Olympic Peninsula Environmental News

I am urging *everyone* who is a Democrat or independent to come out and help choose the Democratic candidate for President on Saturday morning. While I personally have chosen my candidate, I am not at this point going to endorse either candidate on this blog (if you want to know who I endorse just email or call). I will support the Democratic candidate in November. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have supported environmental regulation and justice, among many other key issues, like global warming. What I would say to any voter Saturday, is that you should view any and all allegations from one group to the other extremely critically!  

There is a lot of inaccurate information, especially against Clinton from the Sanders camp (not originating locally, but from supporters nationally, and repeated by local supporters). Facebook for example is rife with angry individuals who want to paint Hillary as someone no different than Donald Trump in her values and actions. I’ve taken time to research a lot of these claims about her not supporting this or that environmental issue, or that she changed her position against TPP for example, when it became a campaign issue. For everything I’ve read, I’m not even certain about the real danger of TPP to us. But that’s for another blog post.

Let me be clear, Bernie Sanders in his  roles in Congress, has supported environmental legislation as expected (either voting for it if it was supported by Democrats or against it if it was anti-environmental and not supported by Democrats).  

Hillary Clinton, both in her role in the Senate, and as Secretary of State, along with her supporting role as First Lady, has supported environmental protection since the early 90s and likely even further back.  She has had to make a lot of high level decisions in the role of Secretary of State, some that involve supporting environmental causes, that were key real time play calls and anyone trying to judge her record needs to keep in mind they are being a Monday morning quarterback to an intense decision process as events unfolded. An example of that is her lack of a stand until recently on Keystone XL . It was very realistically based on her role in the administration’s decision, like it or not. There are legal questions raised when someone in a key role of the decision is publicly for or against a decision that needs to ultimately be made by a President. That decision was made, and I support that decision. So the right decision did get made.

Life doesn’t always play out as planned, and the US does not have some way to ensure outcomes, just a big hand in trying to support an outcome we favor, whether right or wrong. I am willing to give almost anyone a bit more leeway than those sitting safely in Congress with a lot of time on their hands to make a slow decision based on weeks of analysis. And Congress ultimately doesn’t really pay much of a cost, regardless of whether they were right or wrong.

So trying to paint her as  weak on environmental protection in favor of big business is just a bunch of political hype by Sanders supporters.  Let’s be real clear here, you need big business to support environmental changes, because the vast majority of those changes will be requiring big business to implement. Our planet is too far gone to expect minor tweaks to individual behavior to actually change the outcome. It has to be done with big business and big government, now. 

Look at other issues as you make your choice, and remember, this, the person you nominate, if successful, is going to have to run against a Republican who has shown no limits in his desire to win at all costs, state openly that he will eliminate the EPA, and doesn’t believe in Global Warming.  

I’ve voted for people who have lost in the past, due to my tendency to want the best rather than realize politics doesn’t always allow that. I’ve watched as our Democracy lost too. I’m not going to that again, no matter whether I personally favor one candidate in my dreams over another. I’m too pragmatic to do that. I’ve stood before elected officials and realized that to them, we are just another interest group trying to get support for legislation, and that they are representing a lot of diverse opinions. Just because you believe in something doesn’t mean they will support it. Politics is about negotiation, not absolute dictating terms. The current Republican Congress shows us that side of absolute dictating of terms very well .

So the real campaign for control of environmental protection is about the down ticket candidates in the Senate and House. Whatever you do, don’t stop with Saturday’s caucus. We need all hands on deck to change the Congress to support either Hillary or Bernie’s goals, as well as our goals. Do your part in supporting democracy. Caucus.

Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: Puget Sound |