Archive for June 17th, 2008
June 17th, 2008
John McCain is also calling for more nuclear energy development. This is a proven and safe technology. Eighty percent of France’s electricity is generated by nuclear power plants similar to the Byron plant. This story has more to say about McCain’s plan than my earlier post. Congressional candidates Don Manzullo, the GOP incumbent, and Bob Abboud, the Democratic opponent, both advocate more nuclear energy, with Abboud calling for an “interstate highway program” size effort to build 100 nuclear plants.
McCain is also expected to criticize Darth Cheney, who said in 2001 that energy conservation was not important, just a personal virtue.
Again, nothing Obama has said so far indicates he sees the immediacy of how the ever-increasing price of gasoline is become a major campaign issue. I predict that by September gas will be over $5 a gallon and that it will be THE Biggest issue of the presidential campaign.
And no, we are not going to turn the entire state of North Dakota into a wind farm.
June 17th, 2008
John McCain will win a lot of voter approval for his latest policy position on energy, which is different from his old position on energy, but who cares? It’s politics. McCain now says we should end the ban on offshore drilling in US. waters and begin drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, two things I’ve advocated in a recent column. He points out that the U.S. has 21 billion barrels that are off limits to drilling. Meanwhile, the Chinese are drilling oil in Cuba’s waters, roughly 50 miles from Florida. Offshore drilling rigs are safe — they withstand hurricanes, and they’ve been working safely in the North Sea for three decades. That’s one of the world’s roughest stretches of ocean.
McCain will also call for conservation, warning that we face $7 per gallon gasoline in the near future unless we change our ways. That will require him to change his ways. McCain has been trying to kill Amtrak for years, along with two Bushes and Bill Clinton, who was more of a benign neglect kind of guy when it came to mass transit.
Meanwhile, Obama is in the “O-zone” on energy. What in God’s name would a windfall profits tax do to benefit the public, other than RAISING the price of gas???? Yet, that’s what he advocates, along with no realistic solutions to the crisis we face right now.
That is not change we can believe in. That’s not even change.
June 17th, 2008
If you’re the Republican Party or its standard-bearer John McCain, how do you beat Barack Obama?
More and more, it seems that the answer will be: Make him seem weird. That’s what’s been happening so far, and I’m pretty sure it’ll continue. After all, McCain lacks support among the GOP’s conservative core, because he’s simply not a conservative and has the voting record in the Senate to prove that. He needs those voters, though. But if he keeps pandering to the right, he can’t get the votes of moderate Republicans, independents, and disaffected Hillary supporters. He needs their votes, too.
What to do? Make the race a referendum on the safety of an old reliable. The Mc Cain camp won’t do this officially, of course; they’ll leave that to Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugth  and right wing 527 groups on the Internet. They’ll make McCain kindly “Grandpa Joe” who’s dealing with that strange new neighbor who moved in across the street. Uh oh! There goes the neighborhood. That, in coded language, is the GOP’s way of convincing people skittish about electing a black man to stay with the white guy, whatever you think of his policy positions.
What would be the consequences of turning the country over to the guy with the middle name of Hussein. I won’t be surprised if some 527Â comes up with a bumper sticker that is a play on Bernie Epton’s GOP mayoral campaign against Harold Washington in the 1983 Chicago election: Vote Epton, before it’s too late.
Only this time it will be, “Vote McCain, before it’s to late.”
