Yikes, it’s really true. John McCain is running for president as a tree-hugging liberal.
No, not an all-the-time environmentalist — rather, as a swing-state-savvy, targeted-message-peddling, hoping-to-pick-up-the-votes-of-lifestyle-liberals-who-want-to-address-climate-change-on-the-cheap murky-shade-of-green Republican.
So, today, in the battleground state of Oregon, where a reverence for the outdoors requires that Republican contenders greenwash their appeals, McCain’s campaign will begin airing a new television commercial that essentially says: “Look, I’m not like George Bush and Dick Cheney. I don’t live in la-la land when it comes to global warming. I actually believe in something I like to call ’science.’”
The senator — who broke a little bit with Bush and Cheney on environmental issues, but who never really lined up with the serious Republican environmentalists who were isolated by the administration and burn-the-planet GOP leaders like Tom DeLay — is reinforcing the message with a major campaign swing through the northwest, where he hopes to put the sometimes swinging states of Oregon and Washington in play by presenting himself as John McCain: Eco-Warrior.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee swept into Portlandon Monday to deliver a major address outlining his plan to “re-establish America’s environmental leadership in the world.” Here’s a hint about how he’ll do it: The McCain campaign says the candidates wants to “mobilize market forces.”
That may sound good, but as Gene Karpinski, the president of the bipartisan League of Conservation Voters, says, “To his credit, Senator McCain wants to do something serious about global warming, but his proposal falls far short of what the science says we need to do today. He has not substantively improved his plan over the bill he introduced years ago — legislation that the science now shows is out of date.”
Of particular concern is McCain’s determination to mobilize the wrong market forces. “[It] is troubling that he continues to support taxpayer subsidies for a mature industry like nuclear which has yet to resolve its waste disposal problem,” says Karpinski. “It would be far more cost-effective to invest in renewable energy like the wind energy plant he is visiting today. Better still would be a call for a renewable electricity standard, something he has voted against
time and time again.”
On Tuesday, McCain will be in Seattle, where his campaign says the candidate will “solicit the views of environmentalists, conservationists and the business community on the most effective strategies for meeting this challenge.”
Don’t be fooled. The senator’s not listening. He’s campaigning, as McCain’s greenwashing ad confirms.
The script opens with an announcer acknowledging that:
Our environment in peril,
Oil and food prices out of control,
Climate change wreaks havoc with deadly weather.
One extreme thinks high taxes and crippling regulation is the solution.
Another denies the problem even exists.
There’s a better way.
Then, McCain does his best to deliver the I’m-no-Bush line that is central to his appeal to voters who think of the environment as something more than a place to search for oil:
I believe that climate change is real.
It’s not just a greenhouse gas issue.
It’s a national security issue.
We have an obligation to future generations to take action and fix it.
I’m John McCain and I approve this message.
Of course, as perhaps befits the oldest-ever serious contender for the presidency, McCain has embraced an outdated dichotomy: the suggestion that the climate-change choice is between “One extreme (that) thinks high taxes and crippling regulation is the solution” and “Another (that) denies the problem even exists.”
In fact, there are smart green solutions that are good for responsible businesses, consumers and taxpayers. McCain could learn about them by studying what European conservatives and even a few American Republicans, like California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, have been saying — and doing — for years.
But, as McCain’s ad establishes, he’s not really serious about climate change. What he’s serious about is neutralizing the environment as an issue in a presidential campaign season that will see millions of American voters — including a great many wavering Republicans — treat climate-change as an exceptionally serious election issue.
John Nichols is a co-founder of Free Press and the co-author with Robert W. McChesney of TRAGEDY & FARCE: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy — The New Press.
© 2008 The Nation
Yay! McCain to the rescue!
McCain only has to be successful in persuading a small percentage of people that the McCain myths (”the maverick”) are true. Obama & his supporters have simply got to grow some you know whats and be willing to take on the myths and expose him by telling the truth about him, loud and often. That means to some degree “going negative” - it can be done by simply telling the truth about him. It has to be sustained in order for joe & josephine q. public to get the message.
This is also the guy who bragged that he didn’t know much about economics, but he had read Reagan’s book.
this is from the country that ranked last in the green poll last week. Americans will only become green when forced simple as that. Yes I have read your postings on how much everyone ( but a few ) make an efford but I am afraid it is a drop in the bucket
As for who is in the WH that also I am afraid it looks like does not matter.
McCain ranks dead LAST in Congress by the League of Conservation Voters because he ducks out of EVERY significant environmental bill!!! ANYONE who believe John McCain is a straight shooter and a maverick should read the new McCain book by Paul Waldman and David Brock, and/or listen to the GREAT INTERVIEW of Paul Waldman by WILL Radio’s Bob McChesney on May 11th, available FREE DOWNLOAD, here:
http://www.will.uiuc.edu/am/mediamatters/
FYI, The promo reads:
You can podcast Bob McCheney’s MEDIA MATTERS from iTunes –lots more other great interviews, including some of JOHN NICHOLS on impeachment and other things.
We have to give the truth more volume — tell people they owe it to themselves to read the book/hear the interview by McChesney. THANKS, Common Dreamers! Peace hugs!
McCain’s greenwash appearances in Oregon yesterday and today’s appearances in the eastern suburbs of Seattle are carefully selected venues where a lot of swing voters live.
To sweeten the campaign, last week Bush authorized the first new wilderness area in Washington in a quarter century and it just happens to be located near those eastern suburbs of Seattle.
This is good strategy for neutralizing the environment in the 2008 presidential race.
Is that a fact? So he cares about the environment. I wonder how much environmental damage will occur when he drops bombs on the Iranian nuclear facilites….
You tell ‘em, TheLorax — and if the Repugs use any of the nuclear bunker-busters they are promoting….. ARGH!!
Mobilizing market forces means uncontrolled growth. Small countries with growing populations and class divisions like Puerto Rico are microcosms of failed pro-growth capitalist policies.
Turning off corporate media propaganda would help.
The books exposing McCain are great, but joe & josephine q. public won’t be reading them. We have to educate them ourselves. I’m hoping 527’s will expose his hypocricy and help to defeat him in November.
It should read;
“Warrior McCain: Eco John”, as in doing whatever it takes to continue f#*king over the environment.
One of the ways to DEFEAT John McCain is to separate him from the conservative church vote. Cussing a blue streak every other day, embracing adultery in the change of wives, and profiting from billions of beers sold over 25 years (some fraction ending up with teens, domestic abusers, drunk drivers, and “oops-an-abortion” condom-skipping one-night-stand inebriated”lovers”) are behaviors that when taken together ARE NOT compatible with the teaching of ANY of the Christian churches in America. Zero. None of them.
Those banging the drum against liberals say CHARACTER MATTERS. Well, yes it does. McCain is observably lacking it and every church voter who goes with McCain must be made to remember that EVIDENTLY GOD COULDN’T FIND ANYBODY FOR THE REPUBLICANS BUT A PEDDLER OF A SUBSTANCE ROUTINELY RUINING LIVES!!!!!
Something wrong with God? No, something is wrong with both McCain and Republicans. Honest church people have no choice of conclusions about this. Remind your friends.
Considering how McCain aligned himself with the Bush crime family in bald faced ploy to gain the Republican nomination, in contrast to his position in 2000; it is no surprise that he has begun to spin his own version of “compassionate conservatism” (remember that Bush bait & switch?) that is now in vogue, the environment. This is due to the concept of “creation care” gaining traction within the American evangelical community. McCain’s obfuscation of his record is working well, as many of his supporters believe the position he took in past that matches theirs, despite his recent comments or actual voting record.
It is all a matter of perception, or should we say, misperception. Much of the public doesn’t know the real McCain. And, Daniel David, one of the things that came up in the McChesney interview of author Paul Waldman is that McCain’s first wife had been seriously injured before he took up with the heiress and then divorced his wife to marry the woman worth perhaps a 100 million. Good Christian values, indeed! (And what middle class values person is married to a spouse worth 100 million??)
If McCain were serious about fighting climate change he would be talking about getting the heck out of Iraq because the idea of wasting trillions of dollars to control the substance that contributes more to global warming than any other makes no damned sense.
Beat up anybody who gets between me and my hamburger. If I get more hamburgers I don’t care who dies. I want gas, beer, and burgers at affordable prices. How you do it is not my business. Make me believe you will get me that and I will vote for you. Also, be tough, really tough on anybody who is not like me.
The only thing that really matters to me about McCain is that he wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years. I’m sorry but I don’t care where his wife’s money came from or if he’s been divorced or if he goes to church or whatever.
But, yeah, the conservative right does care about that kind of thing, which is probably why the stuff Obama’s pastor has said has been used against him by the media, but McCain being endorsed by Hagee hasn’t been used against him.
Not only is politics a dirty game, but it’s an issueless one, too.
Eco-Warrior. How appropriate, coming as our DARPA funded HAARP project has proven to be such a success following it’s completion last year. Look at Chile, China and Burma this month alone. It may also be responsible to some degree for Global Warming. Heating up the ionosphere to thousands of degrees in order to break up molecules and create ELF waves might have some unintended consequences.
So the War on Global Warming, as so many of our phony wars have been, may just be a cover for creating geophysical events to be used as weapons and to reduce peoples living standards by reducing consumption. Just another tactic in the war against the people in the US and around the world.
THE LORAX: You stole (LOL) my line! That was precisely what I was thinking…
i may be dumb,but can somebody correct me if i’m wrong on this…..what has climate change have to do with NATIONAL SECURITY ? (IN THE AD)
If you want to cut in half the costs of healthcare, housing, education, food, and transport, and cut in half the war tax and most other costs, stop all of the capitalist catastrophes, and reduce your work week to 15 hours, then vote third party progressives in the elections. But if you want to continue enslaving yourself to elites, and help them plunder/pollute the earth, exploit/destroy societies, and kill/main people for profit, vote for every Repuk/Demok you can find on the ballot.
Sorry John would suck **** on the White House Lawn if it got him inside. He is a lock step bought and paid for Republican.
jlover-climate change has a lot to do with national security. If we were to suffer from severe droughts or flooding in the breadbaskets of the world, there is little food for anyone who is not wealthy. So there would be a revolt. Or the water tables go down so much that we are no longer fighting over oil for are cars, but water to survive.
As for McCain being an ecowarrior-to be a warrio, one has to be proactive. He’s only SAYING the environment is in trouble. He has no plan to do anything about it which means jack.
“what has climate change to do with NATIONAL SECURITY?”
‘NATIONAL SECURITY’ will be McCain’s mantra for the election.
What else does he have to work with?
His personality?
The USA deserves McCain. The mentality of the country is so low that he is a breath of fresh air compared with the Bush legacy of human destruction although his heroism was determined by the people he killed from the air in another so-called heroic war, I was part of that one. While looked upon by the majority of Republicans as a possibility one can choke on his change of atmosphere offered by a concept of reality based in killing.
McCain has read Reagan’s book, WOW. We know how his eight years helped the US. A few quotes from former officials
about Ronnie below.
“He knows less about the budget than any president in my lifetime. He can’t even carry on a conversation about the budget. It’s an absolute and utter disgrace.”
–House Speaker Tip O’Neill, after a meeting with Reagan, November 23, 1981
“What planet is he living on?”
–President Mitterand of France poses this question about Reagan to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau.
“Poor dear, there’s nothing between his ears.”
–British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
And the Republicans want another President in the mold of Ronald Reagan—
thanks RECEYCLE1……i still believe mccain is PAPER THIN….HE IS GARBAGE ….just like his “SERVICE TO AMERICA TOUR” AND “TOUR OF FORGOTTEN AMERICA”
I hate to break this News to Mr. Nichols who lives his life inside-the-(White)- beltway: Obama and Clinton are just as inimical to Mother Earth as McCain.
I have worked on the front lines a radical environmentalism for thirty years and the Dems have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to transform to sustainable solutions. IN fact, Clinton and Obama both advocate for two options that environmentalist have argued against for over twenty years: namely, Bio Fuels, and Nuclear. These two sources of energy are the linchpin of Obama’s and Clinton’s plan.
I invite anyone to do a CD search on Bio Fuels on this site: over 95% articles argue against.
McCain unlike the two front runners in the Dem Party has signed on to Bill McKibben’s environmental plan. McKibben recently published a great article on CD: please read it.
McKibben has dedicated his life to the environment. His views are both visionary and radical.
Nichols ought to go back to his corporate handlers at the Nation who are advocating Cindy Sheehan not pursue her campaign against Pelosi.
Nichols is a frigging joke like all the other White elites he works for and ought to stick to a subject he knows something about: Making money and ivesting it in the corporations who control his ideology.