We Won’t Get Fooled Again

"The change,

it had to come

We knew it

all along

We were

liberated from the fold,

that’s all

And the world looks just

the same

And history

ain’t changed

Meet the

New Boss

Same as the

Old Boss"

The Who, 1971

As I’ve walked through dealerships over the past two weeks, one thing’s been amazingly consistent: The very first question I’ve been asked has been, "Who do you think will be the next President of the United States?" For one thing, I have no idea. For another, Dallas Fort Worth is far from the best place to gauge overall voter sentiment.

Why? First, Fort Worth and Dallas are doing too well financially, compared to many other regions in this country; second, this region is naturally more conservative than others; and finally, we’re in the South. All of those factors would seem to favor John McCain. One thing I do know is that the Republicans have mastered defining whatever will be the national debate during major elections — even if more often than not the debate offered the country appears designed more to pump up people’s blood pressure and emotions than to clarify reality. The debate seems chosen solely to incite the party loyal to vote.

In the last election cycle the issue was gay marriage, and this time around it’s energy independence. In both cases the debate is designed to define the Democratic Party and what they stand or don’t stand for, while allowing the Republicans to take the high ground. In most years the Democrats can neither change the debate offered nor manage to win the argument, and for the most part it’s been that way since the 1920s.

Generational Turnaround

Being a neutral outsider to the fun and frolic because I don’t vote, I find the accusations thrown about by those involved in the elections stunningly amusing.

Take the case of Mitt Romney, the very Republican former governor of Massachusetts. He’s son of one of the great businessmen and political leaders from the sixties — George Romney, a man whose history I have studied at length and for whom I have great personal respect. On a sad note, I’ve often wondered why, though George Romney’s Mormon faith wasn’t held against him during this political career, it seemed an insurmountable handicap to son Mitt’s attempt to become the Republican nominee. Are we really that much less tolerant today?

On the other hand, it bewilders me that Mitt seems to have completely rejected his father’s wisdom and pragmatism.

George Romney’s vision of our future society involved laying long-term plans for energy conservation. While Mitt Romney’s father ran American Motors from 1954 to 1962, he spoke frequently on how to prepare America for the energy shortage he saw looming decades in the future. It was also George Romney who first suggested that our love of large automobiles forced the country to consume more oil than necessary and created the demand for more and larger highways than necessary. A waste of our national wealth with little to show for it, George suggested in his famous 1955 speech, "The Dinosaur in the Driveway".

Part of it read, "Cars 19 feet long, weighing two tons are used to run a 118-pound housewife three blocks to the drug store for a package of bobby pins and lipstick." Of course, change the word "cars" to "SUVs" and those who condemn our use of oil are still giving George Romney’s speech today. Our current President even says that we as a nation are addicted to the stuff.

Liberal and Conservative

In his time, the elder Romney showed great political courage; Americans immediately disregarded what he said as the words of a fool — albeit a fool then running one of America’s largest car companies. Contrast the words of the father with the words of the son at this year’s Republican Convention.

"Is a Congress liberal or conservative that stops nuclear power plants and off-shore drilling, making us more and more dependent on Middle East tyrants? It’s Liberal! Is government spending, excluding inflation, liberal or conservative if it doubles since 1980? It’s Liberal!"

Where do you start to point out all of the mistakes in Mitt’s comments? I hate to be a master of the obvious, but the only attempt to lower the federal deficit happened in the second Clinton Administration; and offshore drilling was banned in California when Ronald Reagan was governor of that state. Our close ties to the Saudi royal family came from many Presidents, but mostly from Richard Nixon.

The final correction comes from the fact that politicians blame the government that they run for our energy problems today; George Romney strongly suggested that it was the choices made by the American people that would lead us down the wrong path.

All Politics, All Presidents

George Romney warned us 53 years ago that our economic future was precarious if we didn’t start real long-term planning for our future energy needs. But no one wanted to hear it. Every president since Richard Nixon has demanded that we start down the road to energy independence. Nixon wanted us fully self-powered by 1980; Gerald Ford extended the date to 1985, while Jimmy Carter thought we would have no more oil by the late eighties. Certainly Ronald Reagan didn’t lift the offshore oil-drilling ban when he gained office. And the first President Bush, formerly a successful oilman, in June of 1990 limited offshore drilling to coasts off of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and certain parts of Alaska.

Of course, even today the public is too often naïve in their belief in our political leaders. It’s not what they say; it’s what they do. For example, Woodrow Wilson had no real intention of "making the world safe for democracy." If he had honestly intended that to happen, European colonialism would have ended with the peace settlements of the Great War.

Furthermore, 90 percent of today’s problems in the Middle East are the repercussions from those European peace treaties. Likewise, in 1974 Richard Nixon called for American energy independence by 1980 — but he also cut a deal with the Saudi royal family so that they would only accept U.S. dollars in payment for their oil. This ensured that our dollar would remain the world’s dominant reserve currency; after we dissolved the Bretton Woods monetary exchange agreement in 1971, it’s been suggested that oil has taken the place of gold as the collateral for our money.

What If We Outlawed Driving?

All of that brings us back to today and the new national cry for energy independence. The British Telegraph reported that, if elected, John McCain will put Governor Sarah Palin in charge of our oil and energy policy. After all, she’s a huge backer of drilling more oil in her state, although not for any reason as altruistic as improving our nation’s energy supply. No, Alaska gets over 80 percent of its state revenues from oil production, so the more oil that is produced out of Alaska, the more money Alaskans have to spend.

It’s even more interesting, at least as it concerns our being energy independent, that the official Republican platform now calls for an end to the nation’s ethanol mandate. Both parties once touted that net energy waste of our resources as being our energy salvation.

Again let me tell you a truth no politician will: Total energy independence for America is never going to happen in our lifetime, no matter what either party says.

Let’s assume that on her first day in office as our Vice President and new Energy Czar, Palin attempts to make us energy independent by outlawing all automobiles and trucks. No exceptions: Clear every last vehicle off every last highway. Guess what? With absolutely no need for gasoline or diesel, closing every gas station and truck stop — not to mention every new car dealership in the U.S. — America will still use more oil than we produce domestically. That’s how big the problem is.

It’s true. Around half of the oil we import, or somewhere around 10 million barrels of oil per day, goes into transportation fuel. That means the country uses 10 million barrels of oil without driving — yet we produce only 5.1 million barrels domestically.

Yes, take every motorized vehicle off our highways and we still need more oil than we currently produce. And that’s why the proposed "energy independence" is a political pipedream — not possible.

What we should do immediately, though, is outlaw hurricanes from hitting American coasts. After all, as I write this, 14 percent of our refineries are offline for lack of electricity from the damage done by Hurricane Gustav. By the time you read this, Hurricane Ike will have landed and possibly done more damage. As for energy independence, remember Katrina? When the worst happened to our refineries, other countries immediately diverted their diesel and gasoline supplies to us to help overcome our shortages and keep our economy intact. The fashionable cry for energy independence would seem to say that when disasters strike in the future, America will need no one’s help, and that’s simply not realistic.

We should have a rational discussion on energy, but we don’t. And in case you were wondering, I’m still neutral: The Democrats don’t have any answers either.

© 2008 Ed Wallace

Ed Wallace is a recipient of the Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, given by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA, and is a member of the American Historical Society. He reviews new cars every Friday morning at 7:15 on Fox Four’s Good Day, contributes articles to BusinessWeek Online and hosts the talk show, Wheels, 8:00 to 1:00 Saturdays on 570 KLIF. E-mail: wheels570@sbcglobal.net