North Dakota
Mitt Romney….closing the gap by backing energy release
The staggering oil production growth in North Dakota continues to make it the most successful State in the Union. Per capita income and tax revenues are hugely up, while foreclosure and unemployment rates are the lowest in America. The “Dakota Model” of job creation and economic prosperity is based on developing America’s vast energy resources, and could easily be replicated in other States if more domestic energy resources were opened up. If Obama is the Green candidate, then Romney is the Energy Self-Sufficiency candidate. In a deep recession, whether you like it or not, the latter has far more electoral pulling power.
Fracking will not single-handedly revive America’s sluggish economy; but it could, as evidenced by the success in North Dakota, be an important part of the switch away from globalism and towards self-sufficiency. North Dakota is only one of many states that is beginning to reap the economic benefits of fracking and other advances in drilling technology to access previously uneconomic oil deposits.
Obama’s Achilles heel on this one is that he is cautiously supporting the federal government’s intention of taking lots of wild projections and applying them universally in order to protect gofershaleus vulgaris or whatever . There are signs that the US Environmental Protection Agency is gearing up for a big regulatory drive, which would be sort of OK if (1) the negative evidence was irrefutable, or even convincing (2) oil wasn’t getting increasingly expensive to extract (3) the US didn’t have a massive deficit and (4) the EPA had discovered the technoleap enabling us to move on from oil.
If all this seems to you a little academic, then think again: North Dakota extracted a record amount of oil during the month of May at a rate of almost 640,000 barrels per day, an increase of 5% over oil production in April. The YOY increase in Dakotan oil production is a staggering 75.5%. North Dakota is now second only to the Ten Gallon State when it comes to pumping out Texas Tea.
This is important stuff in an election year: the US national average unemployment rate is 8.2%, but North Dakota’s is around 3% (in ten counties it’s under 2%) and has trebled its Resources and Mining employment sector in two years.
This is where, in the harsh world of jobless reality, votes for family security will be easier to pick off the tree than vague ideas about saving the planet’s shale. It’s a card that Romney is starting to play aggressively….and two polls over the last two days show him closing the gap.
A new Quinnipiac University poll gives President Obama a narrow lead over Mitt Romney, 46 to 43%. And this comes on the heels of a Washington Post-ABC News poll that showed the race dead even, with both candidates on 47%.
“Barack Obama doesn’t get energy,” Mitt Romney is suddenly saying. For once here, the Oven Glove is on ground he understands, and where he has some credibility. If his team stick ‘big government interference on growth’ on the President just about the time Bank of America collapses and France teeters on the edge of insolvency, the 2012 race could become a very different animal.
It all depends on how agile the Romney team is in grasping this Heaven-sent gift. And by the way, did you know that an anagram of Mitt Romney is Monty Merit? I think that’s a much better name for a Presidential candidate. But then, I do have a history of mental illness.
If this interested you, try On the trail of Global Bank Rate rigging
The Slog 