John McCain has certainly scored a victory in the early primary season. This from the Associated Press:

The poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center shows nearly half of those surveyed — or 47 percent — now rate energy exploration, drilling and building new power plants as the top priority, compared with 35 percent who believed that five months earlier.

The Pew poll, conducted in late June, showed the number of people who consider energy conservation as more important declined by 10 percentage points since February from a clear majority to 45 percent. People are now about evenly split on which is more important.

And so McCain has flanked Democrats like Barack Obama stubborn over allowing new domestic drilling. People appear convinced adding more American oil to the world market would help with their energy costs. This won’t be the case, however, but McCain’s rhetoric has convinced an increasing number of people that oil derricks off Fort Lauderdale and spewing out of the Rockies is a better quick-fix rather than conservation or alternative energy development. McCain’s all for those, too, but when you’re running in an election just four months from now, Americans want to know how to stop the rising gas prices now, not five or 10 years into the future.

As I said, though, drilling for oil off America’s coasts and in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge won’t help us save money at the pump. Period. And it won’t help us lose our addiction to foreign oil, either. As columnist Tom Teepen wrote this week:

The estimated yields of ANWR and our offshore sites would increase international supplies only about 3 percent, shaving just 13 cents or so off a gallon of gas, not for another decade at the earliest and then temporarily.

By the time the 13-cent savings reach our pocketbooks, global demand would have spiked so much it will gobble up any savings, leaving all of us back where we are right now. Even the Energy and Information Administration said any impact won’t be felt until 2030.

What doesn’t get much discussion is the mistake America made by not diversifying our transportation modes with a blend of gasoline-powered cars and some that run on electricity, hyrdogen or other alternative fuels (plus viable, affordable, attractive public transportation systems in every metro area). The result of our current fuel homogeny is our current American financial fiasco: Rearranging personal budgets to afford gasoline, less money to spend on other material goods, higher commodity prices and rising costs to produce other goods like plastics and baby oil. Drilling for additional domestic oil will not solve these problems, only exacerbate them (and line the pockets of oil companies), because when global demand grows and other developing countries want more and more of the oil pie, gas prices will continue pushing past record highs.

Developing a diversified domestic transportation system will, on the other hand, solve a lot of these problems. Imagine if you owned a car that runs on both electricity and gasoline; the rising prices wouldn’t pinch you quite as much as the people driving 12-miles-to-the-gallon SUVs. Imagine if that car operated off electricity for the first 100 or 200 miles. For those who don’t have long commutes to work, you wouldn’t have to fill up with gasoline weekly. 

A lot of Americans don’t like change, but change is upon us whether we want it or not. Now comes the test of our adaptability.

Retired U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark certainly proved himself an able soldier, but as a politician, he apparently missed a few classes at West Point School for Politicos. By now, many of you know Clark committed the first surrogate gaffe of Barack Obama’s general election effort by saying on CBS’ “Face the Nation” last weekend John McCain’s experience as a fighter pilot and Vietnam POW didn’t qualify him for the White House.

Oh boy. There’s a difference between speaking candidly and speaking strategically in politics, a difference Clark apparently hasn’t picked up. I’ll let Newsweek’s Andrew Romano pick it up here:

It’s not that Clark’s analysis is wrong; it’s that it’s so narrowminded and obvious that it doesn’t do any damage at all. Of course spending five years as a POW doesn’t automatically qualify McCain to take over the free world. No one–not even McCain himself–would argue that it does. There are only a few jobs, in fact, that provide direct, transferable training for the Oval Office–the vice presidency, the governorship of a large, complex state and/or military command service. Neither McCain nor Barack Obama has held any of these gigs, which means that Clark completely misses the point. Without a past “presidential”-seeming position to base their decision on, a la Dwight Eisenhower or Ulysses S. Grant, voters must instead examine all the available data points–the candidate’s positions, plans, Senate votes and personal biographies–to determine who they trust to lead the country.

I’ll take it a step further. What Clark misses by saying McCain has had no “executive” experience is to miss the fact that he’s served in one of two Arizona senate seats for decades and now run two presidential campaigns, the last one in 2000 which could have been successful if it hadn’t been for all those false rumors spread by the George W. Bush team. While neither of those compare to being the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military and providing oversight of the national economy, mood, morality and general welfare, neither should his experience in those capacities be ignored.

Here’s the real damage. McCain has dominated the political discussion for the better part of June by focusing on the nation’s energy policy, calling for expanded domestic oil drilling, and apparently winning the debate with American voters (even though he’s losing to Obama on the economy and Iraq). Republicans started painting Obama as a politician with a vage and insufficient plan to battle skyrocketing gas prices (even though it’s those same Republicans and the president who are as much to blame for the pain at the pump as gas companies are), and it was working. Now Clark stuck a large military boot in his mouth by bringing focus on McCain’s strength - service to country - and allowed the McCain camp to again dominate the national discussion for at least another week. Instead of the media talking about Obama’s patriotism at a time the red,white and blue is flying from every house and neighborhood, the media’s focused on Clark’s ill-chosen words and McCain’s experience as a POW. It’s a discussion Obama simply cannot win. Clark’s provided McCain a rallying point: “See, they’re attacking my military record in a desperate attempt to win the White House. Help me defend not only my honor but the dignity and honor of all those who served in the military.”

Clark would be smart to stop trying to “clarify” his remarks, stop trying to be so right and just fade for a while.

I don’t know whether to applaud or continue shaking my head in disbelief. From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON — President Bush signed a bill Tuesday allowing Nelson Mandela to visit the United States without the secretary of state having to certify that he is not a terrorist.

The new law removes from U.S. immigration watch lists the names of the former South African leader and others on the list because of a relationship with the African National Congress. The organization has been South Africa’s ruling party since 1994, when a majority-ruled democracy replaced a white-ruled state where the vote was based on race. During the Cold War, the West considered the ANC a communist organization that wanted to bring down pro-Western South Africa.

Mandela spent 27 years in prison for his work with the ANC.

Maybe it took Congress and the president seven and a half years to read through Mandela’s 656-page autobiography. Or maybe it took this long to figure out Mandela’s not a terrorist after examining years of secretly wiretapping Mandela’s calls to friends in the United States. I dunno.

Returning to a topic I wrote about yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman said this to CBS, according to CNN.com:

“Our enemies will test the new president early,” Lieberman told CBS Sunday. “Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration.”

McCain and his supporters have long argued the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is better-suited to handle the country’s foreign policy challenges than Barack Obama.

“[McCain] knows the world,” Lieberman said. “He’s been tested. He’s ready to protect the security of the American people.”

So if Sen. Lieberman is right and terrorists do attack America in the first year of a new presidency, would it be fair to blame the Bush administration for not doing enough, the same way the W’s pointed fingers at Bill Clinton for not going after al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden hard enough? Lieberman may have inadvertently raised a point that’s a black mark on the Bush administration and hurtful to Republicans across the board, including McCain: The United States didn’t finish the job. The Taliban is resurgent, and al Qaeda has rebuilt their structure in the essentially lawless tribal lands of Pakistan, and we can’t keep tabs on them in part because Iraq pulled most of the best CIA agents out of Afghanistan. All of the fearmongering, all of the torture techniques, all of the wiretapping, none of that appears to have progressed America past the pre-9/11 circumstances. Lieberman’s saying we are in the same situation America was on Sept. 10, 2001: prime for a terrorist attack. Wow. The United States has gone back to the past rather than forward into the future.

Tell me again how this helps John McCain and not Barack Obama …

Breathe a sigh of relief. Call off the search dogs. The kids can come out the play, again.

Late last night, Gov. Ed Rendell announced an agreement between his office and the Legislature over a budget that was more than $500 million less than what Rendell wanted. Here’s some details from his press release:

The Governor said his education budget continues the progress Pennsylvania has made over the past five years, with historical investments in education funding.

The Governor said the budget agreement also includes:

• $650 million for an Energy Independence Strategy that will help Pennsylvania consumers and companies lower their energy costs and expand renewable energy sources;
• $350 million to repair more than 400 of the state’s worst bridges, plus $15 million for airports and rail;
• $1.2 billion for water and sewer infrastructure improvements; and
• $800 million in redevelopment capital assistance.

So, what’s missing? Health care, anyone? The Senate Republican strategy appeared to work. Remember, they recently passed a budget drastically reducing what Rendell wanted for public education, and while many people in the state slammed the GOP for such cuts, it was only a strategic maneuver. The move forced Rendell to choose between two top priorities - either dramatic increases in public education funding or creation of a health care plan to cover the roughly 800,000 uninsured Pennsylvanians. His choice now is obvious - better to finance education for the populace than get into a long-term tussle with legislators over something that directly benefits less than one-tenth of the state population. My sense is Senate Republicans are more likely to fund public education than create new bureaucracy and government-run health care.

Besides, Rendell is probably counting on a Barack Obama win in November plus increased Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, a setting prime for a national health care plan that would take pressure off the states from implementing their own.

So now it’s up to the Senate and House to debate the compromise, which they probably won’t spend much time doing, vote on the bill, Rendell signs it, and everyone’s home for the Fourth of July.

I know many of you love New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd about as much as the smell of manure, but she makes an interesting point in her latest column:

Charlie Black crassly argued in Fortune that a terrorist attack would “be a big advantage” for John McCain … .

It’s hard to believe that if Americans get attacked after all these years of getting strip-searched at the airport, they’re going to be filled with confidence at the performance of the Republicans on national security.

Dowd may be right since the country as a whole is leaning more Democrat than Republican these days, but I think the questions about our security would take several months to resonate among the general public. Immediately after a potential terrorist attack, America would probably unite, rally, then support retribution before self-examination; although with the sagging economy and nearly 80 percent of people thinking the U.S.A. is going in the wrong direction, another terrorist attack on a 9/11 scale would be even more demoralizing.

Dowd raises an important question, though, to be considered in the aftermath. Or maybe we should ask this now: If Iran truly is seeking a nuclear weapon and Iran truly wants to use it against American interests and/or Israel, how effective has the war in Iraq really been? Sure, North Korea just moved in a positive direction, but our enemies in the Middle East, the geopolitical region where the 9/11 attack originated, have not been deterred by superior American military might. The Taliban is mounting a serious comeback, Iran apparently continues meddling in Iraqi affairs and pursues nuclear weapons (if the Bush administration is accurate in its reports) and Palestinian separatists in Lebanon prompted a short war with Israel in 2007; all the while the greatest concentration of American forces abroad sit next door.

What’s really changed for the better after five years?

Here’s something from the F&M poll that’s been underreported today:

“About seven in ten (66 percent) registered adults believe that the problems they are facing can be solved with the help of the government.”

As director of the F&M poll, G. Terry Madonna, said during an interview Thursday night: “You and I both know (free market policies) work in the good times, but in the bad times, since the New Deal, people look to the government for help.”

Republican John McCain’s hurdle is to convince voters extended tax cuts and reduced regulation at a time a majority of Americans are seeking help from the government is the way to go. And they’re seeking help not just because gas is at $4 a gallon but because health care costs have skyrocketed and 21 percent of the F&M respondents have said their pay’s been cut in the last several years. One in five people have not sought medical care because it’s prohibitively expensive and 16 percent didn’t purchase “needed” food because they couldn’t afford it.

Geesh. No wonder why 78 percent (read that number again, Wow!) believe the county is on the wrong track.

June may be the cruelest month, not April, because all those voter polls really don’t tell us much about what’s going to happen in November. We’re four months out from the election, and anything - a foreign attack, a major scandal, Swift Boating - can change the playing field and equalize any advantage one candidate had over another. And yet when supporters of one candidate (in this case Barack Obama) see he’s up 6 percentage points across the country in several polls, including today’s Franklin & Marshall poll, they take that as a sign their candidate is doing well.

And he might be. There’s one thing we have to remember, though: Presidents are not elected by popular vote. Just because Obama is up over John McCain doesn’t mean he has the Electoral College locked down.

What has to be troublesome to the McCain camp is this: More than half of F&M’s 1,500 registered voters who responded said they experienced one of 11 financial hardships during the last year, hurdles like lack of health care or loss of buying power or pay cuts, and those people said they would vote for Obama by a 50-27 percent margin. Ouch. Tell me again why this isn’t a change election?

As a blow to conventional wisdom, the Iraq War came in as the No. 2 most important issue (the economy was number one), something you would think favors McCain with his military credentials and the perception of an Iraq on the turnaround in terms of violence. Yet, Obama leads among them 54-30 percent.

What raises a few eyebrows is those who consider the nation’s energy policy the most important issue, and they favor McCain 41-34 percent. That could possibly be because Obama just hasn’t spelled out in concrete detail what he would do about rising gasoline prices. McCain and the Republicans have him on the defensive, labeling him as “Dr. No” on things like drilling for oil off-shore and on the continent where it’s currently prohibited. Sure, Obama’s touted a platform of taxing oil company profits to spur alternative energy development, but are people really convinced the tax won’t be passed off by oil companies onto consumers?

The “moral and family values” voters are on the McCain bandwagon by a landslide, 70 percent to 17 percent, which makes me laugh because “moral and family values” seems so undefined. My morals aren’t necessarily your morals, and sooo there’s too much ambiguity to draw any conclusions there.

All of this can shift in a moment. Consider how Obama performed in Pennsylvania leading into the primary election on April 22. He chipped away at Clinton’s considerable lead, making the Clintonites sweat and wonder if an Obama upset in a state she should win huge would knock her out of the race. And then Obama had a slip of the tongue and uttered the most repeated word of the election (it rhymes with “litter”), and Clinton pulled away afterwards.

So … how’s your “well-regulated militia” these days?

The Supreme Court is expected to rule today on whether the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns violates the second amendment. At issue is whether the divisive Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to carry firearms or does it only reserve the privilege for “militias.” And what did the Founders intend when they wrote the words, “well-regulated?” Sounds to some like a license for government control over gun ownership.

Check back later today.

Update: The Court struck down the gun ban by a 5-4 vote. Anxious to see the opinions and whether this means all-out gun bans are unconstitutional or can municipalities and states still impose regulations.

Update: Seems like the majority - and you can guess who that was on the Court - decided that total bans on firearms like the one in D.C. went too far against the Constitution, but according to some reports I’m seeing, the door is open for “regulation,” which means we have generations of arguments over this issue to come.

The U.S. Senate passed a foreclosure rescue bill 83-9, but President Bush is threatening a veto.

It’s a convoluted bill, and I’m going to focus on one aspect. From the Associated Press:

Congressional leaders also are divided on how high to place loan limits that apply to government mortgage insurance and financing. The Senate bill sets those limites at $625,000 while a House-passed version puts them at $730,000 - a crucial difference in high-cost housing markets like California, home to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

I’d like to echo something a colleague said: Why are our tax dollars going toward bailing out someone who bought a $730,000? Anybody else perceive that as a bit excessive?