The Glade 4.0

This is in regards to cap and trade.

So, in the 2008 presidential election, Candidate John McCain and Sarah Palin ran on a strong platform supporting cap and trade legislation. In fact, it was a Republican idea. It was the market solution. It was trumpeted as their energy plan.

But now, it's as if reality has entirely shifted, and now cap and trade is a ginormous socialist plot hell bent on taxing everyone into the soviet stone age. In fact, both John McCain and Sarah Palin, in an apparent case of alien bodysnatching, have come out fiercely against the very thing they campaigned on in 2008.

So, as a Republican or a conservative, if you supported the McCain/Palin ticket and their platform in 2008, do you now support their total turnaround on cap and trade?

I see this cognitive dissonance all the time. Another example is McConnell and his somewhat inexplicable 180 degree turn on federal requirements for disclosure regarding large campaign donations or advertising. Not long ago, he sponsored legislation that he's now completely turned around on.

Politicians do this thing from time to time, but generally they explain why they have switched positions on a given subject. In this case, it's almost as if the Republicans have just shifted realities without explanation. And the thing that absolutely baffles me is how republican voters just go along with it as if nothing ever happened. Can someone explain this to me?

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Honestly, I'm not familiar with the "Cap and Trade" plan that McCain/Palin were proposing, nor supporting, and without a clear delineation between what theirs involved and what is currently being proposed, its just as likely that people are using the terms "cap and trade" as an over reaching category rather than specific points, to score political points about "cognitive Dissonance".

Care to highlight the similiarities, other than media accepted name, and the differences?

[youtube]Si-htSSHxsE[/youtube]

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Holy shitsnacks!

It's actually a 180 degree turn.

Here are some relevant quotes -



and -



His big objection to the bill as it is in Congress was that would have auctioned 100% of the initial emissions permits. However, in the process of the bill working it's way through congress, that got knocked down to 85%.

McCain's opponent in the senate primary called him on this turnaround recently.

This is a Democratic page, but it has a screen shot of the the McCain/Palin plank. It's also got some other total turnaround quotes from the McCain/Palin campaign regarding climate change.

Cap and trade worked really well under Bush Sr. He went after it aggressively, and as a result seriously reduced acid rain a very low cost (about 2 billion as opposed to the projected 25 billion). It's was, once upon a time, a conservative idea. Now that Democrats are enacting it, suddenly it's big government cap and tax and it gonna wreck the economy. Or something.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

5

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

So what exctly is the cognitive dissonance? Most people here dislike John McCain and think he's nowhere near conservative enough. Moreover, just because he proposed it doesn't mean all conservatives have to agree with tht particular idea in order to support him.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

We don't like McCain. Try again you loon.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Because we do not vote/think/party register in lock step? I am conservative and 90% of the time I think McCain is a piece of ****. I did not vote for him out of ideology even though I thought he was slightly less worse the obama.

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

But that doesn't make sense to the collectivist mind. You are all X therefore you all think like Y.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Sheesh, I'd think that an easier target for you, Monte, would be McCain's flipflop from pro-comprehensive immigration reform to a pro-seal the border guy.

I'm a bit more friendly to McCain than other AZ posters on the board, being a blue-dog Democrat (although I'm contemplating becoming independent), but I'm not all that happy with McCain either. He's blown his credibilty by doing whatever it takes to seem relevant for his 2008 presidential run. But to me, JD Hayworth just seems too Washington smarmy dishonest for me, and the other guy is a non-starter- I don't even know his name. But the AZ Dems can't and won't put up a candidate that has a chance either...I'll likely vote none of the above come November.

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Women are from Hoboken, men are from Trenton. ~ Jimmy Kimmel

Make a statement and vote third party.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

You mean like Ross Perot ?

I mean like anybody who isn't a D or R, actually. If you're not happy with your D and R choices, don't just "not vote," throw your vote away on a 3rd party playa'.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Only problem is, DFK!, is that I truly don't see anyone I would want to vote for for Senate this year. So I figure the only way to truly voice my displeasure with all the useless candidates is "none of the above".

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Women are from Hoboken, men are from Trenton. ~ Jimmy Kimmel

I have an idea! Go jump off a cliff, Monte.

Now, just before you hit, ask yourself who's the fool - the guy with the idea or the guy that actually does it.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Monte.

I voted for McCain because of several other issues We agree upon. These issues are the main source of contention between myself and our President. Was he the ideal candidate? Hardly and this why I didn't support him the primary

Now would you care to tell me why people who are oh so certain that fossil fuels are destroying the planet fly around in private jets and riding in big heavy low mpg limos. And why do those that don't hold up those that do as having the answer to the problem?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Monte -

I really like McCain, overall. Anyway, cap and trade is a good idea at a distance, but starts running into problems with details. A lot of problems. I haven't seen the current plan nor the one he was promoting, so it's hard to answer your question.

Rest of you -

It was a well written, legitimate question. Lighten the **** up.

I can't stand McCain. I didn't vote for him in the 2008 general. I won't vote for him in the 2010 primary. I will vote 3rd party when he wins the primary.

Do you seriously have it in your head that we all love him?

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The Dude abides.

Thanks for the link, but that page doesn't really answer any questions. Its all just partisan fluff, especially considering what they link as their "evidence" of the flop is a political statement with no substance.

What I can tell is the framework of McCain's platform was (basically the talking points and not real proposals):

1) Limit GH gases and set up an market for exchange of GH credits.
2) Encourage low cost compliance options.
3) Promote innovation, development and deployment of advanced technologies
4) Reform federal research funding and infrastructure
5) Support rapid economic growth
6) Use revenue from auction to mitigate economic costs to low income families

The rebuttals on that site you linked aren't very good and shift the posts, at least the first two. The third does actually demonstrate a shift in position, but the argument behind the shift is likely that whatever is being proposed under the WH Cap and Trade plan does not meet the 5th criteria from the McCain plan, true or not, since that is the actual critique.

Do you have something of any substance that compares the plans to support your claim?

And btw, all the "shifts" in position that your site highlights are with Palin, nothing from McCain, and certainly not "Republicans" as a whole. Got something to back up your claim? Its not like he said they were going to 'drain the swamp".

Let me see if I can find some video for you. Here -

McCain endorsing Cap and Trade

Palin gets the Full Flop rating from Politifact on the subject

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

The most reliable way to predict McCain's policy positions is to just assume he's going to act like a sore loser and oppose everything the guy who beats him supports. In the 90s, he was basically a standard Republican Senator. Then he lost a bitter primary to GW Bush in 2000 and suddenly went all "maverick" and started opposing Republican policies and supporting centrist ideas like cap and trade and liberal ideas like immigration reform. Then he lost another Presidential election to Obama and suddenly started voting lockstep with Republicans again, even when doing so involved voting against policies he had voiced support for just months earlier.

Thanks for the additional links, though watching videos is not currently an option here, but I'll take a look at it later. However, that second link is crap, and again, goes after Palin (who's an easy target) on the rather vague set of comments without delving into they why. Supporting cap and trade does not mean you support every proposal that is called cap and trade, nor every component of said bills.

That said, I did some of my own looking to familiarize myself with the topic, and found this analysis of the McCain/Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act of 2003. I haven't finished reading it, but when I do, I'll see if I can find a similiar investigation of the current plans of the WH, which will probably be difficult since the WH isn't suppose to introduce bills.

Then we can have a comparison and actually have a discussion about the topic.

Fair enough, but I don't view abstention as a "none of the above" vote. What we actually need in this country IS a "none of the above" option. In the meantime, I find literally any third party candidate to be of sufficient "none of the above-ness" to be worth it.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I haven't yet found a concise list of what Obama was proposing for his Cap and Trade program, but I did find this article in the WSJ that discussed some of the numbers.

Now, as a caveat, that summary I linked earlier dealt only with Title III of the McCain/Lieberman bill (the exchange portion), and I haven't yet read the entire bill, whereas the WSJ article appears to talk about more of what is proposed by Obama than just the exchange. However, some differences:

The McCain/Lieberman exchange would be $14/ton of CO2, whereas Obama said that $20/ton was conservative and likely to be much higher. $20/ton is significant increase in cost.

At $14/ton, "this would add about 13¢ per gallon of gasoline, 77¢ per thousand cubic feet of natural gas, and $32 per short ton of coal. Based on current national average prices of $1.45 per gallon of gasoline, $3.78 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas, and $33 per short ton of coal, payment of $14 for each ton of carbon dioxide would effectively raise the cost of using gasoline by 9%, the cost of using natural gas by 20%, and the cost of using coal by 100%."

The Obama plan appears to be more focused on wealth redistribution than investing in new technologies, considering only 19% of the funds collected via the sale would actually go towards research for new/improved technologies and implementation. The rest is handed out to lower income households via additional tax credits.

Additionally, from the WSJ,



As soon as I read the McCain/Lieberman bill to see what other taxes and fees are being imposed on industries, like the OBaman plan, we can compare that section.

Whoa, where are gas prices $1.45!?

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine