couple of weeks, prices dropped an average of 4 cents a gallon. And, while that's good news, it loses its luster when you realize that gas prices were about 47 cents lower per gallon at the same time last year. And the Lundberg Survey's publisher, Trilby Lundberg, warns that this does not represent a "trend for the future."

Nationally, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $2.75. The best price to be found was in Newark, N.J., where that same gallon cost $2.52. The highest price was in Honolulu, where drivers could expect to pay $3.09.