The battle over energy policy rages on. John McCain is scoring some points with his energy policy efforts. One pundit observes:

With the exception of his support for ethanol subsidies, Obama generally has little to say about how to reduce gas prices in the short term largely because he and his advisers don’t believe that there’s much the U.S. can do to bring the prices down, short of shaming or threatening the oil companies. . . With his gas tax holiday, his renewable challenges, his support for nuclear energy and his support for off-shore oil drilling, McCain has a package of action verbs he can use to show votes that he is serious about fixing the problem.

He goes on to qualify his praise by saying McCain’s plans mostly won’t affect carbon consumption, except nuclear power, which among other things would require lots of research and a massive shift in public opinion. One wonders what type of testing would be needed for undisclosed technologies on which Obama wants the government will spend $15B and what secret opinion shifter there is for weaning Americans off oil, but I’m sure the McCain camp is pleased to have even the most muted praise.

I do have the sense that the Obama camp never planned on energy being a serious issue. Their entire primary effort was essentially based on the negative contrast with George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton. Aside from bashing the Bush-Cheney energy bill (yes, I know he voted for it), he never really addressed what is soon becoming a key issue.

At the very least Obama will need to figure out what short term solution is not too short and what long term solution is not too long. For now his plan seems to consist mainly of excoriating his opponent. That worked fairly well when his opponents were Bush and Clinton. It isn’t clear whether, on this subject, it will work as well against McCain.