A new television ad campaign in Washington state lets
voters know which candidates up for re-election next fall have
minded their green p’s and q’s. The $2 million project got under
way in mid-January, and it features the nationally syndicated Bill
Nye, the “Science Guy,” who uses humor and science to teach the
public how legislators have voted on environmental
issues.
“Our feeling is that the public is far
ahead of politicians on these environmental issues,” says Ed
Zuckerman of Washington Conservation Voters, the nonprofit group
behind the campaign. “We’re educating the public about how to get
involved in the political process.”
The TV
campaign advertises a Web site, callclickvote.com, that makes it
easy to contact local politicians, or write a letter to the editor
of a local paper.
The project was inspired by the
group’s polls that show Washington voters care enormously about
conservation issues. Eighty-one percent of those polled, for
example, said they wanted tougher laws for salmon recovery and
protecting water quality, says Dick Mark of Conservation
Strategies, a major donor to the campaign.
“But
this voter support hasn’t been respected in the legislature or the
governor’s office,” he says. “We’re letting politicians know they’d
better start leading on green issues or they’ll be in trouble in
the ballot box next fall.”
* Rebecca
Clarren
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline How green is your politico?.
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