One Good Thing About Heath Shuler

While my thesis research is making me a little more sympathetic to Thomas Schaller's take on the South than before, I still harbor southern sympathies that lead me to do things like hope failed Redskins quarterback turned freshman North Carolina representative Heath Shuler won't be a half-bad congressman. Mostly his Blue Dog style conservatism has been a disappointment, but Daily Kos points out at least one area where having a conservative Democrat instead of a conservative Republican is vastly better: the environment. The just released League of Conservation Voters Environmental Scorecard gives Shuler a 75 percent rating. Charles Taylor, his Republican predecessor, had an abysmal lifetime score of only 5 percent.