"From A Request To A Demand"

It sounds like the We Campaign might be about to bring a gun to a knife fight.

GMP1 just received this (mass) email from We Campaign communications director Giselle Barry:

I want to make sure you know about a new ad that started airing today. "Free Us" starts with the phrase 'To our leaders,' and will air during both upcoming political conventions. It completes an important shift in the We Campaign's messaging.



This new ad focuses specifically on the challenge to Repower America by generating 100% of our electricity from clean sources within 10 years. This was also true of our recently seen "Switch" ad (watch the "Switch" ad.) These ads, along with the T. Boone Pickens' media buy mean that millions of Americans are now hearing about big goals - with real targets and immediate timelines. The notion that the best way to rebuild our economy is to make a dramatic shift in our energy mix is now getting critical attention.

"Free Us" takes a different tone from our previous ads. While the first We Campaign ads offered a general invitation to the movement for climate solutions, this ad issues a direct challenge. While showing what a transformed economy looks like, the ad also hints at a transformation among the American people. It explicitly moves from a request to a demand.

"From a request to a demand".

Rip. It.

But the We Campaign must remember that while national TV ads and op-eds in the Washington Post and big Al Gore speeches are lots of fun, it only really counts if you have an aggressive grassroots lobbying strategy to kick the living shit out of disagreeable politicians back in their home districts.

The energy "status-quo" is dug in tighter than a tick.

And changing it is going to take real fight.

What wonderful fun!

Lakeside In Freedom, NH With Legs, Literature & Libation

Happy CONTINUING summer vacation everyone.

Noted: Those aren't our legs. Not really.

And after spending the last few days dockside with Robert Massie's Peter the Great biography, we feel the need to take a short break, hop back on the grid and highlight a couple of stories that have caught our eye recently.

Because a few of our loyal readers are getting ornery and have started the threatening emails. You know who you are.

So...

Time's Andrea Sachs reviews businessman Felix Dennis's How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets.

The Journal's Amy Schatz explores the GOP's lack of online politicking abilities. Maybe it's just us, but if the same three Republican "Internet strategists" weren't quoted in every single article on this topic maybe we would see some forward movement on the fresh ideas front?

The Journal's Kimberley Strassel explores the hatred that GOP reformers face from within their own party. Great, GMP1 loves a good fight!

The NYT's John Broder loves all over Al Gore's plan to wean the nation's entire electricity grid to carbon-free energy in 10 years. We love Gore's idea too. $3 trillion seems a small price to pay to tell the Saudis/Iranians/Russians/Venezuelans to go "stuff themselves" while at the same time helping secure our children's financial/environmental future.

Marc Ambinder tracks the GOP car wreck that is Iraqi PM Malicki's comments to the German MSM publication Spiegel. While Team McCain's Tucker Bounds is absolutely correct with this statement about the (significant) blow-up, GMP1 just does not see how Iraq is not a loser for the Republicans in 2008.

And Jon Martin has Johnny Mac on Conan.

Albert Gore/We Campaign To Discuss Climate Change In DC Thursday

Be still our beating swing voter heart.

Per the Glover Park Group managed press release:

Gore to Lay Out Unprecedented Challenge on Energy and Climate

Address Will Set National Goal for Clean Energy Future

Washington, DC – Former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore will outline his bold vision for the future of America’s energy needs at D.A.R. Constitution Hall this Thursday, July 17. The speech will be hosted by the “We” Campaign, a fast-growing organization focused on solutions to the climate crisis.

The speech will offer a new way of thinking about our energy production and consumption and a new sense of what is possible when we choose to work together. It will propose a means of tapping America’s innovative skills to build a more secure energy future.

Who: Former Vice President Al Gore

What: A discussion on the future of America’s energy needs

Where: D.A.R. Constitution Hall – 1776 D St., NW, Washington, DC

When: Thursday, July 17 at 12:00 p.m. EDT:

Exxon Mobile (aka The Buggy Whip Company) Is Having Another Bad Day

Al Gore's $300 million = Going In Whole Hog

Noted: Not that an Oscar and a Nobel Prize is anything to sneeze at.

We're guessing that 300 large is just the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the California/Texas/Oklahoma alternative energy VC money is willing to pony up to take on the fossil fuel companies over the next 10 years.

But back to Gore's project...

Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton?

Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich?

Shooooot.

That's pretty damn smart. And if Gore can couple those messengers with a solid ground game at the local and state levels well, it's going to get real interesting real quick.

And America's first "Green" President might very well be sharing his/her wing of the Smithsonian with the former next President of the United States.

ManBearPig Has The Last Laugh

We split 14 different ways on Al Gore.

Noted: Just for the record, we don't think that Gore runs for President. He knows too well the old adage: "First they turn you into a monster and then they call you one".

But today is Al's day.

And rightfully so.

GreenMountainPolitics1 Follows Al Gore To Beverly Hills (sorta)

We are blessed to have many friends scattered all across the globe.

And we pay good money for that blessing.

On Tuesday night Al Gore launched his "Assault on Reason" book tour with a event at the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills.

The AP has the MSM story here.

GreenMountainPolitics1 has another side of that story (via email) from a good friend of ours who lives in LA and attended the Gore event. And yes, she is a RAGING Democrat.

Hi! I wanted to share with you that I was at Al Gore's Book Tour kick-off in Beverly Hills last night (May 22).

It was a sold-out crowd of (mostly) upper class white folks who all hissed whenever Vice President Cheney or Carl Rove were mentioned and chanted “Run Al Run” the whole time.

Everyone was passing out Gore 2008 stickers, shirts and posters. I signed a petition "drafting" Gore into the election.

Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap - A Mighty Wind) interviewed Gore for about an hour. They talked about Current TV (Gore’s TV channel), Gore’s book and the need for "We the people" to concern ourselves with facts, truth, research, etc.

Gore took the issue of climate change, the war in Iraq and other poor decisions made by the administration and linked them all together to describe how facts/reason point in one direction while the administration moves in the other direction.

Gore's talk targeted apathetic/lackadaisical voters in America and chided them for not speaking/standing up and demanding open, educated political conversations based on reason.

It was fantastic! I mean really, really fantastic!!!

What we like about this particular account is that it captures the "Gore-Mania" that we have begun to feel the barest whispers of here in New Hampshire.

Over the past few weeks we have seen several new Gore 2008 bumper stickers. And, the level of Gore "chatter" has increased significantly at the political events we attend.

Not that we think Gore will ever actually run. He's even said as much.

Gore remembers (or should) that old adage about the media - "First they turn you into a monster and then they call you one".

But we do think it's interesting to think about.

Bringing The Friday Funny (Again)

A blast from the past.

This skit appeared on the 2000 recount "scene" BEFORE the Supreme Court had even issued its first ruling.

Tequila, gunshots and "cutting down the rain forest to drill for oil". It's all in there.

Jeb's down!