🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <43knp6$evm@superb.csc.ti.com>, "Dwight U. Bartholomew"
> 
> After reading your response, I looked through my stack of Lone Star
> Chapter reports and found the endorsement list of State elections
> (couldn't find the Nat. endorsements).  Sure enough, they were all
> Democrats (about 20 endorsements).  I called up a Club officer about this.
> It turns out that the endorsements do go through a fairly thorough
> investigation.  There are 2 major factors.  1) Questionaires are 
> sent out to the candidates and, based on their answers, an interview
> may be set up to follow-up.  2) If the person has held office, their
> record may stimulate an interview even if they don't respond to the
> questions.  The impression I got was that the Club DOES try it's
> best to do deep inverstigations.  Also, all types of candidates
> are looked at: Demo. Repub., Independent.
> 
> Republicans rarely respond and if they do respond their answers are
> usually "aweful".  The Club occassionally endorses Rebublicans
> but not often.  There is also a class of Democrats called
> "Bubba Democrats" which the people you list fall into: like Hall and
> Geren.  These guys definitely don't get the Club's endorsement.
> 
> So I repeat, here in Texas the Club endorses the best candidates
> (from the Club's environmental perspective).  That these candidates
> are almost always Democrats is not due to partisianship on the Club's
> part, but rather due to the Republicans poor environmental rhetoric
> and public records.
> 
> From the "daughter of Gordon Libby" quote I can understand why you 
> might suspect the professionalism of Virginia Club endorsements,
> but here in Texas I think the Club tries very hard to pick it's
> endorsements wisely.  Actually, I never realized this so thanks for
> spurring me to call.  I respect my own chapter of the Sierra Club
> even more.
> 
SC is generally careful about endorsements--they are usually, at least
until recently, carried by pols as a badge of honor.  Sometimes, pols come
to SC for endorsements--our local group was approached recently.

The Repubs who do get SC endorsements are generally from the Northeast,
Mid-atlantic and Midwest.  No surprise, it is moderate Repubs from these
regions (mostly) who have led the (often losing) fight against the "dirty
water bill", the EPA ax job, attacks on National Biological Service and
other anti-environmental bills in this Congress.  Names that come to mind,
whom the SC speaks highly of, are Boehlert (R-NY), Porter (R-IL), Ehlers
(R-MI) and Gilchrest (R-MD), also Sen. Chafee (R-RI).  The moderates are
out there, and they are putting together bipartisan coalitions in Congress
to try to stop the lunacy.  They get more successful with each vote.  I
don't really understand why Southern and Western Repubs are more extreme,
in general, than the reps from other regions.  Dan