The issue demonstrates how Republicans are encouraged to take needlessly extreme positions with little real world benefit

In order to understand how talk radio encourages politicians to make needlessly polarizing statements, ponder the recent back and forth on climate change among two GOP primary candidates.

Last week, Mitt Romney spoke about the issue in New Hampshire. He opposes a "cap-and-trade" limit on carbon emissions. Like the vast majority of climate scientists, however, he believes that climate change is happening, and that humans are playing some role. He's held that position for awhile, but his recent answer on the subject prompted the following comment from Rush Limbaugh: "Bye-bye, nomination. Another one down. We're in the midst here of discovering that this is all a hoax. The last year has established that the whole premise of man-made global warming is a hoax, and we still have presidential candidates that want to buy into it!"

That happened on Tuesday. As if in response, Rick Santorum said this Wednesday on the Rush Limbaugh program:

There's a variety of factors that contribute to the earth warming and cooling, and to me this is an opportunity for the left to create - it's a beautifully concocted scheme because they know that the earth is gonna cool and warm. It's been on a warming trend so they said, "Oh, let's take advantage of that and say that we need the government to come in and regulate your life some more because it's getting warmer," just like they did in the seventies when it was getting cool, they needed the government to come in and regulate your life because it's getting cooler. It's just an excuse for more government control of your life, and I've never been for any scheme or even accepted the junk science behind the whole narrative.



Set aside the merits of the issue - let's just talk politics. Which of these arguments is going to appeal to the biggest anti-carbon-tax, anti-cap-and-trade alliance? And which would prove least popular: