As has been pointed out many other places and many other times, THERE ARE NO differences between these candidates. At least on Energy Policy you can clearly see this. I mean if you are a policy wonk like me I could go through and say there are minor differences. If you are a policy wonk in the automobile industry I am sure you think that Hillary is tougher on cars than Barack is. If you are a policy wonk in the Oil and Gas game I am sure that you think Barack is tougher on oil than Hillary is. If you are a policy wonk on the Research and Development side of things you are looking forward to a very good 4 years NO Matter What. But for the average Joe on the street, they both have comprehensive energy policies that will change America forever.

What would have been nice, given that there are so few differences anyway, is if they would have run a positive Campaign instead of all the snarling and yelling. They are behaving like small children. Since they then have to run on IMAGE anyway, how much nicer it would have been if we would have gotten this:

Instead of this:

Why would he have won this blog if he had stayed in the race. Because his policy was the same as Hillary’s and Obama’s but he made the Energy Companies pay for it. That scared the beejeezus out of Wall Street so they starved his campaign for cash and media coverage. Now he is gone. Like Richardson before him that is just wrong and sad.

They would have looked great in the White House too.

That’s right when comparing energy policies Mike Huckabee’s are the more aggressive. While John McCain has a detailed policy outlined in a speech in April of 2007, they are policies from the 80’s that haven’t worked.

While our man Mike, that swinging dude, wants the old US of A to be Energy Independent by 2016. That is really aggressive, but could he do it? Probably not but it would be fun to see him try.

I doubt that he is just saying it because neither his position nor McCain’s is going to make the Republican money men happy because they both believe in that “can’t be happening, and if it is we didn’t do it” (Bart Simpson) phenomonon called Global Warming.

 My guess is that because McCain is more moderate the Republicans will send Mike

fishing. We shall see. Tomorrow the Democrats.

Maybe I was a little unfair to John McCain last time CES reviewed the 17 Presidential candidates. My problem was that you have to look for the dog gone thing. That in itself speaks loads about the candidate himself. EVERY Democrat but one had an easy access one click page to see their ENERGY Policy. Many of the Republicans had none. They are all gone now. I originally thought that McCain lumped his Environmental Policies and his Energy Policies together, an approach straight out of the 1970’s. But Noooo he hid it.

If you go to his website:   http://www.johnmccain.com

Click on his Issue page, click on his Taxes and Economics page….scroll all the way done to the bottom of his very long page that includes dozens of tax cuts and other, well frankly crappy empty rhetoric you find this: 

Market-Based Energy Reform

• National Strategy For Energy Security: John McCain will deliver a national energy strategy that declares independence from the risk bred by our reliance on oil imported from petro-dictators the vulnerability to the troubled politics of their lands. John McCain is a proven conservative, and his strategy will not rely on subsidies, rifle-shot tax breaks, line-items for lobbyists, or big-government debacles. It will promote the diversification and conservation of our energy sources and substantially reduce the impact of our energy consumption on the planet. It will rely on the genius and technological prowess of American industry and science. Government must set achievable goals, but the markets should be free to produce the means. (John McCain’s full energy security plan may be found here.)

 Go ahead click on the here in the parenthesis above and you will find a speech, yes a speech (not specific Policy) that he gave in April of 2007. To Wit:

John McCain’s Speech On Energy Policy

April 23, 2007

Remarks as prepared for delivery:

Thank you. I appreciate the invitation to talk with you about a great and urgent challenge – breaking our nation’s critical dependence on foreign sources of oil, and making America safer, stronger and more prosperous by modernizing the way we generate and employ energy.

Oil is often called the lifeblood of our economy-the indispensable commodity that keeps commerce humming and America on the move. But, in today’s world, our dependency on foreign oil and the way we use hydrocarbons is a major strategic vulnerability, a serious threat to our security, our economy and the well being of our planet.

Fortunately, there are times in a nation’s history when great challenges coalesce with great moments of opportunity. We are at such a moment today. We have the urgent need and the opportunity to build a safer and thriving future with more diverse, reliable, and cleaner energy. But it will take another indispensable commodity to make it happen -American leadership. I’m running for President to help provide that leadership. And I want to talk a little today about the direction I want to lead us and why.

Oil is a vital resource and we will always need it. But we account for 25% of global demand and possess less than 3% of proven reserves. Most of the world’s known reserves are in the Persian Gulf, in the hands of dictators or nationalized oil companies. Its availability and price are manipulated by a cartel of countries where our values aren’t typically shared and our interests aren’t their first priority.

By mid-century there will be three-and-a-half billion cars worldwide-over four times the number today. Most of the growth will take place in the developing world, in India and China, but the increase in fuel prices, pollution, and climate impacts will be felt worldwide. As world demand for oil soars, higher prices, severe economic volatility, and heightened international tensions follow. These unpredictable forces could seriously circumscribe our future if we let them. Great nations don’t leave the “lifeblood” of their economy in the hands of foreign cartels or bet their future on a commodity located in countries where authoritarians repress their people and terrorists find their main support. Terrorists understand the seriousness of our vulnerability. Al Qaeda plans for attacks on oil facilities in the Middle East to destroy the American economy. A little over a year ago, a suicide attack at a major Saudi Arabian oil refinery came close to disabling its target. Had it succeeded, it would have driven the world price of oil above $150 dollars a barrel -and kept it there for a year.

We’re one successful attack away from an economic crisis. The flow of oil has many chokepoints – pipelines, refineries, transit routes, and terminals; most of them outside our jurisdiction and control. Our enemies understand the effects on America of a significant disruption in supply – a crippled transportation system, gasoline too expensive for many Americans to purchase, businesses closed.

Al Qaeda must revel in the irony that America is effectively helping to fund both sides of the war they caused. As we sacrifice blood and treasure, some of our gas dollars flow to the fanatics who build the bombs, hatch the plots, and carry out attacks on our soldiers and citizens. Iran made over $45 billion from oil sales in 2005, and it is the number one state sponsor of terrorism.

The transfer of American wealth to the Middle East helps sustain the conditions on which terrorists prey. Some of the most oil-rich nations are the most stagnant societies on earth. As long as petro-dollars flow freely to them those regimes have little incentive to open their politics and economies so that all their people may benefit from their countries’ natural wealth. The Middle East’s example is spreading to our own hemisphere. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is using his country’s oil revenues to establish a dictatorship, bully his neighbors and succeed Castro as Latin America’s leading antagonist of the United States. The politics of oil impede the global progress of our values, and restrains governments from acting on the most basic impulses of human decency. There is only one reason China has opposed sanctions to pressure Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur: China needs Sudan’s oil.

The burning of oil and other fossil fuels is contributing to the dangerous accumulation of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere, altering our climate with the potential for major social, economic and political upheaval. The world is already feeling the powerful effects of global warming, and far more dire consequences are predicted if we let the growing deluge of greenhouse gas emissions continue, and wreak havoc with God’s creation. A group of senior retired military officers recently warned about the potential upheaval caused by conflicts over water, arable land and other natural resources under strain from a warming planet. The problem isn’t a Hollywood invention nor is doing something about it a vanity of Cassandra like hysterics. It is a serious and urgent economic, environmental and national security challenge.

National security depends on energy security, which we cannot achieve if we remain dependent on imported oil from Middle Eastern governments who support or foment by their own inattention and inequities the rise of terrorists or on swaggering demagogues and would be dictators in our hemisphere.

There’s no doubt it’s an enormous challenge. But is it too big a challenge for America to tackle; this great country that has never before confronted a problem it couldn’t solve? No, it is not. No people have ever been better innovators and problem solvers than Americans. It is in our national DNA to see challenges as opportunities; to conquer problems beyond the expectation of an admiring world. America, relying as always on the industry and imagination of a free people, and the power and innovation of free markets, is capable of overcoming any challenge from within and without our borders. Our enemies believe we’re too weak to overcome our dependence on foreign oil. Even some of our allies think we’re no longer the world’s most visionary, most capable country or committed to the advancement of mankind. I think we know better than that. I think we know who we are and what we can do. Now, let’s remind the world.

George Gershwin wrote that good music reflects its people and times. “My people are Americans,” he said. “My time is today.” That’s what made his music memorable. That’s what made all America’s best accomplishments memorable.

THIS IS ONLY HALF  OF THE SPEECH! And I had to quit copying when he quoted George Gershwin. What generation is this guy trying to appeal to. It is clear that a Market Based Approach – which we have had for 30 years has not and is not working. What it has given us is coal, coal and more coal BECAUSE IT IS CHEAP. That is it..that’s what the market has produced.

Even more frightening is his inclusion of the most expensive and potentially environmentally damaging source, Nuclear Power on his Environment Page:

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/65bd0fbe-737b-4851-a7e7-d9a37cb278db.htm

As John McCain said, “Americans solve problems. We don’t run from them.” He believes that ignoring the problem reflects a “liberal live for today” attitude unworthy of our great country, and poses a serious and unacceptable threat to our environment, our economy, and U.S. national security. He has offered common sense approaches to limit carbon emissions by harnessing market forces that will bring advanced technologies, such as nuclear energy, to the market faster, reduce our dependence on foreign supplies of energy, and see to it that America leads in a way that ensures all nations do their rightful share.

Emphasis added

What is it with older Republicans? Have they lived in the “new technologies are coming” world for so long that they don’t know that those technologies have arrived already. Are they so bought out by the coal and oil industries that they refuse to craft policies that would shut those industries down? Don’t get me wrong. At one level, Huckabee’s policy, in his own mind would probably rely on trying to restart the nuclear industry, and ultimately trying to drill in Alaska, but those things are not going to happen. So in the end, 8 years of trying to make us “Energy Independent” would result in huge implementation of green technology.

I just wish he meant it in a positive way. If he did he just might beat McCain. But more on that later.

http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Issues.View&Issue_id=21

Energy Independence

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• The first thing I will do as President is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. We will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term.
• Achieving energy independence is vital to achieving success both in the war on terror and in globalization. Energy independence will help guarantee both our safety and our prosperity.
• We have to explore, we have to conserve, and we have to pursue all avenues of alternative energy: nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, clean coal, biodiesel, and biomass.

Energy independence has been on our “to do” list for over thirty years, my whole adult life. In 1973, in response to OPEC’s oil embargo against us, President Nixon established Project Independence, which promised independence in 1980. We could have been energy independent a generation ago! The truth is, we are so pathetically behind the curve right now that federal spending for energy research and development is only 40% of what it was in 1979. Our efforts are haphazard and often pointless: today we have six million flex-fuel vehicles built to run on biodiesel or on E85, which is 85% ethanol, but only 1,413 pumps for those fuels in a country with 170,000 gas stations.

When energy shocks and crises come, we take aspirin to deal with the pain, but we don’t address the underlying symptoms. This oil addiction is killing us. We have to stop popping pain pills and get ourselves cured. For all these years, we’ve never lacked the means, just the will. We’ve never harnessed the real energy source that independence requires – the energy of the American people.

The first thing I will do as President is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. I’ll use the bully pulpit to inform you about the plan and ask for your support. I’ll use the bully conference table to meet with members of Congress until I have the votes. The plan will get underway during my first term, and we will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term. The Huckabee Administration will be remembered as the time when we finally, finally achieved energy independence.

We have to explore, we have to conserve, and we have to pursue all avenues of alternative energy: nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, clean coal, biodiesel, and biomass. Some will come from our farms and some will come from our laboratories. Dwindling supplies and increasing demand from newly-industrialized countries of fossil fuels are driving up prices. These price increases will facilitate innovation and the opportunity for independence. We will remove red tape that slows innovation. We will set aside a federal research and development budget that will be matched by the private sector to seek the best new products in alternative fuels. Our free market will sort out what makes the most sense economically and will reward consumer preferences.

We think of globalization as primarily an economic issue and the war on terror as primarily a military issue. Yet the same key unlocks the door to success in both, and that key is energy independence.

None of us would write a check to Osama bin Laden, slip it in a Hallmark card and send it off to him. But that’s what we’re doing every time we pull into a gas station. We’re paying for both sides in the war on terror – our side with our tax dollars, the terrorists’ side with our gas dollars.

Our dependence on foreign oil has forced us to support repressive regimes, to conduct our foreign policy with one hand tied behind our back. It’s time, it’s past time, to untie that hand and reach out to moderate Muslims with both hands. Oil has not just shaped our foreign policy, it has deformed it. When I make foreign policy, I want to treat Saudi Arabia the same way I treat Sweden, and that requires us to be energy independent. These folks have had us over a barrel – literally – for way too long.

Energy independence will ease the effects of globalization because the future energy demands of countries like India and China, as their middle class grows, are going to be tremendous. Even if Middle East supplies remain stable – a huge if – that increased demand will drive prices up dramatically, which will hurt our economy by making everything more expensive here. But if we are energy independent, we will be able not just to take care of our own needs and protect our economy, we will also create jobs and grow our economy by developing technologies that we can sell to the rest of the world to meet their needs.

Achieving energy independence will make us safer and more prosperous, and is yet another way that I intend to lift America up.