Growth industry

Club for Growth starts campaign to derail Lieberman-Warner 4

Muckraker: Grist on PoliticsThe Club for Growth -- a conservative group "dedicated to helping elect pro-growth, pro-freedom candidates through political contributions and issue advocacy campaigns" -- is already waging war on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, slated to hit the Senate floor June 2. But instead of going after the bill itself, they're targeting individual senators who seem likely to vote in favor of the bill.

TV attacks

They've taken out $250,000 in radio and television ads targeting Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), as well as Democratic Sens. Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller (both of W.Va.) and Max Baucus and Jon Tester (both of Mont.). Dole is a cosponsor of the bill, and she, Alexander, Baucus, and Rockefeller are all up for reelection in November. The ads are intended to stoke public outrage over climate legislation, which the Club hopes will push these senators away from the bill.

"Congress is at it again," says a male voice, over scary music. "This time they're pushing massive new taxes and regulation in the name of global warming. But let's ask ourselves: Are the unproven benefits of legislation worth the major job losses, new taxes, and increased energy costs that could result?"

It goes on to urge voters to call their senators and tell them to vote "no" on Lieberman-Warner, because they "just can't afford another huge, costly government program."

The ads started airing today in North Carolina, West Virginia, and Tennessee, and they'll air next week in Montana. This is likely the first of many campaigns attacking the Climate Security Act and its supporters, and probably not the last in which right-wing groups target their own.

Watch the Montana ad below the fold:

Kate Sheppard is Grist’s political reporter.

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  1. Cacaoatl's avatar

    Cacaoatl Posted 6:24 pm
    27 May 2008

    Growth IndustryI went to Club For Growth's website. Their aversion to even minor regulation is frightening. Sure we've all read the horror stories about regulations run amok. Maybe if people and organizations did a better job regulating themselves we wouldn't need so much government oversight. Club For Growth represents everything wrong with libertarians, they ignore the part of Constitution about one of government's duties being protecting the general welfare. That means protecting the public from such ills as corruption, greed,neglect, and downright incompetence. And unfortunately global warming and climate change are the result of those ills combined. All the economic growth in the world isn't going to mean diddly squat when day traders in San Francisco have to take a gondola to work.
  2. ce1907 Posted 9:59 pm
    27 May 2008

    repubs not problemclique of senior dem staff
    target the girl
    goal business as usual
    energy committee next year
    goodbye goals, hello safety valve, preemption, next year
  3. billgee Posted 11:46 pm
    27 May 2008

    CLUB FOR DEATHCLUB FOR DEATH&DESTRUCTION OF OUR WORLD
  4. Michael Shellenberger Posted 1:56 pm
    28 May 2008

    This is what happens when you cede the cost debateThis is what happens when you dismiss the debate over costs as mere right-wing propaganda.
    For years, conservatives have been saying that it will be too expensive to do much about climate change. Environmentalists have either responded that it won't be very expensive or that the cost doesn't matter, given what's at stake.
    Whether you want to deal with global warming primarily through pricing carbon or investing in new technology, we have to justify the program's cost and not avoid the subject.
    This is our analysis of what the Climate Security Act (Boxer Amendment of Lieberman-Warner) would cost:
    http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2008/05/how_much_will_it_ ...

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