Poor Carly Fiorina. To make conservative ideologues happy, she has to abandon science and her previous positions on the key issues of global warming and clean energy.
But to win election statewide, she has to appeal to the majority of California voters, who understand that clean energy is the key to the stateâs long-term economic and job growth â and that unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases will devastate California more than most states.
And so in her first debate with climate and clean energy champion Sen. Barbara Boxer, she simply couldnât give a straightforward answer to the simple question of whether she supported the Big Oil funded Prop 23 effort to gut Californiaâs landmark climate and clean energy law, Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32).
Letâs go to the videotape (watch to the end):
Ouch.
You know that you have screwed up as a conservative politician when the center-right Politico says so:
Fiorinaâs major stumble came on the issue of Proposition 23, which would suspend AB 32. She said the focus should be on federal climate legislation and that she had not yet taken a position on the proposition.
âIf you canât take a stand on Prop 23, I donât know what you will take a stand on,â Boxer responded.
Talking to reporters after the debate, Fiorina sidestepped the issue, saying she would âprobablyâ take a position on Prop 23 before November, though itâs not her main priority. She insisted the real referendum on energy legislation âis on the ballot â and her name is Sen. Barbara Boxer.â
Youâll note that Fiorina immediately jumps to the old right-wing talking point created by Frank Luntz for conservatives who want to sound like they care about global warming and clean energy without actually having to do anything: We need to fund energy R&D.
As for her claim that AB 32 is a job-killer, not only do 118 economists disagree, but so did Fiorina and rational Republicans just two years ago:
