As Dem Courts People Who Hate Them, CNBC Tells Us Keystone Doesn't Matter Anymore

     There is a desperation play to save Mary Landrieus' seat in Lousiana led by the Senate Dems who are pushing for a vote on Keystone before the end of the week. 

      "After six years of discussion, the Keystone pipeline is finally going to get an up or down vote on the U.S. Senate floor, confirming the adage, elections have consequences. What led to this change? Politics."

       "On Wednesday, Sen. Mary Landrieu, the embattled Democrat, facing a Dec. 6 runoff, called on the Senate to put the Keystone pipeline issue up for a vote. She was pushing for this to be the first order of business in the lame-duck session of Congress."

        "In quick turn, the Democratic leadership blessed the gambit, in what political reporters on Capitol Hill are calling the "Hail Mary" to save Landrieu's Senate seat. The idea is to get her name on the bill that approves the pipeline, which is very popular in her home state of Louisiana, where she is behind in in the polls."

        "Late Wednesday the Republican leadership announced they had a deal with Democrats for a vote as early as Tuesday. How did the decisions to vote next week happen? Politics."

        "When House leadership got wind of the Hail Mary, they quickly crafted a Keystone pipeline bill to hit the House floor this week. The author of the bill is listed as Rep. Bill Cassidy, the Republican congressman from Louisiana and the candidate facing Landrieu in the Dec. 6 runoff "

     http://www.cnbc.com/id/102182172?trknav=homestack:topnews:1

      That last sentence ought to make the particular Mary in this Hail Mary have pause-it's her opponent she hopes this will beat is actually the author of the bill. So someone's political calculus. is off. 

      Paul Waldman warned against this deal as just the kind of things the Dems do too much of. Just like Allison Grimes in Kentucky against McConnell, they're begging people who will hate them no matter what to like them. It never works. 

       "I find it incredible that there are any Democrats who think this is actually going to save Landrieu. If there’s anything we learned from last Tuesday, it’s that in midterm elections, turnout matters much more than persuasion. And in a runoff election where turnout will be particularly low, the time for persuading Louisiana voters that Mary Landrieu is the oil industry’s best friend is past. If Landrieu has any hope of winning, it lies in motivating Democrats to get to the polls, which will be a particularly hard task, given that they just suffered such a huge defeat and are surely demoralized. Something tells me that the Keystone XL pipeline is not the thing that’s going to get Louisiana Democrats excited."

       "Even more egregiously, Democrats are willing to hand Republicans a significant policy victory while getting absolutely nothing in return. Let’s stipulate for a moment that the practical significance of the Keystone XL pipeline has been exaggerated by both sides. Tar sands oil is just about the most environmentally pernicious form of energy on earth, but the unfortunate reality is that the Canadians are committed to pulling it out of the ground and selling it whether it comes south to the United States or not. On the other side, the Republicans’ claims that building the pipeline will have a significant impact on the American economy are laughable; it will create a few thousand construction jobs while it’s being built, and the number of permanent jobs will literally number in the dozens. (And before anyone gets mad, yes, I realize that I’ve oversimplified the issue here.)"

       http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/11/12/memo-to-democrats-stop-chasing-voters-who-wont-ever-support-you/

        After all this, now CNBC has announced Keystone is no longer economically a big hit anymore. 

       What if they voted for a pipeline but nobody came?

       "As Congress rushes to approve the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline, it is questionable whether or not the project will make as much of a difference as proponents expect. Since June, crude oil has declined by 28 percent, pushing the price that oil from new wells in Canada may command below what the expected cost will be to produce it."

       "The so-called "heavy oil" extracted from sand in Alberta, which the proposed pipeline would carry to Nebraska, en route to refineries on the Gulf Coast, will cost between $85 and $110 to produce, depending on which drilling technology is used, according to a report in July by the Canadian Energy Research Institute, a nonprofit whose work is often cited by Keystone proponents. West Texas Intermediate crude oil traded today at $76.67."

         "Anything not under construction [is] at risk of being delayed or canceled altogether," said Dinara Millington, vice president for research at Calgary-based CERI. Her cost estimates include the price of drilling new wells, meaning that existing wells that have already been paid for can continue to pump oil profitably, she said.

          Oil sands are among the most expensive sources of oil, costing an average of $75 to $80 a barrel to produce, Norwegian energy-consulting firm Rystad Energy said in June

        "I would think that in order for new drilling projects to be capitalized and economical, the price of oil would need to be around $85 to $90," Moody's Analytics energy economist Chris Lafakis said.

          http://www.cnbc.com/id/102181913

        Now CNBC tells us. If I were cynical, I'd think that they only waited to tell us Keystone isn't important now that a Democrat might benefit it. Meanwhile. liberals have argued for years that the importance of Keystone is way overstated.