Sportsmen Cite Respect for Environment in their Endorsement of Obama

When voters turn out for tomorrow's election, Barack Obama will have the support of a perhaps unexpected contingency: outdoor sportsmen, from Virginia to Montana, who are concerned about the future of the woods where they hunt and the lakes and rivers where they fish.

With the endorsement of the American Hunters and Shooters Association and the backing of newly formed groups such as The New Hampshire Sportsmen and Sportswomen for Obama and The Montana Sportsmen for Obama Committee, the Obama campaign has drawn on concerns among rural Americans that access to public land will be cut off or lost to private ownership, and that private land may be subject to exploitation by big oil and coal interests.

ESPN took a closer look at one of these organizations, The Montana Sportsmen for Obama Committee, which was formed out of informal discussions between members of Montana's Wildlife, Fish and Parks Commission (MWFPC), county commissioners, former backcountry park rangers and hunters and anglers from across the state.

Committe member Shane Colton puts the group's allegiance in familiar terms: "Senator Obama shares our values more than Senator McCain." Chief among these values are access to public lands and the right to bear arms. So even though Obama doesn't hunt or fish or pretend he's a rancher, once he had convinced the sportsmen that he wouldn't take their guns away, the choice became pretty clear:

"He (Barack Obama) grew up in an urban setting," said Dan Vermillion, another MWFPC commissioner, who with his two brothers runs a fishing and travel charter company out of Livingston, Mont. "But his views on public lands, wildlife habitat and the protection of wildlife species are totally in line with mine, and to me, that's more important than whether he hunts and fishes."

In Montana, where high demand for big game has driven outfitters in the eastern part of the state to strategically purchase narrow sections of private land, cutting off access to public land, hunters and anglers are worried about the future of their sports.

Vermillion said it's getting near impossible to hunt and fish "unless you're lucky enough to know a rancher or you own a ranch." He feels access to public land should be something universally available to people "whether they make a million dollars or they're on food stamps." "Obama's made a stronger commitment to make sure any development that takes place on federal land is done in a way that will protect and maintain my ability and my children's ability and my friends' ability to go hunt on public land," Vermillion said.

The priority of land use over "this stance of drill at all costs," as Colton told ESPN, "or this idea of leaving it to private enterprise to handle matters of public land" suggests a skepticism among some rural Americans when it comes to energy exploitation. Todd Darling, a documentary filmmaker, has been touching on this in his recent guest blogging for The Wonk Room. Darling describes a trip he took across the country, compiling footage for his new film A Snow Mobile for George, which is about the exhaust from his snow mobile and the consequences of the Bush administration's environmental deregulation:

A tall cowboy told us his land had been invaded by oil companies. They had come onto his land, uninvited, looking for natural gas. [In Wyoming, the government has retained the right to oil, coal, gas or whatever minerals lie beneath the surface of the land] ... My two friends and I were stunned. Here’s a gun-toting, 6′5″cowboy with a dog and pick-up truck, the very icon of American independence, telling us, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. What can I do? We’re powerless.”

In another post, Darling addresses a Maine Republican Party flier featuring a picture of Todd Palin on a snow mobile beneath an ominous headline about "Obama's Extreme Environmental Policies." Will this be the last winter to ride in our National Parks, the flier wonders? A quote from the "Sierra Club" suffices an answer: "In the end, the point that snowmobiles are loud and obnoxious and polluting seems obvious to everyone save perhaps the person actually astraddle the beast ... They just don't have any business in our national parks."

The flier, Darling notes:

... is attempting to stoke a culture war between freedom-loving snowmobilers and tree-hugging environmentalists. But snowmobilers care about pollution and preserving the outdoors. And environmentalists love having fun. See how the flier edits the Sierra Club quote? Here’s what that dot-dot-dot eliminated from Pat Joseph’s criticism of snowmobiles in National Parks:

They are also fun. No doubt about it, they’re an absolute blast.

Mr. Palin says his wife and Senator McCain will protect snowmobile access with “practical standards.” But they don’t believe in regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, even though global warming has meant the Iron Dog competitors have raced in the rain — and in 2003, the race was even totally cancelled because of the extreme heat. It’s sure hard to protect the fun of snowmobiling if your “standards” mean the end to snow.

As a new administration looks to build responsible policies for energy exploration and environmental protection, the question emerges as to how to continue mobilizing the support of Americans traditionally associated with the Republican Party who are eager to protect our natural resources.

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