Which candidate I will support in the next Presidential election is still up for grabs but the front page of today's Washington Post definitely gives me pause on one.
It's not a rock star I seek to lead the country out of a collosal mess. Charisma's great, but ultimately overrated. I'm not a big party or ideology person either. What I desperately seek instead is a candidate with the most beneficial policy prescriptions and the greatest odds for honest implementation. It's that simple. Policy that fits this mold, not coicidentally, comes exclusively from the left, so here I am. But doesn't it figure that at this point, the one person I most trust with my favored policy aspirations isn't even running? (a luxury not to be underestimated, I suppose)
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In the clash of old politics and pressing new issues, the tightrope a viable candidate must walk is so clearly illustrated on the front page of the Washington Post today. Obama's got himself in a pickle. From Coal Fuels A Debate Over Obama; Democrat Stuck Between Industry and Environment:
Three years later, with Obama now a candidate for president, his embrace of southern Illinois and its dominant industry is showing signs of strain. Obama finds himself caught between his advocacy of huge federal subsidies for liquefied coal for transportation fuel, a technology that the Illinois coal industry views as a salvation, and environmental groups that reject it as a boondoggle that would set back efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the fight against global warming.
After co-sponsoring legislation earlier this year for billions of dollars in subsidies for liquefied coal, Obama more recently began qualifying his support in ways that have left both environmentalists and coal industry officials unsure where he stands.
I can forgive a rookie mistake, but as the lead sponsor on a subsidy package providing BILLIONS of subsidies for the coal industry, I do hope that Senator Obama doesn't want to be The Coal Candidate or worse, The Coal President. Hillary Clinton has expressed support for coal gasification/liquification in the past but has not yet articulated her position on this uber-subsidy package, as far as I can see. But I'm pretty certain that you'd never see Al Gore's name on that package, and probably not John Edwards either.
I do adore Obama but he's going to lose me on this one as I'm up nights worried about the shrinking window of opportunity we face on global warming. That window, by the way, is considerably smaller than the time it will take to figure out what to do with all of the CO2 we're going to produce with all of that coal Obama wants to subsidize.
I hope that someone here can better articulate how his conflicted position as lead sponsor represents progress, not business as usual.