I have a story out today about the arduous battle that Barbara Boxer and John Kerry will face when they drop their climate-change bill in the Senate, which is likely to be any day now. The short version is that the politics are very complex and negotiations are likely to be drawn out. We probably won't see a vote on it this year. One political aspect I didn't discuss in the piece is public opinion, mostly because that's a whole different can of worms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, what the public thinks about climate-change legislation like the Waxman-Markey bill depends almost entirely on messaging. Two recent polls show how disparate the responses can be.

On September 1, the Benenson Strategy Group—those same polling gurus who advised the Obama campaign—wrote a memo explaining that, based on their polling, 63% of Americans support the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES, or the Waxman-Markey bill). Support peaked among Democrats, 85% of whom were in favor of it, but it also polled well among Independents (59% support) and did better than expected among Republicans (43% support). But just days earlier, Rasmussen conducted a separate poll and found only 35% of Americans support ACES. So why the enormous difference?

ACES is an enormous, multifaceted piece of legislation and viewpoints differ markedly depending on what Americans know about it. Rasmussen simply asked voters what they thought of the "climate-change bill" without explaining what the bill does. In their survey, 58% of respondents hadn't really been following the debate. In that context, the idea of a "climate change bill" is a pretty nebulous one. It's not immediately apparent what such a bill would do, especially for people unfamiliar with the debate.

Views on ACES depend almost entirely on what components of it people know about and understand. Benenson asked their respondents about discrete parts of the bill. They found overwhelming support for "protecting our children's drinking water and the air they breathe" (84% of people consider this very important) and "making America more energy independent" (79% of people thought this very important.) This is a huge opportunity for proponents of climate-change legislation, if they are able to get out in front with messaging. For example, Benenson's polling indicates that people respond well to reducing dependence on foreign oil. Americans tend to believe that buying oil from nations with whom the U.S. has hostile relations jeopardizes national security. If ACES proponents can focus the discussion on unpopular "big oil" companies who oppose legislation that would stop the flow of money to hostile regimes, that helps their cause. Benenson also found that people are more inclined to believe the bill will curb the activities of corporate polluters than they are to think of it as a "job-killing energy tax." This all adds up to good news for Democrats. There's much potential to make their bill an easier sell.

But ACES advocates won't have the playing field to themselves, and the bill could prove just as easy to dog. If voters believe that that primary impact of the bill will be to raise their electricity bills then Democrats will have a problem. Similarly, if voters see it as hurting rather than promoting job creation, Boxer and Kerry will be in trouble, especially with senators from Rust Belt states who are already nervous about the impact of regulation on industries in their districts. And if voters believe that the bill is just about the dry, dull business of regulation, they'll be either bored or apathetic. Emissions regimes don't sound nearly as sexy as fighting big oil. In the end, like in most political battles, it will all come down to messaging—and who gets their messages to voters first.