NYTimes OpEd: How Republicans Managed to Rebrand 'Cap and Trade'

[pampango]

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/09/30/30climatewire-how-republicans-managed-to-rebrand-cap-and-t-95204.html

A sliver of Americans worry that climate change is the invention of plotting communists, international liberals or U.S. officials engineering deceitful reasons for more taxes. Supposedly, it's a hoax. That's a thin stripe of thought held by roughly six people in a crowd of 100, according to Yale polling.

Count Lora Halberstadt among them.

"There's more validity to sunspots causing climate change than, you know, carbon emissions," said Halberstadt, co-founder of the Racine Tea Party in Wisconsin, echoing a comment by Republican Senate nominee Ron Johnson, whom she supports. That claim has gained Johnson national attention in the past month as he threatens to unseat Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.).

Tea party candidates are sometimes tapping into that eroding support for climate change, casting it as a dubious justification for controversial legislation like cap and trade.

Democrats have largely avoided wading into the cap-and-trade debate -- even when they're targeted.

"When you're defending, when you're explaining, you're usually losing," said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster.

Ken Buck, a Colorado district attorney who's locked in a tight race with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), for example, has questioned the science behind man-made climate change and called cap and trade an "economic suicide mission."

Enter the rebranding: "cap and tax."

The slogan played a partial role in Christine O'Donnell's success against Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) in the Delaware Republican primary for Senate. It also helped Democrat Mike Oliverio, a state lawmaker in West Virginia, defeat Rep. Allan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) in a House primary. The issue is being used in other races, as well.

"In every state, there are large or huge majorities who endorse the green side of this issue and who will vote accordingly," Krosnick said, "and tiny numbers of people who are skeptical of the issue, who will vote accordingly."

There is a significant caveat in the findings: The climate issue, like others, won't exclusively determine the outcome of an election.

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/09/30/30climatewire-how-republicans-managed-to-rebrand-cap-and-t-95204.html?pagewanted=2