McCain’s Oil Checkmate

Sen. John McCain has stumbled onto a winning issue. Oil. Although at first he was a bit squishy on the subject of drilling for oil …excuse me Mr. Luntz, I meant “exploring for energy”… he deserves credit for seeing the opportunity and jumping on it.

The voters are hopping mad about high gas prices and are screaming GIVE US CHEAP OIL!!! Sen. McCain is saying okey dokey, you want cheap oil, I’ll give you cheap oil. We’ll drill off the coasts, we’ll tap oil shale in the Rockies, we’ll build new refineries and throw in a couple dozen nuke plants to boot.

McCain has a Louisville Slugger named “Cheap Oil” and is going to whack Obama with it like a North Vietnamese prison guard.

Obama hasn’t left himself any maneuvering room to escape the pounding. He’s publicly staked out positions against off shore drilling, against fast tracking refinery permits, against oil shale development and he’s not so wild about nuclear power either. He has limited his energy policy to not much more than higher oil taxes and windmills, (as long as they aren’t near Ted Kennedy’s house.)

The only piece missing in McCain’s energy trifecta is ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Sen. McCain has said that he won’t drill in ANWR because it’s “a pristine wilderness”. You know, just like Yellowstone National Park - if you dropped the temperature 100 degrees, bulldozed the trees, covered it in frozen mud and added mosquitoes the size of small children. Other than that, it’s just the same.

Obama can defend himself by saying that Sen. McCain isn’t really that hot on providing cheap oil either because he won’t drill in ANWR. To take full advantage of the issue, that hole has to be closed. But our Green Republican (who ironically makes Republicans green) has promised to protect the God forsaken, frozen moonscape as a matter of principle. And we all know what that means. It would be easier to get people to vacation there than for him to change his mind.

It would be a shame to miss this opportunity to nail our New Messiah to his cross of oil. But how can this be done without Sen. McCain abandoning his promise to protect the precious 3 toed arctic mole rat?

I’m here to tell you kids, there is a way.

ANWR is over 30,000 square miles. Extracting the oil would need about 3 square miles. Sen. McCain should go back to the Senate and introduce a bill to exchange 3 square miles for drilling, for 300 square miles added to the refuge elsewhere. He would have the best of both worlds. Oil for the voters now, and hundreds of additional square miles of frozen wasteland preserved for our great grandchildren to ignore.

With a 100 to 1 land for oil swap, Sen. McCain could keep doing his Teddy Roosevelt of the Arctic routine and force Sen. Obama to vote against giving the voters cheaper oil.

Even the mole rats would be happy.