Clinton v. McCain

For this post, I decided to compare Hillary Clinton and John McCain. 

When it comes to characterizing these two candidates, it is a little difficult. Very few people would fit entirely into one category, especially when they are trying to get elected. Clinton best fits the category of the Institutionalists as her environmental plan includes a number of government financed plans. She has a very thought out plan, including bonds, new power grids, and other incentive plans that all rely on centralized governments on the national, state, and local level. Yet, with all of Clinton' talk of empowering local areas in order to help them make better environmental decisions, she is also a bit of a Social Green. McCain, on the other hand, can mainly be considered a bioenvironmentalist as he champions environmental stewardship. He wants clean air, clean water, and sustainable land use. However, when it comes to reducing carbon emissions, he favors a Market Liberal approach, utilizing market forces to encourage better energy and fuel efficiency. 

The two candidates are trying to do the same thing, reducing Americans impact on the environment and energy use, but they do so in very different ways. The labels provided in the reading are useful in an analytic sense, but in practice, most people fall into multiple or overlapping categories making the labels less useful. I'm sure there are instances within each candidates' plans that would place them in even more categories. 

When it comes to choosing which candidates' policies make more sense, the labels do not really help much. I do not think that McCain's Market Liberal approach to lowering carbon emissions will work that well as such policies have not faired well in dealing with current environmental emission problems. Granted, with higher energy costs and different government policies, they could potentially work. I do, however, like McCain's Bioenvironmentalist stance when it comes to the environment as we should preserve, maintain, and promote growth within our forests, rivers, and such. Clinton's plans also sound very appealing, despite being dependent on cooperation on a number of levels and with a number of parties. 

In the end, a combination of their ideas would probably be best so as to get the greatest possible effect on the environment. Simply one of the approaches given by the labels wouldn't work as each label focuses on only part of the issue, and thus only gives a partial solution. If I had to pick a candidate based solely on their environmental policy, I would have to pick Clinton's as hers does not rely on Market Liberalism as much. I just don't think it works that well, even if it is paired with Bioenvironmentalism, which I think does work. I just think that, for the US, relying on institutes and empowering people will help protect the environment and reduce emissions.