Business

GOP can energize campaign

The summer rally is typically more a misnomer than a reality on Wall Street, but this year we have truly had one, with the Dow up about 1,000 points since early June.

Still, investors are nervous as we head into the typically tempestuous months of September and October, and with good reason. The prospect of an Obama victory in November doesn’t inspire the bulls, nor does 10 more weeks of negative campaigning from both sides.

Candidate Romney has a chance to change the tone, starting tomorrow when the GOP’s nominating convention convenes in Tampa — and there have been hopeful signs of late that his campaign is moving in that direction. It’s about time.

Look for the Romney-Ryan team to start accentuating a positive scenario for the US economy for the rest of the decade — a scenario built on full energy independence for the country.

“This is not some pie-in-the-sky kind of thing. This is a real, achievable objective,” Romney told a crowd in New Mexico on Thursday. It’s a plan Romney says would ensure North American energy independence by 2020, an outcome that could produce 3 million new jobs and $1 trillion in new revenue.

Of course, promising energy independence has been a staple of presidential stump speeches since the Nixon years. The difference in 2012 is that the marriage of US technology and our untapped resources both on and off federal lands now gives that promise real teeth.

Voters in booming energy states from North Dakota to Texas already know this first-hand. What’s more, this year the Republicans are running against a candidate in President Obama who openly scoffs at the idea that we can break our addiction to foreign oil through more drilling and fracking at home. “The American people . . . know there are no quick fixes to this problem,” the president has lectured every time gasoline prices spike.

Not so, Mr. President — you may enjoy being the buzz-killer-in-chief, but there’s an energy gold rush out there, especially in natural gas.

By laying out the facts and the opportunities of our energy revolution, Team Romney has the chance to persuade voters that they will indeed be better off four years from now with Romney in the White House.

terrykkeenan@gmail.com