Well now... Carl Pope, Exec. Director of the Sierra Club itself, has stepped up to the HuffPo mic and offered to clarify precisely why they're endorsing Republican Sen. Chafee of Rhode Island. Since I took them to task for this, here's his statementin full:
| rovidence, Rhode Island -- The Sierra Club is endorsing Senator Lincoln Chafee for re-election this morning. Our event is in Warwick, a "Cool City" where a new project is creating an Amtrak station right next to the Providence airport and an opportunity to dramatically increase the energy efficiency of the region.
Chafee is facing a tough September primary challenge funded by the Club for Growth -- a hard-core conservative group committed to ousting moderate Republicans from office. But because in Rhode Island no US Senate candidate can afford to be bad on environmental issues, Chafee's opponent also opposes drilling in the Arctic Refuge, as do the Democrats -- one of whom Chafee will face in November. For an endorsement event, the media coverage is really quite extraordinary -- in most cases the press has stopped covering endorsements, but we have two television stations on it, plus a slew of radio and newspapers. But the question really boils down to this: Why endorse a Republican, even a leader like Chafee, when he votes to make Senator Frist Majority Leader? I make the point that, in the US Senate, it is vital that committee chairs be environmentally responsible, and Frist hurts there. But it is also vital that environmentalism be nonpartisan, and Chafee is essential there. "We choose individuals, not parties," I remind the press. After all, Chafee single-handedly saved Richard Nixon's greatest legacy and environmentalism's proudest accomplishment of the 1970s: The Clean Air Act. I concluded by saying, "On Earth Day, people are always calling up the Sierra Club and asking what they can do. My answer to folks in Rhode Island is simple. Be sure you vote, both in the primary and general election. And send Lincoln Chafee back to the US Senate. One of these days, if you do, you'll be able to order a tuna fish sandwich and not say to your server, 'hold the mercury.'" Update: The Sierra Club's endorsement was criticized in the blogosphere, where an inaccurate article misleadingly stated that Senator Chafee only had a 20% environmental rating from us. This number came from an article on a local Rhode Island TV station's website. The station has since removed that number. The League of Conservation Voters Scorecard currently ranks Senator Chafee at 90%. In addition, the Sierra Club does analyze votes for a scorecard we send out to our members. In 2004, that scorecard rated all Senators on four votes. Senator Chafee was on the right side in all four. We need more Republicans like Senator Chafee and we will continue to praise those who, like him, stand up for the environment because they know it is the right thing to do. |
OK... So the endorsement isn't just for the primary, its for the whole cycle. no matter who the Dems put up Sierra is going to oppose. Nice. Its nice to know that Chafee gets a 90% rating from the LCV, but I'm sorry, I'm still not buying. Look, I understand that Sierra has done, and will continue to do, some fabulous work for the environment. That's beyond question. But that's got nothing to do with anything. I applaud them for their past, no doubt. What matters now, however, is the future.
Let me let Jane over at Firedog give it a try:
| Pope says that Chafee deserves support even though his Club-For-Growth backed GOP opponent opposes drilling in the ANWR too. What Pope neglects to mention, in what is one of the most utterly dishonest moments I’ve ever seen in the blogosphere, is that Chafee has two Democratic opponents who would not have voted for cloture on Samuel Alito and would not have voted for Bill Frist for majority leader — Matt Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse. Moreover, as Kos has said so many times I don’t have fingers and toes to count, as long as the Senate committee chairs rest in the hands of the Republicans there will be no oversight of an administration who beats off to dreams of drilling for oil in the ANWR and selling off every last inch of the country’s natural resources to the highest bidder. The defeat of Lincoln Chafee is essential, nay critical, to providing some kind of check to the environmental rampage the Bush Administration still has the capacity to wage for the next 33 months[...]
These interest groups continue to play right in to the hands of the GOP by giving progressive bona fides to candidates in blue states who otherwise could not get elected, only to watch them trot off to Washington and continue to empower the Bush Administration’s every whim. It needs to stop. |
That last bit of that first paragraph highlights something I didn't make clear in my previous comments. This fall is our one chance, our only chance, to retake part or even all of Congress while Bush is in office. Now the House is a long shot here, but the Senate is entirely possible, so long as we pick up all of the easy seats. To use cheesy corporate speak, we've got to get all of the low hanging fruit. And Chafee? Chafee's fruit is damn near touching the ground. We simply cannot let this one go.
This is our one shot. We retake the Senate and we can hold real investigations. We retake the Senate and we can control its legislative agenda. We retake the Senate and we can begin to offer a real alternative to American, one that shows them who we are, what we stand for, and how different this country will be when they choose to put it in our hands come 2008. With control of the Senate we can do more than defend our achievements of the past, we can begin to prepare the way for what will be done in the future.
I understand that Chafee's been good on the environment. But his party has not. They've been a disaster. They've given us an Interior Department run by former energy industry lobbyists who fight to gut environmental protections in many of the same Parks Sierra Club founder John Muir himself helped found. They've given us, despite Chafee's opposition, an Energy Bill that does next to nothing to address our real energy needs. And worst of all for Pope's "Chafee 'saved' the Clean Air Act" defense, they've given us an EPA both unwilling and uninterested in enforcing the very same laws Chafee worked so hard to defend. Chafee's worked hard, no doubt. But for god's sake... with a Democratic Senate, we wouldn't have needed his vote, because none of this would have been on the agenda at all!!!
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad Chafee voted with the angels on Clean Air. But is saving an environmental act or two from the Nixon era really the best we can do? Is that really the most we can hope for? Yes, supporting the Clean Air Act is wonderful. But it is not enough. Its not just that we can do better. Its that we must. Will Chafee's leadership bring the Republican Party to a sensible position on global warming? Will it help re-impose Clinton's Roadless Rule? Will it force Congress to investigate Bush's EPA? I think not. I know not.
The point here is that groups like Sierra need to learn to look longer term. They need to understand that things have changed. "We choose individuals, not parties," was fine in an era of bipartisanship and weak party control. But that era is gone; it's done walked out the door. And no amount of wishing and hoping is going to bring it back. Parties matter. There is a very VERY real difference between what Republicans and Democrats believe, and a very real difference between what they do. Chafee's opposition is wonderful. But I'd prefer if we didn't have to oppose at all.
This isn't about one election or two. It's about much, much more. Perhaps one day bipartisanship will return. But until then, its us or them, black or white. Bush, Rove, DeLay and Gingrich created this system, and whether we like it or not we must play there game. They have control. They set the rules. That may not be pleasant, but it is the truth.
I'm sorry Sierra, but Chafee's gotta go.
UPDATE: Well now... If I'd just said it like this the first time around, I could've gotten hours of work done tonight.
| I have one very, very simple response to this: My goal in life is to elect and support Democrats. My corrollary goal, naturally, is to oppose Republicans and boot them from office. Barring the most extraordinary of circumstances, if your goal ever involves electing or supporting Republicans, I will never support you. I don't care what your rationale for bipartisanship is - it's one I will never share.
The Sierra Club can do what it likes. If they think supporting Chafee is the bees' knees, they can be my guest. They are, of course, incredibly and totally wrong. But I have no interest in debating them on their own terms. They're engaged in a different project than I am. If they care, I can tell them that I'll never give them money if they continue to support Republicans. But they probably don't - I think they've come to the cynical conclusion that they're apt to rake in more dollars if they appear bi- or non-partisan. Anyhow, let me draw on a little bit of history which I think is instructive. When many American Jews felt that the most prominent pro-Israel organizations in this country were too right-leaning, what did they do? They went out and founded the New Israel Fund, a much more progressive group which today plays an important role in American-Israeli affairs. People committed to environmental activism and the election of Democrats would do well to heed this lesson. The Sierra Club may one day find itself with a serious rival if it insists on being this out-of-step with reality. |
Subscribe to this blog's feed
