Say David is right and the 2008 presidential election comes down to Obama vs. McCain. That means we're looking at historic, though frankly probably inadequate, climate-change legislation.
On foreign policy, McCain has been an abysmal apologist for the Iraq debacle. That doesn't bode well. But Obama, to prove he's not a weak-kneed liberal, might be goaded into taking crudely aggressive stances -- just as Bill Clinton seemed to take a poke at Iraq every time Monica-gate took a turn for the worse.
On farm and food policy, they look like a wash. At least McCain has dared speak bluntly now and again on the fraud that is corn-based ethanol (although he has cravenly reversed that position). Obama hails from a Big Ag state, loves ethanol, and once even (according to Ken Sliverstein in the November 2006 Harper's, unavailable online) hitched a ride on the Archer Daniels Midland corporate jet.
I'm wondering, given the viable options on the table, if all the machinations leading up to the 2008 election might be more noise than signal.
Rather than obsessing over who's up and who's down, we might more usefully spend our time thinking real hard about how to thwart odious long-term trends playing out before our eyes: like, say, the rise in consumption of noxious fuel sources like coal, nuclear, and tar sands in response to high oil prices.
Copenhagen talks ready for take off: 5, 4, 3…
Obama administration may (finally) offer greenhouse-gas targets
Comments
View as Threaded
Greta Posted 7:45 am
06 Jan 2008
You know good and well that Grist readers/bloggers are perfectly capable of obsessing about more than one subject at a time.
Your argument is a bit akin to "there are children starving in Africa, so don't fret over your broken leg".
I appreciate the opinions of others (who I respect) regarding the presidential candidates. The reason that the discussions are worthy of the bandwidth is that primaries and caucuses seem to matter. Good candidates drop out of the race because of those showings. So, I welcome the impressions and links from others to help me make an informed decision come primary and/or general election day.
[That being said, I live in Florida and have no idea who I will be allowed to even consider in the primaries.]
So, Tom, I believe that you owe Grist.com and few more 1s and 0s. (No hard feelings.)
www.NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org
Permalink
dwafree Posted 4:18 am
07 Jan 2008
Permalink