Filed under: Green Culture, Hybrid, Toyota, Legislation and Policy, Green Daily
McCain's daughter's Prius causing problems in Michigan
Does it matter what kind of car a politician's daughter drives? Apparently, it does, at least to some people. In Michigan, home of the American auto industry, John McCain had to answer questions related to his daughter Meghan's (a blogger, must be a cool girl) Toyota Prius. One line of questioning was regarding whether or not John McCain paid for the car for his daughter, as McCain claims to have only ever purchased American-made cars, which the Prius is not. At another time, McCain was quoted as saying that he paid for the car.Meghan McCain said in a posting on her blog, "Climate change is a very important issue to me; in fact, there are few issues other than the war in Iraq I find as relevant. I try to do my part by driving a Prius, recycling, using eco-friendly light bulbs, etc..." John McCain said in an interview in Detroit, "We also believe that climate change is real and we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." And all this time, we thought that only Obama supporters drove the Prius. Guess not.
[Source: The Detroit News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike!!ekiM 1:31PM (9/12/2008)
McCain gives a great speech, but where's the ACTION. What has he voted for recently? Just another Republa-con-job.
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SomeDipshit 2:48PM (9/12/2008)
Just because she's his daughter doesn't necessarily mean she supports his campaign - ask Dick Cheney about that one :)
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Wise Golden 5:11PM (9/12/2008)
Have you followed the race at all? She is helping with his campaign (and doing a great job.)
Thomas 4:16PM (9/15/2008)
Dick Cheney's daughter is a die-hard Republican, and she VERY ACTIVELY supports her father. Did you assume that she was disinherited the moment she came out? That might be the way they handle things in your family, but, as many people may have noticed, there are PLENTY of gay Republicans.
1985 Gripen 3:39PM (9/12/2008)
This is one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations. If one of the American auto manufacturers offered a viable and desirable hybrid perhaps they could have sold one to McCain. The truth is the American auto manufacturers don't offer a decent alternative to the Prius.
So McCain gets his daughter an environmentally-friendlier sensible car and you'd think that greenies would rush to congratulate him. Noooo. We've instead got the American auto workers bashing him for not buying their gas-guzzling product. This kind of thing helps explain why the U.S. auto industry is in the shape it's in.
Why should someone be forced to buy a car simply because it's American? I'd rather see them buy the best choice. Kudos to McCain on this one.
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Brent 4:48PM (9/12/2008)
I agree. Good post.
Wise Golden 5:11PM (9/12/2008)
I also agree, and I also feel that it’s a good post. I personally try to buy American especially when it comes to cars because it’s one of the few times that you can make that choice. But the reality is that the Prius has been a vehicle that allows Americans a choice not to import oil.
I would rather people send money to Toyota in Japan, than to Citgo in Venezuela.
As for me…Saturn Aura Hybrid. Most American of all cars made and 32.5 MPG. Too bad that only 700 were made, but at least I have a collectors item on my hands.
Chris M 9:30PM (9/12/2008)
10 years after the Prius was introduced, and the Detroit 3 still doesn't have anything to rival its gas savings.
Ironically, the Prius was Toyota's response to the "Partnership for a Next Generation Vehicle", a government sponsored program to boost fuel economy. The Detroit 3 all made prototypes, but the Bush administration canceled the project and the efforts were abandoned. They could have had one or more Prius rivals on the market by 2003, instead they pushed ever bigger gas guzzlers.
Meghan drives a Prius because she wants to reduce oil consumption and cannot wait til the Volt is ready. Smart girl. We can only hope some of her wisdom rubs off on Papa.
Serge 4:58PM (9/12/2008)
Why should anyone "rush to congratulate" a candidate to public office for making a reasonable personal or familial decision? Good choice, McCain. His public policy views (drill, baby, drill) are a whole another story ...
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stevefazek 6:41PM (9/12/2008)
at least she isnt knocked up
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philmcneal 8:03PM (9/12/2008)
lol yeah mcCain's daughter is pretty hawt, but judging from the age of mcCain's wife (which is much younger than him i bet) she inherited her mom's traits :P
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calguy 12:16PM (9/13/2008)
He doesn't know if he bought the car for her or not.. (or he doesn't know if 'Toyota' is American or not)
doesn't know how many houses he's got..
doesn't know how to use the internet..
Yikes. That's all I'm saying.
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CarGuy37 9:43AM (9/15/2008)
Meghan McCain said, "Climate change is a very important issue to me ... I try to do my part by driving a Prius ..."
It looks like the marketing guru's have done their job. A Prius has 4x the carbon footprint of a Corolla when considering the cradle-to-grave energy analysis. But at least she's saving a few dollars on gas...
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tekdemon 11:42AM (9/15/2008)
Even if your claims of 4x energy use were true it doesn't mean very much since Toyota plants in Japan don't just derive energy from burning tons of petroleum. If a car is made with 10x the energy, but all the energy was solar or nuclear or hydrolectric or wind there would be no carbon footprint. Japan has a lot of Nuclear power so even if the Prius uses more energy it might not have a larger carbon footprint at all. And anyways a lot of the extra energy is because Priuses have more features compared to a Corolla, they're not in the same class of car. Maybe the Matrix vs Prius would be closer.
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rj 12:53PM (9/15/2008)
His daughter driving a Prius is some kind of political concern?
sounds like somebody is trying too hard to get something on him.
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Adam 12:58PM (9/15/2008)
Interesting situation, but shabby reporting leaving out the single key piece of information -- did he buy an imported car and yet claim to have only bought domestic brands? It's a bizarre claim to even make, but did he lie about it? Googling it, it seems that in fact he did buy the Prius (NYTimes) then recently backflipped and said his daughter bought the car.
By the way, it's an auto workers union backing Obama which seems to have brought this situation to the media.
It's off-putting to have a candidate so casual about these sorts of "mistakes in fact" (we'd normally call them lies.)
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Al 1:25PM (9/15/2008)
And the Big3 employee lots have many foreign made cars.
And I'm sure its not because of the wages.
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ChknLtL 6:47PM (9/15/2008)
I'd love to buy all-American, but I haven't bought a piece of Detroit Iron since the '80's. Can't keep 'em out of the shop.
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Steve Gregg 7:08PM (9/15/2008)
Instead of beating up on potential customers for not buying their products, why don't the sorry-ass car factory workers make a car worth buying? The last American car I bought was a frigging disaster that let me down time after time. I have bought Toyota ever since and never been stranded, never had a maintenance issue, never been sorry about my purchase.
Maybe if the carmakers spent more of their time making good cars and less time trying to intimidate the buying public into buying their junk, US cars wouldn't be mediocre.
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Archwright 12:13PM (9/23/2008)
The thing that drives me crazy is that so many of the "American" cars are made in MEXICO... you know, to avoid unions, and so on. It is really hard to get a genuine American-made car. I believe that my Camry is all-American, but that's because the Toyota brand suffered a massive downspike in quality when they started using American labor.
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