I missed this tidbit when I responded yesterday to Bill Kristol’s blog post speculating that Sarah Palin would eventually stump for McCain who, at the moment, faces a serious primary challenge from conservative Republican J. D. Hayworth. I was under the impression that McCain - who once strongly championed Cap & Trade - would continue his quest for Ultimate Maverickdom.

Looks like I was wrong - but not entirely. According to Politico:

McCain has emerged as a vocal opponent of the climate bill — a major reversal for the self-proclaimed maverick who once made defying his party on global warming a signature issue of his career.

Now the Arizona Republican is more likely to repeat GOP talking points on cap and trade than to help usher the bill through the thorny politics of the Senate.

McCain refers to the bill as “cap and tax,” calls the climate legislation that passed the House in June “a 1,400-page monstrosity” and dismisses a cap-and-trade proposal included in the White House budget as “a government slush fund.”

Former aides are mystified by what they see as a retreat on the issue, given McCain’s long history of leadership on climate legislation. McCain and Lieberman authored their first climate bill in 2003 and reintroduced the legislation in 2005 and 2007. “The only reason we are debating climate legislation in the Senate right now is because of the leadership he showed three Congresses ago,” said Tim Profeta, a former staffer for the Connecticut independent on climate issues who is now a professor at Duke University.

No mystery here. McCain may be a cynical, scheming, bipartisan-obsessed maverick but he’s not stupid. He realizes he’s in trouble back home in Arizona and the time has come to cover up his grey RINO hide with a double-breasted suit from the Ronald Reagan line of political designer wear.

“I wouldn’t be here on this issue without him,” said Graham, a South Carolina Republican who spent much of last fall campaigning for McCain. “He’s the guy that introduced me to the climate problem.”

At least Graham is determined that McCain won’t try weasel out of his past without having some ’splaining to do.

McCain first began moving away from his support for cap and trade during his 2008 presidential campaign, when he insisted that reporters not describe the program as a “mandatory” cap on greenhouse gas emissions. He also infuriated the environmental community by picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate and standing by as she questioned global warming science.

But you see…McCain hasn’t really backed away from it. He’s just skittering sideways like a crab on the pavement.

Lobbyists who’ve met with McCain say he feels that the White House has failed to pour enough political capital into the issue for him to feel comfortable breaking with his party.

“This really hasn’t been done in a bipartisan fashion,” said McCain spokesman Brooke Buchanan.

Current and former aides suggest that staff changes since the campaign could also have something to do with the change in tone. Several of McCain’s longtime staffers, including top aide Mark Salter, left the office after the campaign. And Floyd DesChamps, a Commerce Committee aide who worked closely on the McCain-Lieberman climate bill, left Capitol Hill after McCain gave up his longtime seat on the committee last January.

The staff that remains, say former aides, lacks the institutional history on the issue and the ability to steer McCain toward productive solutions.

McCain aides dismissed the idea that those changes have had an effect on his position, saying that the senator — not the staff — drives policy positions.

I agree with the aides: it’s McCain and no one else who is driving the policy decisions of his office. How else explain the fact that he is talking out of both sides of his mouth - precisely as I said he would do in yesterday’s post. On the one hand, McCain is claiming that he opposes the current Cap & Trade bill, arguing that it’s “horrendous.” On the other hand, in true bipartisan fashion, he claims that he opposes it only because the White House and the Democrats aren’t more forceful in pushing it. The bottom line is that McCain doesn’t so much oppose Cap & Trade as he opposes this particular version of Cap & Trade.

Arizona politics could be another factor. Republicans hope to use the cap-and-trade bill to attack Democrats on economic issues by saying it will raise electricity costs for businesses and spike electric bills. Those attacks could resonate in Arizona, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

“His view is probably [that], in the middle of a recession, when we have 10 percent unemployment, [it] is not the time to be putting a huge new energy tax on our economy,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who opposes an economy-wide cap-and-trade bill.

This - more than anything else - is responsible for the J-Mac Back Track: Cap & Trade in any form is recipe for economic disaster - the more so for an economy that is already in a free fall. However, while McCain is well aware of Carville’s Axiom (”It’s the economy, stupid”) and will doubtless back track further, the fact remains that he is a dyed in the wool maverick and a RINO from his wrinkled hide to the marrow in his bones. The urge to reach across the aisle is too strong for even J-Mac to resist.

McCain says he is discussing the climate issue with Lieberman but does not see Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who introduced a climate bill earlier this fall, or the Obama administration as willing to negotiate with him.

“What they’ve done so far is not only a nonstarter, but it’s a contradiction to everything I’ve tried to do on cap and trade,” he said. “I see no support for what they are trying to do.”

McCain has laid out a series of proposals that could help win his vote — but most likely at the cost of Democratic votes.

An ardent believer in free trade, McCain would like to strip a provision out of the legislation that would levy a border tax on imports from China, India and other developing countries if they do not sign on to an international climate treaty.

“That’s blatant protectionism; that’s insulting to everything I believe in,” he said.

But dropping the border tax would lose votes from Rust Belt Democrats, who fear the legislation will hurt the manufacturing industry.

And he’d like to open Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a repository for nuclear waste — a highly controversial issue that would inflame the climate debate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has spent decades lobbying against the project. Earlier this year, the Obama administration stripped funding for the facility in its 2010 budget.

“They’re shutting down Yucca Mountain because of the power and influence of Sen. Reid,” McCain said. “They can do that, but that doesn’t mean that somehow they get me to agree to it.”

Good old J-Mac - ever dependable and guaranteed to piss off both parties while claiming to be the bridge of conciliation between them. The fact remains that he still apparently believes in the global warming hoax and therefore his fundamental belief in the need for a Cap & Trade bill in one form or another is likewise intact.

While I can’t say for certain, I’m willing to hazard a guess that, based on the platform embraced by J.D. Hayworth - one which advocates securing our borders with Mexico and rigorously enforcing out immigration laws - J-Mac will be doing a whole lotta skittering when the Amnesty Bill comes up for a vote in the spring. He will neither enthusiastically embrace it nor completely reject it, but argue that he opposes it for various trivial reasons that give him sufficent grounds to say he can’t support it - even though he really does.

The big question of course - one that will ultimately be settled in the August primary - is this: will the voters be able to spot his bumpy grey RINO hide underneath the soft exterior of his Reagan double-breasted suit?