Gore Puts Global Warming in a Partisan Lock Box

Erm, it is the Republicans who made this a partisan issue. People who consider themselves Republican deny global warming. People who consider themselves Republia, hate Gore. They can put these two together as an act of self-satisfaction with their choices. There is nothing Gore or Democrats can do about it. Except, point out that Republicans are the ones who made this a partisan issue and that perhaps a smart person should rethink the silly ideas about potentially voting for McCain in November and perhaps even reconsider their allegiance to the Republican party. After all it was a high-level White House official in the Bush administration who said that Reality has a liberal Bias.

Indeed, when it comes to his mission of waking Americans up to the global warming problem, Gore just sent the strongest signal to date that the issue can easily be re-interpreted through a partisan lens.

Hmf. I think that horse has been long gone from the barn.

Nonsense.

A Democratic president leading a democratic majority congress would be able to start enacting environmental legislation in about a year.

You're suggesting that Al Gore not get behind that effort, in favor of slowly convincing people that despite being a Democratic senator and vice president, and despite being demonized as a hypocrite, liar and fraud by a business interests and partisan politicians, in the hopes that over time, the Republican party will grow more moderate on the issue of global warming.

To put this in perspective, look at gay rights. Gay rights is even more of a partisan issue than climate change. The Republican party have been steadfast in their fight against anti-discrimination laws, gay marriage, and even legalization of sodomy in areas where those laws still apply. John McCain recently he might accept a Pro-choice VP, but not a gay one.

Yet gay marriage or similar civil unions is increasingly becoming a fact of life in America. Despite partisan ideology, more and more people are coming to terms with the idea that it's not their business whether gay people get married or not, and accept that people should not be fired or discriminated against for being gay.

Al Gore's endorsement of Obama is going to bring about genuine legislative results much sooner than taking a non-partisan view, especially when McCain is pushing for increased drilling.

Are you saying that, even though it's a shame, Americans are unwilling to judge the contents of ideas objectively, but look mainly at the political party of the speaker, and therefore speakers of ideas should attempt to be non-partisan and apolitical?

Americans are not so stupid as you might think. And if they are, there is no hope for them if the only way they'll evaluate something is to have it marketed to them. People are always trying to sell them something, and so are adept at spotting subtle packaging. Ideas in subtle packaging are going to spotted, and not likely to be as well received, or treated with as much suspicion or even dirision as an idea presented straight up.

Yet gay marriage or similar civil unions is increasingly becoming a fact of life in America. Despite partisan ideology, more and more people are coming to terms with the idea that it's not their business whether gay people get married or not, and accept that people should not be fired or discriminated against for being gay.
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And you can make a case Gavin Newsom (mayor of San Francisco) made gay marriage even more partisan when he started granting marriages. Now the proposition banning gay marriage is now down in the polls in California. Challenging stupidity can have benefits.

Also when discussing partisan,shouldn't it be taken into account registration rates? You would expect as fewer identify as Republican a greater percentage would be hard-core. It is a selection bias.

It is a partisan issue, and has been made a partisan issue by a steady stream of conservative denialists who have sought only to obfuscate the science and inflame the rhetoric, all in the cause of continued inaction.

Catering to them now is to invite only more of the same.

Given how tainted Gore already appears to be ...
Given how willing many Republicans are to deny the possiblity of climate change ...

I wonder if a two-part strategy isn't in order.

Part 1. Get a Democrat elected who will implement needed legislation to address climate change and shift America to alternative forms of energy

Part 2. Make climate-positive policy such a reality/fact of life that no future administration would have any desire to reverse course.

As "Left Wing Fox" suggests, while it took the Democrats to push civil rights and "liberal" policies in a number of areas, many of those areas have become facts of life that few politicians are willing to touch (i.e. the term social security as the "third rail" in American politics).

That being said, there's probably useful work to be done (or that has been done) on how issues truly become non-partisan. Work on the emergence of social norms speaks, in many ways, to this question.

Since the GOP has just put a VP candidate on the ticket who does not believe in man-made climate change, I think you could argue that the issue is still possibly partisan.

She is also a creationist, so a 'science debate' could be real interesting...