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. Another opinion in the same vein regarding potential political pitfalls of environmental issues. I mean, after all, all Dubya did was to roll back the arsenic limits to what they were throughout the whole Clinton administration. It consistently ranks behind the economy, education, crime, abortion, guns, national defense, immigration, 'family values', CFR, 'hate crimes' and nearly every other issue publicized during campaigns. I cannot recall any election for Congress, the Senate or the presidency where this issue was more than an afterthought.