After Gas Tax

Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but it seems to me that the failure of the Hillary Clinton gas tax holiday gambit may prove to be something of a watershed in the politics of climate policy. A lot of thinking by political people over the years has been dominated by the idea that the public is absolutely fixated on cheap gasoline by any means possible. We seem to be seeing, however, that that's not necessarily the case. Obviously, that's not to say that the public is now going to run to embrace Yglesias-esque schemes overnight, but it does show that the boundaries of political possibility may not be quite where most folks thought they were.

Meanwhile, I think it continues to be noteworthy that most of Barack Obama's most impressive moments have been essentially counterattacks to silly gambits from Team Clinton -- not just this gas tax business, but the "naive and irresponsible" diplomacy, etc. -- and I'm not really sure if it's noteworthy in a good way or noteworthy in a bad way.