That's certainly the McCain approach (when it comes to conservatives).
His focus now is to run even more leftward for the general, in pursuit of the more "attractive" liberal vote.
Posted on 03/27/2008 1:17:59 PM PDT by Gelato
A series of events this week provided interesting insight into how climate and energy issues might play out in the general election next fall when Republican nominee John McCain will face either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. McCain spent six months before the New Hampshire primary highlighting his environmental credentials in comparison to the weaker records of his Republican competition.
For first time in the campaign, McCain is now directly challenging the Democratic candidates on their climate commitments and highlighting his record in the Senate. At a town hall in California yesterday, The Washington Post blog The Trail reported that when asked to distinguish himself from the Democrats on climate change, McCain stated:
“I don’t know what their position is because I haven’t seen them show any particular commitment in the U.S. Senate or elsewhere…I have proposed legislation and fought for amendments.”
If McCain continues to make this argument through the general election climate change will surely be covered by the media and play a role in the election.
Interestingly, John McCain spent much of last week meeting with European leaders and discussing global problems such as climate change while the two Democratic candidates slogged it out in West Virginia talking up “clean coal” to scrounge up votes in the coal rich state.
In an op-ed in the UK’s Financial Times titled “America must be a good role model,” McCain promised that the United States would work with all European countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat global climate change.
McCain writes:
“I have introduced legislation that would require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but that is just a start. We need a successor to Kyoto, a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner. New technologies hold great promise. We need to unleash the power and innovation of the marketplace in order to meet our environmental challenges. Right now safe, climate-friendly nuclear energy is a critical way both to improve the quality of our air and to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources.”
Clinton’s statements on West Virginia Public Radio:
“I am concerned about it for all the reasons people state, but I think it’s a difficult question because of the conflict between the economic and environmental trade-off that you have here.”
Obama on the stump in West Virginia:
“We can create up to 5 million new green jobs … including new clean coal jobs.”
The statements coming from the Clinton and Obama camps out of West Virginia have some environmentalists concerned. If you need proof, just read the comments on the grist stories. It is important to remember that McCain has been generally supportive of expanding and investing in clean coal technology throughout the campaign as well.
John McCain enjoys a position in the election right now where many of his statements go unchallenged by either of the Democratic candidates. In the fall it will be interesting to see how the Democrats eventually counterpunch McCain’s charge that neither has demonstrated any “particular commitments” to climate change.
That was my thought. Who is McCain running with, Hillary or Obama?
We should all blast his website and recommend Mitt Romney as his V.P. choice. He claims he won’t go for a second term,
My money says he’s not sane enough to make a second term.
He’s already given us the proverbial “finger” with the liberal beyotch that he picked to run the RNC Convention.
I say let’s all tell him to go McF himself.
P.S. I hosie TM rights on the “McF. himself phrase”
I own it!!
BWAAAAHHH!
“My vote will be a write in.”
Please, don’t. It will be lost in the flood of other write-ins.
Consider seriously voting for a third party that is more representative of your beliefs. The Constitution and Libertarian parties are deserving of consideration. At least it will be clear what you believed and those messengers will have a louder voice as a result.
“McCain owes the Huckster big time for his nomination.”
What you said BUMP. Which is why I’m betting on Huckabee to be the number two on the ticket, not Romney.
It is political savvy for McCain to perfunctorily acknowledge “global warming” and to state that “We need a successor to Kyoto.”
Many conservatives and independents are conservative on social, economic, and national security matters - but are also dedicated environmentalists.
To not acknowledge and appeal to this significant sector of the electorate would be idiotic in a Presidential campaign in which, after all, the main outcome will be national security and the worldwide war against Islamic jihadist terrorism.
In regard to Kyoto - there are so many nations, in addition to the U. S., that declined to sign Kyoto, that a “successor” would have to be significantly different from Kyoto and very close to what the U. S. wanted at the time Kyoto came up.
I didn’t fear for the country with Dole. I do with McCain.
Somebody needs to provide the MdCain campaign with the information debunking AGW!
In other words, McCain is trying to out-Hillary Hillary.
Sorry I don't find that particularly attractive.
My comments stand. And they weren’t intended to be “attractive” to you or anyone else.
That's certainly the McCain approach (when it comes to conservatives).
His focus now is to run even more leftward for the general, in pursuit of the more "attractive" liberal vote.
“Sen. McCain went out of his way to be conciliatory to America's allies,” said James Lindsay, director of the Robert S. Strauss Center at the University of Texas at Austin who isn't allied with any campaign. ‘That's good policy and good politics.’
“Dr. Lindsay said Sen. McCain has labeled himself a ‘realist idealist.’ a direct response to the hope- and change- filled language of his Democratic opponents - especially Sen. Obama.
“Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National committee, called Sen. McCain's softer approach ‘empty rhetoric.’
So, Gelato, Dean and the Dems are unhappy over McCain's words spoken at the L. A. World Affairs Council. And you and some other self-declared Conservative purity-overseers are similarly unhappy.
That is amusing to anyone who has a sense of humor which I strongly suspect that you do not.
That's just party politics. Give the same speech and put a (D) by McCain's name, and they would heap the praise.
Hear this, Gelato, adba soft-rich-ice-cream: a fool is a fool is a fool.
When you have walked the walk that McCain walked in Hanoi, come, dear, and tell us about it.
In fact please be so kind as to tell us about ANY walk you have walked.
With all due to respect to the Senator and to you, McCain's experiences in Hanoi have absolutely nothing to do with the veracity of his policies on global warming, immigration or free speech.
That he was tortured doesn't make his wrong-headed policies right.
McCain will remain more man - yes, more man - than most certainly all of us - simply by his upholding of DUTY, HONOR AND COUNTRY during five-and-a-half years of the most brutal torture imaginable.
McCain could have gained early release from the Hanoi Hilton because the N. Vietnamese knew it would be a propaganda coup to “in good faith” to release the son of the U. S. fleet's admiral - a bitch of a propagandistic lie that the U. S. media would have obligingly promulgated if McCain had opted to be released.
McCain did NOT opt for this. HE DECLINED IT.
He subsequently went through the war in that hell hole alongside the other American and allied prisoners, and in two years of solitary confinement in a shoe box of a cell because he would not cooperate with the enemy - OUR ENEMY AND FREEDOM'S ENEMY.
People on this site say, “Yes, McCain has a good war record, but......”
No, he doesn't just have a “good war record”.
He and his fellow prisoners UPHELD the HONOR of America and of EVERYONE in it - including progenitors and descendants.
And, yes, including even the anonymous keyboard warriors on this site and other sites whose anonymity and technological toys enable them to casually slander good people, many of whose lives have gone to making possible the liberty of these very unfortunates.
By all means, criticize McCain's policies, his governmental record. But do it dispassionately and accurately. Else be seen as nothing more than a coward. McCain's sins are better known to him than to us; and all of us - everyone - will be sorted out not far down the line.
Given that logic, I suppose you voted for John Kerry last election cycle.
Where, exactly, did I attack the man and not his policies?
That was, in fact, the point of my post: McCain's sacrifices for his country do not automatically make his policies correct. Or even beyond criticism.
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