The debate was excellent, really getting into the issues and drawing out the candidates positions and differences. No surprise, I thought Patrick was great, but I also thought that Stein had a surprisingly strong showing.
Did anyone else attend? If not, any opinions after seeing the recap?
Please share widely!
and it was nowhere near long enough to be useful.
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p>Charlie Baker wants the clean energy to come from Quebec. Tim Cahill doesn’t give a crap. Stein thinks that Patrick set up Cape Wind to be a sweetheart deal. Patrick thinks the additional cost for the electric bill is small and worth it.
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p>Oh yeah, and Cahill drives an old SUV gas guzzler, Baker a luxury car with mediocre mileage, Patrick a new hybrid crossover-ish SUV thing with identical mileage to Baker, and Stein drives a Prius. Because what you drive is the only thing relevant to environmental cred, and personal decisions given the current rules have everything to do with public policy for everyone :rolleyes
I’d go a bit further in regard to Dr Stein’s comments. She, too, is pointing out that while large-scale projects involving renewable energy are always on the table, they’re not likely to be provide the most immediate and beneficial return on investment. That Patrick accepts wads of cash from those involved in this plan would be a moot point if in fact it were the best option for the commonwealth. Which is, presumably, why the Globe canme out today insisting that she and Cahill be included in the full range of debates; at which point audiences will likely wake up to the fact that far from ebinga fringe candidate with “radical green” views, Dr. Stein is presenting alternative solutions grounded in science and hard economics. Whether her views hold up to critical analysis–the Cape project itself is pretty complex and full of Rumsfeldian “known unknowns”–will become apparent to viewers, but her strong showing should cause those none-too-happy with the role of campaign contributions and insider game-playing to give her campaign the respectful–and critical!–scrutiny it deserves.
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p>I’m not sure that what you drive (or eat, or wear, or whatever) ought to be a determining factor in the vote, but in Stein’s case, it is important. As she’s calling for energy-conservation first, the fact that she’s walking the walk IS important.
To be clear, all four candidates could generate pages and pages from my very brief summary. My intention wasn’t to suggest that any of the four were that simplistic.
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p>As for large-scale projects not the most immediate — yes and no. Cape Wind has taken what, 10 years? That’s hardly immediate. However, I don’t see how any collection of small projects could be created in 10 years to generate the amount of renewable power that Cape Wind will generate, unless they were all part of, how-you-say, a large scale project. As for them being beneficial — generally speaking, large projects have economies of scale. Cape Wind is no different. Building in the water gets higher quality wind in this case, and with turbines bigger is almost always better because you can generate mo’ better power at both slightly lower wind speeds and at higher wind speeds than smaller turbines. The only way that small scale projects out-produce large scale ones is when they are part of a, how-you-say, large scale (government subsidy) project.
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p>Note that I’m not opposed to gov’t subsidized distributed renewable energy projects, I just disagree with the claim that “small is beautiful” in this case.
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p>As for “walking the walk” — it’s worth noting that Governor Patrick’s actions over the past 3 years have cut far more carbon than Dr. Stein’s. After all, it is Patrick’s executive orders which have had a widespread impact on a huge amount of fossil fuel consumption across public and private facilities all over the Commonwealth. This is not to discredit Dr. Stein for her choice of cars, but to suggest that she’s “walking the talk” merely because she owns a Prius is awfully simplistic.
What if it isn’t ‘economically viable’? It’s a risky concept, what if it doesn’t work as predicted?
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p>It’s Jim Gordon’s money, isn’t it? Not taxpayer funds. The tax credit doesn’t happen if there’s no private sector business to claim it, either.
I actually got to see the debate live. Props to MassINC and Suffolk, it was really well run.
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p>Agreed with Patrick and Stein preforming well. Also thought Cahill was weak.
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p>And stom is right, post-coverage needed to be alot more in-depth, so I am glad its all online. Its too bad it was not a live broadcast. I’ve heard there will be 6 or 7 more debates to follow. Does anyone know when the first live broadcast debate will be?