OLF may have been a tipping point for Dole

One journalist who focused early and often on the Outlying Landing Field issue was Jack Betts. Today he points to Liddy Dole's miserable posturing on the issue as a critical moment that sent her political fortunes into a tail spin.

Dole missed a prime opportunity early on, when strong local oppositions developed in rural northeastern North Carolina to the Navy's proposed jet landing field near the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. It was a classic confrontation between ordinary citizens and a powerful government.

Many mistook it as a local dispute, nothing more than a NIMBY reaction. But national environmental groups, as well as farmland preservation advocates, saw it as an important test of whether the nation's environmental laws and property rights mean anything. It was the perfect chance for a politician to stand up for powerless people.

Betts gets is right as far as he goes, but he doesn't go far enough. Because not only did Dole fail to back We the People on this issue, she was actually part of the Republican majority that tried to ram the OLF through in the first place. She backed John Warner's plan to get the noisy jets out of Virginia by dumping them on North Carolina. In other words, she sold us out - and then got caught.

The other point Betts misses is the role of the blogosphere in pushing the OLF issue. Most traditional journalists had written this off as a done deal. Not only did bloggers help get the OLF on the national agenda, we also called out North Carolina leaders to take a stand.

Voters would be wise to remember that Liddy was FOR the OLF before she was against it. As one of our US Senators, she failed us miserably. And were it not for Democratic control of the House of Representative, that OLF would be well underway by now.