The Sunday political talk shows are all convinced that Obama will win the election. Who am I to argue with them ? Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that they are right. What will be the defining moment of the Obama presidency ?
The war ? The Iraq War is won. He might be able to sink the Iraqi government by withdrawing our troops precipitously, as the Democrats did in 1975 with South Vietnam, but Iraq is farther along than South Vietnam was.
The economy ? I think he will have a baneful effect on the economy as small business owners retrench in the face of sharply higher taxes and a hostile administration. However, the economy will already be in recession and that will be blamed on Bush. Hoover was still being blamed for the Depression in 1939 after years of misguided New Deal experiments.
I think the defining theme of the Obama presidency will be the energy crisis.
Coal provides nearly 50% of electrical generation. Obama plans to bankrupt the coal industry with carbon taxes. He will build no new nuclear power plants and his promise to “look at” offshore drilling will remain just that, a promise.
On nuclear power, Sen. Obama says he’s open to expanding nuclear energy, which now provides 20% of the nation’s electricity, as part of an effort to increase power sources that emit little or no carbon dioxide. But he also has said there is no future for expanded nuclear energy until the U.S. comes up with a safe, long-term solution for disposing of nuclear waste. He opposes the Bush administration’s plan for storing waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
I predict that, by 2012, we will see nationwide rolling blackouts. A Third World level of energy production will be Obama’s legacy from his one term presidency.
Sen. Obama is also framing the climate-change debate in more explicit language than Sen. McCain. “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees [Fahrenheit] at all times and then just expect that every other country’s going to say OK. That’s not — that’s not leadership,” he told a crowd in Portland, Oregon, last month.
That is his energy policy. I am not the only one who thinks this.
Jeffersonian Says:
November 2nd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I’ve long held that the success of the United States has been based largely on the fact that politicians have either lacked the hubris to attempt to micromanage things they do not comprehend or have just been plain unsuccessful at grasping the levers that would give them the power. This is the first time I’ve ever felt like we’re about to put into office a President who hasn’t successfully run anything but his own mouth, yet feels compelled to command everyone to act in a certain way based on some ill-conceived ideas of “social justice.”
We’re likely to be squatting in the dark a few years from now as a result.
Ralph Peters has a look-back at an Obama Presdency from 2012. Of course, that is only a prediction.