Posted by Jed Lewison on Mon May 12, 2008 at 3:18 PM Pacific

Clinton-backing Oregon gov. attends McCain campaign event

This is weird: today, Oregon's Democratic governor Ted Kulongoski stood by John McCain's side at a campaign event designed to distance McCain from George Bush's failed energy policy.

Gov. Kulongoski

Dem gov puts wind in McCain sails

PORTLAND, Ore. - John McCain got an unexpected boost in his bid to woo independent and Democratic voters here this afternoon: a shared stage with Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

Kulongoski is a Democrat who has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. So local reporters were stunned to see him turn up at wind-power firm Vestas near Portland International Airport along with McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The event, a major speech on global warming, was designed to pitch McCain's environmental views to moderate western voters.

Why would a Democratic governor (and superdelegate) stand by McCain's side for such an important campaign event?

Making things more curious, it turns out Kulongoski is a Hillary Clinton supporter and as he stood beside McCain, Bill Clinton was on the trail in Astoria, Oregon, 90 miles away, also taking about energy policy.

So instead of going on the stump with a former President to support a Democratic candidate, Kulongoski decided to lend his credibility to John McCain's campaign.

Strange.

I'd love to know if the Clinton campaign was aware of Kulongoski's decision to attend the McCain event, and if they were, whether they encouraged or discouraged him from attending.

I know that if I were a Democratic governor who was supporting a Democratic presidential candidate, there's no chance in hell that I'd go to a Republican presidential candidate's campaign event, especially if that event were one week before my state's primary. And if there were a perception that my candidate's campaign was working to undermine the party's likely nominee, I'd be extra-sensitive to appearances.

Something just doesn't seem right here. What's going on?

Update @ 5:09PM: An Oregon resident suggests in the comments a plausible, non-nefarious explanation -- Kulongoski may have attended the event to support the company and the issue, rather than McCain. I'm not totally sold on this -- the theme of McCain's event was to establish his independence from Bush, and I can't imagine Kulongoski wouldn't have understood the significance of his presence. Then again, politicians make dumb mistakes all the time. Perhaps this was one.

::

Update: As far as the substance of the issue is concerned, here is how Barack Obama responded to McCain:

The Democratic presidential front-runner was sharply critical of McCain's position. "It is truly breathtaking for John McCain to talk about combating climate change while voting against virtually every recent effort to actually invest in clean energy," Obama said in a statement his campaign sent out minutes after McCain ended his speech. "You don't have to look further than the wind turbine plant where Senator McCain is speaking today to assess his commitment to this cause. While Senator McCain talks about the need to invest in alternative energy, he rejected the single biggest investment in renewable energy in history, including incentives that contributed to a nearly 50% increase in wind power generation last year, and he has repeatedly opposed renewable fuel mandates and higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks."

Key differences remain between McCain and the Democrats on climate change -- several of which the senator outlined in his talk. Both Obama and Clinton advocate auctioning off 100 percent of pollution allowances under a cap-and-trade system, which would generate hundreds of billions of dollars to either fund research and development or ease the pain of rising energy prices for American taxpayers. McCain would not specify how much of the allowances he would auction under his plan, but he made clear it would only be a portion of the credits which he would apply, along with "other federal funds to help build the infrastructure of a post-carbon economy."

Clinton-backing Oregon gov. attends McCain campaign event

This is weird: today, Oregon's Democratic governor Ted Kulongoski stood by John McCain's side at a campaign event designed to distance McCain from George Bush's failed energy policy.

Gov. Kulongoski

Dem gov puts wind in McCain sails

PORTLAND, Ore. - John McCain got an unexpected boost in his bid to woo independent and Democratic voters here this afternoon: a shared stage with Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

Kulongoski is a Democrat who has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. So local reporters were stunned to see him turn up at wind-power firm Vestas near Portland International Airport along with McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The event, a major speech on global warming, was designed to pitch McCain's environmental views to moderate western voters.

Why would a Democratic governor (and superdelegate) stand by McCain's side for such an important campaign event?

Making things more curious, it turns out Kulongoski is a Hillary Clinton supporter and as he stood beside McCain, Bill Clinton was on the trail in Astoria, Oregon, 90 miles away, also taking about energy policy.

So instead of going on the stump with a former President to support a Democratic candidate, Kulongoski decided to lend his credibility to John McCain's campaign.

Strange.

I'd love to know if the Clinton campaign was aware of Kulongoski's decision to attend the McCain event, and if they were, whether they encouraged or discouraged him from attending.

I know that if I were a Democratic governor who was supporting a Democratic presidential candidate, there's no chance in hell that I'd go to a Republican presidential candidate's campaign event, especially if that event were one week before my state's primary. And if there were a perception that my candidate's campaign was working to undermine the party's likely nominee, I'd be extra-sensitive to appearances.

Something just doesn't seem right here. What's going on?

Update @ 5:09PM: An Oregon resident suggests in the comments a plausible, non-nefarious explanation -- Kulongoski may have attended the event to support the company and the issue, rather than McCain. I'm not totally sold on this -- the theme of McCain's event was to establish his independence from Bush, and I can't imagine Kulongoski wouldn't have understood the significance of his presence. Then again, politicians make dumb mistakes all the time. Perhaps this was one.