Regarding your story “Green and Mean”: While there
was some benefit from the level of anti-Pombo ads that Defenders of
Wildlife ran in 2006, they take far too much credit (HCN,
5/26/08). As an activist in that race, I can cite mistake
after mistake that Defenders made, generally in playing fast and
loose with the truth in their advertisements. The result was that
they almost made Pombo into a sympathetic figure, and that takes a
lot.
Not mentioned in this story are the efforts of
organizations like the Clean Water Action Project, which organized
a voter registration drive that signed up a significant number of
new voters in the 11th Congressional District, including many
Hispanics. That contribution was enough that the California
director of Clean Water Action, Erich Pfuehler, then assumed the
job as Jerry McNerney’s chief of staff.
While I fully
agree with the tactic, the Defenders’ execution of it, especially
in the Pombo case, was decidedly amateur.
Wesley
C. Rolley
Morgan Hill,
California
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Green in more ways than one.
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