Acceptance by the American people of human-caused climate change has closely tracked by Gallup for the last decade. And the trend has the same direction as the scientific consensus. When asked what kind of action is needed to address global warming:
So people are getting the message. Maybe not quickly, but surely. In January of this year, 61% of Americans said the effects of global warming have already begun. I was a bit surprised that only a little more than a third say they worry about it a great deal, a percentage that held steady for 19 years.
Gallup did a follow on analysis to break apart those big numbers, and not surprisingly they found that party affiliation had an influence on the numbers. From Gallup -
That is interesting. The general trend is one way -
61% of Americans currently say "[effects from climate change] have already begun to happen." an... increase from 1997, when 48% gave this response.
So the trend is driven not by a general move, but a strong move among a sub-group. One group of people is moving strongly, while another is unmoved, unconvinced.
[O]ver three-fourths of Democrats (76%) believe global warming is already happening, only 41% of Republicans share that view.
This has all happened since 1997, when -
[N]early identical percentages of Republicans and Democrats (47% and 46%) indicated that global warming was already happening.
Charlie sat down with Obama on June 4th. An African American man has clinched* the Democratic nomination. We are at war. The debt is $9,500,000,000,000. Is this what you care about hearing?
GIBSON: Senator, I'm curious about your feelings last night. It was an historic moment. Has it sunk in yet?
GIBSON: What'd [your grandmother] say?
GIBSON: Public moments are not your own. There's a million people pulling you in a million different directions, but when everybody clears out, the staff is gone, you're in your hotel room at night and you're alone -- do you say to yourself: "Son of a gun, I've done this?"
GIBSON: (inaudible) when you announced, did you truly, in your gut, think that a black man could win the nomination of a major party to be president of the United States?
GIBSON: You don't get much time to enjoy this before people immediately start talking about the vice presidency. On what criteria and what timetable will you choose a vice president? But there obviously is one name that looms over all. Hillary Clinton has already, to some extent, expressed her willingness. There are supporters putting out petitions. There is a drumbeat of pressure. There are those 18 million votes. Is she a special case that you have to deal with before the others, or is she considered just like everybody else? How long can you let the "Hillary Clinton on the ticket" question linger? Does there have to be a yes or no on the issue of Hillary Clinton before you get to the others, or can this issue linger on, because it pervades everything? So, you won't do -- you won't deal with her first, get that out of the way, and then either move on or not? As long as that question lingers, can you get about the business of unifying the party, or does that have to be taken care of first? Did she squeeze you in any way by making known her interest in the job? Should you choose her, how do you handle Bill Clinton?
GIBSON: On what three issues will this campaign turn to you?
GIBSON: Do you worry that it could turn on race, age and class?
GIBSON: John McCain has issued an invitation to do a series of town meetings (inaudible). Going to do it?
GIBSON: Will you go to Iraq?
GIBSON: Public financing: Going to take it or going to say no? But there's a dynamic on your side, as well. You originally said you would take it. If you already see that money coming in, it seems to me you're saying...
GIBSON: Is the hardest part of all this behind you or ahead of you?
GIBSON: The picture of you in the paper, this morning, with your wife, watching the Clinton speech. What did you think of the Clinton speech? She didn't exactly acknowledge your victory.
GIBSON: And finally your daughters. What did they say to you? Did they take it as a matter of course that Daddy could be nominated to be president? They never knew what older people know in terms of discrimination, although they may still feel some. What did they say about that?
GIBSON: I watched closely your countenance last night, your mien, as you stood in that hall. You didn't smile much. Has the joyfulness of this hit home yet? Do you take joy from it?
Questions Worth Asking
How will we get the questions we want answered to the candidates?
Another Question Worth Asking
Are the people who believe these are the important questions a large enough block to sway this election?
How damaging is this? I guess you'd have to ask who it is aimed at. What is the audience for this? Does this motivate their base? Not for any reason I can see. They may not like Obama, but their beef is with McCain and this doesn't give any of the Ron Paul, Bob Barr or Evenagelicals a reason to come out for McCain.
Will this sway independents? Might. Other than Edwards, these are not super popular politicians swinging at Obama. Do independents sit up and take notice because of a warning from Joe (who?) Biden? meh.
So why use voices of Congressional Democrats? Who don't Republicans and Independents, especially Independents, want to hear from? Congressional Republicans. Or the President. Or anyone else in the Republican Party.
McCain needs the evangelicals to come out for him. From CBS -
White evangelical Republicans were 14 percent of the 2004 general electorate. More importantly, white evangelical Republicans comprised 25 percent of Bush's vote, favoring him 97 percent to three percent for Kerry. Losing this bloc of support, or even a portion of it, would be fatal to McCain's candidacy.
Does this hit their issues? Is this what their concerned about? Will this kind of negative appeal get them out to the polls?
We'll see, but this sure looks like an appeal to the disaffected Clinton voter, and well done by the RNC. This is the best time to twist that knife. Now is when they are most upset. And therein lies the...
Question worth asking:
Will the iron cool in the next five months as disappointed (bitter?) Clinton supporters meet the charming Senator McCain again?
Another question worth asking:
Are the Republicans betting that the personal antipathy the older women - who are really the angry folks here- feel towards Obama is stronger than than their antipathy to Antonin Scalia, a $9,500,000,000,000 debt or the War in Iraq?
For much of the world, Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the Democratic primaries was a moment to admire the United States, at a time when the nation's image abroad is in tatters.
How big is this?
"This is close to a miracle. I was certain that some things will not happen in my lifetime," said Sunila Patel, 62, a widow encountered on the streets of New Delhi. "A black president of the U.S. will mean that there will be more American tolerance for people around the world who are different."
"The primaries showed that the U.S. is actually the nation we had believed it to be...," said Minoru Morita, a Tokyo political analyst.
I am drawn to this and repelled to this, but not exactly in equal measure. After so much nastiness, disorder and hope in the dark, it's beautiful to see hope back out in the light. And yet...
I interviewed the author Russell Banks on Your Call on June 3rd for his new book Dreaming Up America. Banks' believes that the American Dream is actually three dreams, interconnected, sometimes reinforcing, sometimes opposed. The three are:
El Dorado- The dream of Paradise through material acquisition.
The City on the Hill- We can create a society where all people are free.
The Fountain of Youth- History is not a limit on what you can become. You can always be reborn.
Our dream since at least Ronald Reagan has been an intoxicating combination of the Fountain of Youth and El Dorado. Our fantasy is that we will all one day be rich, so one day we will be happy because we are good.
Banks traces that combination of dreams - freeing ourselves from history and the search for material wealth - to the mindset of the Conquistadors, who wanted nothing but gold from our shores and time enough to enjoy it.
The result is well documented in the sanguinary pages of our history books. When you read them, or just look outside your window, it is easy to see that an individual may leave their history behind, but it doesn't just sit where you left it.
We can say 9-11 had nothing to do with American policy. We can believe and even act on that. But there it will be.
So it is appealing to read this:
"Obama is the exciting image of what we always hoped America was," said Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, a London think tank.
It is appealing to see the Fountain of Youth appear again to challenge us, not simply to comfort us. Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech, after all, was about transcending a racist past. But not forgetting it. bringing it with us, but not letting it doom us.
Much of the interest simply reflects hunger for change from President Bush, who is deeply unpopular in much of the world. At the same time, many people abroad seemed impressed -- sometimes even shocked -- by the wide-open nature of U.S. democracy, and the history-making race between a woman and a black man
.
Many people here too. And here is that dream again.
