Who are Sportsmen to vote for?

In an article for High Country News Tom Reed has written a nice piece titled "Hunting: It's Not About the Gun"

This article basically asks the questioin of how can hunting enthusiast still support Bush even though the adminstration's policies are taking away hunting opportunities on public land?

As an outdoorsman living in the West, it's hard for me to ignore the damage that has been done to our wildlife heritage in the last four years. Places where I used to hunt pronghorn and sage grouse on the Upper Green River outside Pinedale, Wyo., are now oil and gas fields.

A ranch where I once killed a dandy mule deer buck in Wyoming's Powder River Basin was roaded and tapped for coalbed methane two years ago. It will not recover in my lifetime.

This article reinforces my belief that you cannot be a single issue or single party voter. Even though the NRA tries to scare Republicans into not voting for Democrats and the NOW wants warns people of the dangers of a Republican in office, like in most other things you must take a systems approach.

For this election that means if you are an outdoor enthusiast do you vote for the candidate who is an avid duck hunter and a member of a party that at least professes to care about the environment or do you vote for the candidate and administration who's energy policy means drilling for more of it (and the 200+ days of supply that will bring) and writes orders to the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to not enforce the filling of wetlands in the Great Lakes and elsewhere?

Since hunting rights and the health of the Great Lakes are important to me I will vote for Senator Kerry. While Senator Kerry may vote one way on an issue and then many months or years later vote another way; at least he does not flat-out lie and call it the truth. The election should be about the long-term policies, never about the Party.

Then there are the hunters who realize that it's about the hunt, never about the tool. They have walked the land and have mourned for the places they used to stalk mule deer or antelope. They read the papers and know that George W. Bush has taken away protections on 20 million acres of wetlands, given back 3 million and called this a net gain. They know that our president has signed away water rights on Blue Ribbon trout streams and that his administration is trying to open roadless areas -- regions crucial to wildlife -- to development.