A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that fewer Americans believe in global climate change today than a year ago:

Since its peak 3 1/2 years ago, belief that climate change is happening is down sharply among Republicans — 76 to 54 percent — and independents — 86 to 71 percent. It dipped more modestly among Democrats, from 92 to 86 percent.

Renewed global warming skepticism is most pronounced among Republicans and conservatives:

The changes in the two groups in which it’s chiefly occurred are striking ones. Last year leaned Republicans by 72-25 percent believed the Earth was warming; today it’s 55-43 percent. Conservatives last year divided by 69-28 percent on the question; today, by contrast, it’s 56-41 percent. Combining these groups – that is, among conservative Republicans – a bare majority now says global warming is not occurring, the only group in which more than half says so.

The poll also assessed support for pending climate change legislation, but partisanship is increasingly influential in beliefs about climate change. In his analysis of the data, Gary Langer supposed that “a heightened sense that such changes may be coming, particularly since the Obama administration took office, may encourage more people in these groups to express disbelief that global warming is occurring in the first place.”

Climate change recidivism within the GOP has already devolved some of the party’s rising profiles: former McCain campaign adviser Carly Fiorina, who last year agreed that “there is growing consensus that the issues of climate change and energy independence are inextricably linked,” and that “the cap-and-trade system, if appropriately executed…can create tax incentives for innovation,” is now running for Senate from California with much less enthusiastic acknowledgments of climate change research. At a press conference last Wednesday:

Fiorina faced several questions about climate change, an issue in which [Sen. Barbara] Boxer is deeply involved. The Republican said that global warming demands a serious response, but when asked whether she would back mandatory caps on carbon emissions, Fiorina said she would not comment on a bill she hasn’t read. As for what course of action she believes the government should take, Fiorina suggested engaging in bilateral talks with China to curb greenhouse gases, and easing regulations for alternative energy companies to build manufacturing plants.

When a reporter followed up by asking whether she believes in global warming, Fiorina said, “I think we should have the courage to examine the science on an ongoing basis.”

Michael Crowley at the New Republic eyes the silver lining:

Isn’t it still remarkable that a majority of Republicans still believe warming is occurring? Several years ago that fact alone would have been cause for a headline.

Yesterday, Reid Wilson first eyed the final draft of a GOP “purity test” proposal now being circulated at the Republican National Committee:

The resolution would prohibit RNC money from flowing to any candidate who disagrees with more than two itemized planks of the GOP platform — playing off Reagan’s maxim that anyone who agreed with him 80% of the time is not 20% an enemy.

A candidate who disagrees, “as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee,” the resolution says.

Sponsored by IN national committeeman Jim Bopp and 9 other conservatives on the RNC, wording of the resolution is still being discussed, a source tells Hotline OnCall. When finalized, the resolution will be submitted for discussion at party’s semiannual meeting in HI.

A former, disgruntled RNC communications official leaked an earlier draft of Bopp’s proposal to Air America early this morning:

Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed that the Republican Party should support and espouse conservative principles and public policies; and

WHEREAS, President Abraham Lincoln was pretty cool too, we suppose;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (12) vague public policy sentiments for the 2010 election cycle:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, and lower deficits, so long as an opposition party is in power;

(2) We support free markets, flea markets, and tea merchants;

(3) We support scripture-based approaches to climate change science and energy reform efforts;

(4) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting whichever military-recommended options we choose not to ignore;

(5) We anticipate the return of Cosby sweaters and bow ties;

(6) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly efforts to paper their respective populations with John Bolton’s op-eds;

(7) We support the rhetorical designation of fetuses as “vulnerable persons” to avoid confusing them with taller, poorer people;

(8) We support and uphold the spirit of the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Loving v. Virginia;

(9) We propose the cancellation of “Glee”; and

(10) We hereby endorse Calvin Coolidge for president of the United States.

Imagine yourself as an initially disinterested observer of the current health care debate. Now imagine Jim DeMint droning for several hours on your television about how we are all creeping toward a world without freedom or cheap Reagan memorabilia. Would such a spectacle make you think (a) “Hey, that guy is on to something,” or (b) “Who is this man, and why is he standing next to a large poster of a fetus?”

I’m not sure whether DeMint or Joe Lieberman are actually gutsy enough to let fly for days on end from the Senate floor, but Harry Reid should at least give them a sporting chance. Just in case they do, Politico has outlined some US filibuster history and ground rules:

The last true old-school filibuster in the Senate is considered to have been conducted in 1986 by then-Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, a Republican from New York who was known as “Sen. Pothole” for his vaunted constituent-services operation. D’Amato spoke for 15 hours and 14 minutes in a failed effort to amend a tax bill to aid a struggling typewriter factory in Cortland, N.Y. …

Sounds riveting, no? But D’Amato wasn’t the only one with the ability and desire to ramble.

Reid himself held the floor for nearly nine straight hours in 2003, without so much as a bathroom break, to protest the majority’s insistence on “wasting” 30 continuous hours of debate over four judges Democrats had refused to confirm. He spoke for hours on the bill itself before commencing to read newspaper clippings and excerpts from his book “Searchlight: The Camp That Didn’t Fail,” as well as offering his musings on an array of subjects that included cactuses, rabbits, rocks and the behavior of buffaloes on a trip he took to Old Faithful.

Harry Reid is no Cicero, but just imagine Orrin Hatch reading A Prayer for Owen Meany to an evening news audience.

Karen Tumulty challenged Reid to call Republicans on their recurring procedural threat back in July 2007, when the Senate was debating troop withdrawals from Iraq:

Harry Reid’s idea with this all-nighter is to call attention to the fact that the Republicans are staging one against the various proposals to change course in the Iraq War. But…there’s a better way to call attention to this filibuster: Make them actually do it–not just for one night, but until everyone is ready to drop from exhaustion and Senators have to start canceling their fundraisers and their weekend trips. Maybe then they might really have to use those cots.

If inflicting Joe Lieberman on our televisions is Mitch McConnell’s best threat, health care reform just might survive. I just hope that the cable networks run marathon coverage of these guys when they start talking. The news tickers at the bottom of our screens will read: Public Option, Or Else.

In Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne struggles to comprehend why Gotham’s low-lifes would surrender themselves to the Joker’s strange and vile psychosis simply to recover a debt:

Bruce: Targeting me won’t get their money back. I knew the mob wouldn’t go down without a fight, but this is different. They’ve crossed a line.

Alfred: You crossed it first, sir. You’ve hammered them, squeezed them to the point of desperation. And now, in their desperation they’ve turned to a man they don’t fully understand.

Gotham, meet Washington. From desperation and irrelevance, the GOP beckoned for a bold, fresh piece of something. They got the governor of Alaska.

Fred Barnes first properly introduced Sarah Palin to the conservative intelligentsia in 2007, but it was Bill Kristol who launched Palin into the news cycle in late June 2009. From then on, he and the rest of the Republican establishment presented her as a jewel of rural, working-class America–the hockey-mom, the hunter-gatherer. But, well, real talk: Bill Kristol is not an expert on rural, middle-class, working-class anything; he was born in khakis and a blazer with one of those douchey prep school patches stitched into his breastplate. If legacy Harvard graduates are your go-to consultants on working class appeal, you’ve gone awesomely awry.

So November came; McCain and Palin went. Their landslide defeat was an embarrassment if only because Palin managed to draw so many admiring onlookers. Kristol, Coulter, and company convinced themselves that Palin was a casualty of liberal chauvinism, never bothering to question whether their plebeian narrative of Sarah Palin read plausibly to, well, the plebes. But now the only thing that matters to them is that, of a GOP leadership that has devolved into a free-for-all of personalities shouting across a (narrow) spectrum, Sarah Palin still stands tallest in a crowd. The second- (Beck) and third- (Rush) most inspiring voices in the Republican Party aren’t even leaders; they’re entertainers. What’s an Eric Cantor to do?

Lacking alternative charisma, Steele surrendered to the Joker and her minions. FOX News presented the tea party protests in April, but the protesters first presented themselves at Palin’s rallies a year ago. So far their objections are (in no particular order): Muslim, terrorist, Obama, birth certificate, African, Pelosicare, taxes, liberal media, bailout, abortion, tyranny. I don’t know where to start, and neither do they:

The Joker: Do I look like a guy with a plan? I’m like a dog chasing cars: I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I caught it! I just *do* things…

Their concerns are interchangeable because their objections are all improvised from a single, noisy premise: government is too much! Health care reform will euthanize old people because government is too much! Obama wasn’t born in the US because government is too much! People are dying of swine flu because government is too much! They’re not marching against the government to end a war or a practice; they’re marching against the thought of the government. They’re marching on sentiments and principle, and not much else.

Maybe Steele and McConnell and Boehner knew better than to hand their party over to a catharsis, but — aside from moderation and patience — what were their other options? Palin and the protesters are their surest shot at charisma and energy and relevance, so be it. But now the GOP is left with this problem: when you walk into a negotiation with no concrete demands, no credibility, and no patience, only rage and rambled theories, you’re insane — and reasonable people know batshit crazy when they see it.

The Republican Governors Association hosted its annual conference in Austin, Texas this week. A rundown: Rick Perry knocked Nancy Pelosi by repeatedly stating her name; the crowd booed socialism; Haley Barbour assured us that Mississippi will one day lead the way in health care reform. Check, please.

Perry welcomed fellow Republican governors to his state with what was assuredly a veiled endorsement of a health care public option: “[Competition] brings out the best in people and organizations, be they corporations or governments.” So imagine the disappointment when the Republican roster dedicated their conference to whining about health care reform and federal intrusions into something-or-other. Tim Pawlenty warned that “people mostly want to follow positive leaders; they don’t want to follow cranks” at last year’s conference in Miami, but maybe he’s hired a new speechwriter since then.

The Republican governors really are sold on this idea that Chris Christie is the new Barack Obama. Good luck with that. There are undoubtedly valuable lessons that the Democrats could stand to learn from the 2009 mid-midterm elections, but Beware Christie probably isn’t one of them. For what it’s worth, New Jersey’s governor-elect conceded that, in his case, “New Jersey issues were the things that drove the race.”

There was, as Adam Nagourney notes, a notable lack of cultural combat at this year’s conference, despite national conservative outrage over government-mandated abortions and such. Virginia Governor-elect Bob McDonnell stressed that in 2010, “the focus should be on bread-and-butter, kitchen-table, quality-of-life issues,” noting that his own campaign thrived in avoidance of fringe social rhetoric. In Sarah Palin’s absence this year–she’s out selling a book, you know–maybe the RGA conference came to realize that pragmatism wins. These guys used to worship God; now they worship Bob McDonnell.

With decidedly partisan fervor, conservative religious leaders have long shouted down the realities of global warming. They are, however, being challenged by a conscious and increasingly active movement among American evangelical leadership that seeks to confront the vast environmental and human costs of climate change.

On Tuesday, the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School hosted a climate change briefing on Capitol Hill, featuring researchers and religious leaders with “scientific, medical, moral, and religious concerns about the threats posed by climate change.” The forum’s speakers welcomed further partnership between scientists and faith leaders, confident that both communities can lend a constructive, moral voice to the political fight for climate protections.

This new partnership was a few years in the making: the 2006 Evangelical Climate Initiative, which called for increased federal regulation of US carbon emissions and acknowledged that “millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors,” garnered the support eighty-six evangelical leaders, including popular mega-church pastor Rick Warren. In the buildup to the ECI debut, however, a faction of religious leaders within the National Association of Evangelicals pressured then-President Rev. Ted Haggard to decline any official stance or statement on “the cause, severity, and solutions” to global climate change. Focus on the Family, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Traditional Values Coalition moved to silence the NAE, and Haggard ultimately backed down.

Three years later, Rev. Richard Cizik, who worked as NAE’s chief lobbyist in 2006 and also buckled under the influence of the Religious Right at the time, opened Tuesday’s hearing with clear, renewed commitment to moral leadership in the climate change debate, presenting global climate change and its evident effects as “the human rights issue of the 21st century.” He stressed that God entrusts us as stewards of his creation, and as neighbors of all mankind.

Climate researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Smithsonian Institution spoke at Tuesday’s hearing, highlighting known causes and the catastrophic consequences of global warming to the world’s ecosystems. Marine scientist Nancy Knowlton, for instance, illustrated how carbon emissions have affected sea levels, ocean acidity, and fresh water supply for coastal, human populations. She insisted that, while short- and long-term climate change forecasts are generally bleak, now is our chance “to get past the obituary writing and do something.”

Dr. Gerald Durley, an urban activist and senior pastor from Atlanta, further underscored the need for religious leadership in the face of such a moral crisis, drawing parallels between the urgency of civil rights activism in the 1960s and the need for similar intensity and resolve in defending the world’s poorest populations against the environmental excess of the world’s richest nations. Acknowledging the continued resistance of many American conservatives to the evidence of the human causes — and the human effects — of climate change, Durley remarked that continuing to indulge such willful ignorance “is not the behavior of a wise world power.”

Last week, the US Department of Education announced the finalized criteria for its Race To The Top (RTTT) initiative, pitting states against each other in competition for $4 billion in federal stimulus funds.

Secretary Arne Duncan released RTTT’s draft priorities on October 7, opening a 30-day window for public input in which the Department fielded thousands of comments from 1,161 people in feedback to the proposed goals and guidelines.

Many education policy observers have so far noted that the initiative’s final criteria have dulled emphasis on charter school innovation and on test scores as a primary metric of yearly student progress–largely at the insistence of teachers’ unions–although RTTT eligibility still requires states to dismantle any data “firewalls” prohibiting student test scores from factoring into teacher evaluations.

Of the 500-point evaluation rubric, the Department set aside 138 points–more than 25% of the total scoring–for emphasis on staff performance assessment and development. The section does not, however, explicitly address union contract negotiation or professional tensions between tenured teachers and younger, lower-paid recruits. While the RTTT guidelines do not strong-arm teachers’ unions as some reform voices had long hoped, the Department’s approach may yield more constructive long-term arrangements than buying-out bad teachers has for Joel Klein in New York City, or firing them en masse has for Michelle Rhee in DC.

In fact, Duncan’s savviest play may come in having underscored the need for support from various institutional interests at the local level–reform activists, unions, administrators, parents, teachers, politicians–in attempts at meaningful statewide reform. The Department forged RTTT’s final guidelines under exactly that multilateral influence, and Duncan’s politically-balanced approach runs counter to the zero-sum combat of, say, DC Schools Chancellor Rhee, who has spent the better part of her two years as schools chief facing-off against teachers, principals and the DC Council.

While the final RTTT deadline is currently set for June 1, 2010, Duncan is clearly pitching a long view of reform: as states draft their reform proposals, the RTTT eligibility criteria have California, New York, and Wisconsin legislators scrambling to knock down their states’ respective “data firewalls” in order to “take into account data on student growth…as a significant factor” per RTTT’s entry requirements.

Duncan has already assured states that “there will be a lot more losers than winners,” and some governors are likely to opt out of the competition given the breadth of entry requirements, but Race To The Top is high-stakes and high-profile enough to motivate state leaders and cash-strapped legislatures to play for keeps.

Anyone who tuned in to Maryland’s US Senate race in 2006 has long been aware that Michael Steele is a corny, tragic, hilarious man. He is Sinbad. When Steele suggests that white people in the Republican Party are afraid of him, I think: I’d be scared too if Sinbad were tasked with making me relevant to millions of people.

But, aside from dropping dated slang and the occasional Kool Moe Dee shout-out, what has Michael Steele done for black people? He’s the GOP’s first African-American chairman, and he campaigned for his position on promises to recruit minority talent and expand GOP outreach beyond a rural, white base.

But since his election in January, Michael Steele has spent most of his time echoing Mitch McConnell’s press releases,  talking about himself, and misspeaking about everyone else. Roland Martin asked Steele, “How do you have any shot at getting black voters? What are two issues that speak to black voters that the Republicans have a shot at?” Steele answered, “Education and the economy; education and jobs; education and small business.” That was pretty much it.

Where is and what is Steele’s vision? Bob McDonnell, for instance, was savvy enough to reach out to BET co-founder Sheila Johnson in his bid for governor of Virginia. Who is Michael Steele reaching out to? That list includes Doug Hoffman, Rush Limbaugh and Congressman Joseph A. Cao–who, despite being the GOP’s most promising minority recruitment to date, Steele is already threatening to hound from the party.

Meanwhile, President Obama is pushing to expand quality health care access to the poor and unemployed; he’s placed significant political capital on the line to help stimulate short- and long-term job growth; and his Department of Education has dedicated $4.35 billion–the largest ever discretionary allocation of federal education spending–to help states make good on school reform and meaningful educational standards.

Obama’s first year in office hasn’t passed without some cloudier days, but at least the man is trying. Michael Steele, on the other hand, treats Washington like it’s Vaudeville. It’s funny, I guess, but I’m not sure Steele’s in on the joke.

The Salt Lake City Council passed two ordinances on Tuesday, prohibiting employment and housing discrimination against LGBT members of the community. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints spoke in favor of the ordinances earlier that day–but only because they exempt religious organizations.

Remarkable, no? Just last fall, Mormon Church elders shuttled $180,000 to conservative California activists in support of Proposition 8, ultimately reversing same sex marriage rights in the state. In his statement to the council before Tuesday’s vote, LDS spokesman Michael Otterson went on record to reaffirm the Mormon Church’s commitment “to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman.”

The Mormon Church isn’t the only religious leadership committed to stifling marriage equality, but other faith groups are marching light-years ahead of evangelicals in championing human equality. Nonetheless, Jane Wishon of the Restore Equality 2010 campaign to restore gay marriage rights in California commended the LDS for its leadership at Tuesday’s council meeting in Salt Lake City, hoping that “this new perspective will translate into the Mormon church supporting full equality for LGBT, including the right to civil marriage.”

In the meantime, observers at the Salt Lake Tribune see the potential for further cooperation between the LDS and Utah’s progressive activists:

At least one of the measures is poised for a 2010 comeback: an anti-discrimination statute that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s fair employment law. The bill includes the same exemption for religious organizations and their affiliates that Otterson praised in Salt Lake City’s ordinances.

…

Rep. Christine Johnson, the Salt Lake City Democrat who plans to float the state anti-discrimination bill for a third time in 2010, said she feels “immensely grateful” to the LDS Church for its “fair and compassionate” stand on the city ordinances. She hopes Otterson’s statement will help dispel arguments, widespread during the 2009 Legislature, that providing any legal protections for gay and transgender people sets public policy on a slippery slope to gay marriage.

Sure, the victory in Salt Lake City is local, and it’s a leap short of full equality, but it’s still a step forward for LGBT Americans and for the Mormon Church. The LDS’s last-minute say in Salt Lake City made way for an ultimately unanimous vote to guard LGBT citizens against bigotry outside of religious employers. Was this the shrewd calculation of a politically vulnerable church? Was it a sincere change-of-heart?

Whatever, it’s progress.

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission plans to protest the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Obama signed into law last month, by preaching outside of the Justice Department. Pastor Paul Blair is apparently concerned that the law will infringe on Christians’ constitutional rights to act out their bigotry.

On November 16, 2009, at 1:30 PM, an ad hoc coalition of concerned ministers from various denominations will be holding a Press Conference and Rally for Religious Freedom in front of the Department of Justice.

A group of ministers including Rick Scarborough of Vision America, Gary Cass of the Christian Anti Defamation Commission, Bishop Earl Jackson of STAND America, Paul Blair and Steve Kern of Reclaim Oklahoma, Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, Brad Cranston of Iowa Baptists for Biblical Values and Jim Garlow, a leader in the Prop 8 battle in California will join together with others and boldly preach Biblical truth concerning the subject of homosexuality. If believing and proclaiming the Bible is considered a Hate Crime, then they are willing to be arrested, if necessary, in order to stand for the guaranteed First Amendment right to free speech for all ministers of the Gospel.

Bob Unruh at WorldNetDaily is also convinced that the new hate crimes law contains “restrictions on expression of religion and speech,” because beating up LGBT Americans ought to be a protected expression of religion and speech. Unruh, Blair and their comrades in bigotry are also convinced that the Attorney General Eric Holder might personally show up to this rally to arrest them for massing an outdoor prayer group. Oy.

Mind you, Congress passed the Matthew Shepard Act to help protect gay Americans from anti-gay violence, not to eliminate Bible study or even prevent bigots from expressing their bigotry. The law explicitly identifies violent felonies motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived sexual orientation of the victim. It penalizes:

Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law…willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person.

Matthew Shepard wasn’t the target of a sermon; he was the victim of a lynching. So what specific provisions of the hate crimes law are this group protesting? The legislation is only a few pages, and the full text is even listed on Wikipedia, but one hopes they just haven’t bothered to read it. Or maybe they have, and they’re simply determined to speak out on behalf of would-be gay-bashers. But you know what? That’s their right.