If you live in a cold-weather state, chances are you’ve heard of Citizens’ Energy, otherwise known as 1-800-JOE-4-OIL, a discount heating oil initiative promoted by Joe Kennedy and supplied by Venezuela’s CITGO. Citizen’s Energy is a non-profit company that obtains oil at discounted rates from CITGO and provides poor families with an additional reserve of heating oil to get through the winter months.

According to Citizen’s, the price of heating oil has increased 120% since 2000. Needless to say, gross family incomes are not keeping up with the changes, and poorer Americans are being squeezed.

The program has become a touch controversial this season due to the supplier – Venezuela, and its President Almost-For-Life Hugo Chavez. Chavez rules Venezuela with a hardcore socialist agenda, and high oil prices have bankrolled his many initiatives. His government assistance programs have won him the support of the poor and working class in his own country, and he appears to be trying to earn some of that same goodwill here in America.

This has brought Citizens’ Energy (and Joe Kennedy) some ire from politicians. The image of America asking Chavez for assistance is a distressing one, especially since Chavez’ outrageous rant at the U.N. in 2006 in which he stated:

”Yesterday, the devil came here. Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of. Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.”

This speech, coupled with his continued efforts to squelch democracy in his home country, makes Chavez a less-than-ideal source of discounted oil, and has lead to accusations that Joe Kennedy is a pawn in Mr. Chavez’s PR war against the US. Joe always fights back, stating that his cause is “Morally Righteous” regardless of the source of income.

Citizen’s PR team has really been pushing the “righteous” angle, as the company has splurged on a blitz of TV ads on local channels. Most commercials depict a defiant, almost furious, Joe that practically snarls at the camera whilst defending his program.

(NOTE: This is the best video I could find of his ad on YouTube, it also contains some interesting survey information as it plays)

Other ads feature Joe trotting out cancer-stricken children and poor seniors, all of whom are sleeping in their kitchens to stay warm. Talk about driving home a point. The production value and political feel of the ads makes one wonder just how much these ads cost (in terms of heating oil) and whether they’re less about promoting cheap gas and more about promoting Joe Kennedy.

Either way, the 2007-2008 winter will go down as a successful one for Citizen’s Energy, they provided 170,000 homes with discounted oil, boosting government assistance programs and ensuring that people stayed warm. Joe Kennedy also bumped up his public profile with an expensive run of political ads and may or may not have slapped America in the face by colluding with an anti-American almost-dictator

But hey, doesn’t everyone slap us in the face nowadays? Maybe we can just get over this one and let our people stay warm.