Now that Sarah Palin is John McCain’s vice presidential pick, the record of all of Sarah Palin’s opinions and judgments will now be carefully vetted by the national media. Palin is on record with two opinions, widely seen as anti-science, that, I’m sure, Palin will be pressed again and again to explain: 1) the cause of global warming and 2) the teaching of creationism is public schools.

Sarah Palin, in a recent interview said she does not believe climate change is caused by human behavior. She said, “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”

To believe that human behavior has no impact on climate change, global warming, is a big deal. Such belief has huge policy implications. Palin will need to explain her stand on global warming. Palin seems to the right on McCain on this issue. McCain is on record as stating that human activity is responsible for global warming. Also, Palin wants to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). McCain opposes drilling in ANWR.

The second area of anti-science controversy, coming from previous Palin comments, inevitably, will center on Palin’s statements about teaching the theory of intelligent design in public schools.

The Anchorage Daily News, ran this article, “‘Creation Science’ Enters The Race” two years ago, when Palin was a candidate for the office of governor of Alaska, that indicates that Palin believes that school children should learn both the theory of evolution and the theory of intelligent design

“The volatile issue of teaching creation science in public schools popped up in the Alaska governor’s race this week when Republican Sarah Palin said she thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the state’s public classrooms.

“Palin was answering a question from the moderator near the conclusion of Wednesday night’s televised debate on KAKM Channel 7 when she said, “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.”

“Her main opponents, Democrat Tony Knowles and Independent Andrew Halcro, said such alternatives to evolution should be kept out of science classrooms. Halcro called such lessons “religious-based” and said the place for them might be a philosophy or sociology class.

“The question has divided local school boards in several places around the country and has come up in Alaska before, including once before the state Board of Education in 1993.

“The teaching of creationism, which relies on the biblical account of the creation of life, has been ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court as an unconstitutional injection of religion into public education. ….

In an interview Thursday, Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms:

“I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.” She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum. Members of the state school board, which sets minimum requirements, are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature.

“The Republican Party of Alaska platform says, in its section on education: “We support giving Creation Science equal representation with other theories of the origin of life. If evolution is taught, it should be presented as only a theory.” Palin said she thought there was value in discussing alternatives.

“It’s OK to let kids know that there are theories out there,” she said in the interview. “They gain information just by being in a discussion.”

An interesting article in Salon, by Michael Lind, tells, “How Democrats can win big in 2010 and beyond — by doing the opposite of what they’re doing now.” Prior to 1968, Lind says, the two party system consisted of the Roosevelt Party and the Hover Party, but since 1968, the two party system has been the Nixon Party and the McGovern Party.

Lind writes, “Beginning with its namesake, George McGovern, in 1972, the McGovern Party has been trounced repeatedly by the Nixon Party, not because of its economic agenda, which the public actually prefers to the alternative, but because of its unpopular stands on issues like race-based affirmative action, illegal immigration, crime and punishment, and national security.”

He says, “There is no doubt that at some point between 2004 and 2008 American politics changed. It is clear to everyone, not least conservatives, that the era of right-wing hegemony that began with Richard Nixon’s election in 1968 has come to an end.” Excerpts from the article:

“Between 1932 and 1964, the Roosevelt Party won seven of nine presidential elections, losing only in 1952 and 1956. Between 1968 and 2004, the Nixon Party won seven out of 10 presidential elections, losing only three times, to Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Was this because red-state Rooseveltians were won over to supply-side economics, while blue-state blue-bloods suddenly became enamored of abortion rights and separation of church and state? No. Today’s red-state Republican children of New Deal Democrats still like Social Security, and the Republican grandparents of today’s blue-state Protestant Democrats were in favor of birth control — for the Catholics, in particular. The values of these voting blocs didn’t change. The issues that defined national politics changed. …

“The Roosevelt Party ran on economic issues, and didn’t care whether voters were in favor of sex or against it on principle as long as they supported the New Deal. The McGovern Party, by contrast, has made social issues its litmus test. Economic conservatives have had a home in the McGovern Party, as long as they support abortion rights and affirmative action, but social democrats and populists who are pro-life or anti-affirmative action are not made nearly as welcome. …

“FDR was able to assemble his coalition only because social issues did not divide his voters. Nobody ever asked FDR or Harry Truman or John F. Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson their views on contraception, or abortion, or censorship. Not only were those issues not central to the message of the New Deal Democrats, they were not even national issues. …

“In fact, the majority of Americans, including many social conservatives, never ceased to support New Deal policies, which from Social Security and Medicare to the G.I. Bill have remained popular with the public throughout the entire Nixon-to-Bush era. Consider the results of a June 17, 2008, Rockefeller Foundation/Time poll. When “favor strongly” and “favor somewhat” are combined, one gets the following percentages for policies favored by overwhelming majorities: increase the minimum wage to keep up with the cost of living (88 percent); increase government spending on things like public-works projects to create jobs (86 percent); put stricter limits on pollution we put into the atmosphere (85 percent); limit rate increases on adjustable rate mortgages (82 percent); provide quality healthcare to all, regardless of ability to pay (81 percent); impose higher tax incentives for alternative energy (81 percent); provide government-funded childcare to all parents so they can work (77 percent); provide more paid maternity/dependent care leave (76 percent); make it less profitable for companies to outsource jobs to foreign countries (76 percent); expand unemployment benefits (76 percent).

“Note that almost all of the policy proposals that excite the American public are exactly the sort of old-fashioned, “paleoliberal” spending programs or systems of government regulation that are supposed to be obsolete in this era of privatization, deregulation and free-market globalization, according to neoliberals and libertarians.

“The public wants the middle-class welfare state to be rounded out by a few major additions — chiefly, healthcare and childcare — and the public also wants the government to grow the economy by investing in public works and favoring companies that locate their production facilities inside the U.S. There, in a sentence, is a program for a neo-Rooseveltian party that could effect an epochal realignment in American politics.

“A Newer Deal party that ran on this economic agenda could attract Southern Baptist creationists as well as Marin County agnostics. …Had Clinton been interested in restoring the Roosevelt coalition, he would have veered left on economics and right on cultural issues. Instead, under the influence of Robert Rubin, Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, which dismantled many firewalls between investment banks, securities firms and commercial banks that the New Deal Congress had put in place, inadvertently contributing to the economic disaster we are now experiencing. Instead of opposing race-based affirmative action in favor of universal programs open to economically disadvantaged whites, Clinton said he would “mend it, not end it” and then forgot even to mend it. …

“A big reason that the Democrats won back Congress in 2006 and are likely to keep it in 2008 is nominating and electing socially conservative economic populists like Heath Shuler. More progress. But to create an updated version of the New Deal, the Democrats have to treat economically liberal social conservatives as equal partners, with their own spokesmen and leadership roles in the party, not just as a handful of swing voters brought on reluctantly at the last moment….

“Unfortunately, the upper-middle-class left, with its unerring instinct for political suicide, is probably incapable of seizing the moment and bringing more Baptists and Catholics into the Democratic Party, because it has developed an almost superstitious distaste for religious conservatives. This might make sense if the religious right were still a menace, as it was a generation ago. But with the exception of state referenda and constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, religious conservatives have lost one battle after another, from failed attempts to promote creationism on school boards to the doomed effort to repeal Roe v. Wade.

“There would have been no Progressive Era without the followers of William Jennings Bryan and no New Deal without the support of ancestors of many of today’s Protestant evangelicals and traditionalist Catholics. Social conservatives, having lost the culture war, should be offered not only a truce but also an opportunity to join a broad economic campaign for a middle-class America, as many of them did between 1932 and 1968. When pro-choicers and pro-lifers unite in cheering the public investment and living wage planks at the convention of the neo-Roosevelt party, we will know that the political era that began in 1968 is truly and finally over.”

From, “The Newer Deal: The path to a Democratic supermajority,” written by Michael Lind, appearing in Salon.Com