John McCain Should Be Ashamed of Himself

Posted by Carl Pope, Sierra Club at 10:38 AM on February 12, 2008.

Washington, DC -- I have just listened to carefully coached staff members for Senator John McCain lie repeatedly about the Senator's failure to show up and vote on the first Senate economic-stimulus package, which included tax incentives for clean energy. I am in a state of shock not because of the Senator's vote, although that disappointed me, nor over his desire to avoid public accountability for that vote -- that's politics. But to carefully coach your Senate staff (I assume the Chief of Staff, not the Senator, was the author of this shameful performance) in how to mislead callers in such depth is appalling, and surprising, because it was almost certain to be found out.

Here's how it played out:

McCain lands at Dulles last wednesday. He has time to get to the Senate to vote on cloture on the expanded economic-stimulus package, which includes clean-energy incentives. But he doesn't show up, musing on the plane as it landed that  ''I haven't had a chance to talk about it at all, have not had the opportunity to, even ... We've just been too busy, focused on other stuff. I don't know if I'm doing that. We've got a couple of meetings scheduled.''  (For the record, fellow candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did find time to make up their minds).

McCain doesn't vote. The expanded stimulus package gets 59 votes, one short of what is needed for it to proceed to the Senate Floor. The next day a stripped-down version of the stimulus bill, minus clean energy, is brought to a vote. McCain votes for it; the bill passes.

The Sierra Club sends out an alert: "Where was John McCain on clean energy?" and asks people to call the Senator's office.

Immediately, people begin calling and emailing me, saying, "The Senator's office says he voted for clean energy, and that your alert is wrong." We check. He didn't. We call his office. Stunningly, his staff has been coached to mislead callers. "That's not true at all," they say, "he voted for the bill yesterday." Well, he voted, yesterday, but for a different bill. However we phrase the question, we get a lie. "No, if he had voted for the bill, it would not have passed. That was purely procedural." But McCain's staff knows that if cloture had been invoked, passage of the bill would then only require 51 votes, and the bill with clean energy would have passed.

You can actually imagine the careful script McCain's office had to prepare to enable his staff to mislead so consistently. If you push the staff hard enough, you get a commitment -- McCain will vote for clean energy if it comes up as part of another bill. That is, of course, unless there is a procedural wiggle he can squeeze through.

John McCain should be ashamed. Or at least his staff should. I really can't imagine him watching his folks coached in the way they had to be for this performance.

Please encourage the Senator to live up to his commitment to clean energy. It's not too late to call.

Carl Pope was appointed Executive Director of the Sierra Club in 1992. A veteran leader in the environmental movement, Mr. Pope has been with the Sierra Club for nearly thirty years.