AFP balloon visits Marietta today

Americans for Prosperity is bringing its Hot Air Tour to Marietta, Ga., today. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jim Galloway reports:

The Georgia chapter of Americans for Prosperity, an anti-tax group, is hosting a Thursday event featuring free a hot-air balloon ride, to underline what it says are the harsh economic consequences of fighting global warning.
AFP already had its “Hot Air Tour” up and floating elsewhere during the Washington debate over the now-stalled Lieberman-Warner climate bill, which calls for capping carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, transportation and industrial sources.
The AFP will have its balloon (and 70-foot tether) at Jim Miller Park in Marietta at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Word is that you don’t have to present yourself as a global warming skeptic to go up in the balloon. But they may ask for a different answer before they bring you down.

They'll be in Birmingham, Ala., and Nashville, Tenn., on Friday. Yesterday, they were in Savannah, Ga. , where Jamie Durden reports:

Tim Phillips, president of AFP, says if one particular piece of legislation called "cap-and-trade" passes, it could make our energy sources so expensive, it would cripple middle Amercians.
"Right now we rely on so much of the Middle East for our oil and that's not the answer," he said. "We have something like 21 billion barrels of oil right here off the continental shelf. We should go out and get that and look for new technologies and to have a prospersous economy is the best way to make sure we're finding new technologies."

The success of the balloon tour demonstrates that, even in the 21st-century "new media" age, nothing beats good old-fashioned ballyhoo in terms of generating public attention.