George Bush beat John Kerry in the state of Montana by 21 percentage points in the 2004 presidential election. So one asks, why would Barack Obama think he stands any chance of winning that state? The explanation is that polls now show that Montana may be in play in 2008. Obama did well in Montana in the Democratic primary. Increasingly, Democrats have been winning statewide office in Montana. In Montana, both U.S. senators, the governor, and the attorney general are Democrats.
Obama’s optimistic view of Montana also has to do with changing demographics. The number of registered voters in the state has increased by only about 10 percent since 2004. But the population is shifting from the more conservative eastern plains to the more liberal western counties. (Click Here to Read More)
There are tens of millions of voters in the United States who put guarding the environment — and particularly the protection of birds and wildlife — at the very top of their concerns in making their voting decisions.
Conservation-minded voters are heavily concentrated in the battleground state of Florida where there are huge numbers of bird watchers and seniors with deep commitments to saving the environment.
This past week the Bush administration announced that it would seek radical cutbacks in federal protections of endangered species. Bush proposes that federal agencies should now decide for themselves as to whether construction projects or other developments will harm endangered species. The new regulations would apply to any development project built or funded by the federal government.
Clearly this proposal puts the foxes in charge of guarding the henhouse. (Click Here to Read More)
John McCain Is No Teddy Roosevelt
John McCain is fond of portraying himself as an environmentalist following in the footsteps of GOP President Teddy Roosevelt. But in fact McCain has a distinctly unfavorable record on environmental issues.
In 2007 McCain got a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters because he missed every vote that the group deemed was important to the environment. McCain defended his absence when key environmental votes were taken with the excuse that he was running for president and that he was on the campaign trail. But Barack Obama, who was also on the campaign trail for much of 2007, managed to return to Washington to vote on many of the key environmental proposals.
McCain’s inferior, and in many cases hypocritical, environmental record needs to be exposed, particularly in battleground states such as Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, and New Hampshire where the environmental issue is very high on the list of voters’ concerns. (Click Here to Read More)
