Well, well, well. So Rachel had my Republican State Senator

[Cleita]

on her show, Sam Blakeslee, who has been vocally opposed to our precariously and dangerously perched nuke plant, El Diablo.

"All well and good Sam, although I wouldn't ever vote for you, I applaud you for trying to get this issue to the front of issues."

However, I wonder if Rachel knows this Senator is also all for off-shore oil drilling, which Congresswoman Lois Capps and Senator Barbara Boxer have worked very hard to keep from happening. So it turns out that Republicans just can't do the right thing without having a stake in something else even more profitable.

http://www.calitics.com/diary/11751/why-does-sam-blakeslee-support-offshore-oil-drilling

Why Does Sam Blakeslee Support Offshore Oil Drilling?
by: Robert Cruickshank
Wed May 26, 2010 at 11:00:00 AM PDT

As the special election here in the 15th State Senate district gets underway - the primary is still scheduled for June 22 and unlikely to change - it's clear that offshore oil drilling is one of the primary issues of the campaign. And Sam Blakeslee, the Republican candidate and former leader of the Assembly Republican caucus, is on the wrong side of public opinion on this key issue.

John Laird is out with his first TV ad of the campaign, which you can view at right. In the ad, Laird contrasts Blakeslee's support for drilling with his own work opposing drilling and protecting the coastline and the jobs that depend on our beaches and oceans not being fouled by oil slicks, as we're
seeing happen in the Gulf of Mexico.

Here's the background. Sam Blakeslee has extensive connections to the oil industry. He worked for Exxon as an executive, hired by the company in 1989, the same year of the notorious Exxon Valdez spill. He has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from oil companies, including BP. And in his time in the Assembly, Blakeslee has embraced offshore drilling.

In 2009 he played a key role in attempting to reopen the California coast to offshore drilling, 40 years after the 1969 oil spill caused such widespread damage to the Santa Barbara coast. Blakeslee, whose district includes coastal San Luis Obispo and much of coastal Santa Barbara County, took up the fight for the Tranquillon Ridge project. Here's how the Santa Barbara Independent explained it last fall: more at link

Should I let Rachel know? I thought something like this wouldn't get past her.