(Recorded surreptitiously)
Romney:
Hi Barak, it’s Mitt.
Obama:
Hi Mitt, what’s up?
Romney:
Look, I know it’s been a tough campaign season, but I have a proposition that I think will be good for both of us.
I propose we agree not to mention anything about global warming or climate change during the rest of the campaign. If we bring this subject up, it will be messy for us both. Your followers will be reminded of your foolish promise to them on election night four years ago that you would stop the seas from rising—and you know how that worked out! And I have already got a lock on all the oil and gas contributions so my denying the existence of global warming is not going to do anything more for me.
Obama:
OK Mitt, I hear you.
I can pretty easily ignore the ragged fringe of my base that has been pounding me over Tar Sands and the Keystone pipeline being the end of the world. And I’ve already looked pretty presidential by handling all the climate-related natural disasters of the year by granting billions in federal emergency disaster relief to just plain folks, so I’m covered that way, from hell to breakfast, you might say. I don’t want to gloat, but I look a heck of a lot better than your Republican predecessor on emergency management.
Romney:
Some might say that is a low bar you set for yourself.
But emergencies or not, I don’t think you want to remind people that your energy policies look like a complete joke. I had to laugh out loud when Solyndra went bankrupt. I thought I had a problem with my comments about letting General Motors go under. But when Solyndra, the solar panel maker went bankrupt with a half a billion of your Energy Department dollars, oh boy, I could have tapped danced all the way across America on their abandoned silicon panels. And even better, Solyndra is based in California—the land of fruits and nuts! LOL.
Obama:
That’s not fair. Independent surveys have shown that only a small minority of the solar and wind loans my administration has made have failed. But come to think of it, maybe I should be talking about climate change, since that is the whole purpose of alternative energy is to reduce the use of carbon-based fossil fuels.
Romney:
Try telling that to the American people. As soon as you bring up the C word, I am going to nail you on the T word. And you know the T word is worse than the F word. I don’t know why you can’t get it through your head that Americans don’t want you rifling through their pocket books to pay for some program one of your pointy-headed Harvard cronies thinks is good for everyone, when most Americans can barely make their monthly payments.
Obama
Yeah, I wish I had never let Larry Summers say that unemployment would be at six percent if we passed the stimulus bill. I had to send him back to Harvard, where at least he had tenure. Maybe that’s why people don’t believe in experts anymore.
Romney:
Experts, perplexperts! (Thought bubble: there’s a phrase I won’t be using again; it will never get by my sound bite manager). But just between us girls, my point is anyone can find some long-haired, disgruntled professor with a pedigree to say anything about any subject. Don’t you remember the whole cigarette-smoking-causes-cancer-debate? It took them 30 years to sort all that science out. And I could still find an expert to question the linkage.
Obama:
Yeah, maybe all those global warming experts just remind everyone how much they dislike Al Gore. Why did he have to go and say that he had invented the Internet? Maybe we should just agree to talk about energy independence.
Romney:
I am all for that since I have you beat on that one 16 ways to breakfast. Did you notice that Paul Ryan’s family has made a small fortune in the natural gas business? Since you and I both agree natural gas is good for America, you’re never going to out-flank me there.
Obama:
Hmmmm. I gotta check my notes.
Romney:
Meanwhile, you are all over the place on energy policy, saying you’re for everything until you’re not. You are for natural gas, but then you let the E.P.A. go rogue and propose job-killing new air regulations that are strangling this great new job-producing American industry because they might be releasing a little methane—or a lot, who knows? I got a good laugh watching you try to talk out of both sides of your mouth on that one. You look pretty weak there.
Obama:
Yeah, I am kind of in a box on this one. My buddy Governor Cuomo in New York does not dare approve the new hydro-fracking regulations his administration crafted during the past year and a half even if they will only be approved for impoverished farmers in towns that desperately want that industry in their backyard. It’s those Hollywood types. Have you ever heard of that actor Mark Ruffalo? Lives somewhere in upstate New York and along with a bunch of movie stars and theater types. Man, they have really gotten people so stirred up on hydro-fracking, Cuomo’s gone silent and called for another study. But it is true that no one is really talking about global warming on this one. It’s all about chemicals.
Romney:
So do we have deal or not? Let’s just forget about the whole question of what is in store for us in the future on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since we don’t really know. You know what they say in New York, “Fugitaboutit.”
Obama:
Yeah, and you know what they say in our business, “The future doesn’t vote!”
Philip Conkling is president and founder of the Island Institute based in Rockland, Maine.