Too weird to not blog about...

Alright folks, welcome to my blog. I started this blog because let's be honest, some of this stuff is too weird to not write about. As you can tell from the title, I am an OSU alum so don't be afraid of getting a little football in your politics. I've been living in Columbus for over 5 years and I have seen elections come and go. We can all see that 2008 is going to be huge and think we can all agree that there is room for at least one more arm chair quarterback/analyst.

So this whole parade stunt-double deal has been done to death so no more shots are going to be taken on that front, so let'ss move on. I saw that Greenpeace stopped at Senator Stivers's office last week. At first I thought it was just a crazy stunt to embarrass a Republican candidate, but Stivers seemed to handle it. Clearly Democrats will not be able to dominate the environmental issue like they may have been able to do in the past. Take a look at this release from the Stivers campaign:

STIVERS RELEASES STATEMENT ON ENERGY AND CLIMATE
CHANGE
Date: 07/25/2008
Stivers Welcomes Greenpeace, Releases
Statement on Energy & Climate Change

Columbus -- State Senator,
and candidate for the 15th Congressional District, Steve Stivers today welcomed
volunteers from Greenpeace to his campaign headquarters and released his
statement on energy and climate change.
"I want to thank the volunteers from
Greenpeace for coming out today; they firmly believe in their cause and it was
great to meet with them and discuss their ideas on how to address energy
issues."
“In America, we must modernize our energy policies to reduce fossil
fuel dependence and cut energy costs.

We have a moral
obligation as stewards of this world to confront the challenges of climate
change using a science-based approach. Moreover, it’s in the national
interest to become oil independent so we’re no longer reliant on nations and
regimes that fail to share our core democratic values.

This will be
one of the great challenges of our time, but one that shouldn’t frighten
us. Instead, we must embrace this transformative change, a change that
will create billions of dollars in new business and millions of new jobs.
The greening of our economy could very well help strengthen our state and
national economic health as we step forward in this new green
world."

Among other things, Stivers supports the concept of a
market-based cap-and-trade system, increased fuel standards, and massive
investment in the new, clean-energy technology that will help spur a new,
greener economy:

Cap and trade: Stivers supports the concept
of a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions. This
market-based approach must balance environmental and economic goals so there is
certainty with regard to carbon prices, important for this system to work for
everyone.
Fuel economy standards: Stivers believes America must
increase fuel economy and has called for an increase of 2mpg a year for the next
6 years, a more ambitious goal than the standards set in the Energy Independence
and Security Act of 2007.
Invest $100 Billion over 10 years in clean
energy: Stivers will invest $100 billion over 10 years to develop and
commercialize clean-energy technology and the support networks critical to power
a new, greener economy.”

I think Greenpeace got more than they bargained for with Senator Stivers. It will be interesting to see how the Kilroy campaign handles it when Greenpeace makes their next stop.