McCain: market liberal. Obama: also primarily market liberal.

Senator McCain's platform with regards to energy, climate change, and the economy mark him as a market liberal in nearly all respects. In particular, he proposes to "foster rapid and clean economic growth," notably though the expansion of domestic production of oil and natural gas. McCain also highlights enhancing efficiency both in the government and American homes, as well as clean technologies.

At the same time, McCain is not entirely limited to the market-liberal perspective. His website has a short blurb on providing leadership for international efforts, particularly those made through the United Nations, which is a decidedly institutionalist approach.

Unlike Narise, I was expecting to see many similarities in the overall energy, economic, and environmental policies of the Democratic Party. Sure enough, Barack Obama, like McCain, is heavily supportive of market solutions such as the cap and trade system, and like a good market liberal (according to Clapp and Dauvergne’s definition), Obama focuses a great deal on alleviating poverty by "creating millions of new green jobs," providing "relief to American families" through measures such as Emergency Energy rebates and tax relief, as well as funding to prevent job loss. Additionally, in the market liberal perspective his campaign displays a great deal of support towards encouraging clean technologies. At the same time, Obama also displays institutionalist tendencies. He, like McCain, aspires to make the United States a world leader (through the United Nations) on Climate Change, specifically through the creation of a World Energy Forum.

Yet in contrast against McCain, who is solely market liberal/institutionalist, Obama does display some social green tendencies. While the market liberal type solutions are prominent, Obama also focuses a great deal on individual action or, rather, the empowerment of those whose "voices have been marginalized." This is especially evident in his labor strategy, which promotes worker's rights, but is also apparent in his repeated calls for individual action to fight against climate change.


Though I am an Obama supporter, I find it promising to see that McCain has become more open about supporting alternative energy solutions such as wind, hydro, and solar powers since I last looked directly at his website (during the primary). To be honest, at the moment one of my larger concerns regarding the McCain campaign is the positions taken by his VP running mate, Sarah Palin, who apparently does not consider global warming to be manmade. I would also like to not that while the websites and McCain and Obama display many similar overall trends, I find that Obama's goes into much further depth on the actual steps that will be taken to see his market-liberal and social green policies through. McCain's website has a great deal to say about goals, but with the possible exception of his plans to transform transportation, is a little sketchy on the details, and this is another reason why I can say that Obama's environmental plan makes more sense to me.

On a side note: the overuse of titles (capitals in the first letter of words) in McCain's site is extremely annoying to read. ("Emissions Permits Will Eventually Be Auctioned To Support The Development Of Advanced Technologies," or, "To Support The Cap And Trade System, John McCain Will Promote The Innovation, Development And Deployment Of Advanced Technologies." Reading that is just painful.)