Alternatively, I think a potentially effective response might be something sponsored by, say, Al Gore (or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or, hell, Leonardo DiCaprio), called “Your Money, Your Pockets” (trying to match the pithiness of Newt) that advocated ending oil subsidies and tax breaks to energy companies and returning this money to consumers so they can weatherize their homes (or reinvesting it in subsidies for hybrids, or taking everyone in the country out to brunch… you get the idea). This is just an example, I’m not necessarily saying that that is a good policy (though the brunch idea has some serious potential). However, I’m trying to demonstrate how the clean energy movement can use the formula that others have been so successful with.

In the offshore drilling debate, we need to do a better job of reminding people that this administration has opened up unprecedented amounts of federal land to ONSHORE drilling – and it hasn’t done a damned bit of good for anyone except oil company shareholders.

The offshore drilling gambit is a piece of populist bullshit, and just like the gas tax holiday proposal, I think that people will generally be too smart to swallow it once we get the facts out. You might find a million fools willing to sign a petition in a knee-jerk anger, but if we engage people and talk more about real solutions, then we can expose this as the pointless gimmick it really is.

So yes, Newt is a better organizer in the sense that people don’t see him as an organizer and so are more likely to respond to him.

Sparki makes a good point here. Even though we are the most online generation in history, there is still something to be said for using other mediums. We obviously don’t have the means to buy up all sorts of ad time, but making sure that media opportunities such as campus newspapers, facebook banners, etc should always be hit up.

This is a golden opportunity to prove that people power trumps expensive partisan advertising.

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