Weekly Political Roundup: It May Not Be Your Fault, But It Is Your Problem
Posted November 20, 2009 at 10:04 am 
Filed in: There was a common thread in today’s crop of politics-of-cap-and-trade stories. First, E&E (http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/2009/11/20/1/) reports that the default position for Republican candidates, even in squishier regions, is an anti-climate bill position.
“Republican senators in Washington are not the only ones that are overwhelmingly opposing efforts to move a cap-and-trade bill, as the next wave of potential GOP officeholders has near-unanimously come out against the legislation.
“In fact, there are virtually no major Republican Senate candidates running for office in 2010 that are in favor of the cap-and-trade climate bill.
“That Republicans in solidly conservative states would run on anti-cap-and-trade platforms comes as no surprise. But the current crop of GOP candidates is primarily running in states that voted for President Obama last year and those states are seen as being somewhere between swing and solidly Democratic.
“Even in states that are considered ‘green’ and where in recent elections Republicans have worked hard to brandish their environmental credentials, nearly all the top-tier GOP candidates are openly voicing their opposition to the legislation.
“Observers and activists say a lot of that opposition stems from pressure by a conservative base that is vehemently opposed to the legislation. But the positions of the candidates, they add, are also a clear signal that the general trajectory of the Republican Party as whole for the foreseeable future will be toward opposition of the climate bill.”
Politico (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29747.html) looks at Sen. McCain’s gripes with the handling of the climate bill, including his supposed opinion that President Obama hasn’t sold the issue well enough.
“Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman have been working overtime to craft a climate bill that can attract significant GOP support. But they aren’t exactly scoring points with their mutual best friend in the Senate, John McCain.
“‘Their start has been horrendous,’ McCain said Thursday. ‘Obviously, they’re going nowhere.’
“McCain has emerged as a vocal opponent of the climate bill — a major reversal for the self-proclaimed maverick who once made defying his party on global warming a signature issue of his career.
“Now the Arizona Republican is more likely to repeat GOP talking points on cap and trade than to help usher the bill through the thorny politics of the Senate.
“McCain refers to the bill as ‘cap and tax,’ calls the climate legislation that passed the House in June ‘a 1,400-page monstrosity’ and dismisses a cap-and-trade proposal included in the White House budget as ‘a government slush fund.’”
“Lobbyists who’ve met with McCain say he feels that the White House has failed to pour enough political capital into the issue for him to feel comfortable breaking with his party.
“‘This really hasn’t been done in a bipartisan fashion,’ said McCain spokesman Brooke Buchanan.”
It surely seems like a valid view that the legislation has not been approached in a bipartisan fashion, but that isn’t all on Obama. And the fact that cap and trade hasn’t been sold to the public – and that opponents beat proponents to the punch – certainly pre-dates this administration. That said, it’s their mess to clean up.
A separate Politico (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29706.html) piece speculates that Obama will skip Copenhagen. Their rationale makes good enough sense, but with the McCain view in mind, they might want to revisit their approach.
“When President Barack Obama arrives in Oslo on Dec. 10 to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize, he’ll be just an hour’s flight from Copenhagen, where approximately 40 world leaders will be gathered for the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
“Don’t count on him to join them.
“Trapped between international pressure to curb greenhouse gas emissions and a Senate unready to act, the White House is playing coy about the president’s plans. And while environmentalists and operatives would love to see him in Copenhagen, they also see the political peril in his making the trip.
“‘I’m not sure there’s anything you get out of it,’ said a senior Senate Democratic aide. ‘With nothing to report, inaction and gridlock in the Senate, it seems like a wiser move to stay home.’
“Expectations for the Copenhagen conference have dropped dramatically over the past few weeks, with nearly universal acknowledgment that the talks are very likely to result in a limited political agreement, rather than in a legally binding treaty on global warming.
“Some world leaders have been eager to blame the United States, but an international wave of finger-pointing would only decrease the likelihood that Obama will attend, said climate experts.”
The climate issue has surely made significant progress in recent years, but more on the cause side than solution side. And success in politics has so much to do with defining yourself and your agenda before your opponent does. As a candidate, Sen. Obama certainly excelled at defining himself and accumulated a lot of political capital, as a result. The coin of the realm is going to be whether President Obama is willing and able to draw-down on that capital to sell tough issues.
Previous Post
February 3, 2012
January 29, 2012
January 26, 2012
