The Race

As I promised I am starting my delving into the candidates. I came across some info that I found interesting.

As I see it, Sen. Obama should be ahead in the polls, but he is not. I want to know why. I get the impression that this campaign is begining to resemble a multi-car pile up on the interstate. The first car is hit by the 2nd and then i continues without an end in sight.

He has given us a new health plan. He has gicen us a nergy plan, and has since revised it twice. He has stated that Sen. McCain is part of the problem. Unfortunately, at this time he has not been able to identify what the problem is or was. He has received no credit for any real solutions with either of his propositions, and has managed to sidestep discussion on any real issues of this country to date.

I will move in on the energy issue. regardles of what anyone thinks our dependcy on oil and especially foreign oil isn't going to go away anytime soon. It will take years to develop and secure viable alternatives, so we must deal with this problem -now. Instead of some pie-in-the-sky world that doesn't depend on oil, we should be drilling and exploring the California coastline; the Gulf of Mexico; Alaska's coast and interiors as well as tapping into the huge reserves in Alberta. Greed seems to be the only reason we are suffering through this gas price gouging we presently endure. I don't see Sen. Obama looking into any of these notions as viable options.

Every one of us uses oil based products regularly. Vaseline, and suntan lotion are two. We cannot just halt our nations dependcy on oil, like a person stops shopping at Citgo 'cause they don't like Hugo Chavez. This is a real issue. It will take decades to ween the country from gasoline alone. What will power our lawnmowers, our generators, our wave runners, etc. How will we deal with heating oil? Electricity you say. Fine, except that we are still dangerously close to reopening the "brownouts" of yesteryear

What about coal. We have tons of it. we can easily build coal fired energy producing plants. Unfortunately, many of the areas wher coal resides have been labeled as national refuges, etc. This is a viable option that nobody wants to deal with. I am all for protecting the food chain, until it comes to not being able to afford to drive to the store to buy the food to feed my family.

To be fair, I looked into Sen. McCain's bag and his only proposal on energy is to build 45 nuclear power plants. Nice idea, if we can make it through the 8-10 years it tends to get one of these up and running. I don't see it. His idea spurs new construction that will help the economy, but truly doesn't sound that spot on. It is however, more viable than the Obama offerings discussed above. More later.