COMMENTARY: W. GARDNER SELBY
Selby: Three reminders that politics shouldn't always be taken seriously
Tax cuts that won't happen, a candidate for two offices and a wannabe mind-reader
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Office-seekers do the darndest things.
I've got fresh Texas examples, but a strong national wowser belongs to Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain, would-be presidents who insist Congress can whittle the price of gasoline by suspending federal gas and diesel taxes for the summer.
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Such cuts might shave pump prices, according to Roberton Williams of Washington's nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Most likely, he said, oil refiners would raise prices to make up for the paused taxes and pocket the extra pennies as profit — just for the summer, of course.
Real deal: A lack of domestic refining capacity drives the availability and price of gas. And suspending taxes doesn't gin up refineries.
Williams calls tax-suspension proposals pandering, the same dismissive term applied by Sen. Barack Obama, who (let's be fair) voted for the suspension of state gas taxes in his home state of Illinois years ago.
Clinton's campaign strategist, Geoff Garin, said Clinton's tax-cut pitch helped her win this week's Indiana primary and close ground on Obama in North Carolina, where he whomped her the same day.
Voters appreciate Clinton, he said, for going against Washington wisdom.
Or maybe they know she's promising something that won't happen but they don't hold it against her.
In March, Pam Waggoner of Austin won the Republican nomination to challenge state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, this fall.
Yet Waggoner also stuck with plans to seek re-election to the Leander school board.
"Silly" is how she described my suggestion that she might be seen as hedging her bets by chasing two offices in the same year.
"That has not entered into my thoughts," Waggoner said. "I really want to do all I can to highlight education as my passion."
I asked if she considered bidding for the Austin Community College Board of Trustees, potentially talking up education in three '08 races.
"That may be taking it a little bit too far," she said.
Texas Supreme Court Justice Dale Wainwright, who seeks re-election, suggested last month that Texas Democrats don't believe that faith, patriotism and opportunity are fundamental to winning over voters.
Wainwright, touting Republicans, told an audience at the University of Texas: "Democrats, I don't think, understand and perhaps don't believe as strongly as Republicans, at least here in Texas, that (the) three fundamentals (of successful runs for office) as I see it are faith, patriotism ... (and) you've got to believe that there is outstanding opportunity in this country for everybody."
Wainwright later said that he thinks that Democrats don't express such beliefs as strongly as Republicans do.
"I don't read minds," he said. "Occasionally, I wish I could."
wgselby@statesman.com; 445-3644
