October 19, 2012 – 8:06 am
The coal industry has been a political battleground ever since then-candidate Obama said he would implement a cap-and-trade program that would bankrupt anyone who started a new coal-powered plant:
[W]e would put a cap-and-trade system in place that is more — that is as aggressive if not more aggressive than anybody else’s out there … so if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
This issue has continued to dog the President as his EPA policies stifle the coal industry as energy prices sky-rocket and jobs are harder to find in these regions The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the politics of coal in this election:
Coal has improbably risen to become one of the top issues of the presidential campaign, with dueling ads about coal in swing states and attacks by each candidate on the other’s position. The battle is escalating even though coal employment is just a shadow of what it was a few decades ago and its use in power generation is steadily declining, from 48% of U.S. electricity in 2008 to 38% in the 12 months ended July 2012. The industry retains outsize importance in part because of its operations in the contested states of Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania. The candidates have turned coal into a linchpin in their different visions of America’s energy future. Mr. Romney’s energy plan calls for large increases in domestic production of fossil fuels, including coal, while seeking to roll back environmental regulations.
Tricky politics
The fight over coal is tricky for both men. As governor, Mr. Romney championed a regional program to cap emissions of greenhouse gases, which would have hurt the coal industry. But he later abandoned the program, during his first presidential run. For Democrats, coal is even more contentious. Some conservative Democrats, especially in the upper Midwest, fear the decline of the coal industry will lead to higher electricity prices. Those worries led Senate Democrats to scuttle a bill in Congress in 2010 that would have capped greenhouse-gas emissions. Mr. Obama has defended multibillion-dollar investments in “clean coal,” even though many of his supporters who have concerns about the environmental adamantly oppose any federal support for coal. The Obama campaign says coal-industry employment has risen 10% in Ohio since 2008, a message those supporters are loath to hear.
Stabilizing constituency
The U.S. has about 88,000 coal miners, according to government figures, down from more than 700,000 in the 1920s, but up from 75,000 a decade ago.
Natural gas threat
The greatest difference between the candidates comes in environmental rules targeting greenhouse gases and mercury emissions, which fall most heavily on coal-fired plants. Mr. Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has aggressively pursued the rules, while Mr. Romney says they amount to a death sentence for coal-fired plants. Energy analysts say a bigger factor is the increase of abundant and cheap natural gas in the U.S. Demand for coal is growing elsewhere globally, though, which is one reason employment in the industry has notched up in recent years despite coal’s slipping rank among power sources. The U.S. has become a major supplier of coal to countries including China, India, Brazil, the Netherlands and Britain. The U.S. has exported more coal so far this year than in all of 2009, and is on pace for a record level of coal exports.
October 14, 2012 – 7:34 pm
Conservative columnist Colin Hanna is a Pennsylvania native and active in the Tea Party movement. He pens a column in the Philadelphia Inquirer arguing that each of four domestic policies antagonistic towards Pennsylvania voters (among others) could each shave 1-2 points off Obama’s poll lead on election day. If that happens, Pennsylvania flips to Romney and all but seals the Presidency for him:
Can Romney really win the state? Pennsylvania hasn’t gone to a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. I don’t think the answer lies in the fine points that separate the polls. All show Romney slightly behind, but well within striking distance and closing ground. I think the answer lies in how carefully the Romney campaign studies our state, and whether it capitalizes on four areas of vulnerability for Obama in Pennsylvania in 2012 that were not present to anything near the same degree in 2008. They are four of what Republicans call “Obama’s Wars.”
The War on Religious Freedom. That’s the way pro-life voters, especially Catholics, characterize the Obama administration’s mandate that all employers must provide coverage for sterilization and abortifacients, in addition to contraceptives. The relevance to Pennsylvania is that Roman Catholics compose up to 36 percent of voter turnout, one of the highest in the nation, and Catholic bishops are fully engaged in opposing this intrusion of the federal government into matters of faith. Even though the majority of Catholics are habitual Democrats, it’s likely the church’s opposition to Obama’s abortion and gay-marriage agendas will move some of them to the Romney-Ryan ticket. Vice President Biden’s snarky disdain for fellow Catholic Paul Ryan in Thursday’s debate may also move some Catholic swing votes to the Republican ticket.
The War on Coal. Obama’s famous line in the 2008 campaign that he would create policies that would “shut down coal plants” is remembered and, if anything, taken more seriously in 2012 than it was then. In Pennsylvania’s coal country, one of the most popular political items this year is an independently produced yard sign that reads “Stop the War on Coal – Fire Obama.” In September, the U.S. House of Representatives put a national spotlight on the issue with its passage of the “Stop the War on Coal Act.” Especially in the context of today’s prolonged economic woes, the Obama hostility to coal may be politically toxic in the areas of Pennsylvania in which coal is still king.
The War on Fracking. Despite Obama’s occasional positive comments about hydraulic fracturing offering the promise of abundant domestic energy, most of those in the industry are bracing themselves for the Interior Department’s long-awaited release of restrictive guidelines on the practice, now postponed until year’s end – conveniently after the election. The 70,000 or more Pennsylvanians now working as a direct result of hydraulic fracturing of the Marcellus Shale, and the 200,000 or so indirectly employed as a result of that industry, are much more enthusiastic about Romney’s energy policies than Obama’s.
The War on Guns. Many gun owners are convinced one political motivation of the Fast and Furious gun-running program was to shock Americans into thinking the trafficking of U.S. guns into Mexico was a serious problem jeopardizing public safety, and thus build public support for gun control. The president’s half-hearted support for guns used for hunting and target shooting betrays either an ignorance of or an outright hostility to the real purpose of the Second Amendment. That amendment is not about hunting; it’s about self-protection and the ability of the citizenry to resist an oppressive government. Very few political observers outside our state recognize how potent the pro-gun forces are in Pennsylvania. One simple statistic should prove the point: Pennsylvania leads the nation in National Rifle Association memberships.
Each of these “wars” could cost the president 1 to 2 points of his 2008 support in Pennsylvania. Will the Romney campaign devote the time and resources necessary to make these arguments? It will if it wants to win the election, because, if Romney wins Pennsylvania, there is almost no plausible way for Obama to win reelection.
Haven’t done one of these in awhile so here goes:
By more than 2:1 voters prefer Romney over Obama on handling the economy
The Jewish vote in Florida is a cause for concern in the Obama camp
The Rob Portman effect in Ohio
Fracking boom in Ohio could boost Obama … that is if Obama weren’t opposed to it
Super interesting financial disclosures in US Senate races — focus on Cash on Hand portion
Romney to VFW: Defense cuts would be devastating
The high risk-high reward of a Paul Ryan Vice Presidency
Michael Barone takes a deep-dive into the 33 counties that make up a strong but dwindling Democratic coalition. Obama desperately needs to keep this coalition intact if he is to win Ohio and Pennsylvania and Friday’s jobs report made this effort all the more difficult:
[With expectantly bad unemployment figures being released] Why did the president’s campaign schedule a two-day bus tour of northern Ohio and western Pennsylvania to coincide with the day the unemployment numbers were announced? Sure, Ohio and Pennsylvania are important states politically. They have 18 and 20 electoral votes, and Obama carried them in 2008 with 51 and 54 percent of the votes. [But] current polling shows Obama with only 46 percent in Ohio and 47 percent in Pennsylvania when paired against Mitt Romney.
This was deep blue territory
Obama’s bus tour was aimed at the historically Democratic Rust Belt territory. Since the United Steelworkers, United Auto Workers and United Rubber Workers organized the steel, auto and rubber factories on Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown and Toledo, this has been prime Democratic territory. Even in 1984, when Ronald Reagan was winning a 59 to 40 percent landslide, this Rust Belt — 19 counties of northern and eastern Ohio and 14 counties of western Pennsylvania — voted 52 to 47 percent for Walter Mondale. It was 12 points more Democratic than the national average. If these 33 counties had been a single state, they would have cast 19 electoral votes for Mondale, more than doubling the 13 he won from his native Minnesota and the District of Columbia.
Not your daddy’s rust belt
In the years since, the economy of the Rust Belt has changed. The biggest employers in Cleveland and Pittsburgh these days are not steel mills but hospital complexes. There has been considerable outmigration of young people, and from 1980 to 2010, the population of these 33 counties declined by 7 percent, while the national population increased by 36 percent. If they were a single state, they would have 14 electoral votes, down from 19 three decades ago.
Obama feeling its effects
The aging electorate of the Rust Belt remains Democratic, and these counties voted 56 to 42 percent for Barack Obama. But that means that they were only 3 percent more Democratic than the national average. The polling data suggests that Obama is not running as strong in the Rust Belt counties this year. The bus tour was undoubtedly aimed at pushing his numbers up.
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In 2008, the Obama campaign seemed to be everywhere with his “hopey-changey” rhetoric and was unquestionable the media darling for journalists big and small. But he bloom is off the rose and the Obama campaign doesn’t appear to have time for the little people in the journalistic world–even in hugely important areas of the country like Youngstown, Ohio. Reporter David Skolnick had a less-than-inspiring experience with the Obama campaign — getting effectively blown off twice –but was able to sit down one-on-one with the top dog on the GOP side. Here is is explanation of the blow-offs and the personal attention from Mitt Romney:
So how did I end up in a place I had previously never heard of, stand in the pouring rain and then conduct an exclusive one-on-one face-to-face interview with Mitt Romney on Father’s Day? It was a combination of the fallout from my public complaints about being denied a few minutes with Vice President Joe Biden when he campaigned in Youngstown on May 16, a June 15 conference call with Biden and Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman that had the vice president get off the call before reporters could ask questions, social media, and a smart move by the Romney campaign.
Following the May 16 blow-off, the Obama campaign “tried” again:
Then on June 15, the President Barack Obama campaign organized a conference call for Ohio reporters with Biden and Columbus Mayor Coleman. The call started 35 minutes late, Biden spoke for 10 minutes — essentially reinforcing/repeating statements made a day early by the president during a Cleveland event — and jumped off the call when it came time for questions from reporters.
Romney reaches out:
That led to the Romney campaign emailing me Saturday to ask if I would be in Brunswick on Sunday. I told them I didn’t know where that is. It turns out it’s in Medina County, near Strongsville, and Romney was speaking at a rally there. That was followed by an invitation to speak for about 8 to 10 minutes with Romney after a rally. It helps Romney’s image — he’s accessible to local print media while Biden isn’t. After waiting a while inside, I had about nine minutes with Romney to ask questions. I had about 10 questions just in case, but knew there would be time for only a few. I ended up asking three questions on my list and one follow-up. The article gave insight into Romney’s thoughts on issues that impact our area. Look for an article this Sunday on Romney’s opinions of fracking and coal. The article in Monday’s newspaper was fair, according to local Democratic and Obama campaign officials.
The Obama Administration has long had an uneasy relationship with Natural Gas companies over hydraulic fracturing or fracking technologies. Haphazard rule-making based on suspect science enforced by officials intent on crucifying his constituents has understandably left many in the industry skeptical of Obama’s willingness to put these people back to work. In the hugely important Battleground State of Ohio, the possibilities for jobs are largely based on successfully moving forward with rapid approval of drilling permits. But they have been stymied by unending environmental impact studies and an adversarial EPA. The Columbus Dispatch and Associated Press update the fracking status of the important Utica Shale in Ohio (with a great graphic below):
State officials have spent the past three months combing through property records across eastern Ohio in an effort to open up Ohio’s forests and parks to shale drilling. Their mission, according to records obtained from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, is to find out how much Utica shale the state owns.
The state’s work to catalog shale rights in state forests, parks and preserves in 16 counties — an area officials named “Tier 1” — is nearly complete, said Carlo LoParo, an agency spokesman.Counties impacted stretch from Trumbull County south to Monroe County and west to Muskingum County. More work is planned for a “Tier 2” area that could include as many as 19 Ohio counties, with possibilities ranging from Ashtabula County in the northeast corner to Meigs County in southern Ohio.
Interest in tapping a potentially vast reservoir of oil and gas in the Utica shale has drilling companies offering many eastern Ohio landowners more than $5,000 an acre to sign mineral-rights leases. The industry has flooded the state in search of gas and oil deposits in the Utica and Marcellus shale formations, and Gov. John Kasich and other state leaders are hinging much of Ohio’s job growth strategy on the increase in drilling. Environmentalists have expressed concerns about pollution from drilling and the method known as hydraulic fracturing, which blasts millions of gallons of chemically laced water into the earth to fracture shale formations and release oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids such as propane.
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August 16, 2012 Update: I hotly complained about the voter registration breakdown in this Franklin & Marshall poll which was D: 50, R: 37, I: 12. While I knew the difference between “party registration” and “party ID” I found it unthinkable that a 13% voter registration advantage for the Democrats. I was wrong. My complaints were due to the Democrat party ID in 2008 was Dem: 44, Rep: 37, Ind: 18 of D +7 — a record year for Democrats, and up from D: 41, R: 39, I: 20 or D +2 in 2004. My criticism of the party registration in the Franklin & Marshall poll was unfounded. Democrats in Pennsylvania continue enjoy a party registration advantage exactly as Franklin & Marshall survey. Maybe more Democrats will cross over in 2012 and maybe reduced Democrat enthusiasm for Obama will keep them home, but as it stands Franklin & Marshall’s methodology is correct.
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In a “Quick Hits” post Wednesday I linked to the Franklin & Marshall poll showing Obama with a commanding +12 point lead in Pennsylvania. Great news for Obama, right? Not so much it turns out. The internals in this poll tell a very different story such that despite the double digit lead, the poll should be of grave concern for the Obama campaign. Really.
A lot of things looked odd in the demographic breakdowns in the poll:
- Despite the gender gap with men for Obama — he lost men by 1-point to McCain–in this poll he was beating Romney by +7
- While most polls have Romney outpacing Obama on fixing the economy (or no worse than even), this poll has Obama up +6
- Among the all-important Independent voter, Obama leads by an incredible +22%
If those polling margins are accurate, not only will Obama win Pennsylvania, but he will probably win 400 electoral college votes.
Luckily for the Romney campaign, the oversampling of Democrats is so ludicrous it renders the Obama lead of +12 irrelevant as this poll fails in every way to reflect the likely turnout in November.
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Despite a lot of rhetoric out of the White House regarding “all of the above” support for “clean energy” a National Journal Survey of Energy and Environment Insiders find that Mitt Romney is winning the messaging war 55% – 40% on this important swing state topic.
When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made a surprise campaign stop last week at the shuttered headquarters of solar-panel firm Solyndra, his campaign aimed to use the now-bankrupt company as an example of President Obama’s faulty investments in clean energy. Most of National Journal’s Energy & Environment Insiders think the strategy is working. Fifty-five percent of Insiders say that the GOP and Romney campaign strategy to criticize Obama for backing the California solar firm is more effective than the Obama campaign’s response that Romney would cede the clean-energy space to countries like China. The whole scandal is just the perfect punching bag for the campaign, Insiders said. “The optics of Solyndra are too ugly for most voters to not buy some level of malfeasance,” said one Insider.
The survey of 50 policy Insiders covers clean energy, offshore drilling , natural gas drilling/fracking regulations, and subsidies for oil and gas companies. While voters across the country express strong opinions on these issues, they are uniquely important in Battleground states like Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Colorado.
Natural gas drilling/fracking seemed to be an unusually potent issue for the Republicans:
- “In battleground states like Ohio, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, voters interested in job creation will want to know if the President’s agencies are trying to stop hydraulic fracturing, a key driver of the oil and gas boom.”
- “Natural gas is a game changer for the economy and for energy independence. While the White House is attempting to appear supportive of the industry, their actions and their anti fracking allies speak louder. THis could be a very good issue for Republicans.”
- “The left will zero-in on natural gas export issues. Sierra Club has already started to do so. Why? Because the ability to export gas means more production (fracking) domestcially.”
Obama’s war on coal also clearly strikes a nerve:
- “In the states that really matter, it will be the Obama Administration’s war on coal. Look at the top five battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana. Coal is important in all but Florida, and we’ll be hearing a lot about the President’s war on coal in these states.”
- “Vast majority of focus will be on Keystone XL & Solyndra with POTUS on defense. With oil & gas driving the economy right now (especially in battleground states like CO, OH, PA) there’s not going to be much focus on “clean” energy.”
- “Keystone. The clear jobs message here will make this an issue the President will want to make go away.”
Despite our enthusiasm for the prospects in the Keystone state, not everyone shares our excitement including, it would appear, the Romney campaign. However, considering the demographic changes in the state, Obama’s well documented difficulties with Pennsylvania-like voters in his “uncontested” primaries and controversies over anti-business decisions like scuttling the Keystone Pipeline or killing coal plants, Pennsylvania remains a hot topic for political watchers. The Washington Post takes and in-depth look at voter sentiment in the coal country foothills of Western Pennsylvania:
This is coal country, even if there’s hardly any coal anymore. Hidden in the brush are the ruins of the beehive ovens that turned coal into coke and blackened the skies along the western slope of the Alleghenies.
The big play now is natural gas. Fayette County, which borders West Virginia about an hour’s drive south of Pittsburgh, is in the heart of the Marcellus Shale. Civic leaders hope that fracking — the hydraulic fracturing of the shale rock to liberate the gas in its pores — can reverse the fortunes of this depressed region. This part of Pennsylvania is a political and economic battleground. It’s on the front line of America’s economic doldrums, and it is not incidentally a swing county in presidential elections.
John Kerry carried Fayette County in 2004, but four years later John McCain squeaked by Barack Obama. McCain’s margin, 25,669 to 25,509, represented barely enough voters to fill half a basketball court. No one would call Fayette a bellwether, but it represents one very vivid brick in the foundation of American political and economic life: the rural industrial region in a post-industrial age.
Party Affiliation Does Not Equal Party Voter:
This is an overwhemingly Democratic county by party affiliation, but it is politically conservative. It’s full of prototypical Reagan Democrats. That said, Obama has the lead in Pennsylvania polls and handily won the state four years ago. It’s not clear whether it’ll be as competitive as Ohio next door or some of the other swing states. But the president faces headwinds here. Fayette County’s unemployment rate is higher than the national average. And the memory of coal and the dream of gas will not help Obama as he mines votes in this part of Pennsylvania.
The administration has touted its support for natural gas drilling, but many people here see Obama as unfriendly to fossil fuels. They cite his blocking of the proposed Keystone pipeline in the Great Plains. They talk about the administration’s tougher regulations on pollutants from coal-fired power plants. They’re wary of environmentalists who view fracking as a threat to the water supply.
Antipathy Toward Obama is Strong:
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