The Environment Faired Well...citizen activists & bloggers outed Pombo

[Oilwellian]

This is a very inspiring diary at DKos:

The Environment Fared Well (Pombo Diaries #50)
by Land of Enchantment
Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 06:37:19 PM PST
My TV is chattering constantly, parsing the midterm election results. I thought I'd do the same. I looked at four lists of "targets" to see how the election results fared.

My favorite was the 2004 announcement by Focus on the Family's James Dobson that he was putting a target on the back of six Democratic Senators. His goal was to give the GOP a filibuster-proof Senate for wingnut judicial appointments. The six were Bingaman (NM), Dayton (MN), Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Conrad (ND), and Byrd (WV).

How'd that work out for you, dude?

The other lists I reviewed were CREW's Most Corrupt Members of Congress, League of Conservation Voters Dirty Dozen and our own dengre's Abramoff 65. Those targeted pols didn't fare quite so well as the ones on Dr. Dobson's hit list.

Land of Enchantment's diary :: ::
Not surprisingly, Richard Pombo made all three lists. The San Francisco Chronicle editorialized about Pombo's political demise today:

Bye, Bye Pombo

TO FULLY understand Tuesday's Democratic victory, look no further than California's 11th Congressional District.
...
Almost the entire volunteer effort was run independently of the Democratic Party.

The GOP selection of Pombo to head a committee charged with guarding the nation's environment was one of the most cynical acts of its now shattered majority. His departure from Congress is long overdue.

So, heads up to everyone in that excellent volunteer effort. We got ahead of the party in doing the right thing. Lisa Vorderbreuggen of the Contra Costa Times (serving CA-11) blogged the following about the role of bloggers in the race, including mention of us Kossacks:

Scott Restivo, who lived in San Ramon until a recent move to Benicia, started VotePomboOut.Org in 2002 when Democrat Elaine Shaw challenged Pombo. But he is far from alone.
...
"The bloggers helped organize and coalesce people behind the scenes," Restivo says. "It wasn't just people griping. It was all about getting information out. We were a virtual watering hole, a place where we could sit around and plan the next activity....But my take on it is that Pombo did it to himself. Pombo was generating a lot of heat and people wanted to know, 'How do we get rid of him?' "
...
Restivo wrote an e-mail summarizing how he saw the bloggers' role in the campaign:

The most important point is that none of us did this for fame or glory or because we were paid operatives or anything like that, such as Pombo imagines. We did this as ordinary citizens who saw something was wrong and wanted to change it. Jerry included. I think that in itself is quite remarkable. Somehow, Pombo and crew always seemed to ascribe ulterior motives to us, but it was much simpler than that. We went to bat for what we believed in, and are now happy to return to "ordinary" life.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/9/213719/546?detail=f

And then there's this:

Democrats purge climate-change sceptics

Environmentalists in the United States say they hope the removal of global-warming sceptics from powerful positions on Capitol Hill will present a new opportunity to force the Bush administration to tackle climate change.

This week's seizure of both houses of Congress by the Democrats means that two key Republican opponents of action to confront climate change - Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Richard Pombo of California - will lose their positions as the chairmen of Congress's two environmental committees.

Mr Pombo, who lost his bid for re-election, will leave the House altogether. Mr Inhofe, who once said the threat of global warming was, "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people", will probably be replaced by the California Democrat Barbara Boxer. She has promised to curb carbon emissions and strengthen environmental protection legislation.

(Emphasis mine.)

If you don't realize how significant it is that Boxer will be replacing Inhofe, I urge you to check out crazy shit like this, where Inhofe compares people who accept the reality of global warming to The Third Reich. And if you don't realize how important it is that Jerry McNerney ousted Richard Pombo, well, take a walk through these pages (pdf) so you can get a good idea about how anti-environment Pombo is. McNerney is a former engineer and is an expert on wind energy, so if anyone knows what he's talking about when it comes to alternative energy and the environment, he does.

It's important to note that many other anti-environmental lawmakers were defeated last week. Daily Kos diarist Land of Enchantment posted a great roundup of all the anti-environmental candidates who went down last Tuesday.

Finally, I think it's important for us to enjoy victory, but keep our eyes on the ball. This is a never-ending battle; when I was talking to an associate in the Greenpeace USA office (D.C.) in April 2006, he said that he'd told his staff "even if we win in November, don't put your suits away...".


http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/14/16404/154

[Erika]

1. Dr. Dobson got punched out of the ring

An interesting read is by Tony Perkins at www.frc.org about dems and republicans.

[rpannier]

3. Funny...

suddenly its the 'Southern Baptist' Al Gore.

It's amazing how quickly they'll claim him as one of their own when they've been slapped around like this.

[Mythsaje]

2. Sorry...I saw the thread title and winced.

And then noticed the article title and breathed a sigh of relief. "Fared," not "Faired."

But all in all, damn good news. Thanks.