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It appears that John McCain’s “maverick” energy policy is nothing more than, not drilling in ANWR, keeping 90% of George W. Bush’s ideas, and comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter, which unless you are over 50 years old, might not be seen as a bad thing.

Here is what McCain had to say about Obama’s energy plan while speaking in Houston, TX late today, “He wants a windfall profits tax on oil, to go along with the new taxes he also plans for coal and natural gas. If the plan sounds familiar, it’s because that was President Jimmy Carter’s big idea too – and a lot of good it did us. Now as then, all a windfall profits tax will accomplish is to increase our dependence on foreign oil, and hinder exactly the kind of domestic exploration and production we need. I’m all for recycling – but it’s better applied to paper and plastic than to the failed policies of the 1970’s.”

Most of Obama’s supporters, either weren’t born, or were small children during the Carter administration. I was nine when Carter left office. Younger people know Jimmy Carter for his diplomatic efforts to promote peace, and Habitat for Humanity. Someone needs to remind McCain that the year is 2008, not 1988. Every time he makes this comparison, he is showing his age, and the fact is that Carter has rehabilitated his image since leaving office. Many Americans view him more favorably than they did 28 years ago.

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McCain’s energy plan is the typical corporate valentine. Like George W. Bush, McCain wants to increase nuclear energy production, because the nuclear industry is a large donor to the GOP. He doesn’t want a windfall profit tax on the oil companies. He doesn’t propose spending any more money on the development of alternative energy, but wants to spend more money on coal and natural gas.

If McCain wants to compare someone’s presidency to Carter’s it should be the man whose policies he supports, George W. Bush. He can use all the musty old comparisons that he wants, but it is John McCain who is running to continue the failed policies of a presidential flop, not Barack Obama.

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