Newt Gingrich, The Ship Be Sinking

Seriously? What, do you think I can't read? "That's not what I said?"

If you can point to a single Obama "policy" that you can prove had any effect on gas prices, then be my guest. But "shutting down drilling in the Gulf" wasn't it.

 

Are we talking about what we can prove or are we talking about what will work in a campaign? Those are two different issues.

The battle will be whether or not Rick Perry can make the "Texas=good economy because of me" meme stick. The rush to discredit it is already coming. Everything else is four layers of nuance too far and won't matter to anyone but the people who like arguing policy on the 'net.

 

I'll take that argument on.

Oil prices are determined by the market and a lot of factors goes into it.

But, the long term outlook does play into the current price. That's why drilling in ANWAR matters and could bring down prices long before that oil ever reached the market.

When the market sees the potential for additional capacity, it's not so easy for "speculators" (everyone's favorite boogeyman) to drive the price up.

Conversely, when they see an administration that is not signaling a willingness to green light new drilling, it is easy to drive prices up and no one wants to take the "short" side of the trade.

Of course if we had drilled ANWAR when originally proposed, that oil would be flowing.

But if we announced tomorrow that we were opening it up for drilling, the NYMEX price would drop the same day.

 

Oh please stop. There is not enough oil in ANWAR, or anywhere else in the U.S., to have anything less than a marginal effect on oil prices, which are set at a global level. And you can't just drill for oil for yourself. It all gets sold on the global market.

If the place the oil was drilled made any difference to the price of gas, then Texas would have much, MUCH cheaper gas than the rest of the country. Which, of course, it doesn't.

 

I'm not arguing the price should be lower where it is drilled. I fully understand that prices are set on a global market.

What I am saying is the market looks to whether or not new supplies are likely to come on the market. If there is no new supply on the horizon, prices will go up. And they'll go up today.

If they see a regulatory environment (and/or a governmental focus) that favors exploration and drilling, the prospect for new, additional supply is real. And it will bring down the global price of oil. Today.

 

Rachel Maddow just ripped Jon Huntsman for his lousy campaign launch -- and every thing she said was 100% on the money.

He goes to Liberty State Park in New Jersey so he can have the Statue of Liberty in the background. But they didn't set the shot up right. So, instead, you had a Circle Line boat, parked at an anonymous dock, in the background -- with his head right in the middle of the boat.

They must have gone nuts when they saw the video afterwards.

 

I was struck by the same thing. Someone tweeted an image from Huntsman's web stream of the announcement and it was framed perfectly, with the Statue of Liberty over one shoulder and the American flag over the other. They should have crammed all the photogs into the same spot, because otherwise they were left with a terrible shot.

Without the statue visible the setting was terrible -- some poor schmoe blowing in the wind, inexplicably standing next to a river.

 

I saw that too. I think it was one of the Politico guys. He then tweeted that he had heard from people watching on TV and they were telling him the Statue was not visible in the shot.

This isn't that hard to do.

Did they get there early and do a run through. You set it up so the only shot they can get is you with the Statue.

 

By the way, about that Tiffany's line of credit...

There was a second one, for up to a million dollars.

http://tinyurl.com/43ndjle

 

Lawrence O'Donnell hit this one on his show.

Newt's just got to get out. He's embarrassing himself every day he remains in.

 

You're right, it shouldn't be hard. But I've been struck by how terribly some campaigns have been run when I've had to deal with them, so I probably shouldn't be surprised. I covered a McCain event in 2008; his staff was a fine mix of incompetence and outright hostility. Fred Thompson came to Arizona and seemed totally surprised to be hit with an immigration question. His answer was something like "Hmm.. we'll take a look at that." Putting aside the fact that Fred Thompson had no business entering the race in the first place.. but how does a staff not prepare a candidate for something like that? You're in Arizona -- you don't think immigration will come up?

 

I used to set up events.

Nothing bothered me more than a logo background that wasn't big enough. You spent the time and money to get it made, make a it big enough so they can't get a shot without it.

I used to order big ass back drops.

Hollywood knows how to do it. Just using google images, I came up with plenty like this where you can't get a photo that does not include the logo:



But sports constantly does stuff like this:



And that's not nearly as bad as some of the ones I've seen.