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    What the Primary Elections Mean for the Environment

    By Jamie Friedland on Wed, 09/15/2010 - 11:49pm |

    Hi all, check out my first post at Change.org on what the primary elections mean for the environment:

    Despite a Democratic supermajority and a successful bill in the House of Representatives, this summer witnessed another climate failure in the Senate. Unfortunately, the situation is not improving. In our warming world, the term “glacial pace” is now a completely appropriate description for climate policy progress: Decades of frustratingly slow advance are now reversing into a rapid retreat.

    ...

    Mike Castle is not the first moderate conservative to fall to an extremist challenger sure to be a solid ‘no’ for environmental protection. Last month, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) lost her primary to another climate-denying Tea Partier, Joe Miller.  It is sadly telling that even lame duck Murkowski—who is already back in Washington trying to gut EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions—is being mourned in some pragmatic environmental circles. Her bid to block EPA essentially involves replacing uncontroversial climate science with partisan political science—and she lost her primary for being too moderate?

    Thinking about it more, this post is really about what could rightly be called the potential "Palin effect."  A lot of people have been throwing this term around lately with a few different meanings, but I think this is the best interpretation: galvanizing more of your opponents than your base on account of your extremism.  I don't think I'm being original here; this isn't a huge leap and it's entirely possible I read this interpretation somewhere else and it popped into my head.  Does anyone know where I might have seen the phrase used in this context?  

    As of now, I'll be posting at change.org on a weekly basis.  I can't repost these entries fully here, but I will probably be posting excerpts and expanding on the thoughts in more detail here so that I can a) exceed my word limit haha and b) discuss with you the issues that were important enough to post about in the first place.

     

    Comments

    "galvanizing more of your opponents than your base on account of your extremism."

    What seems to be the crux of the matter for the upcoming election is exposing the real extremism to the electorate, along with the short term and long term consequences for the environment, in a way that they can easily grasp.

    Of course one big hurdle, esp in a down economy, is that environment tends to back seat in terms of people's concerns.


    by Elusive Trope on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 6:01am

    True.  But it's not like people who care at all about the environment are otherwise struggling with the decision of which party to vote for.  It's just yet another reason to vote D.  When you're deciding whether your representative in the Senate will fight for or against your values for the next SIX YEARS, I really don't understand that apathy: what's the benefit of not voting: an extra 30-60 min of free time every 2 years?  Not anywhere near worth it to me...


    by Jamie Friedland on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 8:33am

    I think a lot of the apathy is generated from looking at politics from afar.  It is a hazy muddled dot on the horizon and people see their vote as not changing that hazy muddled dot.  It is only when engages the political landscape on some significant level that the importance (beyond just being one's civic duty) is able to be apprehended.


    by Elusive Trope on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 9:19am

    That makes sense.  Doesn't make me like it, but it makes sense.


    by Jamie Friedland on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 10:00am

    "galvanizing more of your opponents than your base on account of your extremism" - nicely put. It certainly feels like I've heard it or thought it before, but it's like that with most good ideas well said, isn't it...?

    If we're looking for a silver lining, yes, there is that. But it also means that the whole GOP caucus that does make it back to the Senate and House will be cowering before the the threat of the Tea Party, with their demonstrated punch in primary contests. So the trade-off looks like this: without the Tea Party, teh GOP would have a bigger caucus, but a more moderate one, with the Tea Party they have a smaller but much more extreme caucus.

    And with the de facto supermajority requirement in the Senate, it hardly matters at all whether they come back with 51 or 49 senators. So it seems that the BEST possible outcome at this point is that the GOP come back with a minority, though a 'controlling' minority, that is highly radicalized.

    Beyond that, it is starting to frustrate me how the Dems have ceased to have any kind of positive agenda. It is all about pointing at Teh Crazy on the other side of the fence. WHAT potential environmental legislation will this evil GOP be blocking, exactly? The EPA authority can be defended by a presidential veto, and requires no affirmative vote, C&T died a long time ago without the GOP's helping hand, thank you very much, and the president himself has been spending his time shooting himself in the foot on off-shore drilling.

    Just once, I'd like to hear the Dem leadership talk positively about what they plan to do if they get back with majorities, rather than snigger sophomorically about 'Boehner Land'.

    /end of rant


    by Obey on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 6:47am

    I agree.  They certainly didn't plan it, but the R strategy of handing us the reins in this economy and then blocking real action to fight it is masterful.  With enough bad luck, voters will put them back in charge right after we clean up their mess.  

    Yes, Dems could have done a LOT more to address these issues effectively, but with the global economy down, I would have to be shown a very compelling case to believe that even perfect leadership by Dems (which we obviously have not had) would yielded results satisfactory to the electorate.  


    by Jamie Friedland on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 8:36am

    Good Rant!

    I send Reid a Dear Harry e-mail yesterday saying pretty much what you said. I let him know that if Angle were to win, we'd all be going over the abyss in short order, whereas if he were to retain his seat, we'd end up at the bottom of the same abyss, but more gradually. I left it up to him to decide if it was worth his trouble to reason with me how he would make a distinct difference if re-elected. As for now, he's been put on notice my absentee ballot will be marked None of the Above on election day if I don't hear anything that would make me want to vote for him. At the very least, he knows there's one vote less for Angle, but its' also one vote less for him too. So unless the tally numbers on election day get to single digits, my voter arrogance and insolence is of no concern to him.


    by Beetlejuice on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 10:50am

    i think there's an agenda.  it's just not the kind that fits on flashcards.


    by anna am on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 10:54am

    Hi Anna! Nice to see you over here. I'm not quite sure what you say means, though - that their legislative agenda is too complex for voters to worry their pretty heads over? That their legislative strategy does not so much involve specific policy items as... well... something else?

    I don't quite mean that as snark, either. But it is exasperating. They SHOULD be thinking about structuring their agenda in such a way that they can also SELL it. Just look back at the last Congress: the stimulus? Nobody knows what it involved, apart from a shitpile of pork. HCR? All they can concretely see is the accelerating rise in premium rates. FinReg? All they see are happy bankers with money coming out their ears. I mean, where the hell is Axelrod? He's supposed to have some input here. It's nice to have the wonks back in the driver's seat, but it's all been so utterly tone-deaf.

    So, in short, MORE FLASHCARDS! Less executive summary.


    by Obey on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 11:57am

    nice to see you too obey.  i'm assuming they still have in mind things like a better grid, local produce inititiatives, more creative thinking like in the retrofit incentives, continued tightening of efficiency standards for cars and trucks as well as domestic appliances.  Would also like to more stuff like the Land Management Act and a real lookie see into mountaintop mining, not just a paper on it. 

    And so on.

    Would of course love to see them bring cap and trade back from the dead (though it could be argued that the $65 billion transfer to RGGI is kinda sorta cap and trade on the sly), and i'd love to see Obama champion a Copenhagen redo -- and those would fit on a flashcards.  But i don't anticipate stuff that's quite so grand.  Or not till he's into a second term. 

    so, while i do at least partially mean what you take me to mean, i also mean none of the little steps i think they can and will continue making can effectively call out hey wow look at this! and threading them together, well, it doesn't quite make a flashcard.  then about policy, well, i think they have to regroup and figure out what's doable -- and what won't wind them up with yet more egg on their faces. 


    by anna am on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 1:10pm

    beyond that, i'm as frustrated as you are with what is flashing for the public. 


    by anna am on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 3:39pm

    Jamie, I took the time to read the full article at Change.org...excellent work, as usual!

    It's interesting the tea-baggers have run amok over the GOP to the point where they're finally going to have their agenda seriously considered by the party elites and legislation put forward advancing their ideology as law. Of course, the party elites never intended to advance those views before simply because they were so extreme...they just needed the votes to keep the GOP in power to advance their own political views. Now they have no choice but to work with their fellow tea-baggers putting their agenda's forward just so the party elite can still hold the reins of power.

    So we should expect to see vast changes in government spending choking off money to vital public services venues and agencies the tea-baggers deem to be too extravagant and too expensive.

    It will be interesting to see their reactions when their plans blow up in their faces and no one knows how to put it back together gain to make things work as they did before.


    by Beetlejuice on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 11:06am

    Thanks Beetlejuice.  And I agree.  I would have liked to see the moment when they realized their pandering had created a monster they were no longer controlling. 

    My quiet, worst-case scenario consolation is that if these people were ever to end up in control, it couldn't last more than a cycle: as soon as they attempted to transfer this rhetoric into actionable policy, I think America would realize that we as a country want no part in what they are talking about pretty quickly.  Of course that would be a rough few years...


    by Jamie Friedland on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 12:08pm

    Must … resist … fulfilling … Godwin's law.

    A true worst-case scenario is that after the authoritans get elected into office, they change the government into a true authoritarian regime. It's happened before, but I'll leave the specifics as an exercise for the reader.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 12:45pm

    Godwin's law applies to adults. We're discussing children. You know when a bunch of children get too rough and break a toy they're playing with, they look for an adult to put it back together again so they can go back and abuse it again.


    by Beetlejuice on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 2:15pm

    I remember reading some where it did happen in the late 19th century and only for an election cycle and a half or so, but grass-roots politics proved to be too whimsical for serious discussion or debate back then and the movement died out. I suspect the same thing will happen with the tea-baggers, except there's more to lose today than there was in the late 19th century.


    by Beetlejuice on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 2:21pm

    I think you are reading it wrong. The negative impact of "Palinization" (for the GOP) as you describe it here isn't really in galvanization of the opposition (in fact, it doesn't seem to be impacting Dem enthusiasm much at all). What candidates of this nature really seem to be doing is chasing away otherwise loyal members of their own party as well as turning off independents who don't view themselves as "opposition" to either party.

    It seems like the current competition between the parties seems to be which side can come up with a more outrageous thing to do that will turn off voters.

     


    by kgb999 on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 3:28pm

    A very valid point.  I hadn't considered that effect.  Maybe polling and election data will be detailed enough to give us more insight into this nascent phenomenon come November. 

    Side note: it's good to see you here!


    by Jamie Friedland on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 4:38pm

    This is a good place to make this interesting note:

    I belong to a group of quilters in Florida and these ladies are not very political by nature.  Most of them through the years have been loyal republicans.  Normally they don't pay any attention to the elections until a week or so before it is time to vote.  The only exception was the 2008 election and this week with the primary win in Delaware has gotten their attention early.  They are rethinking if they should support the republicans.  It is starting to sink in that the crazy far right is taking over the party.  Normally they don't talk religion or politics but one brought it up because she can't talk about it with her hard headed husband.  The rest of the evening this topic was covered and what would happen if the crazies end up in office.  If this conversation is going on in this group of women then it maybe going on with other groups of freinds.      

     


    by trkingmomoe on Fri, 09/17/2010 - 3:23am

    That is good to hear, I hope that's happening elsewhere too.


    by Jamie Friedland on Fri, 09/17/2010 - 9:55am

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