Is all politics local? The Obama campaign may hope so

August 9, 2008

In Ohio, the Obama campaign is hitting John McCain hard on job losses. In Nevada, it’s Yucca Mountain.

“Imagine trucks hauling the nation’s nuclear waste on our highways to Yucca Mountain,” the campaign voice-over says. “John McCain supports opening Yucca. He’s not worried about nuclear waste in our state — only in Arizona.”

Viewers are then shown a clip from a May 2007 television interview. A reporter asks, “Would you be comfortable with nuclear waste coming through Arizona on its way, you know going through Phoenix, on its way to Yucca Mountain?” McCain replies, “No, I would not. No, I would not.”

The voice-over concludes, “John McCain. For nuclear waste in Nevada, just not in his backyard. Barack Obama opposes opening Yucca. He’ll protect our families.”

Yucca Mountain has been a terrible mess for McCain for quite a while; it’s good to see Obama go on the offensive and take advantage of the opportunity.

This ad has the benefit of being 100% true. Truth in political advertisement, what a concept.

  • Winkandanod (and where is ‘blinkin’?):
    It is a wonderful concept, especially with the addition that politics is about issues, not personalities, that politics is more than a game. It is also the concept that Obama has followed consistently since the primaries — which is why I am voting FOR him and not just AGAINST McCain.

    And it is why I keep yelling at the people who want him to start fighting back with the same Rovian tactics that keep backfiring in McCain’s face. (Somehow we seem to have bought into Rove’s self-proclaimed ‘genius.’ He ain’t, and his tactics hurt more than they help.)

  • Obama would rather import oil from our enemies in the Middle East than drill off either coast or in ANWR, or build safe nuclear plants like supply 80% of the electricity in France. I am sure no one likes having trucks with nuclear waste going through their cities, but it would only be there for a short time, and routes can be designed that would avoid the most populated areas, and Yucca Mountain is a good place for long term storage, much safer that small distributed places all over the country.

  • Don Singleton – do you think McCain would make sure new nuclear plants are built and maintained to ensure safety? I’m guessing it would be more like the coal mines or New Orleans levees or salmanella/e-coli vegetables or Minneapolis bridge. But enjoy your tire guage.

  • Somehow we seem to have bought into Rove’s self-proclaimed ‘genius.’

    Well, he did have THE math that predicted the Republicans’ brilliant upsets to allow them to keep control of Congress in 2006….

  • Don, nuclear waste may pass through a town for a short period but it stays on the planet for, oh, I don’t know, billions of years? That waste that can seep into water supplies? That waste that can seep into soil and affect food?

    How about looking to Obama’s overall comprehensive plan for moving us away from oil?

    How about the fact that the Republicans voted against having domestically drilled oil being sold to ONLY America? Any oil produced here will go on the world market. It will get world market prices. It will do NOTHING for gas prices.

    A little truth in advertising goes a long way. A little knowledge goes a long way, too. Try some.

  • DanP, notice that Don Singleton and all the other McLosers can’t answer what McCain would do, but they all seem to be the perfect parrots when it comes to chirping what McCain says Obama would do.

    For three days straight last week I noted that on each and every McCain appearance I saw, the first words out of his mouth were “Senator Obama…”. McCain has no platform, except “more Bush”.

  • Yikes! I would have assumed he’d be smarter about that issue, though I’m not sure why I’d have thought such a thing.

    And with many of his media admirers already admitting that he’s taking the low road before the presidential season really opens up, I really think landslide isn’t such an unlikely event. He really needs to stop using the pea shooter to snipe at Obama and finally figure out some sort of platform to stand on. But I guess if he was able to do that, he’d have done it by now.

  • It is my belief and hope that Obama will prevail, but the fact remains that Rove’s efforts added 10,000,000 votes to to Bush’s total in 2004 compared with 2000–an increase of an unprecedented and astounding 20%. It is dangerous and stupid to underestimate your opponent. Assumng Rove will direct the “ground game” for the McCain campaign, there is no reason believe he will not be able to do it again. The Obama campaign’s strategy of putting the “ground game” first obviously assumes the worst, that he is not a merely one trip pony and who will be able to do it again. If he can’t we’re looking at a blowout. If he can we’r looking for a “knockdown drag-out pier 6 brawl” to the finish.

  • *Note: Before I begin, I must note that while I do have some knowledge of the items of which I am about to speak, I am by no means an expert on this particular subject. My knowledge comes from an understanding of some of the science involved as well as engaging in reviews and debates of various articles concerning or referencing the current subject.Thus take my musings on this particular item with a grain of salt but do remember that there are many minds far greater than my own from around the world that have been tackling this very subject or similar such subjects for a number of years.

    While I support Obama in most things and I far from agree with where Mr. Singleton is coming from, I have to put forth that I believe this add to be mildly disingenuous. Below is footage from a crash test of a nuclear waste container being hit by a rocket propelled train.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjrRZ-9jyAM

    Now, supposing this is true, if a container can survive that, surely it would be fine if it happened to roll off the back of a semi right? You also have to figure that many of our allies in Europe have had extensive nuclear power for decades (France in particular comes to mind) and by now must have come close to perfecting the transport of waste material.

    In regards to Yucca Mountain itself, there are no doubt risks involved with storing waste material there, however, I personally believe that the risks of storing materials at their local sites is far greater. Many of the concerns held by locals in the area surrounding Yucca Mountain are shared by thousands of others who already have current waste storage facilities near their homes. One such facility (the Hanford Nuclear Reservation) exists here in my home state of Washington. For a time I lived within 50 miles of that particular site and there are numerous other such sites located throughout the United States. This being said, would it not be logical to have waste stored in one central location than to risk storage at multiple sites? The more variables in an equation the greater the number of possibilities for something going wrong. Thus we simplify the equation to one variable namely Yucca Mountain.

    Of course, simplifying an equation does nothing to alleviate the concerns of those residing in the locale of Yucca Mountain. One of the greatest concerns facing such people is the contamination of their ground water, a legitimate concern if ever there was one. However, from my understanding of how the facilities within Yucca Mountain are constructed, there is little concern from a scientific stand point of such contamination actually occurring. This is due in large part to the location of Yucca Mountain itself. Yucca is located in the middle of a rather large desert where rain fall is far from abundant, one of the primary catalysts necessary for ground water contamination to occur. There are a number of other elements regarding the specific storage of the waste material itself on site that also come into play but which I have very little knowledge of. Yet if the footage linked to earlier is any indication along with past history at other sites, I believe there is little concern to be had in regards to storage on site.

    Returning to the add itself, its disingenuous nature bothers me. While I understand the attempt to contrast McCain, I cannot condone playing to the fears of the under informed voter. Even if I am incorrect in some of my supposition, the technology and knowledge is surely available to almost entirely guarantee the safe transport and storage of nuclear waste materials in Yucca Mountain.

  • I want more context on McCain’s opposing to nuclear waste in Arizona. I doubt it’s as simple as Arizona being his home state. There are probably other factors, and if so the the ad is dishonest. If not, then I would say full speed ahead.

    The larger idea of local ads, however, I like. Voters are going to be more responsive to issues that they feel directly affected by.

  • I want McCain to tell me whose backyard he is going to build his 45 new nuclear power plants in…

    I want McCain to tell me how he is going to reimburse the people whose homes and businesses lose value because they are near or down wind his 45 new plants.

    I want him to tell me how much that is going to cost in new taxes to pay off those people…

    I want him to tell me if Yucca Mountain can hold all that poison…

    In other words… if you want to blather on about disingenuousness… McCain’s promise of 45 new reactors is about as disingenuous as you can get. It is all cakes and ale. Pure republican happy farms bullshit.

  • I am a liberal, an environmentalist, and a Democrat, and an engineer.

    I support opening Yucca.
    It won’t hold all the waste we need to deal with, but it’s a start.

  • This ad also highlights the problems with nuclear energy. What do you do with the waste? Nuclear industry lobbyists offloaded the cost of waste disposal onto the taxpayers years ago and have successfully lobbied to cap any liability for a catastrophic accident. In addition, millions of dollars are annually committed to nuclear research on the behalf of the industry. If we took these subsidies and special protections back, alternative energy would easily compete on a cost per kilowatt basis (even without their own subsidies). And we wouldn’t be burdening tens if not hundreds of future generations with a problem generated during our lifetime.

    The fact is nuclear energy will mostly be paid for by people not yet alive; for the benefit of today’s consumer. If we had one shred of decency, we wouldn’t even be talking about this being a “solution”. Of course, since McCain is, Obama can simply ask him why, as a Republican, is he for socialism for the nuclear industry? …especially since it is guaranteed to leave a mess for our children to solve.

    http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/5/9/12502/69812
    http://a4nr.org/library/nuclearrenaissance/01.2007-publiccitizen
    http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/priceandersonactfactsheet1001.htm
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/us/17nuke.html

  • Per Joel Hanes comments:

    I too am a liberal, an environmentalist, and an engineer.

    I am not a fan of Yucca, but I acknowledge that we will need a site like it.

    We currently have temporary storage sites all over the country that are simply not a viable long term solution. My take on this is simply that, as we are already in a nuclear “hole”, we should quit digging. Let’s clean up the mess left to us and leave the place a little better than we found it.

  • Well said Purp..I hope ads like this keep coming from Obama. Because Obama’s challenge is not with the McCain campaign…it is with the complicit media

    As far as transporting nuclear waste…like all hazardous material…just wen you think you got all the bases covered something you never thought of happens. If the material wasn’t around populations you would not have to worry. People have also tried to convince us there was no way a nuclear power plant accident could occur and then suddenly…one happens. No matter how many precautions one takes, keeping hazardous waste away from the people in the first place is the only guarantee of keeping anything from happening.

    Using any form of energy that creates such a deadly and devastating by-product is just asking for disaster…especially when consequences of an accident in its use can be so extremely devastating. There are so many safer alternatives especially when you consider it only takes one accident to destroy an entire city. Nuclear power creates a silent fear that never goes away

  • Jobs lost?? Who was it that got the NAFTA rolling,the demos thats who and who is courting latin american countrys for another FTA for them?The demos.Gee,I wonder why there are no jobs anymore

  • Amen to Joel hanes @ 13

    I agree with that statement about opening Yucca Mountain. It’s not about the potential new nuclear plants, it is about safely storing the nuclear waste that is already floating around.

    I do not agree with Obama’s stand on Yucca mountain, but I’m not stupid to not vote for him because of this and a few other issues, I don’t agree with. VOTE Obama 🙂

    In regards to Don Singleton‘s comments (or was that Don Simpleton)

    Obama would rather import oil from our enemies in the Middle East than drill off either coast or in ANWR

    Where do you think the Bush administration has been importing oil from over the last 8 years? Where do you think McCain would import oil from?

    do you care answering those questions? Please don’t come back with your offshore drilling and ANWR drilling idea. Those could – at best – add about 2-3% to our domestic production. Not to mention at least 5-10 years down the road.

    Time to educate yourself, instead of drinking the McCain Kool-Aid. Don’t you realize that stuff is bad for your health?

  • Who was it that got the NAFTA rolling,the demos thats who

    Really? then I guess wikipedia has it all wrong

    NAFTA was initially pursued by politicians in the United States and Canada supportive of free trade, led by Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and the Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. The three countries signed NAFTA in December 1992, subject to ratification by the legislatures

  • Using the local angle will be critical for Dems to win the West. There isn’t a state west of the Mississippi that hasn’t felt the wrath of the Bush administration’s expeditious decision making that screwed western states. From California’s attempt to reign-in greenhouse gasses, Bush’s BLM cozying up to business in Montana to the detriment of locals, to turning Wyoming into an industrial drilling zone with worse ozone pollution than LA and putting a for sale sign on some of Colorado’s most cherished lands to help out the oil and gas industry.

    Everybody out West has felt the harsh hand of Republicanism and all Barack needs to do is remind locals of who perpetrated this mess. And how he won’t do the same.

  • Please help spread the word and donate to the Accountable America. We have to fund and help with their efforts.

    Led by Tom Matzzie, a liberal political operative who has been involved with some prominent left-wing efforts in recent years, the newly formed nonprofit group, Accountable America, is planning to confront donors to conservative groups, hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.

    “We want to stop the Swift Boating before it gets off the ground,” said Mr. Matzzie, who described his effort as “going for the jugular.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/us/politics/08donate.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1218351965-wMzfK5ijxuz6vmevOKsK8Q

  • I’ve been hoping that Obama would do this– transform his elaborate 50-state ground operation into something where their ads and talking points are tailored to the issues and concerns of each state.

    It’s another sign that the Obama campaign “gets it” that campaigns are won on a state-by-state basis, not on the national level as portrayed by the MSM. If he wins in November this will be why– the Dean/Obama 50-state strategy.

  • The Obama attack on McCain’s Yucca Mountain position is typical of his misinformation. McCains “no” answer to the question “Would you accept nuclear waste be trucked thru Phoenix on its way to Yucca Mountain” is misleading because all Nuclear Power Reactor waste will only by rail in specially desiged transport casks that have been tested to with stand 100 MPH crashes, and have never been broken open.
    Why doesn’t Obama concentrate on the real problem of the security of storing nuclear waste at over 100 individual reactor sites rather than one secure site at Yucca Mountain. He says he will look for a better solution, but the US’s best experts have searched the US for over 20 years looking for a better site and chose Yucca Mountain. To suggest that he can now find a better storage site is not at all credible.

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