OVERHEARD


This morning in a coffee shop I heard a man say to his server, “I don’t care who’s president. I only care about the gas…” Are you listening Hillary, Barrack, and John? He doesn’t care about you – at all. He’s worried about his wallet and the economy both in shabby condition these days.

While you three poke holes in the air with your digit fingers, trying to out-shout, out-scheme, and out-vote each other in order to be elected president, this working-class man doesn’t care one bit about you – at all.

“As the Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill used to say, “All politics is local.” I think the geography has moved even closer; I think it’s in his back pocket, inside his wallet. That $20 bill used to buy a tankful of gasoline. Today it buys half a tankful. All other price increases, and they are global, can be traced to the price of gasoline. Yes, driving less will help the greenhouse folks to ease-off, and the earth day advocates will have their day. But what about the truck driver who must pay over $1000 every time he fuels up? What about the frequent flier? What about the electric bill, and on and on?

President Bush has just returned from Saudi Arabia where he was rebuffed, however pleasantly, by the ruling powers of Baghdad – “If we add more oil to the market, who will buy it?” Check that to read, “We like prices the way they are.”

Even though they didn’t ask me, I suggest to the three candidates for president that they emphasize alternative energy. Alternative modes of processing that energy. Alternative ways of utilizing that energy without danger to the environment.

If they do successfully spearhead alternative forms of energy and transportation, the man in the coffee shop will return to caring who is president because his money will have meaning again. The worldpoilitik stage will return to the United States, local if you will, and the Saudis can then go pump sand – literally.