It's not a game of one-on-one.

I'll come back to this by Eric Alterman at a later date:

"If John McCain is elected president, just who is he going to find in the Republican Party to appoint to the EPA who will pursue a vigorous approach toward global warming when virtually everyone in the party either denies its existence or its significance? A president is not just a person; it is an administration with literally thousands of political appointees. The Democrats have become a centrist party in recent years while the Republicans have drifted to the extreme margins on almost everything. Those extremists are going to form the basis of President McCain's appointments no matter what he thinks. The fact that McCain may be slightly less irresponsible on global warming or immigration (this week) than the rest of his party is irrelevant since it is the members of his party who will be implementing his policies. I wonder how many profiles of Michael Brown or Alberto Gonzales were written
before the 2000 election ..."