Want to Win in November? Support Clean Energy.

A must-read piece today from Grist's David Roberts on why clean energy is a huge political winner:

With the Wall Street Journal editorial page beating its chest, Politico making sweet, sweet love to the Solyndra non-scandal, and the Chamber of Commerce dumping money into attack ads, Democrats have gotten unduly spooked. They’ve started believing John Boehner’s trash talk, that energy is a wedge to divide unions from greens.

It’s an empty threat. The fact is, overwhelming majorities of Americans — across party, age, and regional lines — support clean, modern energy. A poll conducted by ORC International in November found that 77 percent of Americans, including 65 percent of Republicans, believe that “the U.S. needs to be a clean energy technology leader and it should invest in the research and domestic manufacturing of wind, solar, and energy efficiency technologies.” Last February, a Gallup poll offered a list of actions Congress might take. The most popular option, with an incredible 83 percent support, was “an energy bill that provides incentives for using solar and other alternative energy resources.” [...]

Clean energy isolates the Republican base from the broad mass of American opinion and, in particular, from swing-state independents. It’s a wedge issue and an electoral winner for Democrats if they can quit playing defense and go on the attack. The appropriate response to threats from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a well-administered ass kicking.

Next time you hear a Democrat waffling on support for clean energy, kick them in the shins. I am not making this up: Some focus group testing this week showed clean energy is almost as popular with swing voters as killing Osama bin Laden (although who gives killing the mastermind of 9/11 a B minus?). Plus, we all know how much voters love candidates apologizing for what they believe in.

And if you want to support great work like David's and have a few bucks burning a hole in your pocket, go donate to Grist.

Perry on "Solynda": Is It a Gaffe in a Party Where Ignorance is a Virtue?

To the surprise of absolutely no one, presidential candidate and Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) said something else dumb:

But his attempt to turn this tough talk into an attack on the current administration came with a few of the verbal misstatements that have plagued other public appearances by Perry. While criticizing President Barack Obama for picking winners and losers in the energy industry, he bungled the name of the most famous energy company to go under despite government assistance.

"No greater example of it than this administration sending millions of dollars into the solar industry, and we lost that money," Perry began. "I want to say it was over $500 million that went to the country Solynda."

For the record, Solyndra was a company, not a country, and its bankruptcy was a small fraction of a broadly successful program to incentivize solar power.

After Republicans suffered a series of defeats in the 2011 elections, the media tried to frame the results as a rejection of the GOP "overreaching" by passing extremist policies. But as Karl Frisch pointed out, "Republicans did not overreach. What they did is who they are. It is what they stand for. It is what they campaign on."

Republicans have spent years devaluing intelligence & thoughtfulness. Republican voters keep picking candidates on the "incompetent & incapable" or "genuinely stupid" end of Bob Cesca's spectrum of ignorance like Sharron Angle & Christine O'Donnell over "genuinely smart but wrong" folks like Mike Castle & Sue Lowden. And Rick Perry seems to be not just ignorant but unserious, repeatedly making mistakes that show he's not even bothering to put in the time to try to get it right.

If Republican primary voters don't punish candidates for ignorance & mistakes, can Rick Perry's errors really be considered "gaffes"?