I am writing this from the Dover John Kerry HQ in the middle of a very successful Green Brigade environmental barnstorming tour of New Hampshire led by Robert Kennedy Jr., Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Teresa Heinz Kerry and a host of environmental activists from NH, Massachusetts and Washington DC.
We began the day in Boston where John’s brother Cam Kerry hosted a fundraiser for the Boston-area environmental community. Bobby Kennedy, Vanessa Kerry, Andre Heinz and Congressman Blumenauer lit the fires for the day with passionate statements on why a change in national leadership is imperative and why John Kerry is the man to lead that change – 96% League of Conservation voting record in 19 years in the Senate, leadership on ANWR, CAFÉ standards, climate change, renewable energy and much, much more.
The brigade caravanned to Concord, NH and we are now mid day in a series of house parties, student and faculty meetings, and phone banking all targeted to environmental activists and NH voters who have identified the environment as their first priority issue. Bob Sussman, #2 at EPA in the first Clinton administration and Ken Berlin, Chairman of the Board of the Environmental Law Institute, are joining Teresa Heinz Kerry at Dartmouth College. Congressman Blumenauer and Tony Cortese, former Mass DEP Commissioner, are headed to Daniel Webster College in Nashua. And Bobby Kennedy Jr. has been extremely effective in speeches before some of the leading NH environmental organization heads and environmental educators at UNH. We were joined there by UNH Professor Barry Rock, one of the country’s foremost climatologists and an active, committed John Kerry supporter.
The crowds have been strong and the reception very positive at every stop. This race is very fluid is the feel one has after a few hours on the ground and without question when people learn of John Kerry’s ideas and three decade track record on environmental issues they are signing onto the effort.
It’s been a fun day for me to reconnect with a number of old friends with whom I worked when I was head of EPA’s New England office in the Clinton administration. For Bobby Kennedy and others of us it has been great to meet so many good people fighting the good environmental fight at the State House in Concord and in their own communities.
In many ways one of the nicest aspects of the day has been to meet some of the many young people who are working for John in New Hampshire. More than a dozen have been involved on this trip alone and to a person they are bright, friendly, highly capable and in good cheer. They should be tired and run down by now but their enthusiasm for the adventure and their belief in John Kerry is clearly inspiring them to go the extra mile. And from them all of us have gained inspiration as well.
Time to head off to a house party at the home of former Democratic Congressional candidate Martha Fuller Clark on the next stop in a fun and rewarding day.
John DeVillars
Boston, Ma.
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