Obama Quickly Slips Into His New Role

Obama continues to provide evidence to suggest my hypothesis was correct; that the likely Democratic nominee isn’t a pushover, and when the target in his sights is not a fellow Democrat, he knows how to dig in and deliver some blows when he has to.

Actually, to be fair, for a guy who is still in the primary process, he doesn’t seem to be taking a whole lot of time to warm up. In the space of a week, Senator Obama has engaged McCain twice, and I think come out the better for it.

Why, do I say that he came out the better? Well, considering the media’s mancrush on John McCain, if Obama scuffles with the Republican party’s presumptive nominee, and doesn’t come out looking as though the very spawn of Satan, that should probably be chalked up as a win.

This most recent shot fired across McCain’s bow hits on climate change.

It is truly breathtaking for John McCain to talk about combating climate change while voting against virtually every recent effort to actually invest in clean energy. You don’t have to look further than the wind turbine plant where Senator McCain is speaking today to assess his commitment to this cause. While Senator McCain talks about the need to invest in alternative energy, he rejected the single biggest investment in renewable energy in history, including incentives that contributed to a nearly 50% increase in wind power generation last year, and he has repeatedly opposed renewable fuel mandates and higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks.

In stark contrast, I’ve called for a national standard to ensure that we’re using more renewable energy, an expansion of our green energy sector that would create millions of green jobs, and a bipartisan plan to double our fuel efficiency standards. That is why the American people will have a clear choice in November when I am the nominee – between a candidate who opposes real solutions to our energy crisis, and leadership that will solve it once and for all.

Burn.

While Obama seems more than comfortable in acclimating himself to “Go After the Republican” mode, the sharp jab itself isn’t what interests me. What really gets me on this is how small the issue is. Not small as in I’m trying to minimize the necessity of going green, but instead small in that compared to the Economy and Iraq, climate change is not going to be one of the deciding issues this fall.

Not unless we start seeing polar bears beaching themselves on our shores, or something equally drastic.

Also, as Andrew Sullivan rightfully points out, this is a losing issue for McCain amongst his own base. In fact, for a man who is trying desperately to pander his way into the hearts of a conservative movement that seems to hate his guts, it doesn’t seem like a very politically sound idea.

In fact, I think it will be a very very long time before Republicans are publicly viewed more favorably than Democrats on environmental issues.

Obama knows this. Obama knows that if this election were really going to be decided based upon who had the better climate change creds, his presidency would be a foregone conclusion. It was hardly worth Obama’s time to respond to McCain’s climate change speech.

But if this is what I think it is, it’s a clear signal to John McCain that he isn’t getting any freebies in this election. No matter how big or small the issue, how widely reported or not. Obama’s going to check him every step of the way.

(edited by DrGail)

Yeah, it’s beginning to look like Obama has assumed his new role as the Democratic party’s nominee, and it seems to suit him well.