Powering the people

Aug. 29, 2016
If you’re a US voter still stymied by the choice of which candidate will receive your coveted vote on Nov. 8 for the nation’s highest office, you might take comfort in knowing that the presidential election field has just increased by one. That is, of course, if you first accept as fact the announcement made earlier this month that “Fracking,” running as an independent, has thrown her hat into the ring.

If you’re a US voter still stymied by the choice of which candidate will receive your coveted vote on Nov. 8 for the nation’s highest office, you might take comfort in knowing that the presidential election field has just increased by one. That is, of course, if you first accept as fact the announcement made earlier this month that “Fracking,” running as an independent, has thrown her hat into the ring.

Touted as an “attractive alternative for Americans dissatisfied with [their] current choices,” Fracking’s platform includes “jobs, pocketbook savings, energy security, environmental benefits, and funding for local services.”

The “Fracking for President” campaign—as fervent as it sounds—is a project being supported by North Texans for Natural Gas (NTNG) and FrackFeed and, as it states on the campaign’s web site at www.frackingforpresident.com, is “intended for educational purposes only,” although NTNG “can’t help it if people laugh, too.”

The movement to elect Fracking for president was launched Aug. 1 by a slickly produced 60-sec commercial posted to social media. The images displayed are typical of such American campaign spots—a morning cup of coffee being poured, sweeping views of Washington, DC, and its monuments, and blue-collar workers welding sheet metal.

What is never shown, however, is the candidate herself. Rather, while the images and some factual text flash across the screen, a voice-over announcer dramatically recites the following: “What if I told you that a new candidate is running for president, that politicians on the right and left praise her, that she almost single-handedly saved the American economy, that no one has ever met her, yet you see her handiwork every day.

“What if I told you that this candidate is both feared and respected in the Middle East, that she helped bring American carbon emissions to a 25-year low, that the savings on your electricity bill and at the gas pump are her work.

“What if I told you that the best candidate is not the one who talks about powering people, but the one who already does.”

Meet Fracking

Fracking, states her campaign’s web site, was born in 1947 near Hugoton, Kan., but “she quickly traveled to oil and natural gas fields in Oklahoma, Texas, and other energy-producing states.” The site says, “By the early 2000s, her work had impacted more than 1 million wells, and she had begun to lead an energy revolution in America. With the help of other important technologies, like horizontal drilling and advanced 3D seismic, Fracking reversed declines in domestic energy production that experts believed were inescapable.”

The candidate’s campaign theme, “Powering the People,” embodies her “proven record—and future agenda—of creating jobs, lowering consumer prices, strengthening energy security, reducing air pollution, and providing funding for critical public services,” the site says.

Fracking herself is quoted as saying, “In 2016, America doesn’t just need a leader who can reenergize our country, but one who has a record of actually doing so. For nearly 70 years, I have been giving power to the people in states all across the country, from Pennsylvania and Ohio to Texas, Colorado, and California.”

Weeks after announcing her campaign, Fracking even launched a virtual bus tour that, in the coming months, will take her across the US “and culminate with the selection of a vice-presidential candidate.” She says that she is looking forward to the fall debates where she can “compare her record of improving the economy against the rhetoric of her opponents.”

Your vote counts

Fracking’s site goes on to say that she has put America “in the driver’s seat in the global energy market” after more than 30 years of control by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Thanks to her work, it states, “oil imports fell to their lowest level in 2 decades, and experts predict America could soon become a net energy exporter.”

In short, Fracking has “transformed America into an energy powerhouse” and has “done more than anyone else to secure American energy security by decreasing our dependence on foreign oil.”

So, with one of the more contentious US presidential elections in recent memory winding its way down to the finish line, you should be reminded that every vote counts.

And, if Fracking somehow ends up losing this important race, there’s always cabinet positions available.