How McCain Lost the Election
James Hanley on Aug 29th 2008
I found this interesting bit on my brother’s blog. Apparently John McCain told a newspaper in Peublo, Colorado, that the Colorado River Compact should be renegotiated to give the southwestern members–Arizona, Nevada, and California–a larger share of the Colorado River’s water.
A little background for those who don’t follow western water issues, which are among the most contentious and fascinating but little known politics in the country. (The Eastern media don’t cover it much, because it mostly plays out in flyover country–places where news execs go to rent a fancy cabin and do a little flyfishing while interacting with the locals as little as possible.) The Colorado River Compact was created to deal with the issues of using the water in the Colorado River. It’s a classic collective action problem: no one state has an incentive to conserve the water, but collectively their incautious use is destructive. Mexico is also a partner to the Colorado River, but not to the Compact, and often so much water gets taken out that the river dries up before reaching Mexico, and what does get there is a sludge of agricultural pesticide runoff. (In contrast, the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec are Associate Members of the Great Lakes Compact, so Canada’s voce is heard in those matters.)
But traditionally California has gotten the lion’s share of the water, and Arizona, with an ever-growing Phoenix, keeps claiming more and more. Recognizing that a long-established use of water is harder to reverse than a new claim to more water, the more northerly states in the Compact, particularly Colorado, which is also ever-growing, have been fighting tooth and nail to prevent California and Arizona from getting rights to more water, which would limit how much Colorado could use.
So McCain’s comments, if played up by Obama, could easily cost him Colorado’s electoral votes. Colorado, having had an influx of Californians in the ’90s and ’00s, keeps edging closer to going into the Democratic column. Had it done so in either 2000 or 2004, the Democrats would have won the presidency. McCain’s odds of winning the presidency without Colorado–slimmer than Kate Moss’s ass.
Filed in The Barracks, The Bench
That’s really interesting. And I’m definitely part of the population that you talk about to whom this is brand new. I’m skeptical, though, whether the Obama campaign will seize on this. It seems to me that, even when campaigning in individual states, politicians still stick to issues that are so loose that they can still capture the attention of the nation at large when they are featured on nation-wide news broadcasts (i.e., when speaking in Detroit, you may focus your speech on auto manufacturing jobs, but this can still be tied into Americans’ broader fear of unemployment as a whole). I would think that the Obama campaign might skip over the water issue because it doesn’t play wide enough. I may be incredibly naive about that. But in an election like this, cameras in every state are going to be following the candidates’ every word. And I tend to suspect the candidates will focus on speeches that can contain as many soundbites that will appeal to as many parts of the country as a whole.
Actually, I’d agree with what you’re saying and suggest that it’s likely the Obama campaign is the group that probably is incredibly naive, and so–as you say–unlikely to play it up. Only those of us who have lived out in the affected states tend to be aware of this issue (and us weirdos who get excited about water policy)–which despite affecting close to 100 milliion is still obscure.
But there’s a real chance that the Democratic party in Colorado will play it up. It will be interesting to see.
That’s the thing about the electoral college I guess, it makes your elections chaotic (in the formal sense). Will this butterfly cause a hurricane to hit McCain in a few weeks? Only time will tell.
Um, Kerry would have had 261 electoral votes had he won Colorado in 2004–not enough to become President.