E15 Now Comes With Roger Marshall

Roger Marshall has apparently become an ingredient in fuel policy. Remove the senator and Donald Trump says the whole formulation stops working.

In a Kansas rally clip carried by CNN on Tuesday, Trump said he would make year-round E15 permanent with Marshall in the Senate, but would not do it if challenger Adam Hamilton won. He supplied the operative explanation: “I'm only doing it for him.”

Not for the policy's merits. Not even for the people standing there listening. For him. Kansas gets to participate by providing the necessary Roger.

This is a promise, not an enacted change, and a rally declaration does not settle how permanent policy would be implemented. But it does tell voters what the president wants in exchange for pursuing it. He is presenting a public decision as a personal favor whose delivery address happens to contain an entire state.

The terms are wonderfully specific. The fuel can stay the same. The farms can stay the same. The people who would benefit can stay the same. Change the name of the senator and the president's enthusiasm expires. Apparently the technical specification includes a Republican incumbent.

There is a normal way to campaign on policy: elect our candidates because they support this proposal and can help advance it. That argument at least gives voters something to evaluate. Trump's version goes further. He announces his own willingness to withhold the promised action if voters fail to return the approved recipient of his generosity.

The product being offered is presidential cooperation. The political return is Marshall's reelection. The people meant to benefit supply the votes, then stand politely to one side while the president explains whom he really helped.

Our earlier look at the new farm-fuel payments separated assistance with a bill from a reduction in its price. This is a different offer: permanent year-round E15, conditional on the president getting the senator he wants. The revealing issue is not the amount of relief but ownership of the decision.

The same taste for choosing the beneficiaries appears in the Japan investment arrangement, where presidential selection is a concrete advantage. Here even the reason for acting has been personalized. A useful policy must first establish that it knows somebody.

You do not need to oppose year-round E15 to object to this bargain. Supporting a policy makes the condition worse, not better: the president is describing something he considers worth doing and then volunteering a reason to refuse.

Marshall gets advertised as the man who can secure the favor. Kansas gets advertised as the place that had better keep him.