There is an interesting article in todays WPO regarding Choteau Montana. It describes the place like this;
Talk of Gas Drilling Splits Pro-Bush Factions in West
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 4, 2003; Page A01
CHOTEAU, Mont. -- The Great Plains smack into the Rockies just west of here. The collision of flatness and verticality results in the Rocky Mountain Front, the only place in the West where large numbers of grizzlies, elk and bighorn sheep still wander down out of the mountains and take their leisure on the grassy plain.
Acording to the article the people of Choteau were happy when the gov stopped leasing land for oil and gas. But low and behold Bush and company are thinking of changing that.
Here is the money graph that caught my eye;
When it comes to politics, a long-standing lament among American sportsmen is that Democrats want your guns and Republicans want your land.
Leaders of the country's major fishing and hunting organizations agree that concern about gun-control laws was a key factor in their members' support for Bush in the last election. Yet, with the exception of the National Rifle Association, these leaders say they are hearing from members upset about what the Bush administration is doing to federal land.
Now I understand that guns are a major issue with many in the Dem party, as well as many here, but I have been on the other side of a lot of you on this issue. I think that many hunters and people wishing to protect their homes should retain the right that they have at this time. And the longer we fight with them the stronger the GOP will be on this issue.
Look at this quote from a hunter. This is something we could build on to get more people thinking about what Bush is doing to the environment;
Tony Dean, host and producer of a popular outdoors television show, has accused the administration of undermining a conservation program that is good for birds, farmers and hunters.
"Saying you're the friend of sportsmen because you support gun ownership, while using it to hide the dismantling of America's conservation policies, is patently dishonest," Dean wrote recently in Outdoors Unlimited, a publication of the Outdoor Writers of America.
This is a groop of people that we could bring into the fold if we could find a way to get past the "All or nothing" approach so many in the Democratic Party hold. If we can get the people that are questioning the Bush policies to think like the man in my last quote below, we have very good shot at hitting the Republican party where it hurts them the most. But it will take an approach that many will be uncompfortable with. Are we willing to say that people like this are not the enemy and have a right, or are we going to continue to be the party that wants to take their guns away?
"To me, it doesn't make sense," said Carl Rappold, 51, a rancher on the Front who has always voted Republican but said he will not vote again for Bush. "We got all these species clustered in a little bit of space. It is almost like a last stand. And now we are going to develop it for a handful of gas?"