Tim Kaine

In our first post on the Clean Energy Forum we held recently at Tigercomm, we noted that there's an aggressive, ongoing effort by the fossil fuel lobby to push clean energy policy into the culture wars (hat tip to J. Patrick Coolican of the Las Vegas Sun). How to combat this assault is a pressing question not just for those of us in the clean economy, but also for politicians who get the urgent - even existential - need for our country to develop abundant energy that's clean and cost-effective.

On November 6, Virginia's presidential vote went to the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, by about 4 percentage points.  The Senate seat went to the Democratic candidate, Tim Kaine, by almost 6 percent.  At the same time, in the eleven congressional races, all of the incumbents won-eight Republicans and three Democrats.   Does that mean that huge numbers of Virginians were splitting their votes?

This story by The Hill, about how "[a] number of Senate candidates have not cut their ties to companies with vested interests in legislation the contenders could be voting on, should they be elected," has the right idea but is poorly executed at best. Thus, all we get on George Allen, who has glaring, egregious conflicts of interest, is the following boilerplate, including a whitewashing statement by the Allen campaign.