In the 2000 election, for example, Gore specifically stressed road congestion and sprawl, issues that appeal to people who moved to the suburbs for quality of life only to find their mobility choked and their lifestyles compromised by development. Last fall, Democrats carried most of the states with large proportions of suburban voters, including California and New Jersey, often regarded as the textbook examples of suburban politics. And figures assembled by Congressional Quarterly from state election offices show a dramatic erosion of Republican support in suburban areas. In Orange County, Calif., for example, Bush ran 12 percentage points weaker than his father had run in 1988. You don't have to explain to Joe Sixpack why arsenic is bad.
People know smog is bad because their kids have trouble breathing.
Now there's a chance that the environment, which candidate Bush hardly mentioned during the campaign, could become one of the defining elements of the first 100 days for President Bush.