From the irascible Joe Romm at Climate Progress:
But how did this happen? Follow the money. The Daily Caller has this story:
Big ‘green’ dollars propel McAuliffe to victory
Environmental activists poured millions of dollars into the Virginia gubernatorial campaign to help propel Democrat Terry McAuliffe to victory over Republican opponent Ken Cuccinelli.
Environmental groups put up $3.8 million to help McAuliffe defeat Cuccinelli, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. That’s about four times as much as fossil fuel interests gave Cuccinelli.
Energy and environmental concerns became a major focus during the campaign, as McAuliffe planned to jump-start Virginia’s renewable energy production and bring green jobs into the state.
Of course, we all know about ‘green’ jobs. They tend to be subsidized, transient, and only available to a select group of people.
Green groups also spent millions on TV ad buys during the campaign. NextGen Climate Action, which was founded by San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, spent more than $2.4 million — the most spent on TV buys by any group.
…
The League of Conservation Voters was able to mobilize volunteers to knock on 100,000 doors in the Richmond area and 300,000 across the state, reports the Hill.
Environmentalists were successful at making global warming a central issue in the campaign, having former University of Virginia climate scientist and global warming activist Michael Mann stump for McAuliffe.
The stigma of political stink will always be over Michael Mann now, as he has transformed himself from scientist to political activist, much like Dr. James Hansen (formerly of NASA GISS) has.
If big environmental outfits can so easily spend millions buying an out-of-state candidate like Terry McAuliffe, then how hard is it to buy a climate scientist or two?
Is team climate science now the best science money can buy?
Those “secret” UVa emails Mann has been viciously defending might give some clues. More later.
No, Joe Romm, climate action had nothing to do with McAuliffe’s win. Democrats run on a platform of “Green Jobs” as a substitute for the economic policy that they do not have. Everyone knows that, even the Democrats putting forth the Green message.
If you will look at the map of voting returns for the state, you will see the same old, same old. The Democrats took their usual bastions. Those bastions consist almost entirely of the counties bordering D.C and the college towns. If any one of the counties that is a D.C. suburb were removed from Virginia it would be impossible for a liberal to win a statewide office for the foreseeable future.
Reblogged this on biting tea and commented:
“Is ‘team climate science’ now the best science money can buy? Those ‘secret’ UVa emails Mann has been viciously defending might give some clues. More later.”
Which is exactly what I said two months ago when WUWT featured an article on Mann getting involved in the race, but didn’t hear a peep back. Face it folks. We have little time to save the republic, and unless people start voting with their brains it’s all over.
If the GOP candidate wins the recount for Attorney General (unlikely, since Democrats usually manage to find enough “lost” ballots to win recounts), Mann is still on the hook.
Was that money spent to get McAuliffe elected, or to keep Mann’s emails secret?
I’d just like to point out that Cuccinelli is not universally popular among those of us who think Mann’s emails should be released. Skepticism about various topic in climate science is not a signifier of general political views or of party affiliation. I’d have voted for McAuliffe on balance, given the positions of Cuccinelli on other important issues.
Get ready, Hillary will be pumped with climate talking points to such an extent it will look like robotic responses (bad robot). That leads to the question of whether presidential candidates should be tested for steroids.
@Bloke down the pub,
Yes.
Michael Cohen,
Yes. Vote for Terry, on the issues. In one debate a reporter brought up the issue of gay marriage (virginia has a definition of marriage in its state constitution) and even pointed that out to Terry in his question. Terry, typical know-it-all liberal that he is, said he’d get the legislature working on a bill day one if he became Governor and get it signed into law in his first year. In his response, Cuccinelli said that, owing to the fact that it was in the constitution it would require a constituaitonal amendment and neither the legislature nor governor had the authority to act contrary to the constitution and would therefore have to go to the voters for an amendment.
But, yeah, you keep voting on “the issues”, completely made up for your consumption by the media, and elect people ready to “rule day one” instead of someone who actually understands the law and the authority, power, and restrictions of the office they seek to fill.
Remember when the federal government was closed because the Republicans refused to take “no” for an answer to simply delay the individual penalty on Obamacare for one year (which they actually have the constitutional authoity to do) and within a week of the government opening up Obama came back and by presidential fiat he ordered a six week delay in exactly the same individual tax penalty (which e does NOT have the constitutional authority to do) and has since “promulgated a rule” which will excuse most labor unions from all of the penalties that exist for their plans in the ACA – through the next presidential election!
Yeah, you keep viting on those “issues” and don’t worry your pretty little head about that pesky constitution.
^^^This!
Michael Cohen says:
November 7, 2013 at 10:11 am
Please state on what other important issues about which a VA governor can do anything you prefer McAuliffe to Cuccinelli. Thanks.
I think the Libertarian (Losertarian!) idiot was the USEFUL IDIOT in this case.
Alas, may the Losertarians rot at the end of Mann’s Hockey Schtick!
So, this just goes to prove greenies will spend fortunes to keep the misdemeanours of their ‘scientific elite’ secret.
Looking at the US from the outside, I suspect the Tea Party’s attempt to nearly bring down the world economy a few weeks ago is having an impact on Republican support. I doubt if even more than a few per cent of Virginians have ever heard of Michael Mann and his routine abuse of real science.
Obamacare may be a big mistake, due to its obviously poor conception and implementation (plus huge cost) but attacking it in a way that put the US and world economy in extreme danger is going to have consequences. In a perverse way, the Tea Party managed to forward the cause of climate alarmism by causing an electoral backlash against the Republicans.
milodonharlani,
Well there is that “war on women” thing. Did you know that one of the candidates for governor was only at the hospital for the birth of two of his five children? And that, in that candidates own autobiography, he describes how, when coming home from the hospital with his wife and new baby after one of the births he stopped and in his own words his wife:
“was starting to well up in the backseat. She was having trouble understanding how I could be taking my wife and newborn baby to a fund-raiser on our way home from the hospital. We got to the dinner and by then Dorothy was in tears, and I left her with Justin and went inside. Little Peter was sleeping peacefully and Dorothy just sat there and poor Justin didn’t say a word. He was mortified. I was inside maybe fifteen minutes, said a few nice things about Marty, and hurried back out to the car. I felt bad for Dorothy, but it was a million bucks for the Democratic Party and by the time we got home and the kids had their new little brother in their arms, Dorothy was all smiles and we were one big happy family again. Nobody ever said life with me was easy.”
That’s a real man who has his priorities straight! You go out and defend women’s rights politically so they can feel empowered to divorce you after proving what a thoughtless, heartless, and selfish jerk you really are. Ken Cuccinelli never did that, so he must hate women!
The RNC did nothing to help, and the Dems pushed money to a so-called Liberterian’s campaign to draw off votes from Cuccinelli. There were reports that the Dems also ran robo-calls accusing Cuccinelli of supporting Obamacare. Virginia will pay for its stupidity when they see how the new governor really wants to operate.
Max Hugoson,
Sarvis is no Libertarian. The Democrat machine geared up with money and foot soldiers to get signatures to put him on the ballot. Democrats even funded a challenge to the Virginia law which requires signature gatherers to be citizens of Virginia and got a court to suspend the law pending appeal, then blanketed Virginia with out-of-state signature gatherers for hire.
Sarvis is in favor of putting GPS units in every car and having your every move every day telemetered to the state so that they can tax you based on miles driven. Please point out to me where in Libertarian doctrine one can come up with a argument that the state knowing every move you make is a legitimate authority?
Finally, at an election rally the day before the election, Libertarian Ron Paul said that any Libertarian or liberty loving Virginian would be “insane” to vote for “so-called Libertarian” Sarvis. Sarvis got 145,000 votes. Cuccinelli lost by 55,000 votes. You do the math.
Cuccinelli’s loss was far closer than predicted. Given the money supplied to and spent by McAuliffe, the margin should have been closer to 30% than 3%. As it is, McAuliffe will still be a minority-vote governor, having received substantially less than half the votes; more people voted against him than for him, in spite of his millions spent on lying television ads. McAuliffe hasn’t a clue how to govern; all he will be able to do is ask Hillary and Obama for directions. He is a silly, shallow man, with no qualifications or experience for the job; I pray for Virginia under his “leadership.” As for the climate initiatives, all I can do is hope that he encounters sufficient resistance to stay his hand.
To Peter: Please check your facts. The Tea Party had nothing to do with the issue you raise; the Democrats did it all by themselves, with Republicans trying (in vain) to save them from their own foolishness. No one ever spent his way to prosperity, and even the Democrats will eventually run out of other people’s money.
Agreed. I think the Libertarian candidate with the conniving financial aid of the Democratic machine pretty clearly cost Cuccinelli. the election. …not to mention the lack of suppurt from the Repubilcan party hacks.
The final result was really a shame as, in my opinion, a win for Cuccinelli would have shocked the DC proles no end.
FYI. Tom Steyer, CA billionaire climate alarmist, spent quite a bit of money in the special election for Washington State Senate (26th district) as well as in the Virginia Governor’s race. Basically, he tried to buy the election for an appointed Democrat by funding an outside negative campaign against Republican Jan Angel. Steyer’s folks were extremely nasty.
Steyer’s folks were trying to pin the “War on Women” message on Jan saying she opposed mammograms. Then she went public with the fact that she is a breast cancer survivor. Ooops.
Anyway, Jan won despite the massive negative campaign against her. The Washington State Senate will now be a roadblock for much of Governor Inslee’s efforts to raise the price of energy in the state.
Steyer did not win all of the races he wanted to win.
Peter Miller says:
November 7, 2013 at 10:35 am
Explain please how the Tea Party is responsible for Obama refusing to negotiate on a budget, as he is constitutionally required to do. Then kindly explain how the Tea Party is responsible for the Obama administration & Senate majority leader Reid never passing a budget, as also required by the constitution, but instead ruling by continuing resolution since 2009, except for sequestration, designed to cut the programs & departments most favored by the public. Then if you will explain how running over a trillion dollar deficit every year, on track to double the national debt in eight years which took 220 years to accumulate, doesn’t threaten the global economy. And finally say how the shutdown could possibly have hurt the global economy, since default was never a risk, as US debt obligations can be met out of continuing tax revenue.
Thanks.
Peter Miller says:
November 7, 2013 at 10:35 am
Looking at the US from the outside, I suspect the Tea Party’s attempt to nearly bring down the world economy a few weeks ago is having an impact on Republican support.
Peter,
Stick to topics you may have some factual basis to comment on. Your comment above exposes your shameful ignorance…. or your willingness to repeat fictional ‘talking points’ hyperbole from exceedingly biased political commentators. Either way, you just look foolish.
MtK
F. Ross says:
November 7, 2013 at 10:52 am
leon0112 says:
November 7, 2013 at 10:53 am
The Democrats pulled the same fake Libertarian stalking horse trick in Montana, to keep a Senate seat there in 2012. They’ve done the same thing for decades in Oregon, backing supposedly conservative third & fourth party candidates in Senate elections, with great success.
If McAuliffe’s deceit-, lie-, fraud- & money-fueled victory in VA lulls Democrats into a false sense of security over the likely effect on their chances in 2014, then Cuch may well prove a lamb whose sacrifice in a battle helped to win the war.
National voter ID laws would help even more.
Peter,
If you look at the polls in the months leading into the election, McAuliffe had a large lead going in which eroded. It is of course speculative to some extent, but the widely accepted explanation for this is that he suffered due to the current unpopularity of Obamacare.
I have a book that came out a few weeks ago called Credentialed to Destroy: How and Why Education Became a Weapon. The last Chapter lays out the political and economic vision tied to these education reforms globally. UNESCO calls it Green Growth and it is a public sector oriented planned economy that uses CAGW as the excuse for the long sought (since at least 1962) transformation. Lots of cited documents and reports so there is no dispute on where this is going.
McAulliffe knows all this because of the involvement of Clinton Global Initiative in C40.org.
Also the anti-science label goes to those pushing constructivism in education in order to make the social sciences dominant in future policy planning.
I almost always agree 100% with Peter Miller. But in this case I must point out that there is no official “Tea Party”. It is simply a group of people who have similar values: a balanced budget, government abiding by the Constitution, etc.
Also, Michael Mann was sweating bullets in this election. In the outcome, he dodged a bullet. Mikey was lucky this time. But those bullets are coming closer…
Theo Goodwin,
In fact, as a part of the deal that created DC, Virginia (it was a bit bigger back then) gave what is now Arlington County to the District, just as Maryland gave what is now the District. But after a few years DC took a close look at Arlington County and said, “no thanks, we don’t want it.” Arlington spent a few years in limbo with Virginia wanting no part of taking it back, but evetually was. There have been multiple attempts by the rest of Virginia to “secede” Arlington from the state but, alas, all to dat ehave failed. If we got rid of Arlington McAulliffe (nor Kaine nor Warner nor Obama) could ever have won the Virginia vote.