When will Democrats learn the simplest lessons about controlling the message?
If the current batch of Republicans in Congress (a disgrace to the name "conservative") proposed a bill that would fill every American house with industrial sludge, they would call it "The Good Housekeeping Bill for America."
Democrats keep missing this boat. And the climate bill is the latest example. Most thinking people agree that human caused climate change has been well established by the scientific community. But much if not most of the American public still doesn't get it. So why saddle yourself with a bill name that requires public education even among your most likely supporters?
The word "green" is now synonymous with environmentally friendly. The US should be investing A LOT MORE in the development of clean energy technology and GREEN JOBS. It should be on the order of any previous effort when America pulled together to accomplish something big. And there is no reason why it should take until 2015 for us to start seeing tangible evidence of this in our everyday lives.
Investing in green energy has the obvious double benefit of creating jobs and lessening dependence on foreign oil. Even the most controversial part of the so-called climate bill, Cap and Trade, can actually be sold as a green jobs initiative, because, the net effect will be that existing jobs will be "greener." This is all simple public relations 101. But for some reason the out-of-touch Democrats running Congress don't seem to know how to play this game..... and then they wonder why they keep getting out maneuvered by the media savvy Republicans.
There are of course implications of this for every other thing on the Democratic agenda. Immigration Reform, for example, should be called the Securing Our Borders Bill, the so-called "bail-out" fund in the Wall Street Reform bill should be called "The Taxpayer Protection Fund," etc. etc. etc.