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Thursday, Jul. 24, 2008

Gas prices fuel Senate race

LUNSFORD DISMISSES MCCONNELL'S ATTACK AD AS 'SILLY'

The galling gas prices that have dominated national political discourse are now fueling Kentucky's U.S. Senate race, putting both candidates' economic and political IQs to the test.

Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is seeking his fifth term, is hammering the issue on two fronts: on the airwaves with his first commercial against Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford, and during policy debates in the Senate chamber.

Meanwhile, Lunsford has popped up at filling stations around Kentucky this summer to pump gas for drivers and make his pitch that McConnell has been one of the Washington policy-makers in the driver's seat over the last quarter century that allowed prices to explode. Today, Lunsford will unveil his ”eight-point plan for energy independence“ in Louisville.

So if the first two slow, hot summer months of the general election campaign are any indication, voters have heard only the opening arguments of this high-octane gasoline debate.

”It's something that affects voters very clearly. And it's not like this issue is going away,“ said Bruce Oppenheimer, professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University. ”People early on would have said McConnell is the shoe-in and largely invulnerable. But this is the sort of year where potentially a safe incumbent can find him or herself vulnerable.“

Specifically, incumbents tend to be at risk in uncertain economic times if challengers can effectively blame them for being asleep at the wheel, Oppenheimer said.

As a pre-emptive strike, McConnell launched his first commercial last week that goes on the offensive against Lunsford over the gas price issue. It focuses on Lunsford's push as a state government aide 28 years ago for a policy that automatically raises the state's gas tax when the wholesale gasoline price skyrockets.

”Bruce Lunsford: automatic tax increases, more expensive gas,“ the ad's announcer says.

Lunsford has dismissed the spot as ”silly stuff.“

”He's trying to change the landscape, but the public is smarter than that,“ he said in an interview.

McConnell, meanwhile, scoffed at the notion that high gas prices make him more vulnerable to defeat.

”Quite the contrary. This is the best issue from a Republican point of view that's emerged in the last couple of years,“ he told the Herald-Leader in a telephone interview Monday.

Specifically, McConnell cited the GOP's previous pushes for more domestic oil production, such as a bill vetoed a decade ago by President Bill Clinton that would have opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for drilling.

All this comes as the Senate began debate Tuesday over a Democrat-authored bill aimed at tightening regulations on oil markets and energy traders.

McConnell said he's not opposed to reviewing the oil-speculation markets, but that Congress should do much more to increase supply and decrease demand.

He is lobbying for the Senate to embrace all or some of the major components of his own legislation that he calls the Gas Price Reduction Act of 2008. Among its major tenets:

■ Allowing coastal states to approve new offshore drilling.

■ Lifting bans on the collection of a chemical from Western state shale that can be converted into oil.

■ Encouraging development of better electric car technology.

McConnell left out of the legislation a push to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which he said is far ”more controversial.“

”My preference is to have an accomplishment, not an issue,“ McConnell said. ”I would rather do something important for the country. But if we cannot get enough Democratic support to do that, then I'll take the issue.“

Lunsford said he'd welcome ”every opportunity“ for more oil production, such as allowing more offshore leases and collection of oil shale.

But he criticized McConnell and President Bush for not acting to ease costs in the short term, for instance, by approving a release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserves.

”It's one thing to introduce a piece of legislation when it cannot be acted upon,“ Lunsford said of McConnell. ”If he really cared about this issue, why hasn't he been doing it for the last six or 12 or 18 or 24 years?“

McConnell has seen and survived conditions like this before, although he admits that current opinion polls show a much crankier public that's more united than ever about wanting long-term answers for America's energy woes.

His first re-election campaign came in 1990 amid the Gulf War era, when gas prices rose and he and then-Democratic challenger Harvey Sloan traded shots over the best long-term strategies to wean the country off foreign oil.

In fact, Kentuckians are likely to have déjà vu in this Senate race.

Like 1990, McConnell's Democratic challenger is accusing him of being in the pocket of oil companies. McConnell has received $230,900 in political donations from oil and gas companies in this election, according to OpenSecrets.org — a fact that Lunsford mentions often.

And McConnell's campaign, like it did 18 years ago, has responded by branding his opponent a ”hypocrite“ for holding investments in energy firms.

That type of back-and-forth is likely to last through November as the two men exchange personal jabs as well as debate nuances of energy policy, such as potentially imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

Lunsford says such a tax can cover the cost of a federal gas tax holiday for drivers, while McConnell argues that oil companies would just pass on the cost of the extra tax to consumers, thereby erasing any benefits of waiving the tax.

But the wonkier the debate gets, the more voters' attention might wane, said D. Stephen Voss, associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky.

”When arguments get too technical, they tune out the arguments and take cues from whomever they trust,“ Voss said. ”I don't see how McConnell can be saddled with too much specific blame on gas prices. He'll probably pay some costs of being Republican because the party's been in power, but I doubt he'll pay much in the way of personal costs for this.“