Newt Gingrich = Al Gore?

The Washington Post reports that the big knock-down drag-out global climate change debate between Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich turned into a mutual lovefest.

Kerry had planned to denounce Gingrich as "marching in lock step with the climate-change deniers" but Gingrich preempted him by admitting the man-made climate change is real and that "we should address it very actively."

The greening of Newt (an undeclared Republican presidential hopeful) is just more evidence that climate change will be one of the big issues during the 2008 campaign. Every politician will have to declare that something must be done about climate change and soon. But will they actually come out and advocate policies like raising the price of gasoline to $6 per gallon and boosting electricity rates by 25 percent? Perhaps most interestingly, how will the Democrats satisfy both their union and environmentalist wings? Greens want to cut the CO2 emissions that fuel heavily unionized industries such as automaking and coal mining.

Whole WaPo article here.