Say, Can Climate Action Woo Suburban Voters?

Once again, climate change tends to come in last or next to last on lists of things that concern Americans. Somehow, Democrats think that pushing climate change will woo suburban voters

(Grist) Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, one of the leading climate hawks in Congress, thinks climate change can be a potent political issue this fall.

“I think it’s a very powerful suburban swing-voter issue,” Markey told Grist during a reception at the Democratic National Convention. “In the suburbs, people care about clean water, clean air, climate science. They are, in large part, in a position where they can prioritize it because to a large extent they’re doing well, but they can’t protect their families from climate change.” And wooing suburban swing voters, Markey says, will be essential for a presidential candidate to build a winning coalition.

He’s right on that last point, at least. Cities lean liberal and rural areas lean conservative, but the majority of Americans live in suburbs, so that’s wherepresidential elections are won and lost. And college-educated white voters — a mostly suburban group — are a key swing constituency. Counterintuitively, though, college-educated Republicans and independents are actually less likely to fully accept climate science than non-college educated Republicans and independents.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Spend lots of time and money (not too mention all that fossil fuel showing you’re a hypocrite) woo people on an issue that is virtually unimportant to the suburban voters. Tell them about how all this “climate action” will increase their taxes, increase their energy costs, and increase their cost of living. Tell them how it will require them to make costly upgrades to their homes and home appliances, and restrict which ones they can use. Tell them it will limit their consumer choice and personal liberty. Tell them how it will put more power over their lives in the hands of a central government and its bureaucracy. That should work out well.

Meanwhile, what do Dem voters think of ‘climate change’ vs terrorism?

(The Blaze) Voters attending the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this week faced the question of which issue concerns them more — climate change or the Islamic State terrorist threat. And their answers fell in line with Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent claim that climate change is at least as dangerous as the threats posed by the Islamic State.

The conservative website the Daily Signal asked delegates and attendees of the convention which issue they believe poses a more significant threat to the U.S., and all of the respondents shown on the video were more concerned about climate change.

Total nutters

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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