http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4663131.htmlTheodore Roosevelt IV, a New York investment banker, wilderness advocate and great-grandson of the president, was in Minneapolis last month to address the Westminster Town Hall Forum. He spoke afterward with Ron Meador, editorial writer. The following is adapted from their conversation.
Q. What is your message for fellow Republicans?
A. We had great Republicans who did a lot to generate interest in protecting the environment — going back, obviously, to TR, but look at Dwight Eisenhower. He set the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in place. Richard Nixon — Clean Air, Clean Water, the EPA, the bedrock of all our environmental laws.
There has been an ethic in the Republican Party that you are conservative and you don’t eat your seed corn — you don’t consume your capital. But that’s exactly what we’re doing.
definition of an immoral society is one that passes its debts down to the next generation. Well, that’s what we’re doing. That’s not what we stand for as a party.
Q. Do people in the party listen to you?
A. Some do. More people who are not in the party listen. But I’m damned if I’m going to allow the Trent Lotts of the world to drive me out of the party that my family has been part of since John C. Fremont. We’ve got great ideas on market incentives and things of that sort, perhaps a better understanding of where business can be good.
Q. Some strategists say President Bush could chalk up instant political gains by moderating his environmental policies. Why doesn’t he?
A. He is convinced that if he moderated his views, he would get absolutely no credit with the environmental community. And that may be true, but it’s more important what the people think. And he’s also convinced that he would antagonize his hard-core supporters. Well, where the hell else are they going to go?
So he is guilty of both terrible public policy and terrible politics — because this will come back and bite the party. And as a Republican, I don’t want to see that happen.
Q. It was said that only Nixon could go to China. Who can bring your party back to its senses on the environment?
A. Actually, the president could, if he wanted to. He could say, “I think we’ve moved too far, here’s what I want to do.” People would initially would be skeptical. But all it would take would be one State of the Union with very specific legislation that he was going to propose — say, on global warming.
Q. What could environmentalists be doing better?
A. Bush has been extraordinarily successful in dismantling environmental laws. The administration has gotten away with it because nobody gives a damn. And part of the reason nobody gives a damn is because the environmental community has lost credibility with large parts of the American public. And we need to recognize that. We need to recognize that we are viewed as shrill, arrogant, condescending, colonial and paternalistic. That doesn’t make allies.
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