Mitt Romney and John McCain are neck-and-neck here, not to mention at each other's throats. McCain's stressing his greater national security and foreign policy experience and Romney's trying to convince everyone that he's better on the economy. This morning, though, Mitt hosted a press event at a gas station in West Palm Beach to take on McCain the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act he co-sponsored back in 2003:We're at a gas station. And the reason for that is that I want to underscore the fact that Senator McCain's McCain-Lieberman would be a very expensive bill for the people of Florida. By our calculation, a family of four would have to spend about an extra $1,000 a year if McCain-Lieberman became law. And again that's because gasoline would rise in price by approximately .50 cents a gallon and natural gas would rise about 20 percent. The burden on Florida homeowners would obviously be excessive.
Well, probably not as excessive as the burdens of much of your state going underwater or being thumped with a few more catastrophic hurricanes. But more importantly, Mitt Romney himself supported joining a regional cap-and-trade plan two years ago when he was governor of Massachusetts, saying it was "a great thing for the commonwealth" that would "create incentives to help stimulate a sector of the economy and at the same time not kill jobs."
"I'm convinced it is good business," he said at the time.
Of course, then he changed his mind and pulled Massachusetts out of the pact. So now he's hoping that opposing it will help him win Florida somehow, which seems unlikely. Considering they're one of the states most challenged by the prospect of catastrophic warming, support for government action is pretty high here even among Republicans. Popular Gov. Charlie Crist, who endorsed McCain over the weekend, even lists the issue a top priority.
Mitt's pandering to the industries who oppose action on climate change helped him in Michigan, but it seems like it could only hurt him here.
--Kate Sheppard
