About a month ago I e-mailed this message to info@gop.com:

I received an e-mail from you asking me to donate to John McCain’s campaign. My position is very simple. Get McCain to change his mind and commit to extracting oil from ANWR and the lower Gulf of Mexico and I will make a very generous donation to his campaign.

This week he stated that he favors letting the states decide if they want to allow oil exploration and extraction off their shores and that he would reconsider his opposition to drilling in ANWR. That’s not quite what I asked for but it’s close enough. I’m not under any pretense that my message alone caused McCain to change his mind but I feel that I should hold up my end of the bargain.

Here’s my next challenge for McCain. Make this announcement in a major speech and I will make a second contribution of double the amount of the first one: 

As President you will oppose the revival of the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill and that you will veto it if it is passed by Congress. You have reconsidered the pros and cons of the bill and you now feel that the cons outweigh the pros. Chief among the cons is the devastating economic effect on the poor working class.

I have e-mailed the text of this post to the GOP.

On a related note, I heard Barack Obama criticizing McCain’s revised stance on oil drilling. He said that drilling offshore and in ANWR won’t lower fuel prices today, tomorrow, next week, next year or even in five years. Well Barack, what about in six years or ten years? Even at my age I think I might need some fuel ten years from now and would like to think I’ll be able to afford it on my fixed retirement income. I thought leadership was about where we’re going, not where we are.