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Tell John McCain: no nuclear waste in abandoned Appalachian coalmines
Elections have consequences. What will the consequences be of a McCain/Palin administration?
One of the many ways a McCain administration is even scarier than the last 8 years of George Bush is energy policy. McCain's "all of the above" policy has frightening implications. It calls for drilling everywhere and anywhere (consequences be damned) and for the construction of dozens and dozens of new nuclear power plants throughout the continental United States.
Among the many major problems with greatly expanding nuclear power is, what do we do with the waste? We don't have any permanent storage locations for the tons of low-level or high-level nuclear waste generated by existing nuclear power plants. Where will be put the tons of waste created by the new ones?
If you are concerned about this lack of planning, join today in signing a petition demanding that no nuclear waste be stored in abandoned West Virginia coalmines.
The Appalachian region has suffered enough from the exploitation of natural resources. Speak out before we become a nuclear dumping ground, too!
John McCain plans to build 45 new nuclear power plants. Where will he store the tons of radioactive waste?
(Bumped for the VP debate. - promoted by Clem Guttata)
At DNC08, I had the chance to talk with Rep. and Mrs. Rahall. They each told me about the role that two West Virginians, Nick Rahall and Sen. Robert Byrd, played in welcoming Joe Biden to the Senate back in the early 70's.
Imagine, at age 29, getting ready to start a new job and, within a few days after being "hired", yet weeks before starting, your family is struck by tragedy. You lose your wife and infant daughter in a car accident. You are left with two young sons, both injured, to raise as a single father. You wonder if you should even take the job.
That's the situation Joe Biden found himself in, back in 1972 after winning election to his first term as a Senator from Delaware. As we all know, Biden did serve that term, his first of many. Today, he is now the VP candidate for the Democratic party.
A lesser known part of the story is the role two West Virginians played in welcoming Biden to the Senate and helping him manage his daily Amtrak commute back to his kids in Delaware.
Back in 1972, Nick Rahall was a staff member in the office of Senate majority whip, W.Va. Sen. Robert Byrd. (A few years later, Rahall was elected to the first of many, many terms he has served in the House of Representatives.)
As Joe Biden mourned the passing of his wife and daughter, it was Byrd and Rahall who came from Washington to attend the funeral.
Once Sen. Biden took office, he was keenly interested in knowing the Senate vote schedule each day--in order to know what train he could catch home. Every day he called down to the Senate cloakroom. In those early years, it was Nick Rahall he asked for. To this day, when Sen. Joe Biden sees Nick Rahall, he fondly remembers his help in those early Senate days.
Is Gov. Sarah Paling going to meet the press as infrequently as the rarely-seen Bush-McCain Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02) visits her district?
Here's just one example of how picking Palin--instead of somehow with actual experience and ability to campaign for McCain--hurts Republican all up and down the ticket. Via Atrios, today's Sunday pundit show line-up:
Democratic Governors Association (DGA) Chair West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin will speak to a prime-time audience on Tuesday, Aug. 26, at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
* When you watch the convention, look and listen for Jefferson County resident Alice Germond calling the roll.
Germond serves as Secretary for the Democratic National Committee which will guarantee her a front row seat next week.
"My most exciting moment....is when I actually call the roll at the Convention," Germond said in an interview with MetroNews. "That, in itself, is a very magical moment when Barack Obama will go over the top and there will be the kind of energy and excitement around that."
The speculation about Obama's VP selection will reach a fevered pitch in the next few days.
All indications are Obama will make a formal announcement this Wednesday or Thursday, with the objective of merging the VP selection and convention news cycles into one (with a short interruption for the Olympic closing ceremonies). McCain will be sucking for air, with all the oxygen long gone from his foreign policy misadventure.
I'm not one to shy away from bold predictions, so here's my gaze into the crystal ball for VP selections...
(I readily admit to a wishful thinking bias... I'm projecting an outcome I'm the least unhappy with!)
- Obama will not pick Kaine, Bayh, Richardson or Biden. The first two are media darlings because they are far right of Obama on almost all policy positions. The second two are gaffe prone.
- Obama will pick one of these four: Mark Warner, Tom Daschle, Kathleen Sebelius or Jack Reed. Forced to make a choice, my gut feel today is Warner, with Daschle a close second. Still, I'll be very surprised if anyone other than these four is picked.
- Among the NetRoots favorites, Clark is definitely out, Dodd was never actively considered after his most favored client mortgage scandalette broke.
Some other VP related observations and predictions.
- McCain thinks he is being really clever by waiting for Obama to pick first. This is going to backfire. First off, Obama will control press coverage for almost two weeks with the pre-VP pick, the VP pick and the Dem. convention. McCain will squeeze his VP pick and convention into one low-energy (by comparison to the Olympics and Dem. convention) week.
- McCain's pick will be analyzed as a response to Obama's. (It's all about Obama!) This may seem clever at first, but will ultimately look like a hair-trigger reaction instead of a well-thought through response. It will ultimately strengthen the image of McCain as a candidate with no strategy, McCain as a candidate unable to provide campaign leadership, and McCain with a rudderless campaign. There will be inevitable messaging screw-ups between McCain (who can't stay "on message" for an afternoon) and his VP. Whoever is McCain's VP choice has an impossible task of threading the Bush/McCain loyalty/reform needle.
- Obama is holding off on hard-hitting national contrast ads with McCain until after the VP selection. Once the VP is on board, they will pick one of the many vulnerable fronts to go after McCain. Right now, he's hitting him hard on state-level issues (Yucca Mountain, Ohio DHL plant, etc.). If the VP is Warner or Sebelius, watch for Obama to hit McCain hard for how many years he has spent in Washington (26?). If it's Daschle or Reed, it'll be a different line of attack.
That's the view in my crystal ball. What do you see in yours?
Todd Beeton at MyDD has more (on the URL and other VP speculation). I agree with Booman...
Needless to say, the selection of Bayh would be met by stony silence at best within the Progressive Movement. Many would be outraged and consider it a betrayal of trust. For my part, I'd be bitterly disappointed. But I wouldn't read it as anything more or less than a strategic calculation.
Two thoughts about very different aspects of the Presidential election.
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(1) It's called a dog whistle because only the dog hears it. The neighbors have no idea there's a loud noise, but you sure get the dogs attention. If you're not the target of the message, you won't see it. Once you know what to look for, though, it screams out at you, it's glaringly obvious.
And, yes, I'm talking about McCain's recent advertising. Obama as a scary black man with young sexually available white woman--that's absolutely a racist line of attack.
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(2) If you paid close attention to the Obama campaign during the primary, you'll remember he won by being smart. His campaign figured out where the most delegates could be won per resource expended--that's how he gained a Super Tuesday margin that turned into an insurmountable lead.
That's the missing piece none of the "experts" are talking about in this year's national election map. It's not about Kerry states + this state or that one. It's about the Obama campaign looking at where he can win the most electoral votes the most efficiently.
Where can he move the most votes with his field organization, with paid media (per dollar per voter) and with his visits (again, per voter)? This is also why his VP selection will have nothing to do with electoral votes. He needs someone to help share the work everywhere, not in just one special somewhere.
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What seems obvious to you that no one is talking about?
For Obama's VP, today's out-of-left field prediction is Tom Daschle.
It sounds as reasonable as any other prediction to me. I do think it's just as likely Obama will pick someone we haven't heard about yet as someone we have. From the public "short list," my prediction remains Kathleen Sebelius.
On the Republican front... my best guess is Mitt Romney. (Maybe it's just wishful thinking, though.)
Romney is the least worse choice for McCain. Besides, if past performance predicts future behavior, McCain is attracted to youthful good looks and money.
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