Really fascinating post at Kos about the success of Democrats in Montana. They’re running on the environment as a central issue for sportsmen and farmers. Considering John Kerry’s sterling record on environmental protection, it was somewhat surprising that he didn’t make that a core part of his message. (Of course, BushCo has really screwed so many things up, it’s hard to choose, isn’t it?)
The environmental movement has made a lot of progress educating the public in the last 35 years, but there’s still a lot of work to be done at the establishment level, even more so than the grassroots: that is, telling the political hotshots that it’s a winning issue for the Dems. I mean, did anyone think that Bush I’s references to Al Gore as "Ozone Man" showed anything other than his own callousness and ignorance?
Furthermore, we need to frame (Hi Prof. Lakoff!) environmental protection as a Law and Order issue: Don’t I have the right to take my trash and dump it on my neighbor’s property? Well hell, it was my trash, right? Can’t I just do what I want with it? Well, no, you can’t. There are laws against that, and we’re going to enforce the laws — unlike the present administration.
