Is Climate Change Important Enough To You As To Motivate A Voting Decision?

Fake Democrat/real fracking CEO, Mike Parrish

I was on the phone with @ClimateBrad today, looking at scenarios for how climate change amelioration could be addressed in 2017 when Ryan is still Speaker but the Republican majority in the House is significantly diminished. I gathered that he felt the GOP is so inexorably tied to Big Oil and other carbon extraction industries and their financing that, as a political party, their own houses will be underwater before they start coming around on the dangers the country is facing because of man made contributions to climate change. We talked about some individual members who I thought might be most open to change-- some Floridians whose constituents are already suffering the impact, for example-- and he parried that the worst vote a Republican House member could make would be one for a Paul Ryan speakership. Touché!

I decided to follow the money and see what the gas and oil czars were up to contribution-wise this cycle. So far, they've given $22,930,482 to congressional candidates, about 90% of which has gone to Republicans and the rest to conservative Democrats who are happy to sing for their supper. So far only 8 House members have "earned" over $200,000 this cycle from Big Oil:

Nothing really remarkable in the list. The Democrats who have raked in some oily cash are:

• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- $132,805
• Gene Green (TX)-$90,700
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- $88,500
• Marc Veasey (TX)- $58,800
• Cedric Richmond (New Dem-LA)- $50,400
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)- $39,000
• Steny Hoyer (MD)- $38,500
• Rick Larsen (New Dem-WA)- $33,000
• Mike Doyle (PA)- $30,500
• Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE)- $29,000

And in terms of non-incumbent Democratic candidates, they've found a small handful worthy of their affections and cash, corrupt conservatives:

• Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL)- $12,600
• Lou Correa (Blue Dog-CA)- $9,500
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- $8,910
• Isadore Hall (New Dem-CA)- $6,000
• Lon Johnson (Blue Dog-MI)- $5,900
• Charlie Crist (FL)- $5,400
• Dwight Evans (PA)- $5,400
• Anna Throne-Holst (NY)- $2,700
• Steve Lindbeck (AK)- $2,400
• Steve Santarsiero (PA)- $1,750

I had been warned by Brad that as far as he knew there was just one Democratic candidate running this cycle who was probably worse on Climate issues than his Republican opponent-- Mike Parrish, a former Republican who makes a living as the CEO of a fracking company and is challenging Republican incumbent Ryan Costello in PA-06, portions of Lebanon, Chester, Berks and Montgomery counties in the suburbs and exurbs northwest of Philly. Obama won the district against McCain 53-46% and then lost to Romney 51-48%. It's a classic swing district that the Democrats must win in November if they're going to even get close to winning back the House. But PA-06 is another example-- one of dozens-- where the DCCC completely screwed up the prospects through sheer incompetence. They recruited Parrish, realized he was a terrible candidate and dropped him. A progressive jumped into the race, Lindy Li, but Parrish used a Steve Israel trick to knock her out, tying her up in court with baseless petition signature challenges. Israel was getting all his favorite conservative candidates to deploy this against progressives this cycle-- draining so much money and time from the grassroots campaigns that that the candidates, like Li, would eventually give up.

So now the Democrats are stuck with Parrish, the fracking executive with a long history of contributing to Republican politicians. Corrupt corporate Democrat Ed Rendell is, of course, fully behind him. A diary at Daily Kos in March made the point that Parrish is a phony environmentalist. His claim to calling himself an environmentalist: "he owns a self-proclaimed 'Environmental Services' company. Which services does his company provide? Do they qualify as 'environmental?'"  

The company’s name is Daleco Resources Corporation and the opening line on the company’s site is: “Daleco Resources Corporation is a publicly traded natural resource company with two operating divisions-- minerals and oil and gas. The oil and gas division has interests in 31 producing wells in Texas, Pennsylvania and West Virginia… The minerals division holds properties located in New Mexico, Texas and Utah as of March 31, 2012.”

Oil production and mineral extraction. In a creative way this might qualify as environmental services. The services provided do impact the environment, so yeah, environmental services… makes sense.  As our beloved former President George W. Bush once said “fool me once (pause) ….shame on you, fool me twice, (pauses, forgets saying)”... which goes on to say “fool me twice shame on me.” It’s lucky for us that we have the internet around so we can find out how environmental our newly-switched Democratic candidate is and we aren’t fooled either once or twice.

What concerns me is that in spite of his republican background and ownership of an oil and gas company, the Chester County Democratic party decided to endorse Mike Parrish anyway. Were they fooled like Bush, or apathetic to Parrish’s background?

The Chester County Democratic Committee’s statement following the choice to endorse the oil man was: “Now that the balloting has finished, it is incumbent upon all Democrats in Chester County to work tirelessly to elect the candidates who will move our Commonwealth forward and fight for our shared principles of freedom, fairness and opportunity,” McGinnis said in a press release. “I look forward to working with our endorsed candidates to secure victory both in the primaries and the general election this fall.”

No, it most certainly is not incumbent on anyone with an environmental conscience to buy into Mike Parrish’s campaign. It is not incumbent on anyone with common sense to spend one day or one dollar getting a two-years-new Democrat (who was Republican in 2014) into office. It is incumbent on anyone with an environmental conscience to reject this error by the Chester County Democratic Committee and demand they revote.

At a time when too many Democrats are already too beholden to the oil industry the last thing we need is to endorse someone who made all of his money in the oil sector.

Mike Parrish was friendly enough, but it’s time for him to go back to the right side of the aisle.  He’s no Democrat, he’s certainly no progressive and we don’t want him here.

Brad is no fan of Costello's but he directed me to a local newspaper indicating that Costello agrees that the U.S. needs to act of climate issues. (This cycle Costello has taken $39,000 from Big Oil, about the average of Pennsylvania congressional Republicans.) This is what he told the Reading Eagle:

Costello is one of 10 Republicans who have signed onto a resolution affirming that human activity contributes to climate change and endorsing action to respond to the threat of Earth's changing climate. The resolution is expected to be unveiled later this week.

The issue is still a controversial one in GOP circles with some Republicans such as Sen. Ted Cruz rejecting the reality of global warming, while others such as former Sen. Rick Santorum arguing that there is nothing the United States can do to reverse the situation.

"We can't just stick our heads in the sand and say there is no problem," he said.