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Republican Charlie Baker made his very first gubernatorial campaign stop this morning, two long weeks after actually announcing his campaign. The stop, however, wasn’t a meet & greet with voters, allowing regular people to ask him questions about his candidacy. Rather, the first campaign stop was a tour of UMass-Lowell’s Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center.
First, it seems odd that it would take Baker two weeks to put together any kind of public campaign event.
Second, it seems particularly curious that Baker would choose a facility tour for his first event instead of an event that would allow him to directly interact with and answer the questions of voters, especially given his own acknowledged shortcomings on the campaign trail when it comes to connecting with voters (along with the criticism Baker took for announcing his campaign by YouTube video and waiting a full day before even taking questions from the media, much less voters).
Third, and perhaps most substantively, making his first campaign stop of the 2014 cycle at a scientific facility only serves to remind voters that, in his 2010 campaign, Charlie Baker joined national Republicans in rejecting science as he repeatedly ducked questions on the topic of climate change.
In 2010, Republican Charlie Baker literally “played dumb” on the issue of climate change. Given that Massachusetts’ economic engine is driven in large part by science, technology, and research, our economy would only be hurt by a Governor who, like Republican Charlie Baker, has refused to acknowledge basic science like the impact of human activity on climate change.
For background, here is a refresher course on Republican Charlie Baker’s record of ducking the issue of climate change.
“Baker ducks climate query,” Boston Globe, 2/7/10
GOP gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker has a reputation as a smart guy, but he said last week he wasn’t smart enough to form an opinion on the hottest environmental topic of the day. Climate change: Does he believe in it, or doesn’t he?
“I’m not saying I believe in it. I’m not saying I don’t,’’ he told the Globe on Friday, a day after dodging the question at a public forum on Thursday. “You’re asking me to take a position on something I don’t know enough about.’’
He added, “I absolutely am not smart enough to believe I know the answer to that question.’’
Asked during a speech at Suffolk Law School on Thursday whether he agrees with the “scientific majority’’ that climate change is caused by human activities, Baker ducked.
“I don’t think whether I believe that or not matters in this conversation,’’ Baker said. “What I do believe is that our overreliance on foreign oil is a big problem for national security and an economic point of view.’’
The answer caused jitters among some environmental activists, who point to Governor Deval Patrick’s efforts to encourage renewable energy and promote energy efficiency.
“We are unlikely to see such continued progress in renewable energy – or the associated creation of jobs that we have seen here in Massachusetts – from any candidate who can’t openly acknowledge climate change is even happening,’’ said James McCaffrey, director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club.
“Charlie Baker’s willful ignorance,” Boston Globe editorial, 2/11/10
Changes in climate caused by greenhouse gases are the premier environmental issue of our day, so it is surprising to see Republican candidate for governor Charlie Baker evading questions on the issue with feeble claims about not being smart enough.
The former CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care first ducked a question on the human role in global warming after a speech last week at Suffolk University Law School. “I don’t think whether I believe that or not matters in this conversation,’’ Baker said. When a Globe reporter quizzed him further the next day, the Harvard-educated head of administration and finance under Governors Bill Weld and Paul Cellucci pled ignorance: “I’m not saying I believe in it. I’m not saying I don’t. You’re asking me to take a position on something I don’t know enough about. I absolutely am not smart enough to believe that I know the answer to that question.’’ Asked for more clarification yesterday, he again declined to state a conclusion but promised to read the 2007 report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Baker’s views actually matter a great deal. Along with California, Massachusetts is a leader in technologies, from high-tech batteries to cellulosic ethanol, that promise to make the world less dependent on fuels that emit the most common greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. A governor who has not informed himself on the science that links carbon dioxide to global warming is going to be an unconvincing proponent of those technologies.
Baker would do well to listen to fellow Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. “I say the debate is over,’’ the California governor said in 2005. “We know the science, we see the threat and we know the time for action is now.’’ Terminator, we have a student for you.
Few seem to have any interest in the topic, but as Baker mounts his ‘charm’ offensive, will an reporter or pundit ask him?