Wash Post: "Climate Is a Risky Issue for Democrats"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/05/AR2007110502106.html

Climate Is a Risky Issue for Democrats
Candidates Back Costly Proposals

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 6, 2007; Page A01

All of the leading Democratic contenders for the presidency are committed to a set of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that would change the way Americans light their homes, fuel their automobiles and do their jobs, costing billions of dollars in the short term but potentially, the candidates say, saving even more in the decades to follow.

Former senator John Edwards (N.C.), who from the outset has made global warming one of the three pillars of his campaign, explains his ambitious plan to Democratic primary voters in terms of sacrifice.

"I know what presidential candidates are supposed to do; they roll in here every four years and they promise you this, they promise you that. What I'm going to do is tell you the truth," Edwards says at nearly every campaign stop. "It won't be easy, but it is time for a president who asks Americans to be patriotic about something other than war."

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Putting aside the stupidity of the article, is there anything that is NOT risky or harmful to the Democrats in the eyes of the Washington Post?

...the more likely that they really ARE in trouble with the electorate...

For Democrats to take concrete steps to address a real threat to humanity, they're on a risky issue. But for Republicans to take crazy, expensive steps all out of proportion to a barely-existent issue, then you've got political gold, pardner!

Lesson: Don't ask Americans to be patriotic about anything other than war. Or the Washington Post will dedicate its resources to your political destruction. If you lot didn't learn the lesson from Al Gore, they followed it up with another fools' parade against John Kerry. And by the Christ, if you're not careful, they'll turn the 2008 election into a never-ending clown show which will result in the American people choosing . . . yet another clown.

well said!

Even the most hardcore "there is no climate change" repug I know is now talking about installing solar panels on his roof and buying a hybrid. He admits that the air is too polluted and he thinks that energy prices will just get higher, so he wants to take steps towards personal energy independence.I think that MOST Americans like that idea, so climate change isn't a hard sell when the payoff is self sufficiency.

The first is that, thanks to all Gore's work, most people buy that there is a problem. This will change the dynamics of this - in one of the Gore Rolling Stone articles, when asked about running - he spoke of wanting to make global warming enough of a voting issue to let someone run on it. It is entirely possible that he succeeded.

The second, is that they are assuming that the Democrat will address this as a need to sacrifice life style - and in reality it may come to that. In 2004, though it never got much coverage, a speech that made me an avid Kerry supporter was his speech on alternative fuels and the environment. The enthusiasm and respect for science and innovation was something that I really loved - maybe because I worked for a company that in the 1970s - 1980s earned a large percent of the countries patents. What I liked was that he had the same focus on the problem that Gore did (and I had read Earth in the Balance in the early 1990s.), but with an American ingenuity hopeful optimistic point of view. It was the same lively, energizing spirit that I (a non-scientist) loved working in an innovative workplace. I loved the way he wove the big inter connected picture of how doing this would provide good new high quality jobs creating technology and products, would lead to a cleaner environment, thus better health. Then throw in less dependence on the unstable middle east. In 2006, Kerry went as far in the Senate as to argue that these benefits would justify the change even if there were no global warming. He also pointed out in another speech that the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones.

I think that the Democrats need to capture that positive spirit in addressing the problem or risk that the Republicans will agree with us on global warming and take that mid set and couple it with the free market. Although Gingrich is not a candidate, our candidates should watch his debate with Kerry. (To see what Gingrich, not Kerry did.) Gingrich, a skilled debater, tried to claim all the middle ground. He immediately acknowledged global warming and made the debate a debate over what to do. Kerry,as good a debater as there is and incredibly informed on the issue - so he still easily won. But, Gingrich took the position that global warming could be addressed entirely by voluntary actions, countered that that was what we have been doing since 1992, unsuccessfully. Kerry felt you needed cap and trade to put an economic cost on carbon. This would change the economics which would make new carbon minimizing technologies more cost competitive. He also felt that the government needed to fund research. Gingrich was for creating carrots to push the free market to create solutions.

The WP is wrong, the problem is that if a Democrat did not make this an important issue and avoid doom and gloom talk, a Republican will come in with what appears to be an equivalent or (heaven forbid) a better position. This is something McCain would easily have been able to do - he had as good (and in some cases Better) record than some Democrats.