BEAVERTON, Ore --.In "Earth in the balance" published in 1992, the author warned that ''the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels has many ferocious defenders.'' In 2000, with an election in the balance, that author, Al Gore, ferociously defends fossil fuels for unrestrained use by the SUVs and minivans that fill the parking lots of swing vote suburbia.
This green state was the Greenest in 1996, where Ralph Nader ran best, winning 4 percent here. He'll get more in 2000 because he is actively campaigning and also because Gore's suburban strategy surrenders the environmental high ground. Oregonians are environmentally civic-minded and skeptical of tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which Gore urged last week upon a persuadable President Clinton.
Oregon has voted Democratic in the past three presidential elections. Could its seven electoral votes be crucial?
George W. Bush thinks so. He visited a Beaverton school here this week to declare ''an education recession in America that threatens our future.'' Tim Hibbitts, whose latest poll shows Nader at 8 percent, says, ''Unless there's a big tide toward Bush, I still think Gore will win Oregon and Washington state. But if it's a close race - say, 45-46 - then you could say that Nader had done Gore enormous damage.''
Nader's votes aren't all Gore's to lose, the pollster argues. ''About half will not vote for Gore or Bush. I've talked to them. The message is they're both crooks and bums. About 3 percent of that 8 might come back to Gore and about 1 percent are for Bush on the theory that if we're going to have corruption, let's change crooks.''
Oregon's political tradition is squeaky clean, which explains why Clinton twice ran below his national average and why in 1988, Michael Dukakis, with 51.3 percent, ran above his nationwide average. Dukakis is a conspicuous critic of highways, which won him votes in Portland, a public-transit paradise.
Heavy transit spending has made Portland what John Muir foresaw in 1886: ''a telling picture of busy, aspiring civilization in the midst of the green wilderness.'' A Massachusetts native, the late Governor Tom McCall banished automobiles from the Willamette riverbank, a walkway now named for him.
McCall opened up the riverbank. Gore has opened up the strategic oil reserve and doubts about his beliefs. As vice president he often talked about suburban sprawl, but he seldom does today. Beaverton, a Portland suburb of 54,000, has Nike headquarters and Intel nearby. It resembles what Gore talked of in 1998, ''the panorama of sprawl outside so many of our cities - the chaotic, ill-planned environment'' that ''makes us use up a quart of gasoline to buy a quart of milk.'' Gore, vigorously pumping that gas, risks losing the city and country vote because he needs suburbia.
At Nader's Portland headquarters, ''most people are concerned about reclaiming democracy, which is the core issue of this campaign,'' says Courtney Scott, who coordinates volunteers. ''Restoring democracy encompasses the environment. Politicians are selling out the environment to the corporate interests, who are buying the politicians who make the laws.''
She faults the Democratic candidate on both issues, saying: ''What we've seen from Mr. Gore is rhetoric. I haven't seen any action on the environment or on campaign finance reform. The opportunities he had he didn't take.''
The Nader campaign woos Gore's lukewarm supporters by saying he'll win easily. ''Bush has shot himself in the foot several times. Now he's aiming at his head,'' Scott says.
Oregon is also accustomed to three-party politics. Next month marks the 100th birthday of Wayne L. Morse, who served in the US Senate as a Republican, an Independent, and a Democrat.
As Hibbitts charts in his polls Nader's ups and downs, he points out that the Green Party's 1996 base is already impressive: ''Four percent? That ain't chopped liver in a presidential race.''
Martin F. Nolan's column appears regularly in the Globe.
