We need more politicians like Mike Doherty

Doherty won’t water down his views | Politicker NJ

Potential U.S. Senate candidate Mike Doherty doesn’t sound like a typical New Jersey Republican.

Take, for instance, yesterday’s Assembly debate on Linda Stender’s global warming bill. While most Assembly Republicans who spoke up against the bill focused on what they considered its vague language, Mike Doherty went to the very heart of the issue, attacking the scientific foundation of global warming.

“One of the things that gets my goat…. are statements that I’ve heard that the debate is over,” said Doherty. “It’s my understanding that the earth has warmed up and cooled down hundreds of times.”

Doherty is mounting a campaign for US Senate, but he’s not going to moderate his stances to have a broader ideological appeal. He tacks far right of many New Jersey Republicans on some issues, including Anne Evans Estabrook, his Senate primary opponent.

Yesterday, Doherty – whose desk contained a copy of the New York Post and a paperback of Dear Americans: Letters from the Desk of Ronald Reagan -- gave what amounted to a 10 minute lecture, touching on topics from measuring CO2 levels in arctic ice, to Norse settlements in Greenland, to disputing Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth.” It was a speech more characteristic of Republicans from redder states; divorced from the more moderate tone his Assembly GOP colleagues took in the debate.
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"The fact of the matter is that Assemblyman Doherty's opinion has no bearing on the reality of global warming," said Juan Melli, the founder of BlueJersey.com, a progressive Web site. "He can believe that Jesus had a pet dinosaur if he wants, but it doesn't make it true. There is practically no credible dissention within the scientific community about the facts that Doherty refuses to accept. This is not a conservative or liberal issue, nor should it be. He is simply on the wrong side of reality."