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Coloradoans tell McCain to keep his hands off their water

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If recent polling is accurate, Barack Obama and John McCain are running even in Colorado

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, a key battleground state with nine electoral votes. It’s odd, then, that McCain would risk infuriating the state by threatening to take its water.

At issue is the 1922 Colorado River compact, which helps direct water from upper-basin states, such as Colorado, to lower-basin states, such as Arizona. McCain raised a few eyebrows last Thursday when he said the compact will “obviously” need to be “renegotiated

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,” in order to “adjust to the new realities of high growth.” In other words, more people are moving to Arizona, so Colorado should expect to give up more of its water.

The Denver Post’s Bob Ewegen responded with a “memo” to McCain in the form of a column, explaining that he can “forget about winning our nine electoral votes next November.”

The problem, from Colorado’s perspective, is that in the 76 years since the compact was signed, California, Nevada and Arizona have grown much more rapidly in population — and political power — than the upper basin states. So when the lower basin states talk about “renegotiating” the compact, that’s their code for a process of give and take — in which Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming give and California

, Arizona and Nevada take. […]

Here’s some free advice, wrinkly guy: When campaigning in Colorado, you might survive advocating atheism, taking our guns away or outlawing apple pie. But never, ever, mess with our water.

Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), who’s usually pretty mild-mannered , responded to McCain’s talk about this with four words: “Over my dead body.” Bob Schaffer, the conservative Republican Senate candidate in Colorado, went slightly further, saying, “Over my cold, dead, political carcass.”

And Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) wondered what on earth McCain was talking about, since the compact was just renegotiated nine months ago, the agreement is working, and it would be “sheer folly to re-open the compact at a time like this when all of the states are working cooperatively on this issue.”

As one might imagine, McCain’s odd remarks are likely to have political consequences.

The Denver Post editorial board blasted McCain this morning.

McCain’s comments were thus not only political poison in Colorado, they displayed a disturbing ignorance of the realities of the West’s scarce water resources.

To say Westerners are disappointed in McCain would be an understatement. For the first time since Barry Goldwater’s and George McGovern’s 1964 and 1972 disasters, we finally get a son of the Rocky Mountain states running for president. And on the region’s most vital issue – water – McCain unthinkingly mumbles the same parochial tripe he doubtless delivered dozens of times to rave reviews at luncheons of the Phoenix Rotary Club.

Today, mcjoan noted that the McCain campaign is backpedaling, and trying to spin the senator’s odd remarks from last week.

Tom Kise, the McCain campaign’s Colorado spokesman, said McCain was not proposing that the 2007 agreement be reopened or any immediate talks on the compact.

“He’s talking about ongoing conversations, conversations that happen this year, next year, 10, 20, 30 years down the road,” Kise said.

Kise said McCain knows global warming is changing water conditions in the West, and that means the states need to talk. “As long as water is going to be an issue in the West, there should be an open conversation among all parties,” Kise said.

That’s not a bad spin, I suppose, but it’s oddly detached from the fact that the states have been talking. They even reached an agreement in December.

I’m curious, does McCain know this? He represents Arizona, so presumably he’d have some clue about these developments, but if he is aware of this, why would he risk offending Coloradoans with talk of another renegotiation?

If we start to see a shift in Colorado’s polls, now we’ll know why.

Comments

  • Former Dan

    says:

    How will John McCain keep his assorted Arizona properties green? Did you ever stop to think about that Colorado? Where will John play Golf if he can’t give the water to his developer buddies? Stop thinking about your own survival and ecosystems.

  • Curmudgeon

    says:

    “I’m curious, does McCain know this?” – CB

    No. He doesn’t know any of it. He has a vague grasp of shadowy talking points that make sense to no one but himself and that’s it.

    /snark on

    Don’t people understand? He’s JOHN McCAIN, goddamit, he was a PRISONER OF WAR, he shouldn’t have to be elected he should just go straight to his coronation!!

    So are we clear on that now? K-bye. 😉

    /snark off

  • NonyNony

    says:

    This is more of McCain’s “straight-talking, shoot from the hip, spout first and think later” attitude. And it continues to get him into trouble. He probably vaguely remembered that there was some talk of renegotiating the compact recently and his tongue engaged faster than his brain. He does that a lot.

    I really want to see McCain in more of these “town hall” meetings that he purportedly is going to do well in. I want to watch what he says when he gets questions from the audience. He may look good on camera during the sessions, but I suspect that his campaign is going to be backpeddling from whatever he says after every single one of them. Because he has a serious foot-in-mouth problem and has for quite a while now.

  • Fred

    says:

    “He’s talking about ongoing conversations, conversations that happen this year, next year, 10, 20, 30 years down the road,” Kise said.”

    …or even 100 years from now when we’re contemplating getting out of Iraq.

  • SF

    says:

    I notice, repeatedly, that McC will intro remarks, or explain bad votes, by saying: “It is important for the people of Arizona, and the country, to understand that….” — as if he hasn’t quite grasped, yet, that he is running to lead the whole country, which extends beyond (in many directions) the state of Arizona. Nothing wrong with Arizona, of course, if you don’t count rattlers and a hell of a lot of sandy dirt (I spent formative years there as a kid, scared out of my mind regularly by snakes), but it is only one of fifty states. He seems, um, not really clear about a lot of things.

  • Shalimar

    says:

    7.On August 19th, 2008 at 2:06 pm, Equal Opportunity Cynic said:
    I’ll believe that anything McCain says has political consequences the moment I see him lose an election

    Ditto. Remember those Airborne Express jobs in Ohio that McCain and his campaign manager helped a German company buy and now eliminate? Most of the idiots who lost their job as an indirect result of McCain’s meddling don’t blame him and still plan to vote McCain (per an NPR report I heard). Republicans can rationalize anything, they don’t live in a logical world.

  • N.Wells

    says:

    He knows water is a serious problem out west, and that Arizona doesn’t have enough of it. He knows that talking about problems is generally a good thing to do. Beyond that, what he and others have said on the subject in the past is an irrelevant blur, so he gave the answer that came closest to what he thought ought to be true at the moment: “we should talk about it, everything’s on the table, blah, blah, blah” .

    “Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I would never advocate any course of action that would damage the state of Colorado’s rights over the water, or any other water resources that is going to be one of the most precious commodities for Colorado and the entire West,” the presidential hopeful said. “I would never support any policy or any federal role that would impair the state of Colorado or others state’s rights to their resources. But I know there have been discussions amongst the governors. I encourage those discussions as to how we best use a scarcer and scarcer resource in the West.”

    McCain, who said he understands water issues better than his Democratic opponent, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, also said that it should be up to each Western state to decide for itself what new water storage projects should be built.

    That strikes me as incoherent and self-contradictory: he wants to renegotiate the compact, but won’t take any more of Colorado’s water. He wants a regional solution to a region-wide problem, but each western state should be autonomous in terms of its water projects. These statements are broad enough that there’s plenty of scope for wiggle-room, nuance, and so on, but at the outset it doesn’t sound promising. There’s certainly lots that can be done (e.g., water conservation), but Arizona’s internal conservation and reallocations don’t affect Colorado.

  • Mimikatz

    says:

    McCain is NOT a “son of the West.” He is a son of the Navy. He was born in Panama, lived in various places, went o school in Virginia, went into the Naval Academy and served in various places. Upon his release from ccaptivity, he livefd in Florida and Virginia. he only moved to Virginia after he married Cindy and left the Navy, by which time he was 43 or 44. Cindy is the Westerner, not him. He just takes on the persona. That’s why Goldwater repudiated him at the end of his life. No wonder he knows nothing about water in the West.

  • petorado

    says:

    There is no way that Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico can take McCain’s words as anything but a veiled threat. The West has always been a battleground between areas that want water and areas perceived to have a surplus. What ensues are called water wars. People of the West have heard it often enough: you can either give us your water now or we’ll take it away later. Thanks John for letting us know you intend to come after our water in “10, 20, 30 years down the road.”

    McCain’s naivete is showing. This modest proposal is anything but and the seven basin states have been slowly modifying an essentially flawed agreement for decades, but getting it to work just the same. The Colorado River, and all its attendant tributaries, has been over allocated since 1922. With the help of human-induced changes in climate, an over-estimated water supply can now be counted on to provide less than before. If McCain said we have to figure out a way to better share the shortages among the group, that could be considered fair, but McCain is hinting that there will instead be a shift in allocation to areas that have grown far beyond what their water supplies allow while living lifestyles that their environment doesn’t permit.

    Republicans are tearing up the West’s land in search of hydrocarbons, polluting our air and water in the process, harming the big game herds that provide many a family meat for the year and now the presumptive leader of their party wants to steal our water. If that isn’t grounds for rebellion, I don’t know what is.

  • lou

    says:

    Yes, my friends, compulsiveness and impetuousness, and not very well thought out judgment calls have very long tails.

    McCain, a fallible figure for our fallible times. Our time of multiple crises would be a terrible thing to waste on someone with better reasoning and judgment. My longevity provides ample proof that I have less less of both which gives me the solid advantage in becoming your next decider. I am John McCain and I approve this message.

  • Maria

    says:

    Arizona will invade Colorado for their water.

    My money’s on Colorado. Agile ski bums can take whining geezers any day.

  • fred

    says:

    I hope McCain starts talking about diverting water from the Great Lakes next, that would put Ohio firmly in Obama’s pocket

    This guy is a fucking moron…………..

  • Equal Opportunity Cynic

    says:

    Arizona will surge into Colorado for their water.

    Focality’s observation, improved.

    The surge is the answer for everything! With a new surge we’ll soon relegate water shortages to the dustbin of history!

  • SadOldVet

    says:

    Get off of McCain’s case on this. You keep forgetting that Senator McCain does NOT speak for his campaign.

  • joey

    says:

    “I would just sit Arizona and Colorado down and say stop the bullshit” Problem fixed

    Details details…we don’t need no stinking details.

  • Lance

    says:

    dodahman said: “…and yet Utah will still vote Republican, just to vote Republican.”

    Let Romney be the VP nominee and watch the Evangelicals abandon the party, then see how the Mormons start to vote in the future.

    McCain/Romney 2008
    A Polygamist…
    … and a Mormon

  • ~Blue Girl

    says:

    Quick! We have to run with this RIGHT NOW…we need to flood the convention with bumperstickers and buttons that say “If McCain wants our water…Piss on him!”

  • Chopin

    says:

    Nice post petorado. We need that water for Coors. And no fornicating way McShame and his corporatist friends strip mine and drill and log our resources into oblivion either.

  • Paul Camp

    says:

    What needs to happen is that Phoenix needs to ban swimming pools. I’ve never seen so many in my life as when I flew over them. They take their water and throw it on the ground. They act like they don’t live anywhere near a desert.

    Perhaps McCain could do a little straight talking with his own constituents.

  • ET

    says:

    Anyone want to take bets on how fast he flips on this or at least tries to deny he said what he said and this is what he really meant?