McCain Campaign Strategy Working: Media Reporting "No Difference" on Global Warming

A critical Republican campaign strategy is working when it comes to framing for the November election. Despite actual facts, media reporting increasingly reports that there is no difference of import between John "McSame" McCain and Barack Obama when it comes to the arenas of energy and Global Warming. Take David Kesterbaum's NPR report last week.

If you are trying to figure out whom to vote for in the upcoming presidential race, the issue of climate change may not be much help. This is one area where both leading candidates for president do not have a lot to disagree about.

Shallow, misinformed, and misleading reporting is about the most polite way to describe Kestenbaum's report which focuses solely on selected sound-bytes rather than the substance of the two candidates' positions.

There are fundamental differences between McCain's and Obama's positions and fundamental differences about the prospects for the future between President McSame and President Obama. Differences that Kesterbaum reporting will leave you ignorant about.

Sadly, shallow, misinformed, and misleading reporting is not limited to Kesterbaum. Take for example this Houston Chronicle article earlier that week entitled "Energy plans alternative in nature, similar in goal ... experts see little difference in two candidates' overall strategies". Starting with the fact that the article quotes only one "expert" (thus "experts"?), the plans and concepts the candidates have proposed are radically different.

These media reports indicate that a fundamental McCain strategy is working, the efforts to greenwash McCain into something that he, those that surround him, and those that fund him are not. The desire is to create the impression of distance between McCain and Bush, while McBlurring McSame McCain's differences with Barack Obama. As Rachel Maddow has put it, calling John McCain an environmentalist as part of the campaign strategy is to "run on someone else's record". The more appropriate description might be 'potentially not as disastrous as most in the Republican Party as part of McCain's recycling of George Bush.'

Sadly, from NPR to the Houston Chronicle, this deceptive strategy is proving fruitful.

Comments

[jcoppo]

The GREEDY OIL PARTY has one energy policy... drill!

[BraveWarrior]

As 'Rummie' might declare,'goodness, gracious!' when is a for real, serious journalist going to question Senator McCain about his regular phone conversations with President Saakashvili. Could the recent events in Georgia have a been a planned event designed to support and promote McCain's political campaign? Given the Senator's claim of vast foreign policy and military expertise, did the Georgian president seek the counsel of, or give a big heads up to McCain so that he could have his talking points ready . Was McCain talking to the Georgian president while the plans were being finalized or when the dogs of war were set loose. Could Senator Mc Cain either intentionally or otherwise have 'green lighted' this operation. Did MCCain consult with the Bush administration to coordinate this reckless adventure and still provide deniability . Didn't Condi state that she repeatly warned the Georgians not to provoke a Russian response? Could McCain have advised otherwise, sort of a back channel. Did we not hear a Georgian official declare that Western intelligence did not believe Russia would respond so strongly. Could John McCain have risked WWIII to get elected ? Is McCain guilty of interfering with US foreign policy? Does the John Edwards's affair and lies knock the start of WWIII to the back pages?. Almost everyday the Bush administration is caught in outright, flagrant lies. Tommorrow we can be sure that some newscaster with a straight face will repeat the administration's current spin-as the 'gospel truth'.

[research]

You got it!

Read what Wesley Clark has to say about the Georgia attack on Ossetia.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/22/russian-forces-begin-pull_n_120594.html?show_comment_id=14882517#comment_14882517

[saltysea]

i've been saying this for awhile. even Clinton added to it at the conference in Vegas. I've e-mailed. so what do we do? anyone have obama's ear--this is a good subject for a compare/contrast ad.

[research]

Sure McCain can promise the same thing as Obama, thing is

McCain is lying.

McCain would give us more nukes, coal, oil and war.

Wind and Solar are cheaper already. Let's shift all the dirty fuel subsidize and grant to wind and solar, save money, clean up the air and water, and end wars for oil.

[Nonamnesiac]

McCain's number of houses response means little to most voters. It's an example of fearful, hyperactive Democratic political operatives looking for an issue who have lost judgment about how to really hurt McCain. People don't care all that much about those kinds of things.



Pro-Obama forces need to develop their own, indepdendent 527 -- something like "McCain, Too Stupid to be President . com". It needs to focus on McCain's class rank (possibly the stupidest graduate of a war college who wants to lead us in what he failed to master at Annapolis). It needs to dig up his 30 propaganda films for the Vietnamese while a P.O.W. and get them on You-Tube and everywhere else. It needs a quick ad of several so-called foreign democratic dictator types in a bar obviously in their homeland with McCain on CNN toasting his "friends" -- those same democratic dictator types -- in the background with the democratic dictator types laughingly saying "I can't wait 'til that dummy wins, we'll get him to send troops in and finally wipe out the those "noodniks" after 1000 years, on his tab. Look at the Iraqis, they got hundreds of billions to split up and he still wants to stay there and win."



McCain is a son of privilige who has never earned anything on his own. He needs to be exposed honestly, but straight out, with the gloves off.

[JohnKdrew]

I reckon it no longer matters which one is supposed to have a better set of promises. It seems to me that the time for accepting climate change as a reality is OVER! Now the world (even America) is facing the need for triage decisions -- which communities to fund and which to refuse funding to -- e.g. if New Orleans needs more money to be properly defended against the next big hurricane then Florida -- which is already uninsurable will get less money.
Go to www.climatechangetriage.net for more discussion of this.
John K

[HeevenSteven]

Welcome to Idiot America!

I posted that comment here earlier,but it was deleted. It was not an attack on anyone in the HuffPo community, nor did it in anyway violate the posting rules.

It is a reference to Greenday's song title "American Idiot"It is a slight on America's media, and the culture that believes whatever it hears.

[Dap]

An excellent point indeed.

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) sapere aude ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Always!

[UnbiasView]

The public is starting to give up on the whole global warming thing because every answer to it thus far is were going to tax you more, raise energy costs and you should use less.

[A. Siegel - Huffpost Blogger]

"The whole global warming thing"???????????????? Beyond sigh ...

In any event, your statement is fundamentally false. There are many "no regrets" strategies offered which will come in at financial benefit, with other benefits (such as reduced mercury in the environment) that would set our path forward toward a prosperous, climate-friendly society.

In any event, what is "cost"? Right now, we have "external" to the energy contract tremendous costs. Besides that "global warming thing", there are health implications, economic implications through envrionmental degradation, transfer of wealth overseas for imported oil, etc ....

And, of course, much better to belittle the reality that inflating tires correctly could cut America's light-vehicle fleet's use of fuel by over 3% (e.g., by a greater amount today than would be produced by additional OCS drilling in 20 years) than to attempt to engage in a realistic discussion about a sensible energy future. No, much better to engage in using truthiness phrases that mislead re energy issues.

[Photofarm]

Ah yes, the 3% inflating tire BS. Not sure where the idiots come up with that wild number out of the air, but that is exactly what it would be.

Government mandates, which actually mean political bribes to politicians to get re-elected is not a good way to have good energy policy.

Obama's plan to to have a " windfall profits tax " on oil companies is another failed idea from the past,.

Global Warming is done, and we are now in a global cooling phase of the natural climate change cycles.

[GreyFlcn]

Well of course Siegel, there is the Supply Side, of dealing with global warming.
http://greyfalcon.net/solarenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/geoenergy.png

[oldpotsmuggler]

If Obama wants a clear break with McCain that no one can subvert, he can throw Gore into the mix now. Granted that it ain't going to be as V.P. but something like "Energy Czar" might well do the trick. And if it needs to be something far more exlted than that, what's to be lost?

If the dude ain't making that alliance right up front and public, on whatever terms necessary, I'd have to question how much he really wants to win.

[DickTater]

I would take issue with Mr Siegel's conclusion.

Many many times I have tried to correct the mis-impression of media critics.
This is not a mistake on the media's part. This is not bias of certain reporters, this is not the media getting suckered. In the case of NPR, I would rack it up to gullible laziness...plus the tendency for media to call everything a draw....in fear of rightwing backlash.
Sure there a little of bias, mistakes, and suckers in the media, but primarily what is going on the last 3 elections (most nakedly) is that the CORPORATE MEDIA is doing this knowingly...not the McCain campaign per se. McCain's efforts are IN ADDITION to the corporate media.

The corporate media has no illusions about who THEIR candidate is. Please don't make the mistake of thinking they just want ratings and profits. Or that some of the Corporate BigWigs might want a Dem now and then. They control almost ALL of our information. A people's candidate will take that power from them and their corporate cronies who love the present situation. A corporate candidate will maintain what they have and increase it wherever possible. Continued control of the media machine is their goal, profits and ratings always follow.