Comment by deaux
15 hours ago
> (of course that isn't the only reason, but it's one of many).
This is disingenuous. It's one of many in that it may have contributed 0.0001%. If they wouldn't have done that, would they currently have more power? Absolutely not, believing otherwise means being clueless about what has motivated people to vote in certain ways.
It's definitely more than .0001%. Look at the campaigns. How much time did the GOP spend harping on windmills and solar subsidies and "clean coal". Calling out democrats for trying to make the environment better at extra cost to US citizens was a huge part of their campaign.
I expected you to say this, but hoped you wouldn't. Of course I know they talk about it. GOP campaigns say and do a lot of things, there's dozens of topics they shout about. From Benghazi to Hillary's Emails to gender-neutral emails to immigrants to indeed coal/renewables and so on. You could easily name 30 topics.
The topics have different purposes. Fossil fuels vs renewables in particular hasn't won the reps a single race, I repeat. Every race they've won, they would've won without it. And every race they've lost, they would've lost without it. The purpose of bringing up that particular topic for them isn't to help win close races.
> The purpose of bringing up that particular topic for them isn't to help win close races.
How can you possibly know this? How could you know what is in the mind of every voter and why they make the choice they do?
They bring it up for a reason -- because their research says talking about helps them win elections.