by Joy Lockhart
Whenever a major political party finds itself out of power and rejected by voters, there’s a scramble to seize on new issues, elevate new leadership and redefine the message. Unfortunately, politicians in these circumstances often succumb to their worst instincts and the urgings of their most extreme constituents. It happens to everyone, and most observers agree that the GOP is struggling with exactly this challenge. The American public, watching this struggle, is reacting as it always does when a party leans toward its extremes: negatively.
With an eye on 2010, Republican leaders in Congress should therefore think carefully about their strategy on climate change. The “climategate” controversy over stolen e-mails written by scientists has current leading conservative voices, from Sarah Palin to Glenn Beck to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), arguing that they’ve at last found the “proof” that global warming is a hoax.
Climategate has, this week at least, stirred up a hornet’s nest. But as a political strategy, it’s highly suspect. After all, climate denial has been a marginal position for years, and the American people believe by a wide margin that climate change is real, that we’re causing it and that taking action to solve it will create good-paying jobs. A few out-of-context lines from decade-old e-mails aren’t going to change that in the long term, and anyone who thinks we’ll be talking about these e-mails a year from now hasn’t been paying attention to a news cycle that moves at Twitter speed.
The real story here is that serious Republican and conservative leaders are committing to take action on climate change. In October, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) joined Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to move compromise legislation forward, and with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), this “tripartisan” alliance is negotiating with colleagues even as the U.S. negotiates in Copenhagen. Kerry said recently that other Republican votes for climate legislation are in place, and this constructive process could help both parties’ reputations with voters, who are tired of a wildly partisan, do-nothing Washington culture.
An even bigger conservative bombshell dropped on Dec. 4. In the pages of The Washington Post, James Murdoch — yes, the News Corp. executive — wrote that in his considered opinion, the time for national climate legislation has come. In particular, Murdoch argued that conservatives should embrace the opportunities of a transition to clean energy and warned that America is falling behind in the energy technology race.
His argument on the science is particularly instructive:
“You do not need to believe that all climate science is settled or every prediction or model is perfect to understand the benefits of limiting pollution and transforming our energy policies — as a gradually declining cap on carbon pollution would do. This is the moment to champion policies that yield new industries, healthy competition, cleaner air and water, freedom from petroleum politics and reduced costs for businesses.”
There’s nothing unclear about that: a conservative calling for legislative action on climate change and moving away from Big Oil’s messaging (which hasn’t been popular with voters since “Dallas” went off the air). Murdoch seems to recognize — and to hope that other conservatives recognize — that climategate is little more than a politically risky distraction from the real task at hand: creating jobs for Americans at a time when China and others are racing to take them from us.
Murdoch and Graham are just two of the many conservatives and business-friendly voices that have joined a growing call for comprehensive climate and energy legislation. Military leaders, members of the clergy, outdoorsmen and CEOs with conservative credentials have all expressed their support for various reasons — support that no doubt is helping to sway Republicans in the Senate who can see farther down the road than the next press conference.
Perhaps a silver lining from this latest climate distraction is that it has refocused us on the actual science of climate change and the magnitude of the threat we face. This decade is very likely to be the warmest on record, according to World Meteorological Organization data released this week. Carbon dioxide levels are the highest they’ve been in at least 800,000 years, and Arctic summer sea ice has declined more than 60 percent since the 1980s. Washington and the American people haven’t veered so far from reality to be able to ignore these facts for long.
For the moment, Republicans in Congress seem fixated on a short-term tactical advantage. But in the long run, this kind of rhetoric will confirm the majority of Americans’ worst fears about the GOP. As political calculations go, climategate is a misstep. Serious conservatives recognize that, and so should their colleagues in the Senate.
Joe Lockhart served as press secretary to President Bill Clinton and is a founding partner of The Glover Park Group in Washington.
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