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

January 11.  Wow.  This place looks like a summer camp shut down after the season ends.  Torn Tancredo yard signs lay in the gutter. ‘Stop Global Warming’ yard signs stuck in piles of dirty snow, leaning against the rain (and its thundering, now, in January, in New Hampshire).  

Will Smith would be right at home -  they could have filmed I Am Legend in Portsmouth or Manchester now that everyone’s left town.  

Where’s everybody?  Bill Richardson’s dropped out and back home in New Mexico.  McCain has a toehold in the Palmetto State.  Romney has pulled ads from the Sunshine State in order to do battle in the Wolverine State.

How’d we do here in NH?  Science gave us a tip of the beany.  Time said a clear position on climate change was one of the 8 keys to winning NH -  putting this one issue in the same league as an endorsement from the Union Leader ! Wowee!!.

The blogosphere is choc-a-bloc with news about McCain’s global warming rhetoric in the final stretch to the gold medal (Apologies, Mittens for the lame link to the Olympics).  Here here and here for example.  And we’re stirring up the pot … here’s a sample of the emails we’ve received:

“With so many left leaning groups like yours pontificating on the global warming hoax, utilizing scare tactics based on junk science, and essentially endorsing the redistribution of wealth, we will lose our way of life.”

“Global Warming is a religion and a HOAX.  Do your own research and stop taking away American freedom and advocating the redistrubution of wealth to fund your religion.”

“Do you have any proof of any of these things occurring?  Do you think that you are educating people, or scaring them into throwing their money away?”
 

“Where were the suv’s and power companies when the dinosaurs and mastadons died and the glaciers that covered much of our nation melted?  This great earth and universe will continue to renew itself whether people populate this earth or not - so take a deep breath and exhale your carbon dioxide for the trees and plants - they need it to survive…”

Sticks and stones — but what are we to make of the wild reaction to McCain’s position?  People are ripping into him like he’s taking something away.  Freedom, baby.  IT’S MY RIGHT DRIVE MY YUKON TO PICK UP A GALLON OF MILK DOWN AT THE 7-11. 

Crazies out there.  Makes me want to fire up my two-stroke chain saw, take down some trees and build a fence …..  

Before Christmas, LCV was complaining that the media elite were dissing climate change and presidential politics.  If Russert, Stephanopoulos, and Couric won’t listen to LCV, maybe they will follow in the footsteps of one of their peers: The New York Times.

The New York Times editorial board decided to take a look at the candidates’ climate change positions in yesterday’s editorial “The One Environmental Issue.”  The editorial found that in past years Democratic and Republican strategists believed that climate change was “too complicated and forbidding an issue to sell to ordinary voters” and therefore was not an issue in 2000 or 2004 elections, but now they say, “the times have certainly changed.”

Of the Democrats, the editorial now says:

“Still, the country is a long way from a comprehensive response equal to the challenge. That is what the Democratic candidates are proposing. Senators Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, former Senator John Edwards, Gov. Bill Richardson and Representative Dennis Kucinich have all offered aggressive plans that would go beyond the Senate bill and reduce emissions by 80 percent by midcentury (90 percent in Mr. Richardson’s case), much as called for in the United Nations reports.

Internationally, the Democrats say they would seek a new global accord on reducing emissions to replace and improve upon the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Winning agreement among more than 180 nations will be slow-going, so several candidates, including Mrs. Clinton, have suggested jump-starting the process by bringing together the big emitters like China very early in their administrations.”

Two months ago, The New York Times first highlighted “the GOP Divide” on climate change after Mike Huckabee joined John McCain as the only Republicans to endorse a cap on carbon emissions.

This Times editorial described McCain as “authentic pioneer” in the senate on climate change, and “The other leading Republican candidates — Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee — talk about energy issues almost exclusively in the context of freeing America from its dependence on foreign oil. All promote nuclear power, embrace energy efficiency and promise greener technologies. Only Mr. Huckabee has dared raise the idea of government regulation, embracing, at least theoretically, the idea of a mandatory cap on emissions. The rest prefer President Bush’s cost-free and demonstrably inadequate voluntary approach, which essentially asks industry to do what it can to reduce emissions.”

When so much of the campaign news is focused on anything but the actual issues, it is refreshing to finally see national coverage of the climate issue and the presidential campaign.

The Christmas season allowed Granite Staters many things: a festive new batch of sappy candidate commercials, two days without candidate events, another Patriots win, but most importantly a chance to compare and contrast the slight differences between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani’s climate change proposals.

The major climate policy divide still remains in the GOP with John McCain and Mike Huckabee as the only two GOP candidates favoring a domestic cap-and-trade to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  But a slight difference persists between Romney and Giuliani, specifically concerning their views on U.S. involvement in an international response to climate change.

At a Hopkinton town hall this weekend, Giuliani vehemently opposed caps of any kind stating, “I like pursuing energy from positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement.  I never think that it works when government puts on too many taxes, mandates, or burdens.”  Giuliani’s only mention of working internationally on climate change was his desire to sell efficient and alternative technologies to developing countries like India and China.  Typically when the topic arises, Giuliani quickly launches into an attack of the current Kyoto Protocol.

Giuliani’s reluctance to talk about international agreements is in contrast with Mitt Romney, who is speaking more and more about possibly joining a new Kyoto-like agreement.

On yesterday’s The Exchange Romney stated, “I do believe that we can work with other nations of the world to consider the widest array of options to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.  There are a number of different pathways to do so and caps are one.”

Laura Knoy followed up by directly asking Romney, “If there were a Kyoto-type protocol that did include China and India, would a President Romney sign it?”

Romney responded:

“If it includes the entire world and it is a fair inclusion of those other nations, of course I would sign on, but there is a very big gap.  They are going to say that they want to continue to grow dramatically, and they want us to reduce, and we are going to have a difficult time.”

Romney is not definitively stating that he will actively pursue a global treaty as president, but he is clearly more willing to join the international community in a climate agreement than is Rudy Giuliani.  Again, Giuliani believes that selling efficient technology to the developing world will sufficiently reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to avoid global warming.

Listen to Giuliani in Hopkinton

Listen to Romney on The Exchange

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.