Sandy changes everything. Not the election outcome -- something bigger

[BlueStreak]

Sandy didn't change the election outcome. Obama had that covered before the storm hit. Sandy simply forced the media to give up on their ridiculous "Romney has momentum" nonsense, but the results will be the same either way. Maybe we get one extra state because of Sandy. That's not the big deal with Sandy.

The big deal is actually two separate, but related issues.

1) Obama has been trying to make this election about the proper role of government. He really has been trying to develop that theme. But it was always in the abstract. Well, all of a sudden, it is no longer abstract. The proper role of government is very real now. And this will not go away as fast as our normal 48-hour ADD news cycle. After the election, all eyes turn to the "fiscal cliff". It was always clear there will be a deal struck. Sandy gives Obama the leverage to accept less austerity and more of what will grow this economy. That is a big F---- deal (as Joe would say.) And this will probably happen in the lame duck period because the GOP doesn't improve their bargaining power at all by waiting to January. After walking the plank for McConnell for 4 miserable years, do you really think many Republicans are willing to stand firm shutting down the government in January just to get a tax cut for billionaires? No freaking way. Bye, bye Grover Norquist. Good riddance.

2) The other thing that Sandy does -- and this is a much more strategic item that will color the entire second term for Obama -- is that it brings the subject of climate change front and center. We can thank Mayor Bloomberg for part of that, but really, we just can't have half of NYC shut down this way. We are going to have to make huge infrastructure investments to build barriers that can protect the city. This is real now, and it is going to be impossible for the climate change deniers to hold this back now. As Bloomberg pointed out in his endorsement today, Obama has actually made major accomplishments on climate change by working indirectly (raising CAFE standards radically, investing in green energy, and the "Cash for Clunkers" program that seems to have slipped into the memory hole.) Because of Sandy, politicians can start coming out of the Climate Change closet now. Look for a huge change in public sentiment in the next year or so. I wouldn't be surprised to see Obama really make that the unifying message of his second term, just as health care was the big item in his first 4 years.

Without Sandy, Obama would have won and continued to work tactically.

With Sandy, Obama wins and hits the ground running with a real purpose for the next 4 years.

Any thoughts? Agree? Disagree?

[clydefrand]

1. I agree with you

We all need to learn more about global warming. Just talked to a friend yesterday. Of course she doesn't think we are to blame JUST because we have had global warming before. I said yep, but that was several thousand years ago.

I've never thought global warming was a lie like the repubs say...many of them. They just don't read or want to believe that we are causing it...or at least quite a bit of it. Science info just isn't something they care about. They only live in their small world and don't give a damn about what is happening all over the earth...unless it concerns their money.

[BlueStreak]

4. It was thousands of years ago AND the change happened over thousands of years

This change has happened in about 80 years. There is no precedent for this rate of climate change in the entire natural history of the planet as far as anyone has been able to determine.

[clydefrand]

10. I agree

Even in my long life of 71 years, I can see a huge change.

[BlueStreak]

11. The changes are everywhere. Here are four that are obvious to me.

1) Here in the Midwest, there is a term "Indian Summer". In Central Indiana, this was like clockwork. After Labor day, the temperatures got chilly for several weeks. But then somewhere around the end of September, there would always be a period of 4 or 5 days when the temperature jumped back up to typical summertime temperatures. It happened this way practically every single year that I can remember from the 1960s onward. Well, starting about 10 years ago, we no longer get any significant "Indian Summer" effect. The temperatures just never drop enough in September to have that snap-back effect.

2) Our tree leaves drop about 2 weeks later than they did when I was growing up. This year is the rare exception. Most of the leaves were down by Nov 1 this year, but that is because we had a brutal drought this year and we had lots of wind in late October. But in other recent years, the leaf fall continues to mid-November now.

3) In January, it was almost always the case that we would have a few nights where the overnight low was significantly below zero F, and there was almost always a period of 7-10 days in January where the temperature never got above freezing. That pattern never happens anymore -- it has probably been 15 years since we saw that pattern that used to happen virtually every year.

4) Indiana is known for high school basketball. The community sets it Spring rhythms around the annual basketball tournament. When I was growing up, there was folklore that said the "sectional week" (the first week of the tournament) would be accompanied by a significant winter storm, and usually this was the last big winter event. Most years, sectional week would deliver a significant snowfall -- several inches or more. I don't think we have had any significant snow in sectional week for 10 years now.

The changes are happening before our eyes.

[former9thward]

2. The government is not going to shut down no matter what happens.

What happens in January is that the tax cuts expire. The government does not shut down. Whether Republicans have incentive to bargain or not depends on whether they hold the House or gain in the Senate.

[BlueStreak]

5. There is another debt extension coming up about the same time as the "fiscal cliff"

Obama intentionally maneuvered these things to come together. He's had a long game in mind for a long time.

[former9thward]

7. If the House does not change nothing will change.

Every nonpartisan prediction I have seen says it will not.

[BlueStreak]

9. It will be difficult, but Obama has a very strong hand this time.

Obama could potentially get "Stimulus II" as part of the "grand bargain".

[limpyhobbler]

3. Good observations, agree and disagree...

President Obama's "all of the above" energy strategy is part of the problem.

He is still pushing the "clean coal" myth. (http://www.barackobama.com/energy), wants to open up 100 years of natural gas, coal exports have risen to an all time high, is accelerating arctic oil drilling, and supports tar sands oil.

If we stay on this course it will push us past a point of being able to recover and make it much much harder to adapt to the warmer planet.

Raising CAFE standards was good. But the "drill baby drill" attitude will not work. It is just another form of climate change denial. The investments in clean energy are a small fraction of what we really need.

We need a New Deal-style program to convert America to clean energy, create green jobs, and adapt to a warmer world. We need to approach it with the same total commitment that we put into winning World War II. We should take democratic control of the fossil fuel industry, ban it from pushing its propaganda over the airwaves, and end its political influence. And it is somewhat urgent.

I hope you are right that President Obama is going to pick up the climate change issue in a 2nd term. But I can't see how that is possible. He has already locked himself into support for tar sands, 100 years of shale gas, expanding so-called "clean coal", and exporting all of the above. He has not really left himself much room to maneuver.

We need a mass movement of people to demand the government change course.

[BlueStreak]

8. I think Obama understands we have to move off coal ASAP

but it didn't make sense to allow that to be a dominant issue in this election cycle. And he also knows the tar sands / pipeline isn't the greatest thing. To move off coal, we have to transform the economy (and education level) in Appalachia. We won't be able to go cold turkey, but I bet this process can be started in the next 4 years.

And natural gas is a white knight -- or maybe a grey knight. Natural gas is a whole lot better than burning coal, and it is cheaper. So in reality, natural gas is the thing that will force places like West Virginia to agree to an economic transition.

We have to move beyond natural gas too, but it is a relatively better fuel for a transition period.

[limpyhobbler]

13. He is "Paving the Way for Clean Coal" (http://www.barackobama.com/energy)

Even worse, coal exports are reaching an all time high. "Understanding" counts for squat. We need actions not understanding.

US industries have invested (actually wasted) billions building the infrastructure to get the shale gas out, studying "clean coal", digging up the tar sands. That includes building the pipes and the mass propaganda campaign that is needed to ensure the people will not complain.

All that money should have been going into wind, solar and geothermal instead. We are headed in the wrong direction. The natural gas boom is driving down the cost of all fossil fuels and crowding wind, solar and geothermal out of the market. America is falling behind on clean energy because of our leaders' failure to challenge the fossil fuel industry. The "all of the above" energy policy is a shining example of that failure.

Don't get me wrong, Romney is obviously worse.

To create better jobs in coal country the solution is beyond obvious. Give them jobs in clean energy development. That means wind, solar and geothermal. It means modernizing our electric grid and insulating buildings. There is no need for shale gas as a transitional fuel. We must act quickly to build a sustainable energy infrastructure. Shale gas is making matters worse. Industry is pushing shale gas because they make billions in private profit at our expense.

If we increased the use of natural gas, it would replace some coal from the planet’s power-generating mix. But it would also crowd out truly low-carbon sources of power: abundant and cheap natural gas would make it that much harder to get sun and wind (or, if it’s your cup of hot water, nuclear power) up and running on a large scale.

As the International Energy Agency reported last summer, the numbers are significant: their projections for a “Golden Age of Gas” scenario have atmospheric concentrations of CO2 peaking at 650 parts per million and temperature rising 3.5 degrees Celsius, far higher than all the experts believe is safe. In September, the National Center for Atmospheric Research tried to combine all the known data—everything from methane leakage in coal mines to the cooling effects of coal-fired sulfur pollution—and concluded, in the words of the scientist Tom Wigley, that the switch to natural gas “would do little to help solve the climate problem.”

As a result of such findings, and of all the on-the-ground problems in Pennsylvania and out west, environmental groups are backing away from their earlier support for gas. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for instance, has grown increasingly critical; and at the grassroots tens of thousands of highly organized activists with visible and articulate spokesmen (the actor Mark Ruffalo has been especially notable) are making an impressively strong stand against further drilling.2 Their efforts come up against the staggeringly deep pockets of the fossil fuel industry, which is used to winning battles. Bowing to that pressure, and trying to ward off the appeal of the GOP’s “drill, baby, drill” rhetoric, the president praised fracking in his State of the Union address, promising to “develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.”...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/08/why-not-frack/?pagination=false

President Obama should not need permission from anybody in West Virginia to move forward - they don't support him anyway.

Clean energy does not have to wait until after we "transform the education level in Appalachia". People there will vote for jobs. Give them a real clean energy New Deal jobs program and they will vote for it, same as they voted for FDR and LBJ.

The power of the fossil fuel industry over government is the main problem. Let's push that industry out of the way and into the dustbin of history where it belongs. That industry is not in any sense a partner in addressing climate change.

The industry is the problem. It has too much power. We need some brave souls in government who are willing to propose big government actions to address the climate crisis and push the private sector out of the way. The private sector is the problem. Industry money and power over government is the problem.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

6. "Bye, bye Grover Norquist. Good riddance."

[brindis_desala]

12. Spot on

Bloomberg is Wall Street. Nuff said.

[Texas-Limerick]

14. 59th Street Bridge Song

Mr President , whatcha  knowin'
I've come to watch your power flowin'
The hurricane kicked up the cobblestones
We're a little bit needy and feeling' soupy

Ba da, ba da,  ba da, ba da...feelin soupy

"I've got deeds to do
And promises to keep
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
But you and Christie will get Washington's best
I'm here to give you a FEMA life vest
Life,  I love you
All is groovy"

[johnlucas]

15. Dead on BlueStreak

Obama can go STRONGLY PROGRESSIVE backed by the fallout of Hurricane Sandy.
Hurricane Katrina finished wiping out Bush Jr. & the strength of the Republican Party.
Hurricane Sandy finished wiping out the Reagan Revolution, Reaganomics, & the relevance of the Republican Party.

'Heckuva job Brownie' underlined that fact with his 'Obama reacted too quickly' comment.

The winds are changing on the political scene.
John Lucas

[BlueStreak]

16. Change takes time, but now the people know how we pay for this

There has been a growing sense of America "just not being right" for a number of years. People have understood they were having to go deeply into debt just to pay for education. They saw the housing markets act crazy. They see they have to have two incomes just to have a basic lifestyle -- and often that is not enough. They saw their neighbors financially wiped out by one illness.

People knew something was wrong, but they really didn't understand it.

Last year with the "occupy" activities, people began to voice these things out loud. And since that time, we have learned a whole lot about how the 0.1% have systematically been extracting wealth from this country and stashing it offshore -- how those same people have sold us out, yet they don't even come close to paying their fair share to support this country.

Romney was the perfect candidate to run against. He was the most difficult to defeat because he was able to marshal so much money against us. But he brought right out into the open what the "Romney-class has been doing. It continues right up to the end with the recent revelation of how Romney extorted millions from GM in the rescue operation and still outsources almost every Delphi plan. And the next Romney generation is at it exactly the same way with son Tagg starting to do these same sleazy deals.

So now we know. I am confident that we will have Obama for another 4 years. And now we have the opportunity to reclaim the wealth of this nation for the middle class. New York needs a huge infrastructure upgrade, and it will cost billions of dollars. Guess what, there are lots of hedge fund managers working in Manhattan, siphoning the wealth that the real "makers" have created, hiding their earnings in complex Romneyesque offshore tax shelters. Those people have evaded billions if taxes. We now need billions to rebuild the infrastructure that has allowed them to get rich. It is a whole new game now.

Not every Republican is evil and self-centered. Many are, but some are not. There is room to work with people like Christie and Bloomberg, and any other honest conservative who isn't single-mindedly driven to prop up the 0.1% class.

Many things have been leading us to this moment. Let's hope Obama recognizes that and grabs the opportunity. I believe he will. He is very tuned into the long game.