Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Vote demon sheep for climate change

One criticism sometimes made against lefties is that their ideas are nice in theory, but they just don't understand how the world works. For example, before Christmas, Alex Massie (the Spectator's pet moderate) took George Monbiot to task for not understanding how American politics works and what would be needed to pass a climate change bill:

Massie wrote: "As a smart, centrist Democratic pal put it to me:

If Europeans want climate change passed they should hope for the elections of Carly Fiorna in California and Charlie Crist in Florida.

Electing Fiorina in California would remove the most caustic, politically tone deaf, unpopular, and insane Chairwoman of the Environment committee and replace her with a moderate Republican. You would automatically get a bipartisan bill, and maybe create enough votes to actually ratify an international treaty. Maybe the Guardian should have its readers send letters to Californians. It might not have worked in Ohio for 2004, but... Get rid of Barbara Boxer (and elect Crist in Florida) there is a clear path to 60 votes."

Massie is a journalist who has covered American politics for several years, and has contacts amongst political insiders in the Democratic Party. So much more realistic and knowledgable than the likes of George Monbiot. So let's find out more about this Carly Fiorina, who would be the key to the US Senate taking action on climate change:

She is the former CEO of Hewlett Packard, who was sacked in 2005 after shares declined by 60% while she was in charge.

She is the "pro-business" candidate whose former employer has donated the maximum amount possible to her opponent.

Before she decided that she wanted to become a Senator, she didn't usually vote in elections.

And her latest move in her stuttering election campaign was to release an attack ad on her opponent for the Republican nomination to appeal to right-wingers by branding him as a 'FCINO' (Fiscal Conservative in Name Only). It was described by one newspaper as "the most bizarre and counter-productive such missive ever produced". It depicts her opponent as a glowing-eyed, demonic wolf in sheep’s clothing. Words like “purity” and “piety” flash scarily on screen, while a demon sheep falls from a Greek pedestal. Representative Campbell’s tax record is mentioned, and then the demon sheep reappears. You can watch the whole thing here

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Just to recap, this is the woman who Alex Massie's "smart, centrist" Democrat friend thinks that Europeans ought to pin their hopes on for action on climate change. Someone who is, by the standards of the Republican Party, unusually incompetent, uninterested in democracy and lacking in political judgement. This is much more wrong as a piece of political analysis than anything that George Monbiot has ever come up with.

The problem that these centrist Democrats have is that they would much rather work with reasonable, moderate Republicans than with the leftie activists in their own party who they despise, and then their moderate Republican friends go and release adverts about demon sheep taxing people.

1 Comments:

At 4:01 pm , Blogger Matt Sellwood said...

DO NOT MOCK THE DEMON SHEEP.

Matt

 

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