Having addressed several of Barack Obama’s flip-flops yesterday, it is worth noting that John McCain is doing a few of his own. In particular, Maverick is now supproting lifting the ban on offshore drilling as part of his plan to reduce dependence on foreign oil and help combat rising gas prices.
Johnny Mac is nothing if not a stubborn ol’ cuss – particularly in his most mavericky areas like the environment – so it is fair to surmise that he already had polling data like that Rasmussen released the same day, showing that offshore drilling is popular. Indeed, given the centrality of the Electoral College to McCain’s job prospects, he probably already knew what Rasmussen would drop over the following days — i.e., drilling is way popular in Ohio (71%), and surprisingly popular in Florida. Indeed, McCain’s lead over Obama in the Sunshine state jumped from 6% to 11% when voters were told McCain supported offshore drilling and Obama opposed it.  (btw, the toplines of fresh polls like this highlight the sillyness of the reactions to the Quinnipiac poll that had Obama up in OH and FL, based on stale data from Hillary Clinton’s departure from the campaign trail, but I digress.)
There are folks like columnist Charles Krauthammer who think that McCain needs to flip on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to really drive the issue. That might help him with conservatives, but McCain might well cling to his position to show how moderate and cautious he is being, weighing the costs and benefits in light of changed circumstances, etc. And moderates care less about fish than caribou. I suppose Dems could trot out that stock footage of an oily cormorant from the first Gulf War to tug on the heartstrings, but if we did not get oil spills from Hurricane Katrina, the green concern will lack a certain saliency after voters take their next trip to the gas station.
Whether McCain can ride this particular issue to the finish line remains to be seen. I have my doubts. But if Team McCain was smart, they could use it to build a campaign theme around one of their better zingers — that Obama is running for Jimmy Carter’s second term. He could argue that Obama’s opposition to offshore drilling is one plank of a platform that supports higher gas prices, a recycled, failed windfall profits tax, and getting you to turn your thermostat down when the winter comes. He could argue that for all of Obama’s rhetoric of Hope and Change, his real positions are right off the rack from Carter’s sweater closet of malaise.
The one hitch in this plan would be that — as Dark Lord Karl Rove noted this week — McCain tends to spout economic nonsense from the stump also. His incoherence is such that it is tempting to see McCain’s shifts this week not so much as a flip-flop as his standard flopping about like an undead trout in the bottom of a fishing boat.
Seeing has though McCain needed to flip to get more in line with conservative … I see this as a good thing. Michigan, with 8.5% unemployment, is his for the taking if he can come out strong on this issue. High gas (and higher taxes) are two killers here, and Jenny-hate is going strong. She’s in hiding right now.
Could it be, and I’m just throwing this out, that McCain changing his position on off shore drilling is because it’d be a good policy?
I hope the polls don’t change, otherwise my position(s) will require a GPS system to track! What a maverick!
Wonderfully written, Karl, though I prefer the flopping to be that of an undead attack rabbit, in this case.
Play his cards right and he can pull in the Teamsters, who stand to benefit from drilling jobs, cheaper diesel and the assorted sundries that comes with increased economic activity.
McCain has never been about good policy, he’s always been about what will make him look good to his target demographic of the day. Granted that’s usually the media, but maybe some smart-guy broke through his concrete ego and convinced him he’d get even more press coverage if he started say things popular to his own party.
No. It’s McCain.
He’s not incoherent. He derives his economic positions, such as they are, from a noneconomic moral axiom re: the fallen-ness of the market — except as it serves the “public,” i.e., the state, i.e., his ego.
If he were incoherent, he’d surprise us once in a while. He never does, except when he’s lying, which is also never surprising.
Any apparent difference between McCainonomics and Obamanomics is both accidental and illusory.
Is McCain’s boost in Rasmussen an undead attack rabbit bounce?
And, speaking of which, are undead attack rabbits brain-sucking zombie rabbits? That might explain a lot about ol’ Maverick.
And Karl, yes, very well written.
Why can’t Republicans everywhere see this as a win-win-win-win issue? NEVER – I repeat – NEVER stand between an American and that American’s car. Americans seem unable to understand how higher taxes reduce liberty, how more government reduces liberty, how McCain-Feingold reduces liberty, but raise gas to $4/gallon, and they feel infringed liberty.
EVERYBODY in my office is pissed about the price of gas. MOST realize it is due to Congressional screwup, policy stupidity, and polar-bear hypersensitivity. This is such a kitchen-table issue that I just cannot understand why McCain is not demanding drilling in ANWR, offshore, in bedrooms — anywhere oil might be found.
It was good policy during the entire time in which McCain opposed it. McCain is the Man of the Muddle – when the herd changes direction, he sprints to the front and claims leadership. That’s true even with his “support” of the surge, which is actually an iteration of the Powell Doctrine on a small scale. He spent a great deal of time sniveling like a prog through ’05-’06. Just like the muddle did.
That said, he’s a living paean to political rectitude in comparison to the alternative.
“Obama breaks his word on … ” this is becoming a daily happening. Couple that with the daily chucking of unpaid staff volunteers and Granny under the back of the bus …
I would like to believe that Maverick changed his mind because he thinks his current position is a better policy. But, I don’t. Maverick and Baracky’s principles seem subject to random change, whenever it is most politically expedient for them. The only consistency about any of this is that they consistently change, and in ways that tend to benefit themselves, while abandoning the underlying “principle”.
Racists.
Maverick is already opening the door to an ANWR reversal.
This single issue could put the election in the bag, and it would be difficult to impossible for Obama to champion it. So, who does that leave out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans?
Has McCain spoken up on the KC-30 switcheroo over the last few days? Or is it radio silence? He took his anti-Boeing self-righteous indignation and brandished it about last winter and spring. What’s he got to say now that Northrup/Airbus have had the rug jerked out from under them by the GAO?
Oh, Pablo – shall I dare to hope? McCain has burned us before – illustrated* by his lack of support here at PW and elsewhere.
But if he did … O! would be toast. I truly believe that.
I can’t express to you how BAD things are here in Michigan for no fucking reason beyond it’s leadership. Sure, auto industry is in trouble, but the antagonism, by the state, toward businesses … it’s not enough that they employ people, who then pay taxes. oh, drat… I feel a rant coming, and it’s totally OT, so I’d better send.
*noted for those who repeatedly refer to McCain as “our guy” since I feel pretty confident that everyone here knows why they feel as they do about him.
its. See, I’m so mad I can’t even grammar correctly.
its. a lot like tits. Perhaps that will distract all from my typo(s).
Comment by JD on 6/20 @ 6:37 am #
I would like to believe that Maverick changed his mind because he thinks his current position is a better policy. But, I don’t. Maverick and Baracky’s principles seem subject to random change, whenever it is most politically expedient for them. The only consistency about any of this is that they consistently change, and in ways that tend to benefit themselves, while abandoning the underlying “principleâ€Â.
Racists.
JD is right. Does anybody think he’ll[McCain] follow through with this, especially with the Dhimms in charge of Congress. His compromising “style” tends to lean left. He’s going to sellout on Immigration, Inside McCain’s closed-door meeting with Chicago Hispanics by Michelle Malkin. What makes you think he won’t do the same on energy if gas goes back down?
Sdferr: “Has McCain spoken up on the KC-30 switcheroo over the last few days? Or is it radio silence? He took his anti-Boeing self-righteous indignation and brandished it about last winter and spring. ”
No, he took a stand against insider-dealing and corruption. That the Air Force then turned around and ran an incompetant bid process is not his fault, nor is it his responsibility.
McCain has enough flaws and warts without folks making things up as they go along.
I’m not in any way blaming McCain for the AF’s doings. I witnessed him bad mouthing Boeing last winter and spring while the questions over the bidding process were being ramped-up and long after the results of his hearings over the lease frauds investigations were adjudicated. He can hold a grudge if he chooses, I don’t have to respect him for it.
JD, the bus is losing traction, he’s not throwing people out, they’re throwing themselves under the wheels to help the bus regain traction. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Excuse me while I go find my wife, Morgan.
Carin,
Hey, that’s not what Jeff Daniels keeps telling me. Michigan loves businesses and strives to make them comfy is what I hear.
“The one hitch in this plan would be that… McCain tends to spout economic nonsense from the stump also.”
Good God, both of these guys are terrible. This reminds me of my old days as a yellow dog Democrat, when I voted for Dukakis (!) just because he wasn’t a Republican. This time I’ll be voting for McCain, because he’s the less dangerous of the two.
“…if we did not get oil spills from Hurricane Katrina, the green concern will lack a certain saliency after voters take their next trip to the gas station.”
That, my friend, is an outstanding point that can be put into a TV ad. Of course, I’d drop dead of shock if the McCain campaign thought to do so.
I can’t beleive that neither O! nor McQuacky haven’t jumped onto this drilling with both feet.
I don’t know more than two or three people that wouldn’t vote for whoever stands up first and says: “We’re going to drill our own oil”.
My problem is, that with these two shuck and jivers, would they go back on their word when they get to the finish line? It’s hard to trust either one of them.
I saw a McCain ad today (I am in Ohio) in which his support for windmill power and green whatever make him the candidate of peace! WHY IS HE SO FUCKING STUPID? With gasoline prices as they are, THE SINGLE MOST VOLATILE ISSUE TODAY IS HOW TO GET OUR OWN OIL!!!
Agh. I’ve never used the word fuck before in a post here. HE IS JUST SO STUPID.
Sdferr: “I’m not in any way blaming McCain for the AF’s doings. I witnessed him bad mouthing Boeing last winter and spring while the questions over the bidding process were being ramped-up and long after the results of his hearings over the lease frauds investigations were adjudicated. He can hold a grudge if he chooses, I don’t have to respect him for it.”
And Boeing deserved a ration of shit attempting to corrupt the process, did they not?
Face facts — Boeing tried something the far side of ethical and got caught, making them both crooked and incompetant. It was less a grudge against Boeing and more self-defense against the inevitable mismatch in logic that McCain pointing out that the bidding process was rigged the first time was somehow directly related to the Chair Farce’s inability to cleave to their own contract conditions in putting the contract out to bid.
Like I said, McCain has enough problems without folks making things up as the go along.
I have no brief for Boeing. I don’t like what the Wash. state congresscritters and friends (hello Mr. Murtha) are up to in this either, though it is to be expected. In fact, I’d sooner see Northrup/AirBus get the deal if it would mean a better bang (or gulp) for the buck. I agree that bidding ought to be equitable for the bidders. McCain did well to catch out the wrong doers three years ago. Nevertheless, McCain has a penchant for populist style badmouthing, demonizing, putting down big business, another example of which I witnessed him doing last winter and spring against Boeing, long after the punishments for their earlier wrongdoing had been meted out and during a time that Boeing was pulling every legitimate and illegitimate political string it could to stop the Northrup/AirBus deal from going through. Does McCain harbor some animus toward Boeing? It appears that way to me. Could I prove it? It’s doubtful, but for the purposes of my opinion about McCain, I don’t think I would need to. That does not mean he is not still a jerk of the first order. So facing facts is not a problem for me. As to the accusation I’m making things up, well, I’ll just say I saw what I saw and formed a judgment about it. Your mistaken impression that I’m arguing Boeing’s innocence is far closer to making things up, if you ask me. McCain’s problems are his doing, not mine.
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