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Politics: How Green Was My Stump Speech An insider’s tout sheet to elections with environmental impact Ah, election season. are environmental issues playing big at a poll site near you? If not, you could probably use the vicarious thrills of races in which they are. Here are four worth watching as the returns cascade in. U.S. SENATE, CALIFORNIA Who’s Who: Feinstein wowed environmentalists with her backing of the controversial California desert bill (still in House-Senate conference at press time), which would create the largest national-parks package in the Lower 48. Huffington moved to southern California barely two earthquakes ago and in 1992 spent more on a single House seat than Why You Should Care: Feinstein’s alliance with fellow Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer gives environmentalists a solid block of support in America’s most populous state. Bettor’s Line: Too close to call. U.S. SENATE, RHODE ISLAND Who’s Who: Chafee, the ranking minority member on the powerful Environment and Public Works Committee, is a craggy old Yankee conservationist with a laudable record. “There hasn’t been a major environmental law that his fingerprints aren’t all over,” says one Sierra Club vote-counter. Kushner is certifiably pro-environment, but the state’s two Why You Should Care: Just behind Chafee on the GOP side of the environment committee lurks the West’s most cantankerous wrangler, Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson. Worst-case nightmare: Chafee loses. The Senate goes Republican. Simpson becomes the new chairman. Bettor’s Line: Kushner, one of the few Democrats who would love a public hug from President Bill Clinton, can’t get it: Clinton and Chafee get along too well. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, NORTH CAROLINA’S 11TH DISTRICT Who’s Who:Taylor, predictably, takes the timber-industry side in natural resources brawls. Lauterer, whose homey campaign stump-act features dulcimer-backed group sings of “Amazing Grace,” is courting the region’s growing transplant constituency: big-city back-to-nature types and retirees who tried Florida and blanched. Why You Should Care: With western forestry petering out, timber companies are looking southeast. Lauterer is exactly the sort of watchdog that environmentalists want to help plug the region’s porous natural-resource regulations. Bettor’s Line: Taylor hangs tough. GOVERNOR, NEW MEXICO Who’s Who: King is no crusader: He talks softly and doesn’t stick it to the resource-extraction industries. Lining up against him at stage right is Johnson, a go-go young conservative who runs triathlons; at stage left is Mondragon, a silver-maned Hispanic activist with New Age tendencies, whose ambitious plans for a high-tech, low-consumption Why You Should Care: Mondragon’s platform reads like a collection of Sierra Club white papers, but national enviro groups have gone with King. Why? Because, for now anyway, they know that Green candidates can’t win. Bettor’s Line: With Mondragon siphoning King’s energy and support, look for Johnson to leave all-terrain tread marks on the governor’s back. |
Politics: How Green Was My Stump Speech
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