Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming (YES, WYOMING) are within reach if Kerry pays attention
to
stuff like this from the LA Weekly:
Loss and Loathing on the Cheney Trail
The environmental destruction wrought by the vice president's secret energy plan
by William J. Kelly
The people of Silt are among a growing legion of farmers, ranchers, American Indians, and businesspeople -- Republican, Democrat and Independent alike -- who are bearing the brunt of booming natural-gas development in the Rocky Mountains under Vice President Dick Cheney's secretly developed 2001 National Energy Policy.
The public will never know for sure what went through Cheney's mind and who influenced the policy; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this summer that he had a right to keep the information secret. Environmental groups fought the secrecy all the way to the Supreme Court in a vain attempt to reveal what they believed to be undue influence over the nation's energy and environmental policies by energy companies, large and small. They suspected that the administration had unfairly stacked the national energy policy in favor of the energy industry at the expense of the general public.
Three years after the policy was introduced, it is clear that Cheney -- former chief of the energy-services company Halliburton -- has done just that. His policy has allowed his energy-industry cronies and campaign contributors to drill on the cheap in the absence of environmental standards that commonly apply to most any other industry in America, such as a duty to control air pollution with the best available technology.
Major campaign contributors have been beneficiaries of the secretly developed policy and are among the biggest drillers for natural gas in Colorado and Wyoming. They include Secretary of Commerce Don Evans' former employer Tom Brown Inc., which was recently bought by EnCana, and George and John Yates, who run Yates Petroleum, and R.D. Cash, a former chairman of Questar Corp. who still remains on its board. Household-name companies such as BP and Marathon Oil also are busy drilling under eased environmental requirements while they reap record profits under the Cheney blueprint to open every gas-bearing area in the Rocky Mountains to drilling while he holds office. Halliburton is another big winner as it carves up the new business created by drilling tens of thousands of new wells with just a few major competitors
Meanwhile, there are many losers in the growing swath of denuded land, contaminated soil, polluted water and air pollution along a path -- call it the Cheney Trail -- that runs up the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico all the way to Canada. However, that should come as no surprise, because that is exactly what Cheney had planned, even before taking office in 2000.
"I voted for Bush," said Bracken. "I'm part of the problem." This fall she will vote against Bush-Cheney because they are "too far removed from real people to know what's going on in their back yards."
Typical of this is Yates Petroleum, which has the rights to drill at the beginning of the Cheney Trail on the Otero Mesa, an empty desert area near its headquarters in Artesia, New Mexico. In 2002, George Yates ran a fund-raiser for Cheney and Bush in Artesia, a poor community dominated by a rusty gas-processing plant, train tracks, rundown buildings and a dump full of rusting oil-and-gas well equipment. The town's only bright spot is the block where Yates has its modern corporate headquarters at one end and a family-owned restaurant known as the Wellhead Restaurant-Brew Pub at the other. Oil-and-gas-industry executives journeyed to the dilapidated town to eat with Cheney for $250 a plate and pay $1,000 to ham it up in grip-and-grin photos with the vice president.
President Bush himself picked up $2.2 million in Denver at a June fund-raiser at the Phipps Mansion organized by oil-and-gas man Bruce Benson, who now chairs the Benson Mineral Group after the company he formerly headed, U.S. Exploration, Inc., was bought out in 2003. Bush pledged to explore for energy in more "environmentally sensitive areas" with better drilling technology. Guests dressed in formal wear sipped Coors, the only beer available at the $5,000-a-couple fund-raiser, and applauded Bush's pledge, said the White House press office.
A Yates Petroleum employee who would not speak for attribution dismissed as "ridiculous" any suggestion that the fund-raiser led to concessions from the Bush administration.
Article doesn't mention Yucca Flats but this is sort of the same territory.
Now this won't count on a national scale, so Kerry/Edwards need to get out to the southwest, (and the precincts in Calif. mentioned in the story) and get in the the local papers, and radio shows, if he hasn't already.
He has to strike out at the smear campaign yes, but on the other hand he's also got to keep focusing on domestic issues and what's in this article is an absolute treasure trove of baseball bats to hit Bu$HCo over the head with.
I will admit never having lived in the Southwest and have no idea how much stuff like the environment plays out there. But I believe this is one of the bricks that has to be worked on in addition to education and healthcare.
He needs to reach people like this guy:
"I would feel better if I could tell Dick Cheney to fuck himself," said Duke Cox, a local general contractor who said he has lost business because of his stand for environmental controls on drilling in Garfield County.
The anger against Bu$hCo is out there -- if he can just harness it -- one battleground at a time--he can win this NO PROBLEM.