Friday, Sarah Palin gave a speech about one of her, er, McCain’s pet issues: taking care of children with special needs. Today, she spoke about energy, particularly on opening up U.S. lands and waters to increased oil and gas drilling.
In a McCain administration, we will authorize and support new exploration and production of America’s own oil and gas reserves — because we cannot outsource the solution to America’s energy problem. Every year, we are sending hundreds of billions of dollars out of the country for oil imports, much of it from OPEC, while America’s own oil and gas reserves in America go unused. And take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: we’ve got lots of both.
Setting aside that McCain only recently decided to support offshore drilling and that he still opposes opening up the Artic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska – one of Palin’s top priorities as governor of Alaska (she delicately didn’t mention this in her speech today, at least according to the prepared remarks – I’m in North Carolina with Obama so didn’t catch her on TV) – isn’t it a little odd for the vice presidential candidate to be giving a series of policy speeches on her pet issues in the last week of the election? You don’t see Biden saying, well, much at all.