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player ready...By Jim Tankersley
The biggest news out of Sen. John McCain’s journey abroad last week was hardly the story the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was hoping to convey: McCain’s Sunni-Shia mix-up in Iraq.
And while Democrats will try to make a political punchline out of that (later corrected) mistake, some less heralded parts of the trip could be the ones that factor most in a general election. Specifically, McCain’s emphatic embrace of – and willingness to promote – a more cooperative American foreign policy, starting with a plan to reduce carbon emissions to combat global climate change.
In tones more reminiscent of Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, than President Bush, McCain told newspaper readers in England and France last week that America’s “great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies.”
The op-eds, in Le Monde and (if your French is a bit rusty) the Financial Times, continue with a call to environmental action: “The risks of global warming have no borders,” McCain writes. “Americans and Europeans need to get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand over a much-diminished world to our grandchildren… We need a successor to Kyoto, a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner.”
The policies are nothing new for McCain, who introduced a cap-and-trade carbon reduction plan in the Senate and stressed the need for global cooperation and climate-change action throughout the GOP primaries. By stressing them overseas, he’s trying to present himself as a man who, as president, could repair America’s tattered global image – despite his continued support of an Iraq war that is highly unpopular worldwide.
The more interesting question is how those policies will play at home.The quick calculation is that pushing cooperation abroad and global warming action at home could boost McCain among moderate swing voters. McCain’s friend Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of deep-blue California, has found success by appealing to moderates on environmental issues. McCain could emulate that in “purple” states such as Colorado, Virginia, Minnesota and New Mexico.
On the other hand, it wasn’t long ago that the punditry class was super-focused on McCain’s problem with his “base” – conservative Republican voters, many of whom regard McCain with skepticism over his past support of campaign finance reform and a compromise with Democrats on judicial nominations.
Neither of these stances figures to win McCain new friends in that group.
Many conservatives continue to challenge the idea that humans are changing the earth’s climate. They warn that emissions caps could further stunt the already struggling American economy. (The Kyoto treaty that McCain references in the op-ed, which the U.S. never ratified, is reviled in many conservative circles.)
The idea of America bowing more to other countries in foreign policy also upsets many conservatives, including some deep skeptics of the United Nations and America’s involvement in it.
On the other hand, we haven’t heard many conservatives stepping out to rip McCain lately. Our guess is they’re too busy shaking their heads at the carnage in the still-live Democratic primary.