John McCain’s recent Colorado River gaffe may put Colorado in the Democratic win column in November. During a radio interview last week, John McCain told the reporter from the Pueblo Chiefton that he wants to renegotiate the 1922 Colorado River Compact to re-appropriate water from the upper basin states like Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming to the lower states like California and Arizona, McCain’s state. His words were, “I don’t think there’s any doubt the major, major issue is water and can be as important as oil. So the compact that is in effect, obviously, needs to be renegotiated over time amongst the interested parties. I think that there’s a movement amongst the governors to try, if not, quote, negotiate, certainly adjust to the new realities of high growth, of greater demands on a scarcer resource”.
The words were barely out of his mouth when the interviewer began to press him and McCain realized he had opened Pandora’s box. He began to backpedal, re-state and hem and haw, but it was already on tape. If backpedaling were an Olympic sport, McCain would have a shot at a gold medal.
It’s not that what he said is so terrible, even though it reflects the Arizona position, it’s his incredible lack of good judgment and his bad timing and a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease. He didn’t have good old Joe Lieberman there to whisper in his ear and straighten him out. Something so important and so contentious must be handled with the greatest degree of diplomacy and not glibly spewed out to a reporter with a microphone. This is just another example of McCain speaking before he thinks. This is not a good quality for a presidential hopeful and is especially scary for a person answering that red phone in the middle of the night.
McCain has recanted his remarks and the Republican damage control has begun. He said in a letter to Sen. Wayne Allard, R. Colo. that he “did not mean what he said”.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D. Colo. called McCain’s remarks “dangerously naïve” and ...”it reflects, in my view, a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance water politics has in the West”.. Sara Duncan, moderator for a Colorado Senate debate, thanked McCain for uniting Coloradans. (Democrats and Republicans)
Folks out West, and for that matter all over the country, need to beware of John McCain, the man with a fast mouth and a slow mind..