AR-News: (US) Courting the redneck vote

[Ronda Roaring]

> By Juliet Eilperin
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Monday, June 28, 2004; Page A04
>
> Jim Martin, the conservation director for the largest fishing tackle
> company in the United States, is a registered Republican who, like many
> sportsmen, had high hopes when President Bush took office. But he now
> eyes the administration more warily, worried about its push for oil and
> gas development on public land and its position on global climate
> change.
>
> "They should not assume because we're registered Republicans we'll vote
> for Bush," said Martin, who works for Pure Fishing. But he added that
> Democrat John F. Kerry still has to prove he deserves the loyalty of
> hunters and fishermen. "Neither side should assume they have this vote
> wrapped up," Martin said.
>
> In the next few weeks, the Bush and Kerry camps will be rolling out
> their campaigns to win over what is often called the "hook and bullet"
> crowd. Numbering about 50 million strong and living in swing states such
> as Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Arkansas, the men and women who
> hunt and fish in this country have become significant players in the
> presidential campaign.
>
> These voters are attractive for a number of reasons. They tend to be
> politically active; 93 percent of registered hunters voted in the 2000
> presidential election, according to a Congressional Sportsmen's
> Foundation survey conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide, well above the
> national average. Although they lean Republican -- 46 percent, according
> to the CSF -- nearly a third are independent and 18 percent are
> Democratic, leaving ample room for political appeals.
>
> "This is not a monolithic community," said Chris Wood, vice president
> for conservation at Trout Unlimited.
>
> Before the Democratic primaries, Kerry displayed his hunting credentials
> by shooting two pheasants in Story County, Iowa, with just two shots.
> Bush has wooed conservation group leaders at his Crawford, Tex., ranch
> and at the White House over the past six months.
>
> The number of American sporting and fishing enthusiasts has declined
> slightly over the past decade: A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey
> reported hunters' numbers dropped from 14 million in 1991 to 13 million
> in 2001, with fishing aficionados declining from 35.5 million in 1991 to
> 34.5 million a decade later. But they constitute a huge voting bloc that
> often judges candidates on sportsmen's issues, and as consumers spent
> $70 billion in 2001.
>
> In 2000, according to most accounts, hunting advocates judged Bush and
> Democratic nominee Al Gore primarily on their gun control stands.
> Seventy-eight percent of hunters surveyed by Roper Starch said gun
> control issues were "much" or "somewhat" more important to them in 2000
> than in previous elections.
>
> To Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle
> Association, sportsmen and sportswomen have an easy choice this fall.
> The NRA has given Kerry a congressional scorecard rating of F since
> 1984, and LaPierre said he views the senator from Massachusetts "as the
> quintessential two-faced candidate. He votes one way, and now that he's
> running for president, he says he's another."
>
> The Kerry camp takes issue with this assessment. The fact that Kerry has
> hunted for years sends a powerful message to voters that "this is not a
> typical national Democrat you see at the top of the ticket," Kerry
> regional director Jonathan Epstein said.
>
> "Since he was a kid, John Kerry has hunted. He's owned guns," Epstein
> said. "It's a group he's going to fight incredibly hard for once he gets
> to the White House."
>
> Still, gun rights groups are backing the Bush administration. As Merle
> Shepard, the Safari Club International's head of government affairs, put
> it, "They're easy to access." The administration's decision to allow
> hunting on about 50 wildlife refuges, for example, pleased Shepard and
> others.
>
> The battle over conservation is more complicated. Many hunting and
> fishing advocates have criticized the administration for its treatment
> of wildlife habitat, whether it involves drilling for oil and gas near
> wildlife migration corridors or the prospect of easing regulation on
> public wetlands.
>
> Paul Hansen, executive director of the conservationist Izaak Walton
> League, said although outdoors enthusiasts have been pleased with the
> administration's rhetoric, "on the ground, we've not seen the actions
> that support the words."
>
> After a 2001 Supreme Court ruling questioned whether the Clean Water
> Act's jurisdiction extended to isolated wetlands often known as
> "ephemeral washes or streams," for example, administration officials
> briefly considered rules that would have made it easier to fill in these
> areas with commercial development. But the move sparked an uproar among
> "hook and bullet" groups in late 2003, and top officials dismissed the
> plan.
>
> Since then Bush has pledged not only to protect 1 million acres of the
> nation's wetlands from development but also to add 1 million acres over
> the next five years and improve an additional million acres. Bush also
> approved hefty conservation funding as part of a recent farm bill.
>
> James L. Connaughton, who chairs the White House Council on
> Environmental Quality, said the administration has been "more successful
> than any previous administration" in protecting wetlands. James D.
> Range, board chairman of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation
> Partnership, who met with Bush in the Oval Office, said the president
> "has a real interest in our community. . . . It's something you can tell
> he both enjoys and cares about."
>
> "The sportsmen who will vote firearms first will vote for Bush," Hansen
> said. "The sportsmen who will vote conservation first will have a
> tougher choice."
>
>
>
> © 2004 The Washington Post Company
>
>



		
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