In an article titled “How Obama Made Energy Platform ‘Pop,'” Washington Post staff writers Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin take a close look at then Senator Barack Obama last year as his campaign considered ways to address America’s addiction to foreign oil. The article, which ran in yesterday’s Post, also included an analysis of his energy strategy since Inauguration Day. Some key points stand out.
Beginning last summer, Senator Obama “knew there was a moral case for addressing the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels, but this time, he realized he could make a political and economic case for it.”
It’s a message that members of the Pickens Plan Army can identify with because at the very same time, in fact, on the very same day mentioned in the article, July 8, T. Boone Pickens launched the Pickens Plan in New York City to reduce America’s escalating dependence on foreign oil and to end this threat to our economic and national security.
The Pickens Plan quickly gained momentum last summer in part because of sky-high gasoline prices. The response to the record-setting increase in the cost of gasoline was not lost on the Senator’s campaign strategists either. “And top advisers say internal polling showed that with gasoline prices at more than $4 a gallon, the American public was open to an energy platform based on economic competitiveness and national security.”
Since January 20, the President and the new Congress have tackled energy issues head on, a development that the writers duly noted:
“Now, four months into his presidency, Obama has elevated energy and climate issues to near the top of his agenda; he has made them pop by packaging them as ways to create “green” jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on imports of foreign oil.”
Read the entire Washington Post article HERE.