by Olivier Simon
Daily Lobo columnist
This midterm election could be summed up by Shakespeare - to Bush or not to Bush? That was the question.
The answer was a resounding "not," though the midterm results were much more a measure of Republicans' failure than of Democratic success. Throw the rascals out, people thought, and throw they did.
The Democratic Party prospered this November not through vision or courage, but by being the only one in the room - out of two - that didn't look to voters like an ax-wielding maniac.
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From the environmental perspective, what's the best attitude toward this political earthquake, which shook the stultifying conventions of our government so mightily as to leave them basically intact? Cautious optimism, probably. That is, things may or may not get better right away, but you can bet your life, from here on out, they're going to get worse considerably more slowly.
Only time will tell if and when the trappings of power will erode whatever green principles the members of the new Democratic majorities hold. The sacrosanct philosophy of finding the center - roughly translated as shadowing the GOP 10 paces behind as it explores ever grimier recesses of militarism and corporatism - has now led to a Democratic majority that will be more dependent on hawkish, business-cozy legislators like Ben Nelson, John Hostettler, Heath Shuler, Evan Bayh and Jim Webb.
In spite of these things, there is evidence from the campaign trail that the environment may finally be poised to take its place alongside today's great issues of abortion, gay marriage, terrorism, health care and taxes. In particular, high gas prices made energy independence a major talking point among Democratic candidates during the election.
Energy independence could be optimistically interpreted as a kind of code word for lowering greenhouse gas emissions and aggressively pursuing increased energy efficiency, while striving to regain our decimated international credibility on all these matters - a somewhat different and much less sexy-sounding goal. Environmental groups have certainly rushed to that interpretation.
"Let me be clear: the environment won last night," Sierra Club Political Director Cathy Duvall exclaimed to supporters following the elections. "Voters elected a greener U.S. House, a greener U.S. Senate, greener U.S. governors, and they gave a green light to a new energy future."
Similar exultations flowed from other green groups, like the League of Conservation Voters.
There's no question that environmental concerns are more likely to be given at least the time of day, rather than the mixture of denial and contempt with which the GOP treated them for 12 years. The leagues's own breakdown of congressional voting, for example, shows that Democratic politicians vote more Earth-friendly than Republican ones. But given the worthlessness of the GOP on virtually all environmental issues, including its distortion of global warming, rampant mercury pollution and alleged testing of pesticides on children, that's not necessarily saying much.
At least the elections brought concrete successes in terms of who got kicked out. For example, the defeat of Rep. Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee - who promoted turning national parks into privately owned cash cows, among other things - has been rightly claimed by environmental advocates nationwide as a great achievement. Pombo is one of at least nine of the league's Dirty Dozen - a listing of the most anti-environmental politicians - voted out of office this November.
Although the Democrat replacements are more likely to approve whatever environmental measures reach a vote, their pragmatism suggests that they're fixtures of the establishment, and as such, stand to gain little from changing it dramatically - just what issues like global warming call for. A search through Democrats.org, for example, reveals a sort of friendly atmosphere toward, but no decisive stance on, global warming - not even a page clearly dedicated to acknowledging the problem.
The bottom line is that if we are going to follow this election's defeat of the Earth-plunderers with true victories for the environment, we're going to have to keep demanding it. If there's any moral of the last 12 years, it's that government does not work well on autopilot.
Olivier Simon is a senior majoring in biochemistry and president of the College Greens at UNM.
