GOP To Talk Energy & Jobs Re. Obama Plan, But The Crazies Won't Shut Up (It's A Conspiracy!)

[hatrack]

Republican strategists have laid out an aggressive game plan for seizing the high ground on energy during the August recess: talk about gas prices and jobs, jobs, jobs. But some Republicans are straying from the script, spouting off instead about the Book of Genesis, claims about scientific conspiracies and arguments that the Earth is cooling. And they show no signs of stifling their skepticism — even at the risk of providing a stream of YouTube-worthy sound bites that play into Democrats’ own strategy, which includes painting the GOP as the anti-science party.

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Republicans who don’t take climate change seriously risk losing support from women and young people, said former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who headed the Environmental Protection Agency during George W. Bush’s first term. “The American people are beginning to make connections to the things that are happening around them.”

Some polls back up the warnings. A recent one issued by the League of Conservation Voters found that 73 percent of young voters — including 52 percent of young Republicans — would be less likely to support candidates who don’t want to address climate change. Asked to describe climate skeptics, respondents used terms like “ignorant,” “out of touch” and “crazy.”

Climate skepticism also threatens to hurt Republicans among Latinos, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. He said Hispanics care more about climate change than any other group in the U.S. Disputing climate science is “a successful individual strategy” for some Republicans in conservative districts, but “it’s a losing national strategy,” Leiserowitz said. “I think chances are they will pay a political price, increasingly so in the future.”

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http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/congresss-climate-skeptics-could-snarl-gops-strategy-94820.html

[kristopher]

1. Has anyone considered this might have an environmental cause?

I think there needs to be an examination of the homes and offices of every member of the Tea Party caucus to look avenues of exposure to Chiroptera fecal deposits.

[hatrack]

2. I've been wondering about toxoplasmosis for a while with these guys . . .

Then again, Tea Party members probably wouldn't have a pet that wouldn't obey, which would undercut the feline infection theory . . .

[kristopher]

3. I just thought that since they are clearly batshit crazy

It couldn't hurt to look to batshit as a source of some sort of infection. My brother died from toxo and as his care giver I don't think it quite fits the symptoms these TeaParty A-holes present.