Obama’s Black Mark
Since I wasn’t in his super-secret blogger meeting, I might not the best person to express an opinion on this, but if Brian Beutler is right that Obama does indeed support further subsides for coal ” to segue into a green energy future,” than I’m incredibly disappointed. Obama’s spat with Hillary over the meetings with bad guys, what to do first in responding to terrorist attack, his disavowal of nuking Pakistan and his using his opposition to the Iraq War as a pivot to outflank the right on security and terrorism have left me very impressed with him, but now my doubts are creeping back.
I hope this talk on coal subsidies is just his Illinois politician instincts coming out (there’s a city in southern Illinois called Carbondale), but if we’re going to be serious on climate change, our next president will have to eventually tell the Coal lobby and their Kentucky, West Virginia and Illinois constituencies to go fuck themselves. If Obama is serious about being a “transformational” candidate, he’ll show some balls and do this. I know Democrats have to pander to all sorts of unseemly types during the primary, so we’ll wait and see.
On another note, when compared to the amount of opprobrium Chuck Schumer recieved for his pandering to Wall Street on the carried interest issue, Obama’s pandering is much, much more serious and worrying. Maybe in his next double secret blogger meeting he’ll be reproached for this.
I think some genuine courage on Obama’s part over this issue is very unlikely. The more likely step is that if he wins the nomination and this coal issue becomes more widespread he’ll position it as if he’s being courageous by bucking his progressive base.
Obama’s certainly got the audacity of something. I don’t think “hope” is the right word.
Ned
August 4, 2007 at 7:09 pm
I can’t resist repeating my comment on Obama/Coal from Beutler’s blog:
Well, consider the whole game, Brian. Let’s say he’s not the Dem. Pres. candidate. He has to run again as US Sen. from Illinois, or run for Governor of Illinois to remain viable for 4/8 years after the 08 elections when he tries again for the Pres. spot. This is just the first quarter for him.
Now tell me why coal isn’t part of his future? (heheh)
I’ll forgive him this one, since I’d do the same thing, and hypocrisy is spelled the same north and south, east and west. I might even support digging up the coal to put it later in salt mines to keep it ’safe’, if I were in his shoes – the national coal reserve.
Obama clearly has a strong reason for being flakey on coal at this moment in time. He’s got to get re-elected in Illinois, and I’m pretty confident he and his campaign recognize that he’s not the leading Presidential candidate in 08.
The whole picture is helpful/necessary. As President, he could find a way to deal with the coal states – offering goodies for suppressing their extractive cash-machine at the appropriate future moment. But he’s not President now, and likely won’t be for at least nine years – several lifetimes in Illinois politics.
Give him a break, guy. In Illinois there are four things: Chicago (black, largely), Chicago suburbs (white, largely), corn and coal. In the corn/coal areas, a black man from Chicago has to do some real hard work to get votes and win an election.
JimPortlandOR
August 5, 2007 at 1:46 pm