Losing The Drilling Argument

It's just maddening to watch the Democrats flailing on the offshore drilling issue. Republicans, and their presidential candidate John McCain, keep scoring political hits on how they support offshore drilling, while the Democrats respond that they support drilling too--just not as much as the Republicans. If the debate remains about who favors drilling more, it's a contest the Democrats will lose.

The problem is that the Democrats have ceded the idea that more drilling will help with oil and gas prices, even though that idea is false. When one side's repeated assertions go unchallenged, the public tends to believe them regardless of the facts. Democratic leadership was weak on contesting the drilling issue and now seems to think that there's no way to convince the public that more drilling really won't help us get out of our oil problem. But how do they expect to win on policy if they allow the public to believe untruths about the situation?

Here's what they should be doing. They should be asking every Republican why they think drilling will solve our problems when our government's own Energy Information Agency says that opening up the outer continental shelf "would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030," and that even when that oil does come online, "any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant."

McCain and Hillary Clinton didn't gain much traction with their gas tax holiday proposals. Sure, some people who were die-hard supporters went along with what they had to say. But others must have been appropriately skeptical when those candidates got no support from serious economists. Democrats should be taking the same tack here: they should ask Republicans why they are supporting endless drilling when no serious experts in the oil field think it will have any real impact.

And it seems like Democrats are again hoping to win a policy argument while allowing vast swaths of the public to be misinformed. A July Rasmussen poll found that 59% of Americans think it's at least somewhat likely that offshore drilling will lower gas prices. A June CNN poll found that number to be 50%. Even if a large minority held these beliefs, it's a result that should embarrass anyone who thinks reality is important in making policy decisions.

This isn't the first time Democrats seem to have given up on the facts. One of Kerry's greatest errors in 2004 was his failure to address the truth about Iraq, leaving vast numbers in the public seriously misinformed. In October of 2004, a poll found that 75% of Bush supporters believed that Saddam was either directly involved in the 9/11 attacks or gave al-Qaeda substantial support, despite the utter lack of evidence to support such a view. 57% of Bush supporters also believed that a government report after the war stated that Iraq had WMDs or a major weapons program, when it in fact had found no evidence of such a program. What would have been the reaction of some of those voters if they knew the facts? And how do Democrats possibly expect to win on policy when they allow the public to believe whatever they want?

Democrats should be attacking with the facts. They should pound McCain for selling a popular fantasy instead of delivering the "straight talk" that he supposedly espouses. They should tell the public that, like Saddam's nonexistent ties to al-Qaeda, Republicans are again repeating statements that have no support whatsoever but are repeating them to get Americans to believe it. They should inform the public that more drilling won't help them now and, according to our own government, won't help down the road--though it will help the oil companies make a lot of money. They should excoriate the Republicans for advocating that we make the same bad choices that got us in this situation, and repeating the Bush administration's tragic compulsion to believe whatever they want regardless of the facts. They should be saying that if we're going to take this problem seriously, we have to make different decisions for the long term instead of the same old decisions that will do nothing for anyone except the oil companies. These attacks have the advantage of being true while (1) going after McCain's credibility, (2) tying Republicans to the Bush administration, and (3) associating the GOP with big oil. All are political winners.

McCain said recently the line "Drill here, drill now." Democrats should respond by saying: "Sounds nice, won't work." The facts are on their side. Why they don't make more of an effort to make them matter is a mystery to me--and may result in a lost presidential election unless they become more aggressive in telling the people the truth.