The full text of Mark Van Putten’s essay, “Rebuilding a Mainstream Consensus for Environmentalism,” discussed by G. Tracy Mehan III today in NRO,

is on line here.

His critique closely matches many of the essays on the failure of liberalism politically: we didn’t need to persuade ordinary voters in order to get our way so we didn’t bother and now we are paying the price:

[N]ational environmental groups gained influence and funding through their ability to deploy professional staff to master the arcane intricacies of federal legislation and regulation. These staff forged close relationships with key congressional staff, primarily among Democratic legislators, who were then usually in the majority. Environmental groups relied on these relationships in the 1980s and 1990s to thwart anti-environment initiatives, especially during the Reagan administration.
Although successful in the near term, these tactics were pursued largely at the expense of developing a positive message and effective strategies for mobilizing mainstream Americans into a bipartisan constituency for environmental protection. This grassroots organizing is hard work, takes a long time to show results, and requires dispersing resources around the country instead of supporting a centralized staff in Washington, DC, or New York City.

Van Putten does not mention how environmentalists relied on the courts and the media to accomplish what they could not win in the back room of the legislature, another sign of their political weakness.

Just as the Supreme Court striking down Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation turned out to be the last gasp of conservatism for a generation, today’s paleoliberals are left depending on Sandra Day O’Connor, the New York Times editorial page and Al Franken. That is why every Bush judicial nominee to the right of George McGovern is likely to provoke a bitter confirmation fight.