By Holly Bailey
John McCain is in Michigan this afternoon, where he just wrapped up a tour of a nuclear power plant in the Detroit suburbs. It’s probably not the best photo-op the campaign could have picked to allow McCain to push his proposal to open up 45 new nuclear power plants to help solve the nation’s energy crisis. As Democratic party operatives were quick to note yesterday, Enrico Fermi 2, the site McCain visited today, is next door to Fermi 1, a reactor that suffered a meltdown and was subsequently closed in 1972. Does that hurt McCain’s message that nuclear energy is a safe means of expanding domestic energy production? It likely doesn’t help—just as an oil spill in the Mississippi River near New Orleans a few weeks ago would not have been the best backdrop to a planned but ultimately canceled photo-op at an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico to promote more domestic drilling.
Yet McCain and his aides continue to focus on the big picture, believing they can score political points with Americans increasingly willing to take another look at nuclear and other energy efforts once viewed with suspicion in hopes of curbing the rising cost of gas and other energy costs. It’s an issue that both McCain and Barack Obama are fighting to gain ground on, especially here in Michigan, a swing state that could determine the outcome of the presidential race.
But the biggest problem facing both candidates is something that neither can really control. Voters hurt hard by the rising price of gas at the pump are looking for quick solutions that can drive the price down but in truth there’s little about either candidate’s current energy proposals that could actually deliver that. McCain and Obama are each touting plans that emphasize mostly long-term solutions, including more government investment to develop renewable fuels and other alternate energy sources. Obama yesterday suggested tapping into the domestic oil reserve to help drive down prices, though its unclear how much that would help, as well as rebates funded by taxes on windfall profits reported by oil companies, a policy that Congress has tried and failed to pass before. McCain, meanwhile, talks up the increased use of nuclear and coal technologies as well as the “aggressive development” of wind, solar and tidal energies—all long term investments that likely won’t drive the cost of gas down this year.
In the end, the debate is really all about positioning. McCain, who regularly attacks Obama as “Dr. No” for his opposition to offshore drilling, has debuted a new speech line this week. “We are going to drill here, and we are going to drill now,” McCain has said repeatedly this week, including a biker rally last night in South Dakota. Obama, in turn, ridiculed that line today, suggesting that McCain is offering nothing more than a page from the “Bush-Cheney playbook.” So to sum it all up: According to McCain, Obama is Dr. No, and, according to Obama, McCain is a repeat of George W. Bush. You might as well get used to those lines. We still have another 91 days to go until Election Day.
