The point is that McCain and Obama are, at least rhetorically, engaged. Ready to go.

I admit that the stated willingness of the candidates is necessary but not sufficient.  That willingness (if sincere--look at 2000 for a case when it wasn't) means nothing if the "bench" is unwilling.

I believe that part of the problem in American politics of the last few decades, is that Americans, unlike Europeans, do not realize that in voting for a President, they are not really voting for an individual, but for a Party. The President is just one part of a package, because with the President comes a whole set of members of the same party who then occupy the appointed positions in government. Thus with Bush2 you got the junior folks of the Ford/Bush1 administrations taking over. During Bush2 these people were even more of a problem than Bush2 himself (e.g. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rove, Ashcroft, Yoo, Gonzalez, Cox, and so on). Senator McCain himself may not be so bad (though I would say he is seriously confused), but his administration will necessarily call upon the Republican party bench to fill the appointed positions of government, and those people are largely anti-science, deniers, ideological, militaristic, and dangerous. This "bench" is exactly the sort of people who are hostile to the very functions of government that they would be called upon to oversee, just as Christopher Cox has done nothing at the SEC to avert or mitigate the subprime crisis, because he is ideologically incapable of of believing the markets are not best left alone. This is the sort of person that Senator McCain would have available to fill appointments.

If Senator McCain calling Governor Palin an "energy expert" is indicative of the sort of people he would appoint, then we are in deep trouble.

I think you are being WAY WAY too optimistic here and perhaps overly diplomatic (just in case McCain wins).

Bottom line: there is NO WAY McCain does a serious climate bill if elected. He's already backtracking on everything from caps to auctions- he wants to give windfall profits to the energy companies.

Obama may actually do something serious- at least major investments in green tech, but with the financial crisis dominating I think the chances of 80% reductions in law are very slim for the first 2 years- after dealing with the crisis, we got healthcare and tax reform, and raising energy prices is simply not going to be a priority.

I may be wrong and if anyone can do everything at once and do it well, it's Obama, but even he and his Administration are human.

Bottom line: Obama is our only hope and even then we may not get the type of climate legislation that is necessary.

We need to focus on the root causes of problems.