McCain seems to abandon position on ethanol

Articles — By forcechange on October 29, 2008 9:27 am

NYT’s The Caucus reported yesterday that McCain, while campaigning in Iowa, inserted an important and powerful word into his remarks, stating, “We’ll invest in all energy alternatives: nuclear, wind, tide, solar, ethanol, biofuels.”  His running mate also called for: “harnessing alternative sources like the wind, and the solar and the biomass and the geothermal and the ethanol.”  This is a significant policy shift for McCain and his campaign.

Historically he has rightly been an ardent opponent of ethanol subsidies and protectionist tariffs.  By explicitly adding ethanol as one of the alternative energies that the government should support, McCain may be signaling a shift away from his original position and a move towards the misguided Obama pro-ethanol policy. 

However, this is election season, and no policy is protected from the political winds.  McCain is trailing Obama by double digits in Iowa, and Iowans stand to gain substantially from government support of ethanol.  Interestingly, however, this local Iowan poll indicates that “only 29 percent of voters polled said they would be less likely to vote for McCain because of his outspoken opposition to ethanol subsidies.” 

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