Letters to the Editor
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A modest proposal for the Sierra Club
I posted this on the very forum Amanda Grissom Little referenced, but I feel it might also have some value here:
his record may/may not be relevant
...given the Republican leadership in Congress and the White House.
He might vote with the Sierra Club 100% of the time -- it doesn't matter. The GOP is (currently) monumentally hostile to environmental issues, and having Chaffee as a token moderate gives them just enough cover to go on raping the environment with their corporate-friendly "voluntary compliance" and Newspeak policies.
And I say this not to cast undue aspersions to the Senator. He very well might be a standup guy on many environmental issues. But as long as the Republican leadership is hostile to environmental issues, the Sierra Club should not be endorsing him for the general election.
Admittedly, it's a tough spot if indeed Chaffee has a decent environmental voting record. The Sierra Club needs to appear nonpartisan, and provide incentives to "moderate" Republicans so that they will support an environmentally-friendly agenda.
I would think the savvy endorsement would be to give a glowing endorsement of Chaffee for the Republican primary. List the many things he's done, both as a legislator and as a committee chair. And then say that the Sierra Club, regretfully, cannot give him their endorsement for the general election because while Chaffee has been a standup guy, his party's leadership has been the antithesis. As long as the GOP's positions on the environment are this bad, no Republican -- good environmental voting record or no -- can qualify for a Sierra Club endorsement. For those races, they should choose to regretfully abstain from endorsing either candidate.