U.S. Voters Love Clean Energy, SOTU Swing Voter Reactions Show
I’ve written many, many times about the overwhelming support for clean energy in the U.S. Unfortunately, a certain portion of our Congressional leaders, as well as billionaires in the oil industry, are trying to attack that support for clean energy by running smear campaigns and spewing complete lies (we’ve covered several of these more times than I can remember). Apparently, so far, Americans aren’t buying it. Check out these results from an analysis of 50 swing voters watching the State of the Union address this week:
Not surprisingly, the moment in the speech that brought the most positive reaction was Obama’s mention of the death of Osama bin Laden. It drew an average reading of 80 on the 0-100 scale used by the meters. Obama’s call for more investment in renewable energy drew nearly as strong a reaction, however, said Andrew Baumann, another of the pollsters who conducted the study. The passages of the speech that talked about phasing out subsidies for oil companies and competing with China and Germany for new developments in wind power and solar energy did particularly well.
Of course, an analysis of a focus group of 50 isn’t definitive, but I’ve yet to see any real evidence that Koch and GOP smear campaigns and misinformation regarding Solyndra, loan guarantees, and clean energy are having much effect. It really seems like a bad political move for these folks to make clean energy the supposed enemy of the U.S.
I understand that their fortunes are tied to us remaining addicted to fossil fuels, but I think they’d be better off just continuing their hidden policy attacks on clean energy than also trying to make it a political issue. But that’s just my two cents.
h/t Climate Progress | ground-mounted solar panels via shutterstock
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