NEWS AND OPINION:
REBRANDING MR. GORE
He’s persistent, that’s for sure. Al Gore will not let go of his climate crisis and is couching his alarmist arguments about global warming with a new twist.
“Using the same deceitful playbook as big tobacco used years before to mislead the public about the dangers of smoking, oil and coal companies and their allies are now deceiving the public about climate change. They have nearly unlimited resources to sow doubt, but we have one critical advantage: Reality is on our side,” Mr. Gore says.
The former vice president has renamed the Alliance for Climate Protection - his old nonprofit activist group - the Climate Reality Project, to center around a Sept. 14 event that will feature a new “multimedia presentation created by Al Gore” broadcast online in 24 time zones and 13 languages. Or something like that.
But brace for impact. Or hide. Mr. Gore is just in the nascent phases of “An Inconvenient Truth, Part Deux,” apparently.
“The climate crisis knows no political boundaries. Ferocious storms and deadly heat waves are occurring with alarming frequency all over the world. We are living with the reality of the climate crisis every day,” Mr. Gore says. “This event is the first step in a larger, multi-faceted campaign to tell the truth about the climate crisis and reject the misinformation we hear every day.”
REBRANDING ARNOLD
California governor? Done with that. Husband? Done with that, too. Movie star? Not done with that. Arnold Schwarzenegger has emerged from the doldrums of his recent infidelity scandal and has signed on to play the lead in an edgy Western titled “Last Stand,” described by the film’s South Korean director, Kim Ji-Woon, as a cross between “Die Hard” and “High Noon,” specifically designed for a “63-year-old broken-down guy.”
Indeed, Mr. Schwarzenegger plays an aging but heroic sheriff who takes on a Mexican drug cartel along the lawless U.S.-Mexican border. The project is getting some early applause.
“An old-fashioned adventure tale about an aging, self-sacrificial cowboy who goes out of his way to see that justice is done, reads as being a potentially great return-to-form for Schwarzenegger - one that will portray him in both a heroic light and includes his deteriorating physique as a plot point, essentially,” says Screenrant correspondent Sandy Schaefer.
REBRANDING RUDY
Yes, Rudy, as in former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani , who will reveal “very soon,” a spokeswoman says, whether he will join the ever-expanding gaggle of Republican presidential hopefuls. The telltale signs are all there: Mr. Giuliani will soon descend on New Hampshire.
On Thursday alone, he meets with hospital administrators in Exeter, then attends a Seacoast Republican Women’s luncheon in Hampton. He then ventures to a meeting with law enforcement officials and civic leaders in New Castle, followed by a meet-and-greet with National Rifle Association members and motorcyclists at Harley-Davidson in Manchester - followed by a private dinner.
Come Friday, Mr. Giuliani will speak at Dartmouth College and meet privately with faculty.
SHALOM, MR. PRESIDENT
“Secure America Now has just released a new poll showing that only 43 percent of Jews plan to vote to reelect Obama in 2012. If this holds, it would be a considerable drop from the 78 percent of the Jewish vote Obama received in 2008, and from the standard 75-80 percent of the Jewish vote that Democratic political strategists have come to expect and rely upon,” observes Tevi Troy, a Hudson Institute scholar and National Review contributor.
The bipartisan poll, conducted by John McLaughlin and Pat Caddell, also found that just 34 percent of Florida’s Jews would vote to re-elect him, though he does better in California, Illinois and Maryland. The president’s worst showing in the poll was among Jews under 40. Sixty-one percent said they planned to vote for someone else.
“This could indicate that the strange and continuing hold that the Democratic Party has had over American Jews could finally be loosening. This latest poll is bad news for Obama in the short term and problematic for the Democrats in the long term as well,” Mr. Troy says.
GOP TWEET
President Obama had his Twitter “town hall” last week to mixed reviews. Now comes the first Republican presidential Twitter debate, organized by TeaParty.net and scheduled for July 20, to be moderated by analyst and pollster Dick Morris.
Republican presidential hopefuls who will spar in abbreviated social-media-style phrases so far: Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, and Reps. Michele Bachmann and Thaddeus McCotter. Yes, they will take questions from the citizenry, tweeted of course.
“Maybe the Twitter limit of 140 characters to each tweet will make them get to the point and answer the question,” Mr. Morris observes.
When the time comes, the candidate tweeting gets under way here: https://140townhall.com.
POLL DU JOUR
• 73 percent of U.S. voters say gas taxes paid into the Highway Trust Fund should only be used for upkeep of interstate highways.
• 70 percent of Democrats say it’s appropriate to use the funds for mass-transit projects.
• 56 percent of Republicans disagree.
• 53 percent of voters overall oppose any increase in the federal gas tax, even if the money only goes to the upkeep of interstate highways.
• 64 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of Democrats agree.
• 45 percent say the federal government should provide additional funding for the highway system.
• 54 percent of Democrats agree.
• 38 percent overall say the system should be funded entirely from gas taxes paid into the Highway Trust Fund.
• 49 percent of Republicans agree.
Source: A Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted July 8-9.
• Tweets, bleats, assorted feats to jharper@washingtontimes.com
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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