From the Wall Steet Journal today.
"Some outdoor enthusiasts don't see it the same way. At the Outdoor Adventures Hunting and Fishing Show in Albuquerque last February, the New Mexico Wildlife Federation asked 600 sportsmen about their election choice in 2000 and their plans for November. Nearly half said they wouldn't vote for Mr. Bush in 2004, even though most said they had done so in 2000."
"In Florida, some Republicans disagreed with Bush administration efforts to allow oil drilling off the state coast; the plan was abandoned after public outcry. In the West, some complain about the proliferation of natural-gas drilling rigs on grazing lands they lease from the federal government."
"What's turned me off on Bush is that he is trying to force his way into wild places that should never be industrialized," says 52-year-old Karl Rappold, a rancher on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, a spectacular meeting of mountain and prairie where the administration has pushed for drilling. Though the administration has stopped work on that plan, Mr. Rappold says he will vote against the president -- as will his wife, their five grown children and at least two other relatives, he says. He says they all voted for Mr. Bush in 2000."
Howard Dean recognized this connection in Vermont when he got the NRA to support conservation measures because hunters need open land to hunt. Self serving and effective.