With Castle Defeat, Senate GOP Candidates In Lockstep Against Climate Action
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on September 16th, 2010 4:39 am by HL
With Castle Defeat, Senate GOP Candidates In Lockstep Against Climate Action
With the defeat of Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) in Tuesday’s primary by Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell, the slate of Republicans vying for election to the U.S. Senate this November is unanimously opposed to comprehensive climate legislation. An earlier Wonk Room analysis of the 37 Senate races found that Castle was the lone supporter of climate action among a sea of global warming deniers and fossil-funded anti-government ideologues. In other Republican primaries on Tuesday:
– In Wisconsin, global warming denier Dave Westlake was defeated by global warming denier Ron Johnson.
– In New York, global warming deniers Bruce Blakeman and David Malpass were defeated by Joe DioGuardi, who says he believes in global warming but opposes climate legislation.
– In New York’s other senate race, global warming denier Gary Berntsen was defeated by global warming denier Jay Townsend.
– New Hampshire’s primary between six global warming deniers remains a tight battle between Kelly Ayotte and Ovide Lamontagne.
Christine O’Donnell — a signatory of the FreedomWorks Contract From America that “reject[s] cap & trade” — has not yet taken a public stand on whether the science of man-made climate change is a conspiracy, a position many of her Tea Party supporters hold.
Realizing the “GOP nightmare,” Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell (DE) toppled Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware’s Republican Senate primary. In reacting to his stunning loss, Castle chose to call Democratic candidate Chris Coons over O’Donnell last night, and confirmed that he “will not be endorsing” her in the general election.
Buffalo multimillionaire and Tea Party candidate Carl P. Paladino defeated former Rep. Rick Lazio to win the Republican gubernatorial nomination in New York last night. The “volatile newcomer,” who forwarded racist and pornographic e-mails to friends, has lent a “potentially destabilizing blow to New York Republicans” who have “historically succeeded by choosing moderates.”
Former New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte is leading the field for the GOP nomination for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat. At 3 a.m. with 85 percent of the votes counted, the race is currently too close to call, with Ayotte ahead of attorney Ovide Lamontagne by less than one percentage point.
Reshma Saujani, a 34-year old Indian-American challenger to longtime Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D), got crushed in her primary last night, losing by an 80-20 margin. A Wall Street veteran, Saujani’s campaign message was that “we need to extend a hand rather than a fist” to Wall Street.
President Reagan’s Solicitor General, Charles Fried, argues in a new book that President Bush broke the law by authorizing torture against suspected terrorists. “I think that (the Bush administration) broke the law and what they did was disgusting and terrible and degrading,” Fried told Reuters during an interview.
“Al Qaeda’s number two Ayman al-Zawahri released an audio recording Wednesday” attacking the Pakistani government for being too slow to respond to the country’s massive flooding. In the tape, the militant called upon Pakistanis to revolt against their government and the Pakistani “ruling class.”
Palestinian and Israeli leaders held face-to-face talks for more than two hours at a luxury seaside resort in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt yesterday but were unable to break the impasse over Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes extending the settlement moratorium while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to walk out if it is allowed to expire.
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday he will add the DREAM Act,” an immigration measure pushed by activists for years, to the upcoming defense authorization bill. The decision comes as many immigration activists are demoralized by Congress’s failure to take up comprehensive immigration reform.
And finally: Speaking at a fundraiser on behalf of Minnesota Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton, former President Bill Clinton said that the Republican Party is heeding “ideology over evidence” and embracing such extreme voices that they even make President George W. Bush “look like a liberal.”
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