GOP spirits rise as price of gas increases RAW STORY

Published: Monday July 28, 2008





Print This Email This Republicans in Congress have had little to smile about this year, but some members' moods are improving as they watch gas prices tick toward $5 per gallon. Bracing for another wave of defeats in November, GOP lawmakers have been squabbling with their leaders and each other as they struggle to stick to a legislative agenda, but some are seeing their fortunes rise along with prices at the pump, reports Roll Call. After three special election losses earlier this year, Republicans were angry, irritable and glum. And it certainly didnt help when the Conferences Change You Deserve agenda slogan was found to be the same as an anti-depressants.



But Members interviewed by Roll Call say the dark mood has lifted a bit. Although they still see a tough electoral environment this year, the gas prices debate has rescued them from their funk.



Things were dismal last year and earlier this year, but things are looking up now, one Member said. The Member said there was a flurry of chatter about changing leadership after the three special election losses, but that has subsided with the focus on energy. Now the team seems to feel like it has momentum. The GOP lawmakers are united against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is standing firm against Republican pleas to open vast new sections of US coastlines and the arctic for oil and natural gas companies to drill. Skyrocketing energy prices have united Republicans in Congress with a level of enthusiasm that mirrors the anger that the American people feel about the price at the pump, Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), tells the subscription-only Capitol Hill paper. Pelosi, meanwhile, is sticking to her guns, accusing the opposing party of perpetrating a "hoax" to keep Americans from realizing the economy has gone south after nearly eight years of a Republican president, who had a GOP Congress for nearly his entire time in office. The fact is, the President of the United States, its on his watch that this economy is going in this direction. We have bad fiscal policy where the president has taken us deeply into debt in terms of our budget. We have had a focus on giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans in the country. But the very idea that the Republicans would say, but for offshore drilling, our economy would be great, its really a hoax," Pelosi said Monday on NBC's Today Show. "Its really a hoax on the American people. First of all, it will not bring down the price of the pump for 10 years and only two cents at that. Second of all, the jobs numbers, the fragility of our financial institutions, the down turn in the capital markets, all these things, the energy prices, all these things contributing to that and these are the economic policies of the Bush administration which have failed and we have to take the country in a new direction." In a separate interview with Roll Call Pelosi could hardly contain her confidence. You probably dont want to ask me if Im emboldened, Pelosi said in an interview. Im probably as bold a person as you will find.