The Political Climate: an ongoing commentary on the NH Primary and Climate Change

At a roundtable in Exeter yesterday, Barack Obama was asked if he could accomplish one thing as president, what would it be.

Obama and many of the other Democratic frontrunners consistently place global warming in their top five or even three priorities, but according to The Baltimore Sun, in yesterday’s roundtable with independents, Obama responded, “If it had to be just one thing, I would enact a bold energy policy.”

Obama was targeting the independent crowd by talking about climate and energy.  He understands the concern of NH independents about the climate issue, which was confirmed by the Mellman polling done one year ago.  The Mellman Poll found that 84% of potential independent NH primary voters support taking immediate action on climate change.

“I think that we could save so much money,” Obama explained, ”engineer such a resurgence in our economy and solve climate change, all at one time. And it would improve our national security posture.  It helps our economy, our environment and our national security.”

The new ARG poll released yesterday found that McCain is now tied with Romney at 26% in New Hampshire.  McCain has grown more and more vocal about climate change as January 8th approaches and his numbers continue to rise.  McCain is now running a climate change radio ad, targeting independents through direct mailings dedicated to climate change, hosting energy and climate change forums, and never ignoring the issue on the stump.

Both the McCain and Obama campaigns are banking on strong support from the large NH independent voting block, and they both seem to be using the climate issue as a key to secure the independent vote.

At a town hall meeting in Manchester last night, many voters showed up to try and “Ask Mitt Anything.”  A Manchester resident questioned Romney about his commitment to renewable energy technologies which could motivate a new sector of green jobs and benefit the economy. 

Romney agreed that there are great economic opportunities available with developing new technologies and pursuing energy independence.  After offering a familiar laundry list of technologies he would develop (nuclear, solar, wind, clean coal, oil etc.), Romney noted that Government should invest in basic science associated with energy and energy efficiency and should give people financial incentives to choose cleaner energy options. 

Chances are that Santa Clause won’t be voting in the upcoming NH Primary, but that didn’t stop him from coming all the way down from the (melting) North Pole to ask Romney about global warming.  Santa told Romney that he has been visiting children all over the world for hundreds of years and is very concerned about how global warming will impact them.  Santa asked Romney what he would do (beyond energy independence) to get the whole world on board to seriously adress the issue.

In response, Romney first emphasized that his plan to achieve US energy independence would be the most effective in reducing CO2 emissions.   Romney then noted that he would like to work with China, India, Brazil and other nations to set limits and guidelines as a global effort but warned against developing something like the Kyoto Accord. 

Check back for video footage soon.

‘Stop Global Warming’ signs led the way to the Mike Huckabee and Chuck Norris town halls in Berlin and Littleton this weekend.  An FOTPC was able to speak with Huckabee about climate change after the Berlin town hall.  Huckabee briefly mentioned energy independence and then directed the questioner to the Huckabee for President website.

Due to yesterday’s wonderful snowfall, Huckabee and Norris escaped the Granite State before they were asked what might have been the toughest question of their trip:

“Governor Huckabee, I have heard that there is no such thing as global warming.  Chuck Norris was just cold, so he turned the sun up.  As president will you ask him to turn the sun down?”

Early this morning, Senator Joe Lieberman endorsed McCain at a town hall in Hillsborough.  The duo previously worked together in the Senate on the McCain-Lieberman bill that would have set a cap on domestic greenhouse gas emissions.

The very first issue McCain talked about on the stump was climate change.  McCain briefly detailed the cap and trade legislation that he worked on with Sen. Lieberman and stressed the need for bi-partisan solutions.  McCain explained that he is a “free market” guy and would like to see a cap and trade system stimulate the market to reduce global warming pollution.  After devoting a good portion of his stump to climate change, McCain answered two further questions that were climate change-related. 

Check back for video footage soon.  In the meantime, check out McCain’s op-ed about global warming from yesterday’s Fosters. 

Hillary Clinton took questions at her two NH town halls this weekend and she did not have to ‘arrange’ a climate change question.  Straight from the North Pole, Santa flew down in his carbon neutral sled to ask Clinton about a new green economy.

Clinton spoke about including poorer nations in the global climate change response:

“I will say to the leaders of the most significant greenhouse gas emitting nations which includes the European Union, the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, India, South Africa, and Brazil that we have to meet every three months until we hammer this out hopefully within a year.   We don’t have any time to waste any longer.  The urgency of this is so intense that we have lost a lot of time.   We do have to reach out and include the fast developing countries, but not in a way that makes it seem like – ‘okay we got rich on the fossil fuel economy, but we don’t want you to follow our model.’   We need to be saying- ‘let’s work together, let’s experiment together.’  Let’s see this as a way of bringing the world together instead of being set one against another.   There are contributions to be made from every part of the globe to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.“

The candidates have recently been talking a lot about international climate agreements because of the Bali Summit which concluded on a more positive tone this weekend.