Letters to the Editor
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Why not to endorse Chafee
Amanda Griscom Little and her subject Carl Pope seem to miss the issue. Yes, an occasional Republican will have a good record on the environment, but that is not the point. In fact, it's not just the point that voting for Chafee means keeping Republicans as chairs of all those Senate Committees, you know, the ones that should be overseeing the EPA and the Departments of Energy and the Interior. It is also ideological.
The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats believe in conscious, planned efforts for the common good. Since FDR, Democrats have represented a view that we are all in this together, that we must make common sacrifices for our community happiness and our common good. Republicans have an abiding faith in individualism -- even where individualism manifestly fails. It will certainy fail if we are going to stop global warming. The profit motive is not going to keep Florida from flooding or Bangladesh from disappearing. The sooner the environmental movement accepts the critical necessity to our survival of ushering liberals into the majority -- as opposed to counting votes on random issues that the Republican Senate leadership allows to come to the floor -- the safer we will all be.
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It's a bad move
Groups like the LCV and the Sierra Club can certainly be bipartisan--in normal times. These are not normal times, however. We're looking at a government that seems hellbent on allowing corporations to destroy the environment so they can show a slightly higher profit, and that government is run by Republicans. As long as these Republicans remain in control of the Senate, then any support of a Senator who will vote for that leadership is at cross-purposes with the stated goals of the LCV and the Sierra Club.
The Sierra Club and the LCV need Democratic leadership of the Senate, and the Democrats need Chaffee's seat in order to get that leadership.
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The Bottom Line on Chafee
He's not that good for the environment. It's really that simple. He is fair, for a Republican, but his voting record is environmentally tepid overall, and he too often gives moderate cover for truly egregious anti-environmental legislation. Endorsing an okay Republican because, compared to other Republicans, he's an okay environmentalist is fatuous.
Not that I expect anything better from the Sierra Club. In fact, I've long since given up on the Sierra Club. I don't know if this is true in fact, but in appearance, the fox seems to be guarding the hen house at the Sierra Club any more. The Sierra Club is no longer a "green" group, it's a former green group that has sold itself out as a brand to corporatized outdoorsiness.
Real environmentalists know that a Sierra Club endorsement is ultimately meaningless anyway.
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Nonsense
A Republican is a Republican is a Republican. Chafee helps enables the GOP to keep a majority ... that's all that matters. These Republican "moderates" (Chafee, Snowe, Collins et al.) wring their hands and express deep "concern" about this issue or that, and when push comes to shove -- after Rove leaves the horse head in their beds -- they vote the party line. Linc voted to end debate on Alito, voted for Wehrum, and voted for Frist as majority leader. Who gives a shit that he drives a Prius?
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Nixon?!
I'm surprised to read that Nixon "espoused" a conservation ethic, here on Salon.
The fact is that Nixon's congress had a veto-proof democratic majority when the EPA was established, over his initial objections. He eventually switched sides when he saw that it was inevitable, and now he gets all the credit for it. Over and over I hear that Nixon "established the EPA" (which I assume you are referring to), and it really makes me cringe.
Teddy Roosevelt, on the other hand, was a conservative of a caliber we've not seen since his presidency. He was truly a visionary, and I'm continually amazed at the varied and sundry duplicitous methods his heirs have invented to dismantle his legacy of protecting the environment and busting monopolies.
Nixon was an opportunistic hack and a criminal, nothing more.
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Quote:
"The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats believe in conscious, planned efforts for the common good. "
No, Democrats don't believe that. Liberals might, but Democrats are just politicians. Politicians can only represent the people who vote for them, and those people may or may not believe in "conscious, planned efforts the for the common good." Democrats can only be as liberal as their voters are.
Thus if you're a liberal, you should vote for liberals. That will probably be Democrats most of the time. But if the Republican is more liberal than his Democratic opponent, then you should vote for the Republican. That makes the Republicans more liberal. Making the Republicans more liberal makes the country more liberal and eventually that ends up making the Democrats more liberal. Thus liberalism will be advanced and the country will move leftwards.
This simple minded partisan nitwittery of Daily Kos and other netroot morons is just not going to work out well. They are not going to win any votes by being boneheaded partisan bullies. So far, they haven't won anything yet.
It's stupid to be just for a party and not for a set of beliefs. Any party might sell out your beliefs any day just to get votes. Thus you better hold on to your beliefs, because your party isn't going to hold on to them for you.
One hundred Democrats in the Senate will get you NOTHING if those Democrats aren't particularly liberal. Yet this is what the partisans keep aiming for. This makes Daily Kos no better than the dumbest consultant hack in Washington, DC.
It would be better to have only ten Democrats in the Senate, rather than one hundred, as long as those ten Democrats were real liberals.
The Sierra Club and the LCV are absolutely correct to endorse any person they think furthers their beliefs. This gets their beliefs advanced far more than mindless partisanship ever will. Would that Daily Kos and other babbling netroots would ever learn the same lesson.
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Moderate Republican
There are no moderate Republicans, at least not when it really counts.
Moderate Republicans would have voted against Samuel Alito and supported the filibuster. Moderate Republicans would have voted against the Patriot Act extension. Moderate Republicans would stand up against this administration.
Show me the moderate Republicans and then maybe I'll understand the Sierra Club and LCV's endorsement of Lincoln Chaffee.
I recognize that both organizations consider themselves bipartisan, or perhaps nonpartisan is a better description, so use that as the reason they endorsed Chaffee. Their quota of Republicans they could endorse had come down to zero and to maintain the fiction that Republican office holders care about the environment, they had to give out this endorsement.
But don't pretend that there are moderate Republicans or that Chaffee deserved these endorsements based on his voting record.