https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/03/climate-change-democratic-candidates-2020-227910
Climate Change Could Be a Problem in 2020 … for Democrats
By Michael Grunwald – Senior staff writer for Politico Magazine.
But even though Slotkin has shown how the climate crisis can be a winning issue, she’s not on board with the most prominent progressive effort to make it a national issue, the Green New Deal, backed by her more famous House classmate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She thinks it’s too radical, too polarizing, a gift to President Donald Trump and other Republicans who want to portray Democrats as socialists. “My district is very worried that Democrats are lurching to the left,” she says. “I know AOC’s face will be on every ad against me in 2020.” …
Slotkin doesn’t see why a plan to fix the climate needs to promise universal health care and a federal job guarantee, and she doubts a lefty wish list disguised as an emergency response will play well in her suburban Michigan swing district, which Trump won by seven points. …
It’s not a coincidence that Trump has vowed to run for re-election against the Green New Deal, or that Senate Republicans gleefully forced a vote on it, or that no Senate Democrats dared to vote yes. Even liberal House speaker Nancy Pelosi, while supporting deep emissions cuts and denouncing Trump’s efforts to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, has declined to endorse “the green dream or whatever.”
Activists often say climate change shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but in the U.S. it still is.
…
