EnviroKnow

Democracy Corps, the polling group run by James Carville and Stan Greenberg, conducted pre and post State of the Union focus groups with 50 swing voters in Denver, CO. As the table below shows, the President’s approval rating improved on issues across the board after the speech — with a 22% increase on energy policy.

But as the Democracy Corps memo points out, the President’s approval gains on the energy issue didn’t span the partisan spectrum:

This section received the highest sustained ratings of the speech from Democrats and independents, but it was also one of the few polarizing sections as Republicans reacted negatively to the President’s call for more support of clean energy (independents, like Democrats, responded very favorably). Overall, Obama gained 22 points on the issue, one of his biggest gains on the evening, as these voters endorsed his appeal to end subsidies for oil companies and instead focus those resources on expanding clean energy in America.

Unfortunately, Democracy Corps didn’t release cross tabs or any other raw data from the focus groups, so that’s all the specificity we have.

Upon learning that he had placed third in the New Hampshire Republican primary last week with 17% of the vote, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman announced that he had “a ticket to ride” and would be continuing his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Unfortunately for Huntsman, his “ticket to ride” was on a train that was heading for relatively unfriendly territory — and fast. It only took a few days in the South for the former Utah Governor to realize the crazy train that is the GOP primary was going off the rails, giving him no chance to secure his party’s nomination for President in 2012.

Considered a moderate candidate in the GOP field, Huntsman holds a number of positions that are heretical to much of the GOP rank and file. To wit, he accepts mainstream science on climate change, wants to immediately end the war in Afghanistan and supports civil unions for gay couples.

In August, Huntsman caused a stir by admitting that he agreed with the vast majority of climate scientists on the sensitive issue of climate change. “To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming,” he wrote on Twitter. “Call me crazy,” he added, displaying his awareness of the extent to which he’s currently outside his party’s mainstream on the issue. Needless to say, most of his competitors in the primary were all too glad to take him up on his offer to call him crazy.

On the war in Afghanistan, which all of the other GOP candidates have expressed interest in continuing indefinitely, Huntsman again differed from his party. Just hours after announcing his candidacy, he told ABC News that he wanted to “get American troops out faster.” He maintained that position in the months that followed. “I take a different approach on Afghanistan,” he said at a debate in November. “I think it’s time to come home.” He went further, making the case that the United States has better ways to spend its limited resources. “I don’t want to be nation-building in Afghanistan when this nation so needs to be built.”

In February 2009, nearly a year before he launched his campaign for the Republican nomination, Governor Huntsman announced his support for civil unions. And despite pushback from conservatives, some of whom consider treating gays and lesbians with respect a deal-breaker, Huntsman held his ground, insisting that our society could do better. When conservative talker Sean Hannity asked Huntsman if his position on the issue was “conservative enough,” the candidate replied, “I am where I am on civil unions. Some will like it. Some won’t.” Rubbing salt in the wound, he added, “We have not done an adequate job in terms of equality and fairness where it comes to reciprocal beneficiary rights.”

On all three of these issues, Huntsman took the side he knew to be morally right but politically unpopular, so it is ironic that Huntsman ended his campaign on the holiday celebrating the life of the great civil rights Martin Luther King Jr., who said the following:

“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.”

Shunning cowardice, expedience, politics and vanity, Huntsman chose to listen to his conscience on these three issues, alienating himself from the party he sought to represent.

Indeed, on all three issues, publicly available polling showed that Huntsman’s positions earned the support of a majority of Americans, but not a majority of Republicans.

On climate change, extensive polling has shown that a majority of Republicans deny that the problem exists. Last month the Carsey Institute found that just 42% of Republicans trust climate scientists on the issue. Similarly, a recent Pew Research Center Poll found that Tea Party supporters are the demographic group that is least likely to understand mainstream climate science. To the GOP’s credit, there is some evidence that moderate Republicans are beginning to recognize the problem — with 63% telling Pew they see evidence of climate change — but they remain a minority within the party.

On the war in Afghanistan, a poll conducted by CNN in October showed that an all-time low of just 34% of Americans supported the war. Unfortunately for the Huntsman campaign, supporters were overwhelmingly Republicans, 60% of whom still thought the war was a good idea.

Likewise, a Zogby Interactive poll in July found that 70% of Americans, but just 49% of Republicans, support civil unions. Support for the practice among conservative Iowa caucus-goers was much lower.

So what made Huntsman think he had a chance?

In an interview a few weeks ago with Politico’s Jonathan Martin, Huntsman laid out the rationale for his campaign. “I believe in the ideas put forward by Theodore White, the cycles of history,” he told POLITICO. “I believe we are in one such cycle. I think that cycle ultimately takes us to a sane Republican Party based on real ideas.”

He was confusing White’s theory with Arthur Schlesinger’s, but on the big picture, he was right. I have no doubt that the Republican Party will eventually return to a traditionally conservative foreign policy, rationality and respect for science and civil rights. Huntsman’s problem — which is shared by all Americans, due to our dysfunctional two-party system of government — is that his timing was off.

As the consequences of climate change become increasingly apparent, the war in Afghanistan continues to drag on with precious little progress and a new generation of more open-minded Americans reaches voting age, the positions held on these issues by today’s Republican Party will become entirely incompatible with electoral success on the presidential level. As that process unfolds, and as GOP moderates experience a backlash against the Tea Party’s overreach, the party will inevitably moderate itself, drifting back toward the center. Once that happens, and not a moment sooner, the GOP will again be ready to nominate a moderate candidate like Jon Huntsman.

Huntsman undoubtedly knows his ideas are ahead of their time in today’s Republican Party. And perhaps the true purpose of his 2012 run was to set himself up for a moderate run in the future, once his party realizes that accepting science, choosing military engagements judiciously and advancing civil rights are wholly consistent with conservative values.

But ultimately, as Dave Weigel notes, “You work with the party you have, not with the party you may wish you had.” Only time will tell for certain whether Huntsman’s version of conservatism was a futile pipe dream or whether it was just ahead of its time. My sense and sincere hope is that it is the latter, but I think candidate Huntsman may have been off by a few Presidential election cycles in his timing.

This is a good speech:

Transcript below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

A new poll (PDF) from the National Earth Science Teachers Association (NESTA), which surveyed 555 K-12 educators in the United States, includes some good news:

Teachers generally accept the scientific consensus on climate change, with 89% agreeing that global warming is happening and only 13% attributing it mainly to natural changes in the environment.

But it also includes some bad news:

Although only 5% reported that they were required to teach “both sides” of climate change, 47% reported that they taught “both sides” because they thought that “there is validity to both sides.”

It isn’t clear why so many teachers who NESTA says accept the scientific consensus on climate change are teaching “both sides” of the issue, essentially misleading students. The poll did find that “25-30% [of teachers] noted that students, parents, administrators, or community members have argued with them climate change is not happening, or is not the result of human activity.” This indicates that some teachers may teach both sides in order to shield themselves from such arguments, but it still doesn’t explain the 47% who teach both sides.

Only the executive summary (PDF) of the poll has been released so far, with the full results expected to be available soon. Once they’re available, I’ll try to get to the bottom of that question.

Offered without comment: