Is it Bush’s achilles heel? Will people look and see what’s happening to our country? Damage done to the envioronment will take years to fix if it can be fixed at all.
Do you see Bush as selling out our natural resources to the highest bidder?
Yes, you finally found Bush’s achille’s heel. He’s done for as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow. And the best part is, you don’t need to start another thread on the subject!!
I think that as long as the air and water are reasonably clean (as they are today) most Americans really don’t care about the enviroment, certainly not enough to impact the next election.
If it mattered to the US public it would have been an election issue last time. – assuming the public still have some input on determining the national political agenda.
You may want the US public to care, but, on that basis, they plainly don’t. That might be an educational issue or they might not give a damn.
Sorry Reeder, if anything brings Bush down, it will be the US troops dying in Iraq and the terrible economic conditions he presides over. I would love to think that the US citizenry cared enough about the environment that it would affect Bush’s re-election chances, however, any hope that his environmental policy would prevent his reelection is pie in the sky.
I should also add that any truly environmentally concerned American would find the Democrats to be little better than the Republicans in the green arena, and therefore wouldn’t disadvantage the Pubbies to any great extent.
Maybe the focus should be less on “bringing Bush down” and more on finding a better candidate to replace him. I don’t care what Bush has done. People aren’t going to vote Democrat just because it’s not Bush.
No. We in the Legion of Evil prefer crony capitalism to outrigh capitalism. Being the highest bidder alone won’t do it. We won’t just let any evil person despoil the planet. You have to be the right kind of evil person.
This is why you’re not in Public relations. You’re one of those glass is half empty types.
Reeder, I think that environmental issues are a major concern only to a very small percentage of the voters.
Mr. Bush has taken his bare and contested victory in the 2000 election and the general upsurge in patriotism and support following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and converted them into a mandate to impose his particular views of how things ought to be done on the nation as a whole. For those who agree with few or only some of his views, that is disconcerting.
But probably the biggest problem lies in the economy – it’s tanking, slowly but inexorably. The overwhelming majority of voters end up voting their billfolds – if a president’s fiscal policies end up hurting them, he’s out; if they benefit them, he has their support.
Never mind whether his efforts are geared at an eventual stronger non-government-dependent economy, as conservatives assert – the question in November 2004 is, did Bush help or hurt where I am moneywise. And for most voters, the answer will be “hurt” – and he’ll be out of office.
Issues like abortion, religion, First and Fifth Amendment rights, etc., will sway a few, but the majority will be voting on the basis of his record with the economy.
It looks to me like we’ve had a rather severe downturn of the normal business cycle excacerbated by the dotcom excesses, 9/11 and corporate accounting.
It also seems pretty clear that we are on the upswing. Corporate earning are improving. GDP is up. Interest rates are beginning to nudge up, Consumer confidence is up 3 out of the last 4 months, the markets have made a significant recovery from their lows. Unemployment is still high but manageable, but that’s a lagging indicator and should be one of the last to demonstrate the recovery.
If someone determines their presidential vote primarily on what they see as “environmental issues”, they are probably more likely to vote Green than Dem. This will actually help Bush in the next election.
Aside from the environmental issue, which I think is non-starter, the Pubs should watch out for Dean. The more I see of him, the more impressive he is. The presidential race is at least as much about style as it is about substance. Style is something Gephardt, Kerry, and Lieberman ain’t got.
Agreed, the environment alone does not sway many votes (although I disagree with John that the Green candidate will have much draw, not after the Nader Effect of 2000). But few single issues other than joblessness are determining factors, I don’t think. The entire pattern of behaviors and issues that answer the question of whose interests the candidate serves is what voters decide upon. After all, relatively few people see the world through single-issue prisms; most are simply interested in the world and themselves being better off.
To that extent, though, concern for the environment has become a mainstream concern in the last generation or so, so much so that even politicians with no true interest in the matter have to stage photo ops and issugive lip service to policies. On occasion, they’ll even create false dichotomies about trading the environment for jobs - Rove is pretty good at that.
Re the economy, didn’t the “Clinton Recession” officially end in November 2001? When does the recovery start? What exactly is recovering, anyway?
Did it make big news in the US when George W. wouldn’t ratify the Kyoto Protocol? IIRC he single-handedly killed it.
Anyway, there’s a slight parallel to Australian politics here. John Howard jumped on the Bush band-wagon for Kyoto and there was quite a fuss about it here. However it didn’t cause any significant decrease in popularity ratings. I don’t know much at all about American politics, but I assume that the environment (not just Kyoto) wouldn’t be that much of a political weakspot for Bush. The majority don’t seem to care, and I would hazard a guess that those who would be influenced by his poor enviromental record wouldn’t be his typical supporter base. Please tell me if I’m wrong though, I could be way off track.
I agree that the environment is not a big issue with most; and likely the smallest of issues that will affect the election. In any case, even if it were, the greens already mostly vote Dem anyway. If they could carry an election, they would have in 2000.
But I do want to applaud you Reeder, this is a much more useful and appropriate thread than most of the ones you have started lately.
I’d go so far as to say that the toxic pollution of our air, land, and water should be a goddamn big issue.
It does not, however, look quite as sexy on the evening news as shootings and explosions.
The major thing Bush is going to have to explain with the upcoming election is why the economy is in the toilet, and why all his big plans did nothing to change this. He will blame it all on 9/11, I suspect, as well as on those evil slinking Democrats who opposed all his perfect solutions.
No. George W. Bush is not able to willy-nilly get rid of laws and treaties and obligations he doesn’t like. In 1998 (I think), the U.S. Senate refused to even consider ratifying Kyoto. The vote was something like 98-0 against consideration.