Monday, January 25, 2010

Tough Love Talking Points for Walker’s Orion Visit

This afternoon Scott Walker is scheduled to tour Orion Energy Systems in Manitowoc. As a public service, I am offering some of the suggested talking points listed below to the Walker campaign. Some of them call for a little "tough love" but sometimes you just have to stand up for what you really believe in, (assuming that Walker actually believes in something other than getting the next vote).

First let's look at a brief description of the host: Orion Energy Systems is a leading power and technology company that designs and manufactures energy management systems. Most of those systems consist of high-performance, energy-efficient solutions including renewable solar technology. They have deployed their energy management systems in thousands of facilities all across North America including 120 of the Fortune 500 companies.

Now on to the suggested "tough love" talking points for Walker!

  1. Being a loyal member of the Party of No, Walker should chide Orion executives for being a part of an event with President Obama last year. During the event the President highlighted his goal of building a clean energy economy. He went on to highlight specific examples from his budget that give tools and stability to such forward thinking companies. That includes strengthening the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit and making it permanent. Walker must demand that Orion apologize for being present at the event and supporting the president's agenda.
  2. Walker should find and chastise the Orion executive that was pictured on the White House blog at the above described event, (sitting right next to the dreaded Van Jones no less!). Glen Beck would not be happy!
  3. WMC and other elements of Wisconsin's right-wing are attacking Governor Doyle's Clean Energy Jobs Act, but Orion Energy is listed as part of a forward thinking group of businesses that support the effort. Scott Walker must declare to any media at the event today, that Orion Energy is wrong for supporting such absurd concepts such as investing in job creation through clean energy!
  4. Scott Walker must warn Orion not to take any of the dreaded stimulus money to create more private sector jobs. We already have examples of private green companies taking advantage of such programs in the Recovery Act and that needs to stop! After all, we all know that neither these companies nor their current or future employees are "real people".

Even though I am kindly offering the Walker campaign these talking points, I'm not sure that they will stay consistent with their positions long enough to use them. So if they neglect to stay consistent, I hope that someone at the media event at Orion today will think to highlight some of these important "tough love" talking points.

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