The Blue Ridge Press: "The Next Teddy Roosevelt: Obama or McCain?

by Osha Gray Davidson

In a 1996 New York Times editorial, John McCain lectured GOP colleagues that Republicans — not special interest groups — were responsible for the party’s poor environmental image. McCain urged the GOP to embrace the green values of Republican president Teddy Roosevelt, probably the greatest environmental world leader of all time.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has won endorsements from most mainstream environmental groups, including the nation’s largest, the Sierra Club, founded by TR’s wilderness mentor, John Muir.

So which of the two candidates can most legitimately lay claim to Teddy Roosevelt’s green legacy? Surprisingly, even when measured by the strictest GOP standards, Obama gets the better environmental marks, hands down.

Neither candidate has a perfect environmental record (but nor, for that matter, did TR). Obama’s close relationship with ethanol producing giant Archer Daniels Midland has raised questions about his support for ethanol subsidies. And McCain’s flip-flop on offshore oil drilling, combined with his VP choice of Sarah “Drill-Here-Drill-Now” Palin, has some supporters concerned that the Arizona maverick has been stampeded into the Exxon-Mobil corral.

What’s a nonpartisan green voter to do? The best way to compare is by Senate voting record. Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP) has been keeping such a scorecard since 2005. (REP sat out the 2004 presidential race rather than lend any support to George W. Bush). This time around, REP enthusiastically endorses John McCain. And certainly, he is the first Republican presidential nominee in two decades with even a working knowledge of environmental issues.

Unfortunately, REP ranks Republican politicians only. But what would happen if REP’s grading system were applied to both McCain and Obama?

The REP scorecard for the first session of the 110th Congress tracked fourteen bills in the Senate, including measures to add new tax incentives for alternative energy, increase auto fuel efficiency standards, and reduce soil erosion and water pollution. McCain was on the campaign trail and missed all the votes. But check out Obama’s voting record for the same period. He was running for his party’s nomination, too. And yet, if Obama had been a Republican, he would have ranked seventh out of 49 GOP senators for his pro-environmental voting record, using REP’s own scorecard.

McCain supporters have argued that any comparison for that period is flawed because votes in the Senate were scheduled by Democratic majority leader Harry Reid to benefit his party’s presidential contenders. Whether there’s any truth to that charge, assume for a moment that Reid did put McCain at a disadvantage.

So instead let’s compare the green voting records of the two senators for the 109th Congress, before the primaries began. Using the REP tally, McCain scored 55 percent. That is still far behind Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee’s high score of 82 percent, but good enough to earn McCain the number four spot among green Senate Republicans.

The Arizona senator would likely be the overwhelming favorite among environmentalists of either party — if his opponent were Nebraska Democratic Senator Ben Nelson, whose REP score was 28 percent. But, in fact, McCain is running against Barack Obama, and he scores 100 percent to McCain’s 55 percent. That’s right, Democrat Obama voted the REP green party line every time.

Which begs the question: shouldn’t Republican environmentalists be supporting Barack Obama? While it hasn’t been widely noted, many of the greenest members of the GOP are supporting Democratic candidate Obama. Some are doing it quietly; others are going public in a big way.

Lincoln Chafee, for example, once the leading Senate Republican on green issues, endorsed Obama in February. Former Republican congressman Jim Leach (with a REP score of 69 percent), endorsed Obama at the Democratic convention in Denver. Two Republican incumbents, Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, have even used Obama’s name in a positive light in TV ads to bolster their own campaigns.

Perhaps the best evidence that Obama is the candidate of choice for committed environmentalists of either party is to look at the old-fashioned kind of green support: money. Again, as REP might point out, it’s no shocker that members of environmental groups donate more heavily to Obama. The surprise comes once again from REP itself — specifically, from its Honorary Board, a group of Republican heavy hitters that includes three former EPA administrators. Five REP board members have donated to McCain’s campaign and an equal number have contributed to Obama’s, according to FEC filings. This doesn’t include contributions made by Theodore Roosevelt IV, grandson of our first “green” president, and a REP lifetime member. In true bipartisan fashion, Roosevelt donated to the McCain campaign in December 2006, and to Obama three months later.

So who would likely be the next TR? No one can say for sure, but even by the Republicans’ own green rating system, Obama gets perfect grades.

Osha Gray Davidson is the author of five works of non-fiction. Republicans in the Wilderness: The GOP & Environmental Politics from TR to Tomorrow will be published by PublicAffairs Press next year.