Word spreading about hostility to coal?

Ohio Coal Association president Mike Carey has made his and his organization’s thoughts known on Obama’s stated plans for slow strangulation of the American coal industry:

“Regardless of the timing or method of the release of these remarks, the message from the Democratic candidate for President could not be clearer: the Obama-Biden ticket spells disaster for America’s coal industry and the tens of thousands of Americans who work in it.

“These undisputed, audio-taped remarks, which include comments from Senator Obama like ‘I haven’t been some coal booster’ and ‘if they want to build [coal plants], they can, but it will bankrupt them’ are extraordinarily misguided.

“It’s evident that this campaign has been pandering in states like Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania to attempt to generate votes from coal supporters, while keeping his true agenda hidden from the state’s voters…”

More commentary, with expanded text of the OCA statement, here and here. References made to an old Biden Gaffe Watch favorite.

No word yet as to the effect of Obama’s “bankrupt” comments, or Carey’s response, on other coal-producing swing states such as those Carey mentions, or others such as Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, or New Mexico.

Starving us of energy, for our own good

Does Barack Obama even want Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, or Virginia?

What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there…. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

So said Sen. Obama in a San Francisco Chronicle interview in January. (More here, here, and here) Fairly in line with Joe Biden’s professed hosility to coal of any kind (video here). Residents of the above coal-producing swing-states and others will be delighted to hear of Obama’s ambition to put them all out of work by way of punitive government fees. He went on to say that “under my plan, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” (Obviously, this was back when Hillary was still “inevitable” and Obama had less to lose.)

So with what, pray tell, would Obama fill the cavernous energy gap left by all of our shuttered coal plants, which after all do represent by far our biggest domestic energy source (nearly half our power production) and would leave us almost totally dependent on foreign energy sources if “bankrupted” by Obama’s cap-and-trade system?

The not-so-pretty search for an answer, with one alternative after the other shoved off the table, below the break.

That’s the best they could do?

The McCain campaign has released its first post-debate ad, and it’s surprisingly weak.  With all the inaccuracies coming from Biden last night, some of the ones the McCain camp chose to highlight were not impressive:

OK, the one on Ahmadinejad I can see why they used, but why not his misrepresentation of McCain’s record on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?  People care a lot more about the financial meltdown than clean coal.  Same thing with the phantom health insurance tax that nobody ever proposed.  And that has got to be the worst ending to an ad I’ve ever seen.  “Sighing?”  What was the relevance of the Palin clip on Israel?  And why talk about exaggerating when what Biden is saying is out-and-out wrong, not out of proportion?

I’ll leave aside the question of why you’d talk about exaggerating when you can’t even spell “exaggerate” correctly in the first place.

Captain Ed agrees that the ad falls apart in the end.

Man…and they had so much to work with.  Weak ad.  Very weak ad.

UPDATE: Aaaaah, I see, Captain Ed points out why they included the Israel clip.  Apparently that’s where the alleged “sigh” came in.  Frankly, I thought it was part of the soundtrack, but if that’s a sigh, then they’re really reaching.  But in fairness, I’ll update my assessment:  the ad is even weaker than I thought.

Biden Gaffe Watch

OK, there have been enough of these by now to warrant their own recurring theme.  Given their surprising frequency and the new focus on Joe Biden in the news, I just know this won’t be the last.

At a major foreign policy address Biden let fly this beaut:

“After seven years, in which our senior diplomatic personnel were not allowed to make a single contact with Iranians, the Bush administration realized the absurdity of its own policy and sent our leading diplomat to Iran,” he said. “The Assistant Secretary of State as he went to Tehran, sat down at the instruction of the President of the United States.”

FoxNews.com (via OpinionJournal.com) provides a Biden-to-Real-World translation:

In point of fact, the one “meeting” that has taken place was in Geneva, Switzerland, when Under Secretary of State William Burns sat in on a discussion between Iranian representatives and the other “P5 +1″ political directors involved in nuclear talks. The meeting, while a first, was not a negotiation; Burns was there merely as an observer, and had no formal role or talks with the Iranians.

So, point by point: Burns was not sent to Tehran; he did not go to Tehran; and there was no such instruction from the President.

Retroactively rounding up the Biden Gaffe Watch archives below the break.

Somebody hasn’t stopped running for prez…

Have Joe Biden and Barack Obama actually bothered talking to each other in the last couple of days?

In the space of 24 short hours, we’ve seen:

• Sen. Biden castigating the Obama campaign for the campaign ad mocking John McCain for not being able to use a keyboard (and later implying McCain had it coming);
• Sen. Obama saying Biden “should have waited” before deciding to oppose the bailout of AIG last week;
• Biden jabbing his finger in a young woman’s face and disavowing the development of clean coal technology, contrary to Obama’s stated position (and conflating it with “dirty-coal” plants in China in the process, which kind of ignores the point of CCT as an alternative to dirty coal in the first place).

Caroline Kennedy’s BlackBerry must be smoking with hate email from the Obama campaign these days.  “Thanks a million for the yeoman vetting process, lady.”

It’s hardly unusual for running mates to disagree.  Eight years ago Joe Lieberman was forced to “evolve” his positions on a number of issues (affirmative action, the content of Hollywood output, etc.) in order to make sure he didn’t make things too difficult for Al Gore.  Much was made in 1980 of the differences between Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush on supply-side economics (“voodoo economics,” according to Bush during the primaries).

John McCain and Sarah Palin are famously on opposite sides of the fence regarding drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an issue near and dear to the Alaska governor’s heart for years.  However, the difference between Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin is that with the latter, you get the clear impression that they have at least discussed the matter between them, even if they haven’t come to a meeting of minds yet.

Points of disagreement between Obama and Biden, on the other hand, always seem to come as a surprise to them both when asked about them by reporters or voters, and you’re invariably filled with dread at what the next conversation between the two of them is probably going to be like.