McCain's dilemma: conservation or conservative voters?

With energy emerging as one of the key issues in this election cycle, it is going to be interesting to see how McCain talks about the conservation part of the equation. One of the core conservative beliefs of the last 30 years is the idea that Americans' heavy energy consumption is a human right of sorts that should never be infringed. Some part of this belief can be traced to Dominion Theology, but it mostly seems to stem from conservative opposition to government regulation and environmentalism.

Recently, when Obama told a massive Portland crowd that the country should encourage bicycling and try to reduce excessive SUV and air conditioning use, furious conservative bloggers immediately compared it to Jimmy Carter's asking Americans to wear sweaters to conserve heat.

In his major address on energy last week, McCain distanced himself from the current administration's approach to conservation, referencing Cheney's famous comment that conservation is merely a "personal virtue" that should not be part of an energy policy: "In the face of climate change and other serious challenges, energy conservation is no longer just a moral luxury or a personal virtue. Conservation serves a critical national goal."

But note the extreme caution McCain used, saying that conservation is "no longer just a moral luxury or a personal virtue" - in other words, that conservatives had it right up until now. Clearly, McCain realizes that promoting energy conservation is a very risky stance when he needs the support of the GOP base. When you look at the rest of the speech, he gives almost no specifics about conservation, in contrast to his detailed discussion of energy production. I'm sure his campaign knows that if he gives specific examples of conserving energy, like Obama did, right-wing bloggers and radio hosts will ridicule him.

In fact, I will not be surprised if McCain abandons energy conservation as an issue completely, and tries to use Obama's comments about reducing energy usage as a rallying point for GOP support. I view McCain's offshore drilling proposal - which is being sold as a response to the current crisis, but would not produce additional oil for roughly a decade - primarily as an appeal to the conservative belief that we can produce as much energy as we need, if only the environmentalists let us. McCain himself admitted that the proposal would not have an impact on gas prices in the short-term, but defended it by saying it would have a "psychological impact."

This week, McCain went as far as to mock Obama's comments about energy conservation, saying: "Practical ideas are worth a lot more than uplifting lectures . . . It's not always a matter of making due with less energy. It's a matter of using energy in smarter ways."

That strange, contradictory quote (How could you use energy in "smarter ways" without the goal of using less overall? What would be the point?) sums up McCain's problem. He's trying to appeal to conservative Republicans at a point in history where many of their core policy stances are just completely untenable. Is it really conceivable, as we enter what may be a long-term energy crisis, that our next President will be someone who can't even tell his own party that we need to try to use less energy? The more McCain tries to reach out to conservatives, the harder it becomes to imagine him in the Oval Office in January 2009.