Angry! Conservatives Are Angry About Climate Bill! Angry, I Tell You - Angry! Truly, Truly Angry!

[hatrack]

Signs of a conservative backlash to Democratic initiatives are increasing as Senate sponsors release an ambitious plan to reduce carbon emissions. The charged political environment potentially complicates efforts to convince a handful of Republicans to support the measure.

As Utah Republicans were replacing veteran Sen. Bob Bennett Saturday with a new conservative primary candidate, a separate surprise shift to the right was taking place in Maine, home to two Republican senators considered crucial to the carbon effort.

Maine's GOP convention replaced its modest party platform Saturday with a last-minute substitute that seeks defeat of federal cap-and-trade efforts and calls for an investigation into "the warming myth." The three-page document, which was approved by a majority of the 1,800 party members estimated to be attending, recognizes the conservative tea party movement and promotes eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, opposes abortion and gay marriage, and warns against "one world government." "Overall, the general feeling is that the Republican establishment of Maine are RINOs and that they do not reflect the actual membership of the Republican Party," said Andrew Ian Dodge, the Maine coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots. The substitute platform, he added, was not an organized attempt by his chapter of the diffuse movement.

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Although Maine's Republican Party chairman, Charlie Webster, said conservatives are angry -- "angry, that's the word" -- at the Democratic-dominated state Legislature, that doesn't carry over to the state's popular senators. "I don't see them in any way being jeopardized," Webster said, adding that he doesn't expect the senators to "base any decisions on what the Republican platform in Maine says." "They won't vote for a large climate change bill," he added later. "If legislation is passed in Washington dealing with the climate issue, it will be reasonable, or Snowe and Collins won't vote for it. It'll be acceptable to most people in Maine, or it won't be passed -- and I don't mean acceptable to liberals." Webster doesn't believe climate change is caused by humans.

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http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/05/12/12climatewire-climate-bills-release-coincides-with-rising-c-4344.html