Welcome to the 2008 EnviroWonk Super (giga), Post-Bowl, Fat Tuesday Primary Scorecard. One of these five candidates will, in a year's time, be the President of the United State, so we've got to start asking them to think environmentally now. This scorecard is our attempt to keep things straight, and, as the field continues to narrow, and candidates do a better job of outlineing their positions, the scorecard will, likewise, change.
So, for those of you voting tomorrow (I'm not one of the lucky one's myself) read up a bit, and make the environmental choice.
If you'd like to embed the Primary Scorecard in your blog or website, simply copy and paste the following code into the source code.
I'll second that you go a bit easier on Huckabee - the agriculture & energy independence sections of his site outline policies that are much greener than many other Repubz (though he also makes the mistake of including nuclear power with other green tech - argh). He's made a few statements that are much more explicitly environment friendly than I'd ever expect to hear from a Repub. Google "mike huckabee global warming" for example - I don't know that he'd "pass" (I'm not sure what your standards would be), but he's got to be better than Romney.
There's a bunch of reasons why I won't vote for Huckabee, but his attitude toward the environment isn't one. I greatly respect that he's extremely consistent in how his Christian faith guides his attitudes, including care for the environment.
We decided, for the sake of space, to only include candidates who have won a primary so far. Additionally, there's not much to write about Ron Paul's environmental plans...as he doesn't really have any.
Don't get me wrong, I like the underlying theme of Ron Paul's freedom and small government message. But I wrote longer reports than the environmental policy you linked to when I was in 4th grade. It looks like something was put up so that people could acknowledge he talked about the environment once in passing.
He certainly does not have an environmental plan of any significance. I've watched just about every debate and interview he's had in the last 6 months and there just isn't any emphasis in any of them. It doesn't fit into the core message that he is trying to get across (small government, non-interference, sound dollar, personal freedom). Most anything that steers attention away from that core message (that we have heard repeated over and over without detailed elaboration) doesn't get talked about.
If he would talk about the environment or other specific issues more (instead of just his general core issues) he might get more air time, and more votes. You can only paint so much with a large paint brush. Without painting in the details people move on to the next painting.
For the reasons why I can't agree that Hillary Clinton deserves a passing grade on the environment, see my Daily Kos diary which received nearly 1,000 comments:
I really think its great hank that your for the democrats,
As for me I don't really have a side I just pick whichever president I think is best.
But It does come through in some writings that your for the democrats, maybe some nice things could be said about some republican canidates? Personally McCain I think has some very postive and realistic enviroment goals. I also hope that in the furture the canidates will talk more about the enviroment :]
What about RON PAUL? Its the web here not the totalitarian MSM....
For me my priorities use to be
1-ENVT (GLOBAL WARMING REDUCTION)
2-ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION (REMOVAL)
In recent years it became (sorry):
1-ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION (REMOVAL)
2-ENVT (GLOBAL WARMING REDUCTION)
Its know RP would be excellent to ban illegal immigration and return them to their homeland (BTW 12M people leaving the US would be a LOT less consumtion), but IS RP GREEN? i watched almost all debates, he does not seem to mention envt
Yeah, OK, we can be the change that we want to see in the world. But unless powerful people in powerful positions want to be that change as well, nothing's going to change.
So now, finally, there's a place where you can go for news and analysis of politics from an environmental perspective.
