Billionaire environmentalist going big in Virginia governor's race

[Tx4obama]

Billionaire environmentalist going big in Virginia governor's race

Tom Steyer, the environmentalist billionaire who has mounted a national campaign opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, has directed his political operation to spend heavily in the Virginia governor’s race in support of Democrat Terry McAuliffe, POLITICO has learned.

Steyer, a California-based financier, instructed advisers on Friday to launch television ads starting this week. The paid-media blitz from his group, NextGen Climate Action, will be the opening salvo in what’s expected to be a much larger effort aimed at mobilizing and turning out climate-oriented voters in a key off-year gubernatorial race.

The enterprise will be a test both of Steyer’s individual influence in electoral politics, and of the impact of heavily-funded advocacy politics within the Democratic Party. The bet, for Steyer, is that making climate issues a prominent part of the Virginia election will nudge the center of national politics in a greener direction, shaping the political landscape for 2014 and 2016 and giving environmental interests a stronger hand to play in Washington policy debates.

It will be Steyer’s second major foray this year into electoral politics, after he funded a turnout operation in Massachusetts on behalf of now-Sen. Ed Markey in the special election to replace Secretary of State John Kerry. In 2012, he put about $30 million into a successful home-state ballot initiative, Proposition 39, which will require multistate energy companies to pay higher taxes in California.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/tom-steyer-terry-mcauliffe-virginia-governor-race-95174.html#ixzz2b4CWjd86

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Full article here: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/tom-steyer-terry-mcauliffe-virginia-governor-race-95174.html?hp=t1

[freshwest]

1. Glad to see someone doing the right thing.