McCain Flip Flops Again, Axes His Climate Change Plan

by: Matt Stoller

Wed Jul 09, 2008 at 20:15


Please consider digging this story.

McCain's central branding strategy has been to find issues on which he 'breaks' with the President as a way of distancing himself from the GOP.  A core piece of this strategy is his work on global warming, a subject for which he received praise from Al Gore and on which he even ran his first ad.

According to Larry Kudlow, McCain has abandoned his cap and trade plan to cap carbon emissions.

So I picked up the phone and dialed a senior McCain official to make sure these old eyes hadn't missed it. Sure enough, on deep background, this senior McCain advisor told me I was correct: no cap-and-trade. In other words, this central-planning, regulatory, tax-and-spend disaster, which did not appear in Mac's two recent speeches, has been eradicated entirely - even from the detailed policy document that hardly anybody will ever read.

McCain is literally the most inconsistent and dishonest candidate imaginable.
Matt Stoller :: McCain Flip Flops Again, Axes His Climate Change Plan

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McCain Flip Flops Again, Axes His Climate Change Plan | 18 comments
Bush signed the GI bill McCain voted against (0.00 / 0)
How's that for his maverickiness!

(Well, ok, that was a mistake as he thought Bush was against it and all that, but still....  Go Maverick!)

And now McCain takes credit for it (0.00 / 0)
When a Vietnam Vet challenged him at a town hall ahbout his repeated votes to underfund the VA and not extend adequate health benefits to Iraq and Afghan War vets he told the viewer he was supported by all the vets groups who knew more than the questioner.  Both were lies.  McCain is absolutely shameless and has as accidental a relationship with the truth as George Bush.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
No (0.00 / 0)
According to Marc Ambinder, he hasn't abandoned it at all, just isn't actively mentioning it at the moment.
amazing how Ambinder defends McCain (4.00 / 1)
I'd say it's obvious this global warming plan is a position McCain has adopted for the sake of looking moderate.  I doubt he has the slightest idea what it involves.  That's how Ambinder should "reconcile" the two views.



New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

[ Parent ]
McCain honestly clueless (4.00 / 4)
I have no problem believing McCain is honestly clueless enough to be worried about global warming without realizing he is against every possible solution.  In fact, the fits my image of McCain perfectly.
[ Parent ]
Precisely! (0.00 / 0)
And it's this cluelessness that the media considers "decisive leadership."

Which actually makes McCain look better than he is on two levels: first, the outright lie, and then, for those who know it's a lie, it makes the media look even worse than him.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
I see you noticed Ambinder's .. (0.00 / 0)
bias too .. join the club   ;-)
[ Parent ]
Ambinder didn't really defend McCain (0.00 / 0)
I thought he kind of snarkily pointed out that McCain says different things on different days to different groups and that he seems to see no relationship between his economics and energy "programs".

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
But of course (4.00 / 1)
because only Democrats can flip-flop. The corporate media, on the other hand, does flip-flops daily trying to bury McCain's flip-flops.
[ Parent ]
I don't think he understands what cap and trade means. (4.00 / 3)
I've come to the conclusion that McCain is not a maverick in any sense but an ace at pandering and playing up that pander in just the right way.  He has the ability to shift a few positions based on what is popular then slide right back into a hard conservative position without the media batting an eye. He doesn't even really understand these positions but has an innate ability for  recognizing a popular position that will get him press.  

He's still mentioning cap and trade on his website:

A cap-and-trade system harnesses human ingenuity in the pursuit of alternatives to carbon-based fuels. Market participants are allotted total permits equal to the cap on greenhouse gas emissions. If they can invent, improve, or acquire a way to reduce their emissions, they can sell their extra permits for cash. The profit motive will coordinate the efforts of venture capitalists, corporate planners, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists on the common motive of reducing emissions.

Yet a few weeks ago he denied that his "cap and trade" proposal has mandatory caps.  Here's his quote from a press conference on June 16th:

I believe in the cap-and-trade system, as you know. I would not at this time make those -- impose a mandatory cap at this time. But I do believe that we have to establish targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions over time, and I think those can be met.

Before that he flip flopped on the Kyl-Lieberaman climate change bill after endorsing it two weeks earlier and promoting it in a speech.

This latest report from Kudlow seems to confirm that McCain is not putting mandatory caps in his cap and trade policy essentially making it useless for reducing green house gas emissions. At least Bush waited until he was president before he started blowing smoke up our butts about his climate change policy. McCain doesn't really care about the actual policy but the appearance of the policy.  

John McCain wants to put SS in hedge funds.

This Contradiction Can Easily Be Resolved (0.00 / 0)
the same way as McCain's contradictions on Iraq.  In fact, we might even conclude that cap and trade will phase in mandatory caps about the time that Iraqis voluntarily stop shooting at us, setting of IEDs and the like, so that we can stay there peacefully for 100 years.

At some point, you see, Tinkerbell will arive and sprinkle magic fairy dust on all our problems, and they will all be solved.

Probably during McCain's second term.

Hey, that was Nixon's "secret plan".  Why can't it be McCain's too?  Great minds, yadda-yadda-yadda.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
He's also giving away the carbon credits initially. (0.00 / 0)
He's basically creating a cap an trade system without mandatory caps and carbon credits without auctions.  I guess they're sort of like Domino's coupons.  He sort of says that he may include mandatory caps and credit auctions later.  Yeah. right.

John McCain wants to put SS in hedge funds.
[ Parent ]
No, he hasn't. (4.00 / 1)
If you read the Kudlow story, all it tells us is that cap and trade is not in McCain's economic plan. It has not been "eradicated completely" -- it's still on his website, under Energy and Climate Change. It's just not in that 15 page document.

And you might somehow think that Ambinder is sticking up for McCain, but I am not. Kudlow just got it wrong. Not for the first time, either.

Except For The "Senior McCain Official" On Deep Background (0.00 / 0)
Who may or may not be right.  But that's a whole 'nother can of worms.  If Kudlow got it wrong--entirely possible--he got someone to confirm his wrongheadedness.

Less clear-cut evil. More incoherence.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Actually, (4.00 / 1)
As I read the story, "no cap and trade" could have just meant: none in that document. Which would not have been surprising: you could argue for including cap and trade in a policy statement on jobs, but you could also see omitting it. The energy policy is its obvious home, and it's still there.

Look: I don't think McCain understands what cap and trade is, or how Social Security works, or how the economy works. I think his policies don't make sense in any number of different ways. I just don't think that this particular story shows much of anything, other than Larry Kudlow's fantasies.

[ Parent ]
Republican Platform (0.00 / 0)
Sounds like he is falling in line with the soon to be drafted Republican platform.  

"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra
Face it... (4.00 / 1)
...the McCain campaign is always lying to the true believers or to the mushy middle.

Or to both.

We won't know his true positions on anything unless he wins and enacts something.  

McCain's a bigger whore than Romney. (4.00 / 1)
I didn't think that was possible.
McCain Flip Flops Again, Axes His Climate Change Plan | 18 comments
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