U.S. Senator John McCain's proposal to renegotiate the Colorado River Compact is still fodder for attack ads in the presidential race, according to the Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
John McCain is being attacked again -- this time in television ads -- for suggesting that the Colorado River Compact be renegotiated. The new TV spots, paid for by the League of Conservation Voters, accuse the Republican presidential hopeful of wanting to rewrite the 1922 compact that divides the river basin's water in the West, and send more of it to the downstream states of California, Nevada and McCain's home state of Arizona. The new ads, which began running on cable channels statewide on Monday, are the latest attacking McCain...
Even though McCain backed off his statement a week later, the league's political director, Tony Massaro, said it's still an issue that will resonate with Colorado voters. "This is a guy who has consistently touted himself as, 'I understand Western issues, and the guy from Illinois couldn't possibly understand them like I do,'[per thou] Massaro said. "But it wasn't the guy from Illinois who came into Colorado and put his foot in the biggest cow pie that you can put your foot in in Colorado. It was the guy from Arizona. Either he isn't that good on Western issues, or he knows how this plays and was playing to Nevada." Like Colorado, Nevada is another swing state that could go either for McCain or his Democratic rival, Barack Obama...
Massaro said that while his group has discussed running attack ads on this issue for weeks, it didn't decide to do so until McCain thanked a Pueblo audience for Colorado's water at a campaign stop there earlier this month. During that visit, clips of which are used in the television spot, McCain repeated a joke he's said at the start of several Colorado events, thanking the state for sending water to Arizona. Though Massaro, a Glenwood Springs native, admitted McCain just may have been joking, he said there's a kernel of truth in what he says. "In any good joke, there's always an undercurrent of truth to it," he said. "He was also joking when he did the bomb Iran thing. It makes the joke funny, but unsettling."
As we've written elsewhere, "Voters will have to decide if McCain's current position really reflects his views. He has done an about face on many issues over the summer in an attempt to shore up his faltering campaign. Which statement contains the 'straight talk,' renegotiate the compact to provide more water to Arizona or never, never, renegotiate?"
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
"colorado water"
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