KIMBERLEY STRASSEL: OBAMA’S KEYSTONE DEBACLE
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323419604578571872194739406.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
President Obama had plenty of reasons to deliver his grandiose climate speech on Tuesday, among them a desire to change the subject. But the better motive was his urgent need to quell a growing revolt among his grass roots.
The backlash has centered on climate, and nowhere has it been more amusingly illustrated than in the recent tribulations of Mr. Obama’s advocacy arm, Organizing for Action. That grass-roots outfit has been pounced upon by . . the grass roots.
OFA’s Keystone punt is undermining the president’s carefully crafted image as the leader of a bottom-up movement. OFA takes its orders from the top, so climate activists are snarling that it is “Astroturf”—a political mouthpiece posing as the people. “If you’re going to be a grass roots, you have to actually listen to the grass roots,” complained Daniel Kessler, a spokesman for the climate activist group 350.org, to Politico.
The anti-Keystone crowd has decided that if OFA won’t join in lobbying its boss, then it will be targeted along with every other “climate denier.” In May, CREDO Action called on its three million members to crash OFA planning meetings. Alarmed, OFA issued members talking points to help manage unruly activists. The document was immediately leaked (much to its embarrassment), since many OFA volunteers are on board with the anti-Keystone movement.
On June 17, 22 anti-Keystone activists were arrested at a protest in Chicago—a site chosen to send a message to OFA in its hometown. A few days later, at the annual Netroots Nation meeting, OFA Executive Director Jon Carson came under siege at a roundtable event.
“For domestic spying, warrantless spying on us or deportations or Keystone, if the administration is the problem or standing in the way, you’re not touching it?” asked Robin Beck, head of Citizen Engagement Lab. Another activist asked how OFA could be trusted, given that its leadership had “come out of the administration.” Ouch.
Mr. Obama’s goal with OFA was to energize his base and turn that power against Republicans. Keystone is showing that his base is far more focused on him. When OFA this spring ginned up a campaign against GOP congressional “climate deniers,” and called on the grass roots to hold these members “accountable,” climate activists like CREDO political director Becky Bond dismissed it as a “cynical election strategy.” “As terrible as it is to have Republicans serving in Congress,” Ms. Bond told Huffington Post, “they really don’t have anything to do with real action on climate change at this point.” Mr. Obama has the executive authority, and he needs to deliver.
If he doesn’t deliver to activists’ satisfaction, OFA can kiss its green volunteers goodbye. “OFA can’t keep ignoring the pipeline in the room,” Jamie Henn, a spokesman for 350.org told Huffington Post. “If President Obama rejects the pipeline, I’m sure that thousands of environmentalists would be glad to volunteer for OFA,” he said. “But those people aren’t going to knock on a single door or make a single phone call if the president sells them out to Big Oil.”
The anger is infecting the broader Obama base, pushing 150 prominent Democratic donors recently to demand the president reject the pipeline. Keystone protesters dog Obama fundraising events. Activists are encouraging all donors to withhold money from OFA, and last weekend news broke that the group had halved its 2013 fundraising goal—to $25 million, from $50 million. It raised a lackluster $4.8 million in the first quarter of 2013.
The Obama climate speech on Tuesday was aimed at tamping down this fury, though it’s a bit late. The president’s foot-dragging on what should have been a straightforward pipeline approval has allowed the left to elevate Keystone into a litmus test of his climate bona fides. Environmentalists are clear: No matter how sweeping his other climate promises, nothing will make up for the approval of Keystone.
At the same time, more than 70% of Americans support Keystone. Many of them will view the president’s decision as a litmus test of his commitment to affordable energy, the economy and jobs. A rejection would be a gift to Republicans, who would brutalize Democrats in next year’s midterms. This political truth is why OFA hasn’t joined the Keystone complaint.
Community organizing is nice, but presidents are elected to lead. Mr. Obama has always grandly suggested—Forward!—that they are one and the same. OFA’s Keystone catastrophe is proving what a conceit that always was.
When the president visited New York on May 13, protesters turned out too.
Organizing for America, the president’s campaign machinery that mobilized millions of supporters for his election, converted in January into a money-raising 501(c)4 and rebranded as Organizing for Action. Democrats crowed that this new OFA would propel the president’s agenda and recruit grass-roots volunteers to defeat Republicans in 2014.
OFA has instead become an object of derision for the president’s environmental left. That group’s priority is to kill the Keystone XL pipeline. Since Mr. Obama may yet approve that job-creating project, OFA has refused to join the campaign against it. “Organizing for Action’s mission is to support President Obama’s agenda,” it keeps repeating, with growing desperation.
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