Florida’s liberal incumbent U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, with a comfortable lead in the polls over a weak Republican opponent, has been endorsed by a procession of humbugs, including the humbug’s humbug, Charlie Crist. Now he’s cemented the support of women of a certain age, including most of my ex-girlfriends, by securing the endorsement of the Sundance Kid.

The 76-year-old Robert Redford, once American womanhood’s main heartthrob, endorses Nelson in a letter to Florida voters where he praises the Obama administration spear-carrier for voting for the kind of enviro-nutter stuff Redford supports. “Perhaps no U.S. politician has defended Florida’s beaches as staunchly as Bill Nelson,” Redford oozes in his letter. Translation: If it has to do with drilling or mining for, refining or processing, transporting, or marketing any fossil fuel, the answer is NO!

Also in Redford’s letter, which includes a photo of the former lady killer with his face freshly ironed for the occasion, there is this jewel: “He (Nelson) led the effort to get the United Nations to put Everglades National Park on a list of the world’s most treasured or endangered sites.” (What else Redford would like the U.N. to decide for us he doesn’t mention in his letter.) 

The Sundance Kid was an appealing cinematic character, though Butch was a bit of a pain. But the aging movie star has become a parody of himself, and of contemporary Hollywood. If we adopted all the extreme environmental policies Redford and his rich but flakey friends whoop up, America wouldn’t have enough energy to keep a family of ferrets warm in the winter.

It would be nice to think that the support of an essentially unserious person, who hasn’t the first clue how the world works, would not count for much. But a generation of red-blooded American men who had to endure all that sighing in darkened movie theaters, knowing that the sighing wasn’t for them, know better.