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Biden Nearly Lost the Election When He Said Oil was Doomed.
Here's What He Should Have Said Instead.
This is something thatâs been in my head since last December. After yesterdayâs shocking Virginia governor race results, I thought it was time to share it.
Whether youâre pro- or anti-Biden, once I remind you of how he handled one particular question in last yearâs presidential debate, I feel confident youâll be disappointed.
Luckily, I have the solution. All that needs to happen is that the next president of the United States hires me as his debate coach/speechwriter.
The Wrong Answer
During the second and final presidential debate, this happened:
In the following days, I saw a lot of Texas and Montana friends posting to Facebook. They were saying things like,
âHi, everyone. I donât get on here a lot. And lord knows I donât like talking about politics. But last night in the debate, Joe Biden said he is in favor of ending the oil industry. Just in Texas, the oil industry employs more than 450,000 people. Those are good jobs. My job is a good job. The oil industry is important. This is the line in the sand. Donât vote to take my job away.â
Watch Trumpâs face when Biden gives this answer. For the first time all night, he was in his comfort zone â confident-smug, instead of smug-as-a-defense-mechanism.
Republican strategists and talking heads were excited in the post-debate discussions. They smelled an opportunity â something to stem the bleeding in the polls. Biden did some âIâd like to clarifyâ interviews that got a bit of play, and Trump and his team some âDid you hear that thing Joe said about the oil industry????â interviews.
The news cycle moved on, and Democrats hoped the countryâs moderates, centrists, and âI mean, Iâm still a Republican but I canât vote for a moronâ voters had forgotten about Biden threatening the livelihoods of a large swath of the country.
But it is my opinion that just like coal jobs in the Appalachians in 2016, oil jobs were a major motivating factor in the 2020 election.
If you or someone you know works in the oil industry, you didnât forget those 30 seconds of the debate. You couldnât. All of a sudden, the fear-mongers on Fox News didnât sound so crazy. It was true: Democrats were out to destroy America.
I wanted to reach through the TV and punch Biden in the face when he gave this answer. âWe have to get to carbon neutralâ is not the right answer to the question.
In fact, itâs not even an answer to the real question.
When someone says, âDo you want to shut down the oil industry?â the answer is not âYes, but itâs not a shutdown, itâs a transition.â In fact, as I sit here thinking about it, Iâm surprised Biden ended up surviving this gaffe.
Not only was his answer strategically stupid, it was also a huge missed opportunity. Trump said, âDo you think a whole bunch of people watching should be scared of you?â and Biden said, âYes, but only because they deserve it.â
Which is a tragedy, because Joe Biden, as a centrist Democrat, isnât actually the boogie man here. In an attempt to be honest about a problem most Americans donât understand, he inadvertently admitted to creating that problem. But he didnât create it at all. He just acknowledged that it needs to be solved.
Hereâs what he should have said instead:
The Right Answer
Look, hereâs the deal.
Right now, today, if I want to build a new power plant, do you know what the cheapest possible power plant I can build is, in terms of cost per kilowatt-hour?
Wind.
The second cheapest? Solar.
And then comes natural gas.
Without subsidiesâIâm talking WITHOUT ANY SUBSIDIES, green energy is now the lowest cost, best investment in the industry.
And do you know what the fastest growing car company, and the fastest growing car model in the world is? Tesla, and its Model 3. And Tesla has used up all of its federal tax incentives. You donât even get a federal tax rebate anymore when you buy one, and theyâre still flying off the shelves as fast as they can make them.
Green tech is the future. Itâs happening. Itâs cheaper, itâs quieter, itâs cleaner, andâas a bonusâit slows down climate change.
Over the next few decades, the oil industry is going to be overtaken by the green energy industry, whether we want that to happen or not. Whether we prop it up or not. Whether we keep subsidizing it or not.
The question now isnât whether we want oil to go away. Itâs whether we want a piece of what replaces it.
This countryâThe United States of Americaâhas led every significant technological revolution since it has existed. Think about that! Since 1776, there hasnât been a major innovation that American companies and the American people didnât make a fortune on. Cars? Yep, we did that. Tractors? American. The telegraph. The telephone. Television. Space. Satellites. The internet. Britain started the industrial revolution, but America finished it.
And now, at a time when the world economy is the most connected and competitive itâs ever beenâwith China breathing down our necksâweâre going to let this one pass us by?
I donât want American oil companies to suffer, and I donât want American oil workers to lose their jobs. I really donât. But even more than that, I donât want their children and grandchildren to miss out on an entire generation of solar and wind and battery jobs because we decided that for the first time in more than 150 years, this country was going to sit back and let the rest of the world take the lead.
Green energy is inevitable. If that sounds crazy to you, give it a Googleâit really is already cheaper. It comes with a ton of problems that need to be solved. But solving those problems is the next gold rush! This is not about whether or not to shut down an industry. Itâs about whether or not to get in on the next one.
If Iâm elected, I promise that I will do my best to make sure that as long as oil and natural gas are competitive, American oil and gas continues to prosper. But I also promise that Iâll work my tail off to make sure that when it comes to the next phase of the energy economy, Americans will not be left behind. That when my grand-kids and your grand-kids are up on this stage debating in 60 years, theyâre not talking about how to come from behind and compete. Theyâre talking about the responsibilities of being exactly where this country is supposed to beâin the goddamned lead.
A little jingoistic there at the end, but in a Sorkin-esque, âI got goosebumps even though I didnât think I caredâ sort of way, right?
If this was 1985, heâd have been in a tougher spot, because in 1985 the question was whether to purposefully dis-incentivize the oil industry in favor of something better for the planet. But today, itâs too late for that. Today, all we have to decide is how far to stick our heads in the sand, because the market has already done the hard work for us. We can pretend oil has an unlimited future because weâre already good at oil, or we can face reality, embrace oilâs short-term economic upside, and make a plan for what to do when itâs over.
The clock is ticking, and someoneâs going to reap the rewards either way.