The poll — commissioned by major environmental groups — indicates that cap-and-trade was not a major issue for Republican voters in a slew of House races. Republican voters were asked to name their biggest concern with the Democrat running in the race. While 27 percent chose voting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) agenda, only 7 percent said it was because the Democrat supported the House cap-and-trade bill when offered a list of six options. The poll surveyed 1,000 voters in 83 “battleground” congressional districts.

The poll has received a lot of attention in the last 24 hours not just for its content, but for how it has been reported. Environmentalists have criticized Politico and others for reporting the results of the elections as a “day of reckoning” for lawmakers who voted for the House climate bill. They have also criticized reporters (including me) for treating the poll as an effort by environmentalists to spin the election results. Now, the poll certainly is an effort to spin the election results, but that doesn’t mean the results aren’t significant.

I thought I’d try to give some insight into why reporters cast the poll the way they did. First, and most obvious, the poll was conducted by environmentalists, the very group that benefits from the poll’s findings.

Second, environmental beat reporters did not take into account the broader election narrative. In many ways, this is a problem created by beat reporting. Environmental reporters scoured the election results on Tuesday night looking for story ideas.

Two key races were foremost on my radar and, I can assume, on the radars of other environmental reporters: those of Reps. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.). When both candidates lost in quick succession, the cap-and-trade “referendum” narrative began to take shape.

Perriello has become something of a celebrity on the left, having voted for cap-and-trade, health care and the stimulus package as a Democrat, decisions that could put him in a tight spot in his conservative district on Tuesday. Boucher, also from a conservative Virginia district, voted for the cap-and-trade bill as well, after long negotiations with key lawmakers.

When both Perriello and Boucher lost their races, environmental beat reporters (myself included) quickly noted that both lawmakers had voted for cap-and-trade. The problem is, other issues came into play in these races too. The environmentalist poll says, for example, that only 5 percent of the people who voted for Perriello’s opponent, Republican Robert Hurt, said their biggest concern was Perriello’s vote for the House cap-and-trade bill.

So while 43 Democrats who voted for the House climate bill either lost their races or retired their seats, which were then won by Republicans, it’s difficult to say without specific polling data whether they lost because of their climate vote or for other reasons. Further complicating the idea that the vote was a “referendum” on cap-and-trade, 27 of the 43 Democrats who voted against the House climate bill lost their seats.

While we can’t say cap-and-trade was a key issue in the election, it’s important to note that it was an issue in many races. Cap-and-trade is deeply unpopular among Republicans, and the policy was one of many the GOP employed to criticize President Obama and Democrats. The success of the Republican overall argument — which touched on the economy, the role of government, health care and, yes, cap-and-trade — was the reason for the massive Republican gains in the House and Senate.

I’ve spoken to a few environmentalists who point to several Senate races as examples of where climate change played a major role, including Colorado and Nevada. But while there was a lot of talk of climate change in those races (see Ken Buck), I haven’t seen any indication that either of those races turned on the issue. Like many races in the country, climate change was one of many issues that formed voters’ opinions.

One of the only places, it seems, where climate change played a demonstrable role in the election was in California, with Proposition 23. The ballot initiative, which failed after intense campaigning by the oil industry on one side and environmentalists on the other, would have overturned the state’s landmark global warming law.

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder notes that it simply gives Democrats a more defined target:

Republicans don’t need a Contract or a Pledge. Their base is energized. The Democrats aren’t. A Pledge that doesn’t increase the information content about the Republican brand.-The folks who are going to vote arguably know Republicans stand for the stuff in the pledge because Republicans have been talking about this stuff since the beginning of the cycle. Arguably, it gives Democrats more of a defined target, something that they can reach out with two fingers, poke eyeballs, and redirect to. Arguably-ably, a more substantive governing document, had the Republicans been able to produce such a creature, would have made it harder for Democrats to demagogue.

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, meanwhile, has already gotten the ball rolling on that process, poking some pretty worrisome holes in the new GOP road map:

You’re also left with a difficult question: What, exactly, does the Republican Party believe? The document speaks constantly and eloquently of the dangers of debt — but offers a raft of proposals that would sharply increase it. It says, in one paragraph, that the Republican Party will commit itself to “greater liberty” and then, in the next, that it will protect “traditional marriage.” It says that “small business must have certainty that the rules won’t change every few months” and then promises to change all the rules that the Obama administration has passed in recent months. It is a document with a clear theory of what has gone wrong — debt, policy uncertainty, and too much government — and a solid promise to make most of it worse.

Of course, Republicans didn’t just release the Pledge for fun. They’re responding to some pretty serious charges that all they’re good at is saying ‘no’ to Democratic overreach, and now that the prospect of governing is within their grasp, they want to remind voters that they haven’t forgotten how. ”The key for the electorate is which party has the better plan to create jobs and grow the economy,” GOP pollster David Winston tells Chris Cillizza at The Fix. “If you don’t have a jobs and economic plan, why would the electorate give you the responsibility of governing?”

The email:

Dear Friend of Marriage,

Breaking news from Washington . . . .

9 U.S. Senators have agreed to co-sponsor a bill that would guarantee the right of DC residents to vote on same-sex marriage.

The bill will be introduced shortly and will complement a similar bill introduced in the House in January.  The House bill is HR4430, and I’ll keep you posted when the Senate Bill is introduced and assigned a number.

The next few days are crucial as we meet with legislators and seek support on Capitol Hill! We need your help right now.

Use this link to send an email to your Senators and Congressman. Tell them you want them to join as co-sponsors of the DC Marriage Initiative bill / HR4430, and even more importantly, push to ensure that the bill gets a vote on the Senate and House floors.

Sending Your Letter
The 9 Senate co-sponsors are Senators Robert Bennett (UT), Sam Brownback (KS), Jim Bunning (KY), John Cornyn (TX), Mike Enzi (WY), James Inhofe (OK), Pat Roberts (KS), David Vitter (LA), and Roger Wicker (MS).  The 2 House co-sponsors are Representatives Jason Chaffetz (UT) and Jim Jordan (OH).

When you use the link above to send your email message, you’ll see two letters. If your senator or congressman is one of the existing co-sponsors to the bill, they will receive the “Letter for Co-Sponsors.” Otherwise, your senators and congressman will receive the “Letter for All Others.”  Either way, your letter will be going to your own elected officials in Washington.  Please take a moment to personalize your letter to let your representatives in Washington know how important this issue is.

Your Voice Makes a Difference!
We face an uphill battle, and the next few days are extremely important as we gather support in Congress. NOM and Stand4MarriageDC are in meetings almost daily with various House and Senate offices, and we need your support. Your legislators need to hear not just from us, but from you — their own constituents who care about this important issue.

The Senate leadership just wants this issue to go away, and will do whatever they can to bury it in committee. That’s why every Senator needs to hear from people in his or her own state, urging him to stand up for the voting rights of DC residents.

An out-of-control city council tried to do an end run around the DC Charter, refusing to recognize the rights of DC voters to file an initiative petition on marriage. Regardless of where your representatives stand on same-sex marriage, tell them that we ought not stand for this sort of government abuse against the residents of our nation’s capital.

Tell your Senators and Congressman you want them to publicly stand for marriage and civil rights by co-sponsoring the DC Marriage Initiative Bill / HR4430. Tell them how important this issue is both for the future of marriage and for the rights of everyday citizens trying to stand up against a government machine.

Then tell them you want them to champion this issue, push for a vote, and not let Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid bury it in some subcommittee!

Please click here to send your message to Congress today!

Then forward this message to friends and family all across the country! Together we can stand up for DC voters and make sure they have a chance to be heard on marriage!

“I don’t think it’s a referendum on Obama,” the Republican lawmaker said in a conference call with reporters. “I think it’s a — it’s a referendum on some of his programs — not that his programs are not well-intentioned, but are they working and, in some instances, are they going too far?”

Of course, Republicans fared very well in high-profile statewide elections in New Jersey and Virginia, but the GOP’s favored candidates lost both federal special elections in New York’s 23rd Congressional District and California’s 10th. One can only wonder what prominent Republicans would be saying if they had won either or both of those House seats.

The cabinet suggested that the referendum could be delayed until January, but the parliament speaker, Ayad al-Summarie, an opponent of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, appears to be leaning in the direction of holding it by July 30.

Welcome to Christopher Hill’s first massive challenge as Iraq ambassador. He can continue to press behind the scenes for the Maliki government and the parliament to block or delay the referendum, contending that a premature U.S. departure is a gamble that Iraq can’t afford. But if he does that, the inevitable charges about American intentions for permanent occupation will intensify in an election year, risking not only the passage of the referendum but a more anti-American parliament as well. If he doesn’t press Maliki and the parliament, the referendum could pass. Would that be the end of the world? No, but it could make the actual withdrawal more chaotic. What’s striking is that for months, administration officials I’ve spoken with about Iraq have been convinced the referendum wasn’t going to happen.

On a kind-of-related note, Musings On Iraq has a good post noting that the Iraqis asked the British to keep 100 sailors and 5 ships in Basra after the “final” British pull-out date of May 31. Is this what’s going to happen for U.S. troops, as John Nagl kind-of-sort-of-maybe suggests in his new Iraq paper? If the referendum passes and U.S. troops have to leave Iraq in 2010, expect the Obama administration, ironically, to negotiate a more robust advisory presence than it would if the referendum fails, out of an attempt to mitigate the consequences of what it’ll view as an accelerated withdrawal schedule.

But the considerations don’t really end there. Odierno is making a case for having breathing room on withdrawal. But, as Marc reminds, his public positions in that regard might end up restricting that breathing room:

The politics of this aside, I think that Odierno’s intention of keeping troops in Iraq through the national elections is dangerously wrong. The CFR/Brookings/Odierno “go slow” approach ignores the reality of the new Status of Forces Agreement and the impending referendum this summer — which may well fail if there is no sign of departing American troops. It sends the wrong messages to Iraqi politicians and the Iraqi population.

I’ve harped on this point in the past. Iraq will undergo provincial elections Saturday, and the shake-out from that is unclear as yet. But looming on the horizon is a prospective referendum, pushed by the Iraqi legislature — the composition of which won’t change after the election –  to push up the date of U.S. withdrawal to 2010. It’s a safe bet that the Iraqis, who in general are skeptical that the United States will actually get out of Iraq, will interpret Odierno’s comments with, to say the least, impatience. That would contribute, particularly in a politics-heavy environment, to an Iraqi push to force the referendum through, thereby denying Odierno precisely the operational flexibility he appears to seek.

One last thing: watch conservatives use Odierno as a bloody shirt to wave against Obama’s withdrawal plans. This quote in The Times’ piece from former Bush deputy national security adviser J.D. Crouch is a preview of things to come:

“They don’t want to alienate the military. And there’s something to be said that the guy who got things under control over there, Ray Odierno, probably has a good idea of what he needs.”

Since the Marines want out of Iraq, it’s really hard to see how getting out “alienates” the military. But watch this meme develop.

In my reporting for the story, I came across a group called the Energy Action Coalition, which has run a nonpartisan campaign called “Power Vote” this election season. The campaign’s purpose is to galvanize young people to persuade other young people to vote for candidates or ballot referendums that promote clean energy, the creation of more green jobs and efforts to control climate change.

So far, Power Vote says it has secured commitments from 300,000 young people to vote this way.

Missouri, California and Colorado all have ballot initiatives dealing with clean energy. Missouri’s initiative calls for 15 percent of the state’s electricity to come from clean energy by 2021. California’s ballot measure, Proposition 7, requires the state’s utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2010. (The proposition has stirred up controversy because many environmentalists oppose it because they consider its wording confusing and worry that it could backfire and retard renewable-energy growth.) And Colorado’s initiative, supported by Gov. Bill Ritter, seeks to end $300 million in tax subsidies for oil and gas companies and use that money for clean-energy projects and college scholarships.

More detailed accounts of these initiatives can be found here.

As I’ll discuss in today’s piece, voters age 18 to 30 view the environment as a higher priority than older voters. If young people turn out in big numbers tomorrow, they could help move energy and environmental issues to center stage.