Notice anything at the bottom of this mailer by 8th CD Democratic candidate Adam Ebbin? Yep, there’s a “union bug” of course; that’s basically required among Democratic candidates as far as I’m aware. There’s also a recycling “bug” and “printed using soy ink” note, which I also had thought was basically standard practice these days among Democratic candidates, especially those who make the environment a big part of their sales pitches.
Surprisingly, though, this has not been the norm in the 8th CD Democratic primary. For instance, as far as I can determine, the following candidates have NOT been using recycled paper (or soy ink) in their mailings: Bill Euille (not surprising, given that he’s open to the dirty tar sands oil Keystone pipeline); Patrick Hope (surprising, since he has a strong environmental platform), Don Beyer (ditto), and Mark Levine (ditto). Surprisingly (because she hasn’t emphasized environmental issues in her campaign, even called global warming “climate control” at one debate), Lavern Chatman of all people DOES have a recycled logo on her mailers. Anyway, for future reference, the thing to do is to spend the additional money (if any; I’m told different things by different sources on that front, from “it’s no more expensive” to “the additional cost is negligible” to “it’s definitely an additional cost”) to practice what you preach, and more importantly because it matters. On behalf of the planet we all share, I thank you. 😉
P.S. I haven’t received mailers from Bruce Shuttleworth, Derek Hyra, Satish Korpe, or Charniele Herring, so I’m not sure what if anything they’re doing on this front.
UPDATE: I’m told that the Hope campaign will have the recycled logo on their mailers going forward. Glad to hear it! 🙂
UPDATE #2: The Beyer campaign tells me, “We put the question to our mail vendor, who just got back to us, letting us know that all future mailings will be on recycled paper.” Good!
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