{"id":11939,"date":"2010-06-25T16:32:30","date_gmt":"2010-06-25T16:32:30","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-06-25T16:32:30","modified_gmt":"2010-06-25T16:32:30","slug":"small-business-support-for-clean-energy-a-key-to-2010-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2010\/06\/25\/small-business-support-for-clean-energy-a-key-to-2010-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Business Support for Clean Energy A Key to 2010 Elections?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s Democratic Senate caucus meeting<\/a> – combined with Majority Leader Reid’s push on this issue<\/a>, combined with President Obama’s leadership, combined with a clear demand by the public for action – has given comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation a major boost as we head towards the 4th of July recess. Clearly, at this point, there’s a better path to 60 votes in the U.S. Senate for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation than ever before. We are that close to making history, let’s make sure we seize this moment! <\/p>\n

With all that in mind, a recent national survey by Al Quinlan of Greenburg Quinlan Rosner Research<\/a> has potentially powerful implications for the 2010 elections, providing yet more evidence that climate legislation – despite a fallacious “mainstream media” narrative arguing otherwise<\/a> – is actually good politics. The key findings are threefold (note: the document talks about strategy for the Democratic Party, but could apply to Republicans as well):<\/p>\n

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  1. Small businesses “are among America’s most popular entities,” with an eye-popping 44:1 favorable to unfavorable ratio (“the highest we have ever seen in our polling on any topic”)<\/li>\n
  2. Generating support from small business owners, for either political party, is a key to success in the upcoming mid-term elections.<\/li>\n
  3. Small business owners strongly agree<\/a> “that a move to clean energy will help restart the economy and lead to job creation by small businesses.” In fact, according to Greenburg Quinlan, “One of the most surprising findings of the survey is that despite the fact that nearly two thirds of business owners believe it would increase costs for their businesses, a majority still want to move forward on clean energy and climate policy.” <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    As if that’s not evidence enough that there’s broad support out there for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation, how about this Benenson Survey Group survey<\/a>, conducted in late May\/early June 2010? The key findings of this poll are:<\/p>\n