Jon Powers was on WHAM 1180 last week with Bob Lonsberry, and fumbled pretty badly when it came to questions about Nancy Pelosi and offshore drilling:

LONSBERRY:  How has Nancy Pelosi done as Speaker of the House? 

POWERS: You know she’s been uh… (long pause) the Democrats have accomplished some, you know, pretty interesting things since they’ve been in there, it’s been a challenge Washington has definitely not done enough, we don’t have a policy to really secure our energy right now… 

LONSBERRY: Should we drill off the coast of the United States?   

POWERS:  Well, before we talk about doing that let’s look at the 70 million already leased, environmentally approved… 

LONSBERRY:  See that’s what the Speaker said, is that a no then?  No offshore drilling until… what do you mean look at the current leases?  What do you mean look at those? 

POWERS: I mean let’s use those up first before we go make that next step… 

LONSBERRY:  Drill, pump those out before we drill off the coast of the US? 

POWERS:  We’re all for going to drill in areas like that we’re seeing it right now along the southern tier, I mean there’s the northern part of Pennsylvania has been a huge economic boom coming in there to try and tap them for more oil but we also gotta look at the opportunity that we have in Western NY to be on the front end of this energy… 

It’s revealing that Powers wouldn’t give Pelosi and the Democratic majority the criticism they deserve for running off to vacation and leaving the people of this country in the middle of an energy crisis. But, then again, Nancy Pelosi has been helping Powers raise money, so it’s not all that surprising.

But, what’s really surprising is Powers’ undeniable opposition to offshore drilling. As long as we’re not exploring and drilling for our own, we remain dependent on foreign sources of oil. It was clear from the interview that Powers really didn’t know how he should answer the question. To put it bluntly, Powers has not had a good week on the radio. Between this and his disastrous interview on WLVL, when he was clueless about the Flight of Five project in Lockport. 

Note to Jon Powers: If you’re gonna run for Congress, you should know a few things about your district first.

Powers is cool as a cucumber when he talks about his service in Iraq, War Kids Relief, and the all the press he got because of it, but when it comes to the issues, he sounds unprepared, unpolished, and uninformed. Which makes comments like this (from Buffalo Pundit) laughable:

When Jon Powers the candidate is a generic name you’ve heard of, you may not be compelled to vote for him. When you see him and hear him speak, you are.

I guess he’s never heard Powers try to answer questions about the issues affecting the 26th district.

UPDATE: 26th District offers this insight into the interview.

During his recap Lonsberry was pretty frank about Powers’ inability to “think on his feet” noting that when asked about his abilities the candidate cited countless meetings held with leaders in Iraq and across the U.S. but offered little in substance to define his abilities. “I didn’t ask about your social calendar,” was Lonsberry’s response.

The outcome of the appearance doesn’t surprise me considering the candidate’s continued inability to answer questions that don’t conform to talking points; a shortcoming I have witnessed is shared by his entire campaign.

Tags: Jon Powers