The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News September 24, 2004

Heinz pitches stepfather John Kerry to Oberlin

Preaching for the environment: Andre Heinz appealed to OC environmental studies majors on Monday and presented his stepfatherÕs position on various issues of environmental concern and the projects to change these for better.
 

Senator John Kerry’s stepson Andre Heinz attempted to sell Kerry’s environmental policy to Oberlin students last Monday, focusing on sustainable energy and water pollution.

Heinz has recently emerged onto the political scene as a spokesman for his stepfather’s campaign on environmental issues.

He believes that careers for environmental studies majors in the future will fall into two categories: area-specific fields of study such as geology or forestry and broader general policy arenas.  According to Heinz, students who pick one of these tracks in college or graduate school are well on the way to making a difference.

It is his belief, however, that environmentalists of both disciplines should work together under the shared banner of “sustainable development.” 

“How do we use expertise to work together under that perspective?” he asked.

As an environmental consultant with the Swedish firm Natural Step, Heinz claimed that he would not be actively campaigning for his stepfather were he not certain that, should Kerry be elected, he will make lasting, positive changes in American environmental policy.

Returning to his motif of sustainable development, Heinz discussed the centerpiece of Kerry’s environmental agenda: the “2020 vision,” which calls for 20 percent of domestic energy to be produced from renewable sources by the year 2020.

Heinz listed the benefits of the 2020 vision as a decrease in the levels of mercury in domestic bodies of water, the prevention of disastrous catastrophes such as global warming and the creation of a “moral high ground” within the international community.

Before opening up the floor to questions, Heinz also touted the importance of “utopian idealism” as “something to fight for.” 

Topics brought up by the audience during the question and answer period included Ralph Nader, the Iraq War, free trade, No Child Left Behind, John Edwards’s career, the collapse of the American managed care system, media bias and the inconsistency of the current presidential administration.

Heinz admitted that many voters perceive Bush and Kerry’s positions to be similar and might therefore vote for Nader. Heinz gave Nader some credit, commenting that “everyone is proud of what Ralph has done...what he stands up for resonates.” Here, however, the praise came to an end. Heinz went on to describe Nader’s agenda as “a set of ambitious goals that are weak [and] not going to sell to the American people or Congress.” 

He presented the platform of the Kerry/Edwards campaign and especially the 2020 vision as “salable, quantifiable, reasonable, scientifically optimal...something the American people will go for.” In his comparison of the Nader and Kerry camps, he labeled the Kerry platform as a system of “realizable yet audacious goals,” a characterization that surely can appeal to many Oberlin students.

Heinz spent a considerable portion of the question-and-answer session attacking the Bush administration’s agenda.

When asked about his stepfather’s view on the war, Heinz indicated that Bush has gone back on promises made to Congress about the Iraq War. He presented Kerry’s vote to authorize a war that he now opposes as a decision made contingent on the tenuous presidential guarantee that war would only occur as a “last resort.” 

Renata Strause, co-chair of the OC Democrats, worked with the Lorain County Kerry campaign to bring Heinz to Oberlin. She commented that Heinz “relates really well to young people” and that he is “really an Obie at heart.”
 
 

   

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