Up until now, the Democrats have had all the hot-button, no-brainer, red-meat, purely emotional issues on their side. We have Iraq on our side, but that has always been a tough and incredibly complicated sell that may cut against us more than for us. And, worth noting, our opponents are betting on the latter, convinced of our inability to present a cogent and convincing case in re Iraq.

However, there may be a brand new opening for the GOP. Four-dollar-per-gallon gasoline presents John McCain with an enormous opportunity.

Read Fred Barnes for a good summary of the issues, openings, and challenges.

But, in a nutshell, for the last few decades we have been very indulgent concerning energy policy. Why? Oil has been cheap and plentiful. Which means we could drive SUVs and run our AC on 66-degrees all summer and not think too much about the future. It also meant that we could allow the environmentalists to control our energy policy, making drilling, refining, and politically incorrect alternate fuels more trouble than they were worth.

However, we cannot afford that brand of indulgence any more. The good news for green-necks? SUVs and mindless energy consumption are on the way out. The good news for roughnecks: the good ole USA is probably about to get back into the business of oil production.

Back to the horse-race aspect of this question. The Democrats are completely beholden to the "environmentalists wackos," and a major pivot before the Fall Election is completely impossible. The Republicans, on the other hand, are in perfect position to propose a pragmatic policy of increased exploration, drilling, and refining that will strike so many of those swing voters as a perfectly reasonable response to a vital question.

Barnes notes that McCain has some potential problems in this area, but this perfect storm presents the king of pragmatism with a golden opportunity to go on offense.