Life Of Jason

Senator Claire McCaskill spoke to the Ozarks New Energy Conference this afternoon.

She answered some questions from our local reporters on both the environment and the topics of the conference but also the Presidential race.  (Which, at one point, led a local Greene County official to say “that’s not why we’re here.”  To be fair, she wasn’t there to talk Presidential politics but given it’s an election year it’s understandable.)

Among the things McCaskill said…

In reference to jobs lost because of environmentally friendly measures McCaskill said we need to make sure we replace any lost jobs with “green jobs” and that it has to start at the local level “because if we try to go from the top down it will be way too expensive.”

Consumers need to be educated on ways to conserve in their homes “like being shown the right light bulbs to use” and that we need to “make sure” that neighborhood associations “don’t stop people from putting solar panels on their roofs.”

She said that we need to subsidize biomass and soy the way that ethanol has been subsidized to help continue to grow biofuels but also find ways to fund more research into wind and solar energy.

When asked about studies that say we cause more greenhouse gases creating biofuels like ethanol than we do creating other oil based products McCaskill responded by saying that we need to work to improve the technologies to make it cleaner to produce and that we need to work to “get out from under foreign oil.”   She said that nuclear power should be considered as well but that we need to find a way to deal with the waste.

Then David Catanese from KY3 steered things to the Presidential race.  When asked about Obama, McCaskill apologized that her answer wouldn’t be a soundbite and several reporters chuckled.   McCaskill then made what I thought was a rather bold statement for a first term Senator.  She asked a rhetorical question…if Senator Clinton had won ten primaries in a row and had a league in delegates and all the momentum wouldn’t we be seeing stories in the press calling for the party to unite behind the candidate, Senator Clinton?   She asked why we weren’t seeing those stories right now about Senator Obama.

Then she responded to a question by saying that after the primaries in Ohio and Texas that if Senator Clinton doesn’t win big it’s time for the party to come together.  She said that she wouldn’t call for Senator Clinton to drop out of the race but kept repeating the party needed to “unite behind Senator Obama” if Senator Clinton doesn’t win big.  No one followed up with what I thought was the logical question but rather someone asked the Senator about the governor’s race.  She said that the party was united behind Jay Nixon but that he had a lot of work ahead of him.

When asked about Chris Koster’s party switch from Republican to Democrat, McCaskill responded she “was always happy when someone sees the light and becomes a Democrat.”

After the conference was over and McCaskill was being ushered toward the auditorium, I slid up to ask the question that Catanese should have asked her.  I asked “if Senator Clinton doesn’t drop out and it goes to a nasty floor fight at the convention, could that be damaging for the party in November?”   McCaskill first asked who I was with and then after I said I wrote a local blog covering Springfield she smiled and gave me a very in-depth answer.   She said that when the convention rolls around the superdelegates need to come behind whoever is the majority choice of the voters.   She was adamant the nomination “shouldn’t be changed by the superdelegates to override the will of the people.”   True, she really didn’t answer my question about whether a floor fight would harm the party in the general election but I think she believes it won’t get to that point.  We’ll see at convention time!