excellent piece on your awesome u.s. senate candidate, Barak Obama

(i am visiting your state forum here, thank you! maybe someone here wants to re-post this on environment forum, or - is it appropriate - breaking news? i can't right now, but i want you all to have this.)

first, the newsletter i got today from Grist Magazine's Muckraker:

BARACK STAR
Barack Obama's Got Green Cred

At the Democratic Convention last week, Illinois Senate candidate
Barack Obama shot out of nowhere to become the darling of the party.
Adoring rhetoric flew thick and fast, with enviros happily joining in
the chorus. Suspicious, Muckraker -- ever the grizzled, hard-headed
cynic -- delved into his record, searching for the reality behind the
green rhetoric. Well, the investigation is over and Muckraker has
emerged ... swooning. Turns out Obama's work on behalf of the
environment has been consistent, vigorous, principled, and gutsy. We
feel faint. Are we blushing? Read all about the newest green hero
in Muckraker -- today on the Grist Magazine website.

today in Grist: Barack Obama is a long-time champion of the
environment -- in Muckraker
<http://www.gristmagazine.com/muck/muck080404.asp?source=muck>

from the article: Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama's got green cred
by Amanda Griscom
04 Aug 2004

As if America needs one more reason to fall in love with Barack Obama.

Beyond the unabashed idealism, stirring oratory skills, touching life story, and knee-buckling smile that have made this candidate for Illinois' open Senate seat the new beau ideal of progressive politics, it so happens that this guy is a bona fide, card-carrying, bleeding-heart greenie.
-snip-
***

wow, you must be thrilled with the great hope Obama represents!!
to all of us!!


peace!

**edits to correct typos

More from the article:

Obama is "by far one of the most compelling and knowledgeable politicians on the environment I've ever sat in a room with," Mark Longabaugh, senior vice president for political affairs at LCV, told Muckraker. "I've been playing national politics for more than 20 years and I quite literally can't remember one person I've met -- even on a national level -- who was more in command of facts, more eloquent, and more passionate on these issues than Sen. Obama."

Obama's commitment to environmental protection has a personal component: His six-year-old daughter, Malia, has chronic asthma, a fact he often cites when defending the long list of initiatives he has pushed to clean up smog and air pollution in his state. And many of his constituents suffer from the same condition. "More people die from asthma attacks in Chicago than anywhere else in the country," said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago. "And Illinois has the highest African-American death rate from asthma in the country -- four times the national average."

This year, Obama made an aggressive move to stem the tide of pollution from Illinois' coal plants -- which produce nearly 50 percent of the state's electricity -- by introducing a bill that would in effect block the Bush administration's rollback of the Clean Air Act's new-source review rules from being carried out in his state. "This is a very complex issue, but Obama took it by storm," Urbaszewski told Muckraker. "He dove headfirst into all the complexities and wouldn't quit until he had a solution."

According to Jack Darin, who, as director of the Sierra Club's Illinois chapter, has worked with Obama closely on these issues, "He's an incredibly quick study. He's not a scientist, but remarkably adept at analyzing the details of complex environmental issues, asking the right details, and ultimately making the right policy decision for public interest."