Truesee's Daily Wonder

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Two short years ago, one of the presidential tickets had the wisdom to not only acknowledge the climate crisis, but also to present credible solutions to address it.

If elected, the tandem told Americans, they intended to do what the Bush administration would not: establish "a cap-and-trade system that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions" and pursue "alternatives to carbon-based fuels." The result, they said, would be "a better future for our children."

The candidates were John McCain and Sarah Palin.

The nuances matter, but the differences between the Democratic vision on energy policy and the McCain-Palin platform are relatively minor. In fact, if the White House were prepared to open negotiations with a Republican-led House next year, President Obama could do worse than starting with the McCain-Palin plan.

With that in mind, why doesn't he do just that? What better way for a Democratic President to demonstrate a commitment to bipartisanship than by embracing specific Republican proposals?

The conventional wisdom is that Obama is in a nearly untenable position in the wake of the midterm elections. He could continue to fight for his top priorities, butt heads with GOP lawmakers intent on destroying his presidency, and run into inexorable gridlock. Or he could drift to the right, concluding that more conservative policies are better than a stagnant government, running the risk of alienating his liberal base.

But there's an alternative behind door #3: embrace the handful of Republican ideas he already likes, effectively challenging the GOP to take "yes" for an answer.

There are more such ideas than you may realize.

Energy policy is arguably the easiest area for common ground, given the McCain-Palin agenda of 2008. Obama could endorse it with relative ease. Though it's unlikely today's GOP, which has lurched far to the right, would appreciate the gesture, it would be somewhat more challenging for Republicans to characterize a plan presented by their own party's presidential ticket as some kind of communist plot.

Second, there's immigration. The White House's vision of a comprehensive reform plan is already in line with the last administration's approach on the same issue. The President can keep the bipartisanship going by endorsing the Bush-Cheney immigration proposal, almost to the letter.

Likewise, the Dream Act, intended to help children of illegal immigrants with a path to citizenship, was written in large part by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

Republicans want to make cuts to government spending? No problem - several prominent GOP lawmakers, including hard-line conservatives like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), have recently endorsed trimming the enormous Pentagon budget, an idea Obama could also get behind.