A President McCain would have no magic wand to get conservatives to join a cause they simply don’t believe in, much as he wasn’t able to get them to join the cause for his McCain Lieberman climate bill. As E&E News (subs. req’d) reports today:

Several key Capitol Hill Republicans stood defiant yesterday against the types of changes to U.S. global warming policy spelled out earlier this week by presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain….

“I’m going to vote for McCain this year for president, but if he offers that bill I’ll vote against it and work against it,” pledged Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee….

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), who would likely become the lead Republican on the Senate Environment Committee next year if McCain wins the presidency, said he wanted to work on a different type of climate plan that focused first on incentives for new energy technologies.

“We both agree there’s a problem,” Voinovich said. “We have a difference of opinion about how to solve the problem.”

Retiring Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee … “I’m not for that,” Domenici said. “I respect [McCain] greatly. But I think before we’re finished, there’ll be an awful lot of reality added to this.”

That’s a pretty pathetic response, especially when you consider that McCain’s plan is already too watered down to solve the climate problem (see here). Still, it can’t be considered a big surprise given that only 27% of conservatives say human emissions are warming the earth (see “The deniers are winning, especially with the GOP“).

Interestingly, there is at least one conservative who understands the central flaw in McCain’s plan:

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), for example, said he wasn’t so sure McCain got it right in calling for the unlimited use of domestic and international offset projects for industry compliance in a cap-and-trade system. “That’s something that’s very poor public policy and hopefully he’ll evolve on that,” he said

[Note to Corker: Conservatives don’t believe in evolution!]

(more…)