Here’s a real shocker for you: the same people who deliberately misread climate science are now offering a phony explanation for the Alaska primary loss of incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who conceded the race yesterday.
If you listen to the wing nut brigade, they will tell you clean energy/climate legislation did in Murkowski. Phil Karpen -- who, as the policy director of Americans for Prosperity, is as good as on the payroll of Dirty Energy -- said this even before Murkowski bowed out, in an op-ed on FoxNews.com:
"Joe Miller has a narrow lead over Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a surprising Alaska Senate primary. If the absentee ballots break hard for Murkowski she may narrowly escape, but at the moment it looks at least as likely that Miller will pull the upset. If he does, Murkowski’s support for energy taxes may be one of the major reasons."
In a sad commentary on modern journalism, this unfounded, inaccurate notion was echoed by Reuters who said, “Murkowski, the most senior Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, has been considered a moderate on several issues and a potential compromise vote on national climate legislation. Miller is on record as denying that human-caused emissions are responsible for climate change.”
Even the usually very sharp team at ClimateWire took the bait: “Republican Joe Miller, a former judge with a Yale law degree, showcased Sen. Lisa Murkowski's past support for climate legislation, among other things, before slipping by her at the voting stations Tuesday to capture a 1,900 vote lead with several thousand absentee ballots still being counted.”
Well, if there was even a shred of evidence that it was true, this would qualify as an interesting bit of political analysis. Given the lack of evidence, it is just another lie that has filtered in from the crackpot world of climate science deniers to mainstream political reporting.
What are the facts?
- There was little or no media coverage of the climate issue in Alaska in the Murkowski-Miller climate face-off. We looked at 400+ stories from LexisNexis about the race and spent hours going over a detailed Google News search. You find a few stories – such as this one in the Anchorage Daily News – where Miller says climate change/energy legislation is going to be a big issue in the race, only to have that discounted when one considers that Miller's statement was one of the only ones about this issue in the primary season.
- Climate change/energy legislation was not a big issue in either Miller’s or Tea Party Express advertising. In fact, one of the few Miller ads to go after Murkowski on climate issues is more focused on portraying her as flip-flopper than as a closeted supporter of a climate bill.
- There are far more plausible explanations for the narrow Miller victory. Based on my research, I would say that Politico has it right: “Not a single public poll showed Miller within striking distance of Murkowski in the weeks before the primary, and she spent more than 10 times as much as he spent. However, the Proposition 2 ballot measure requiring parental notifications for teens seeking an abortion boosted Miller by driving tens of thousands of voters to the polls in what would likely have otherwise been a low-turnout primary.” And as The Washington Post/The Fix column notes: “The predominant one, of course, is that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's (R) endorsement still carries plenty of weight among the GOP base in her home state, and that it delivered for attorney Joe Miller on Election Day. Both Murkowski and Miller cited Palin's backing when asked about Tuesday's results.” The bottom line: The climate change/clean energy legislation “issue” just was not a big driver in this election.
- And from the Does-This-Really-Need-to-be-Pointed-Out Department: no one considered Murkowski a friend of the climate bill. As Heather Taylor-Miesle of the NRDC Action Fund points out: “Fact is that Lisa Murkowski is far from an environmental champ. The League of Conservation Voters(LCV) gives her an 18% career rating, meaning that she votes the right way on less than one out of five environmental issues. And, more recently, she gave us environmentalists heartburn by leading an assault on the Clean Air Act – only one of the most successful environmental laws of all time.”
The truth is that Alaska has a history of sending bona fide climate champions to DC. To quote Taylor-Miesle again: “To say this primary suggests that climate change is a political non-starter in Alaska shows a selective memory. Just two short years ago, Alaska elected a real climate champ, Mark Begich, to the Senate. Climate change was a top issue during Begich’s campaign, when he called for an 80% reduction in carbon pollution by 2050 and adaption strategies to help Alaska deal with the effect of climate change. Since coming to the Senate, he has continued to work to advance clean energy and climate solutions, earning an 82% rating from LCV in his first year. Last August, he introduced a package of seven bills aimed to help Alaska prepare for the changes and challenges created by a warming planet. And, in June, he voted against Murkowski’s Clean Air Act attack.”
The "Lisa-Murkowski-touched-the-third-rail-of-climate-change/clean-energy-legislation-and-died opeds" and “news articles” are unadulterated hogwash. They are a fanciful confection whipped up out of thin air by non-Alaska media who have been snookered by the climate science denial crowd.
This blog was originally posted at The Markup.