Politics

Joe Kennedy III calls for ending ‘cheap oil’

Christopher Bedford Former Editor in Chief, The Daily Caller News Foundation
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As gas prices continue to soar around the country, Joe Kennedy III, the Democratic candidate for Rep. Barney Frank’s seat, wrote an online letter to supporters calling for an end to “cheap oil.”

“Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama — they’ve all talked about the same thing: the need to wean ourselves off our debilitating dependence on foreign oil,” Kennedy wrote.

“The cycle that allows cheap oil to trump tough choices has to stop,” he continued. “Forty years is enough.”

In the week before Kennedy posted, AAA Southern New England reported that the price of gas in Massachusetts had risen a further two cents. The Worchester Business Journal reported that at an average of $3.899 a gallon for regular unleaded gas, the price is currently 24 cents higher than it was one year before.

Kennedy is running against Sean Bielat, a former Marine who lost to 16-term Rep. Barney Frank by 10 points in the 2010 election.

“It’s kind of stunning that he’s so out of touch that he would say it that way,” Bielat Communications Director Sarah Rumpf told The Daily Caller. “Democrats, Republicans and independents — everybody is paying for higher gas right now.”

Though Kennedy has said that he is not running on his name — which represents a liberal political dynasty — critics have attacked him for not putting forth policy positions. His campaign website does not have an issues section.

Since 2005, Kennedy’s father, former Massachusetts Rep. Joseph Kennedy Jr., has teamed up with Hugo Chavez, the anti-American, communist strongman of Venezuela, to bring free oil to poor people in the United States.

“President John F. Kennedy was very clear about the dangers of communism and what was good and what was bad,” Rumpf told TheDC. “It wasn’t complicated for him. I’m not entirely sure where the philosophy of Joe Kennedy III’s father, where he’s getting this philosophy. … I don’t think it’s a position that JFK would have taken.”

Joe Kennedy III’s campaign did not return TheDC’s request for comment.

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