Terra Rossa’s own Dr. Whit Ayres, pollster extraordinaire, spoke Saturday at the Republican Environmental Leadership Conference in San Antonio, TX where he said that if his fellow Republicans want to win elections, one thing we should do is reclaim conservation as a calling card. Whit knows his stuff, having directed a lot of traffic at the intersection of good policy and Republican party-building.
What Whit does not suggest is that we suddenly start sounding like Al Gore or other lefty enviros. Rather, if Republicans offer common-sense conservative solutions to energy and environmental issues America faces (i.e. solutions that stress markets and entrepreneurship, not taxes, subsidies and more red tape) we can start to pick-up support from Independent voters who in the last congressional election voted Democratic 2-1.
Case in point: climate change. According to Whit’s research this ranks as the top environmental issue, and polls in congressional swing districts show 57 percent of independents say it’s “very important” to pass laws to combat the problem. Also, three-fourths of Republicans as well as Democrats and independents believe a healthy environment can be attained without hurting the economy – that’s clearly an opening for Republicans to offer pro-growth solutions to climate change.
Whit and I first met when we worked together for former South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell, and we’ve been in the trenches on a number of issues since. One thing I’ve learned is that when the good doctor talks, it’s wise to listen. Learn more about Whit’s presentation by reading this article from the San Antonio Express-News.
Oh and yeah, see some shameless self-promotion of TerraRossa in this story from National Journal.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 8:54 am and is filed under Cap and Trade, Climate Change, Politics/Government, Terra Rossa . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Hey, Welcome Aboard Conservatives!
I’d love to see a discussion started about ending the big-fat subsidies our government pays to oil companies and the US Auto industry. Proping up dying industries with corporate welfare is not what our government is for.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
[...] did on education policy in 2000 and it’s what pollster and TR post-er Whit Ayres has blogged about before, backed up by his opinion [...]