As someone who fell in love with America's democracy watching the Kennedy-Nixon debates on a black and white TV almost a half century ago, I still keep track of time's passage by our electoral seasons. Late summers that come in the run-up to presidential elections have a sweet edginess for me, a feeling unknown to the politically indifferent.

Given my political interests and the work the Michigan Environmental Council does with our elected officials, it's no wonder that come election season, some of my friends and more than an occasional journalist ask me about MEC's candidate endorsements. I always respond that the Michigan Environmental Council is a nonprofit advocacy organization (known by its U.S. tax code classification as a 501(c)(3)-or "c-3" for short) and is proscribed from engaging in electoral campaigns with either money or endorsements. We leave candidate endorsements to our politically kosher "c-4" cousins, the League of Conservation Voters (which endorses in federal campaigns) and the Michigan League of Conservation Voters (which endorses in state campaigns) as well as the Sierra Club and Clean Water Action.

While MEC is constrained during campaign seasons, we don't feel left out of political debates. Politically sophisticated, tax exempt, non-electoral c-3 organizations have long played an important role in shaping public values and partisan politics. Michigan environmental groups have awakened to this possibility.

Much of the groundwork for the decades-old libertarian shift in the Republican Party ("less government is better government") was laid out not in the smoky backrooms of political conventions, but rather in the sterile boardrooms of a few major foundations and right-wing think tanks. Like the great leftward transformations of the 1960s that arose out of youthful protests, the rightward reaction that continues today wasn't born in electoral politics. In fact, most frequently, both political parties respond to, rather than lead, social change.

The great environmental debates of the last four decades are a reflection of this phenomenon. When Congress passed-and President Richard Nixon signed-much of our landmark environmental legislation, it was in reaction to public demand that had arisen outside of the political parties. Unfortunately, since that time environmental advocates have often been defending old wins rather than advancing new ones. Certainly in Michigan, which was once a national leader in environmental reforms, we've had years where advocates could barely hold the line against business lobby pressures to roll back environmental protections.

But things in Michigan are shifting. Environmentalists who once wanted nothing to do with politics have grown savvy and, working hard, have focused demands for better environmental protections on their elected representatives. With these politically-awakened members, we're making ourselves heard in Lansing and Washington. Elected officials in both parties are finding that MEC and its members have raised public awareness of environmental issues and will hold them accountable for their environmental records. Most important, environmentalists are realizing that politics is much too important to leave to the politicians. And that's good news to this old political junkie.