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Marc Fisher, in this Washington Post column [2] (rr), complains that the two candidates for governor of Virginia have no solution for high gasoline prices:
Mike Haley, who sells honey, beckoned to Jerry Kilgore, who
wants to be governor of Virginia. Haley offered a deal: "I swear, if
you tell me how you’re going to solve these gas prices, I’ll vote for
you."
Kilgore was game. "I’m the one candidate who
won’t raise your gas taxes," he told Haley at the Chesterfield County
Fair, south of Richmond, over the weekend. "Take that to the bank."
Haley nodded and said nothing, and the Republican candidate
continued on, shaking hands. The honey man’s vote is still up for
grabs. "I want to hear what’s being done, because this is ridiculous,"
he told me. "At least in the ’70s, they did something, those odd-even
days" when motorists could buy gas only on certain days, depending on
their license plate numbers.
Never mind that the odd-even policy had no impact, zero, on the demand for gasoline and thereby did absolutely nothing to relieve the shortage caused by price controls, the one option, mercifully, that neither candidate puts forward. Though Kilgore’s opponent, Kaine, has a price-control lite policy that Fisher rejects as well:
(Kaine was also disappointing: He responded to the surge in gas prices
by asking oil companies to voluntarily freeze their prices. Right.)
So what would Fisher do? No answer is given. Alas, reality isn’t optional. The always brilliant James Lileks lays out the unrealistic options here. [3]