Negative campaigning drown out news on science — week of 07 September 2008

As the Republicans and John McCain openly try to turn the presidential campaign away from highlighting differences between McCain and Barack Obama on energy, education, economics, and national security, and toward a referendum on “culture and values,” serious discussions of issues related to science have been hard to come by. Instead, it was a week filled with manufactured controversies (lipstick on a pig), silly measures of experience (small town mayor versus community organizer), and the media’s role in perpetuating dirty campaigning (balance at the cost of truth).

But underneath the mud, there have been a few science-related issues that have made it into the news.

Climate of change?

MinnPost.com , a virtual newspaper in the Twin Cities (site of the Republican convention) ran an analysis piece on September 11, headlined “Climate Change Getting the Attention of Both Parties .” The story noted that the Republican convention ended with John McCain agreeing with scientists and Obama that global warming is an urgent problem calling for major changes in marketing and use of energy.

“This is a first, where you not only have both candidates agree that climate change is real and we are causing it but also agree that we need a market-based approach to it,” MinnPost.com quoted J. Drake Hamilton, science policy director for Fresh Energy, a nonprofit organization in St. Paul that promotes clean energy. The article goes on to look at the differences between the “cap and trade” plans the candidates support.

Opinions raised on energy debate

The energy debate, such as it is, continued to focus on the Republican mantra “Drill, baby, drill.” About 12,000 McCain supporters took up the chant during a massive rally in Virginia during the week.

While Obama has moved his position toward allowing more offshore drilling than is currently allowed as part of a wider alternative energy plan, the Republicans are still hammering the Democrats for slowing the “drilling” solution to high gasoline prices. The argument seems to have gained credence among many voters despite a Department of Energy assessment that more drilling wouldn’t have any impact on prices for a least a decade, and then would result in at best a marginal change.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, appearing on Meet the Press Sunday , criticized the Republican focus on drilling as a solution to the energy crisis. In a quote that Democrats are circulating on the Web, Friedman noted that the Republicans are missing the arrival of the energy technology revolution.

FRIEDMAN: I’m actually not against drilling. What I’m against is making that the center of our focus because we are on the eve of a new revolution, the energy technology revolution. It would be as if on the eve of the IT revolution, the revolution of PCs and the internet, someone was up there standing and demanding, “IBM Selectric typewriters, IBM Selectric typewriters.” That’s what “drill, drill, drill” is the equivalent of today.

A New York Times editorial jumped into the energy issue on Sunday, September 7, with, “John McCain’s Energy Follies .” The Times says “increasing oil production remains the centerpiece of his strategy,” and then notes that McCain’s positions divert public attention from an “unavoidable truth: a nation that uses one-quarter of the world’s oil while owning only 3 percent of its reserves cannot drill its way to happiness or self-sufficiency.”

Energy policy moves

But in Congress, Democrats were trying to quell the calls for more drilling by offering a new offshore drilling plan that is part of a broader energy package that would roll back tax breaks for the largest oil companies and require them to pay royalties to spur renewable energy programs and conservation. That story, with all of the standard back and forth between Republicans and Democrats, was detailed in many reports, including the Associated Press, the Washington Post, and, insightfully, TheHill.Com.

Bloomberg News wrote an analysis that concluded the cost of John McCain’s plan to revive the US nuclear power industry with 45 new reactors would be $315 billion, with taxpayers bearing much of the financial risk.

Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle covered an appearance by oilman T. Boone Pickens, who continued to pitch his plan for building a wind power corridor in the Midwest to replace power now produced by natural gas. Pickens told the Society of American Business Editors and Writers that he has already accomplished one of his goals in proposing the $58 million wind program. “What I wanted when I started this campaign of mine, what my plan was, was to get it elevated so the candidates were going to talk about it,” Pickens said. He said he’s talked to both presidential candidates about his program, and “both of them were 10s as far as interest.”

Stem Cells

Stem cell research entered the campaign when the New York Times wrote a September 9 piece titled: “Back and Forth on Stem-Cell Research Energizes Race .” Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden criticized the Republican platform stance against any form of human embryonic stem-cell research. He linked stem-cell research to helping babies born with birth defects. Republicans immediately charged him with attacking their vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, who recently gave birth to a Down syndrome baby. She is opposed to stem-cell research.

Akron Beacon Journal medical writer Tracy Wheeler did a story: “Health-Care Chasm for McCain, Obama. ” The piece looks at the proposals of both candidates. “While McCain’s plan relies on free-market forces, tax credits, deregulation, and rescinding the tax-exempt status of employer-sponsored benefits, Obama’s plan centers on new public and private insurance programs, regulation of the insurance market, and a mandate that employers either provide health insurance or pay a tax to help cover the uninsured.”

In other stories:

USA Today ran a short piece on the differences between the candidates on subsidies for innovation. The New York Times went after the McCain campaign for a misleading TV ad saying Obama favors comprehensive sex education for kindergarten students. Obama actually voted for a bill that called for teaching kindergartners how to defend themselves against sexual predators. In many schools, it is taught as a “good touch, bad touch” program. The Washington Post ran a piece about an intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president that predicts a steady decline in US dominance “as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy.” The New York Times , on September 7, ran an interesting piece on the “unintended consequences” of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which was intended to allow universities and their researchers to profit from their scientific work. Instead, the piece says, many university research labs are functioning like corporate research laboratories, keeping new discoveries under wraps for competitive reasons.