Yeah, we will be stuck with whoever we pick.

My point in bringing this issue up was not to call McCain an old coot (that was just a bonus!). My point was to question why he would choose to promote these ideas in places where they are not welcome --- offshore drilling in California and nuclear in Nevada.

In California at least, the visits by Obama and McCain were not considered to be serious campaign visits about getting votes, because the state is solidly Democratic. It was more about a testing ground for your ideas and a source of fundraising. Why float your new proposal in a place where the reaction is goin to be bad? Why try to raise money by pushing an unpopular idea? I'm not saying he should flip-flop or be dishonest --- I'm just questioning why he would choose to emphasis his differences, rather than focus on something that might be popular. He should not back off his beliefs, but maybe there is something else he might have more in common with California and Nevada that might have been a better subject matter for him.

And if he really did want to push these ideas in these states, he might have done better to acknowledge their unpopularity and represent it as "straight talk" about what needs to be done even if it is unpopular. I don't think he did that --- it just seemed out of touch with his audience.