Last month, when Hillary Clinton came to Des Moines and had an audience of 1500-3000 people for her campaign kickoff, she attracted tons of media attention, including a softball interview with David Yepsen. When Obama attracted a crowd of nearly 5,000 in Ames, twice as many as Hillary, he got less attention from the national media (although it was day two of his campaign). In addition, Yepsen wrote a curious piece on Obama. The headline “Can a candidate be too candid?” made it seem like Obama was the second coming of Bulworth. So what sacred cows was Barack Obama slaying? David Yepsen was shocked because Obama didn’t want to immediately cut military spending when we have 200,000 troops overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then again, if Obama was in favor of cutting military spending, Yepsen would probably label him as almost as unelectable as Dennis Kucinich.
So what’s happening? Part of it is that Obama has increased expectations for drawing crowds. When you can draw 17,000 people to attend a speech on a Saturday morning when it’s nine degrees outside, the bar has been raised. Especially when it involves a relatively minor effort to build a crowd (compared to Hillary Clinton’s effort for her Des Moines event two weeks ago.) The rest is just about the day’s news cycle. Unfortunately for him and for America, Barack Obama is in direct competition for attention with Anna Nicole Smith. However, there’s only one explanation for Yepsen’s weird coverage of Obama. It’s a realization that is an important part of the civil and considerate discourse that Drew Miller is famous for.
On Thursday, a resolution was introduced that was in full throated support of the President’s escalation in Iraq. It featured 13 Republican co-sponsors with impeccable far-right wing credentials, including genuine nutcases like Bill Sali of Idaho. But the main sponsor of the resolution is the one and only Steve King.
In addition, the Representative from Iowa’s Fifth District has also signed as a co-sponsor (along with obscure Presidential candidate Duncan Hunter) to a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. It’s good to know that Steve King is continuing to introduce and sponsor legislation that has no chance of getting passed. Many people enter politics to make a difference but only a rare few enter it to make pointless symbolic gestures. Steve King has once again shown he’s a proud member of the second catagory.
The New York Times had an article yesterday on the economic growth that ethanol is spurring across rural America, even in places like Grinnell. However, the article only grazed on the hidden costs and unintended consequences of this boom.
The rise in the use of ethanol has raised corn prices considerably. As this article from Bloomberg News mentions, corn “surpassed $4.20 a bushel Jan. 17, almost double its September price.” This has big consequences for American consumers. Hogs, chickens and cows rely on corn for their feed. This has led to higher prices for pork and beef but also for soybeans, which serve as an alternate feed for livestock, not to mention all sorts of other foods ranging from bread to pop.
However, the consequences have been far graver internationally. In Mexico, the rise of corn prices has led to a giant surge in the price of tortillas, which is the basic staple for most poor and working class Mexicans. The result has led to most poor Mexicans being forced choose between spending “up to a third of their income on tortillas — or eating less or switching to cheaper [and much less healthy] alternatives.” It is beginning to ripple into a political crisis with over 75,000 Mexicans holding a protest against the rising prices 10 days ago.
Ethanol isn’t even that good for the environment either. The Bloomberg article points to a June 2006 study by researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis that found that there may be a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions as a result of growing more corn for ethanol. The article goes on to explain that this happens because “crops have to be irrigated, plowed with tractors, doused with nitrogen fertilizers and transported to ethanol distilleries, which power their machinery with natural gas or coal. Croplands are less effective than forests or grasslands in absorbing carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas blamed for global warming.”
The final issue is that the ethanol boom creates an unsustainable boom in corn prices. If a Democratic Congress raises CAFE standards as expected, Americans will be consuming less gasoline, not to mention gasoline alternatives such as ethanol. However, this is only small potatoes compared to the long term issue. The President announced an initiative several years ago to make hydrogen fuel cells a viable option by 2020. Even if that estimate is off by ten years, that will create a real long term issue. If, by then, growth in alternative fuels has continued at the current pace, much of our nation’s agricultural sector will be geared towards producing ethanol, biodiesel and other substitutes for gasoline. However, there is no need for a substitute for gasoline when you’ve found a substitute for the internal combustion engine. This creates the inherent potential for a farm crisis that would dwarf the one in the 1980s.
As the use of alternative fuels increases, these issues will become more pressing. The question is how to deal with the difficult balance between spurring economic growth in rural America and decreasing our dependence on Middle Eastern oil on one hand and keeping food prices low for consumers and protecting our economy and environment in the long term on the other. There is no easy answer but it is a question that should be and needs to be asked.
