Why Romney Is Polishing Energy's Apple
From Time
On Tuesday night in Dallas, Mitt Romney made one thing clear: He was not “just polishing the apple for T. Boone Pickens here,” he said, when he began his policy remarks at a fundraiser with Pickens, an oil and gas investor, by talking about energy.
The truth is, as Romney pointed out, he almost always starts talking policy by focusing on energy, whether or not he has an audience of energy executives. And it’s his condemnation of Obama on the topic that often gets him his loudest applause. Romney knocks Obama for new air pollution regulations that hurt coal miners, for not opening public lands quickly enough to drilling, and for not approving the Keystone Pipeline. Such rhetoric has long been standard for Republican campaigns. Even the GOP’s 2008 candidate John McCain, who supported climate change legislation, chanted Drill Baby Drill on the trail.
