Shooting Fish in a Barrel

One of the Democrat strategies promoted by David Sirota is called land politics. It has been cynically used but not bought into by Colorado Democrats including Bill Ritter and Mark Udall.

Sirota wants an alliance between environmentalists, Democrats, and hunters / fishermen against Republicans. He wants Democrats to play down their traditional gun control stance and play up "hunting rights."

Bill Ritter so confused his position among voters that this author was told by registered Republicans living ten miles apart that they were voting for Ritter, one because he was for gun control, and one because he would protect hunters rights better than Bob Beauprez!

The Rocky Mountain News reported during the campaign:

Ritter says he would make recreational shooting improvements a priority if he is elected governor. He wants Colorado to take the lead in establishing more shooting ranges, beginning with a pilot program he proposes for the Arapaho-Roosevelt forests.

The words were good, but Ritter turned out to be a gun control governor.

Now Mark Udall is playing the land politics card with hunting in Rocky Mountain National Park. Well, not really hunting. It is killing elk with silenced guns and low velocity rounds.

Udall said he was glad park service managers said they might use sportsmen, but he was concerned the Park Service might give a higher priority to shooters from other federal or state agencies.

“I think if qualified sportsmen or sportswomen are willing to volunteer, they should be first in line,” Udall said.

If the Park Service did use volunteer cullers, it would not be like hunting. They could not take the meat or other trophies, and the work would be done under strict, controlled conditions.

It would be shooting fish in a barrel. These folks might call themselves hunters, but there would be no sport in the process, and no sportsmen involved. We're not sure Mark Udall knows the difference, but this is as close to land politics as he has come.

All Smoke, No Mirrors

Udall's legislative record is quite spotty this year.

It appears that Mark Udall has been introducing bills solely for the publicity value that they create, with no real intention or hope of getting them passed. One was a bill aimed at pandering hunters by allowing them to cull the elk herds in Rocky Mountain National Park.

In 1994, the Democrats lost the congress in part because of their hostility to guns and gun owners. They are no less hostile to gun owners than they once were, but they try to do a better job of hiding their hostility.

One way to disguise that hostility is by introducing bills like:

H.R.1179 : To clarify the authority of the Secretary of the Interior with regard to management of elk in Rocky Mountain National Park.Sponsor: Rep Udall, Mark [CO-2] (introduced 2/16/2007) Cosponsors (2) Committees: House Natural Resources Latest Major Action: 2/26/2007 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands.

If Mark Udall were serious about getting this bill passed, he would be rounding up co-sponsors, and he would be publicly dissatisfied that it was sent to committee nine months ago where he and others of his party clearly intend to let it die.

Two co-sponsors in 9 months is a joke. No movement out of committee in 9 months is a joke. No, pardon us. It politics on the cheap - all smoke without bothering to purchase the mirrors. Worse, it looks like just another sophisticated Udall lie.

"Scenic" Colorado

It is fun to watch the choice of words that editors and reporters make and how that choice is used to try to sway opinion. To read the Rocky Mountain News, you would think that the Roan Plateau was a Rocky Mountain National Park like feature:

The scenic Roan, beloved by hunters and anglers for its wilderness backcountry and diverse wildlife, is estimated to contain enough natural gas to heat 9 million homes for nine years.

It might be "beloved" by a very small number of folks, but it isn't a name that was well known to very many Colorado citizens until the the last month or so.

And of course, we can't forget the national treasure that the Vermillion basin has become since Bill Ritter's flyover.

Ritter also has asked the BLM not to lease the scenic Vermillion Basin in northwest Colorado for oil and gas drilling.

If the Rocky really believes that those are two unique and irreplacable treasures that gas drilling will destroy, it needs to make that case. If it can't make that case, then it needs to be more careful in its descriptions. Every square inch of Colorado is beautiful and beloved by someone, but that doesn't mean that we should put the whole state off limits to mining and drilling even if Mark Udall, John Salazar, and Ken Salazar think we should.

The Elk Hunting Sop

On the one hand, Mark Udall is promoting his efforts in Congress to allow hunters to cull National Park elk herds.

The herds need to be culled. According to the AP, Teddy Roosevelt National Park reintroduced elk in 1985. It has room for 400 elk, but has 1100.

The park service is opposed to hunting. It would rather spend millions building fences, rounding up the excess animals, and killing them in the organized way that cattle are sent to slaughter. When questioned about the issue of using hunters as "authorized agents" to cull the herds, one park service official pontificated:

[ Bill ] Whitworth said Monday that the Park Service already was aware it could use authorized agents, but that they cannot be used to circumvent the prohibition on hunting.

"If it looks like a hunt, it is a hunt, and that's the standard we're going to be held to," he said.

It is laudable that Mark Udall is trying to solve this problem in a very public way. Unfortunately, this policy, if implemented, benefits a few, or at most a few dozen hunters.

On the other hand, Mark Udall's Federal land roadless policy will put millions of acres of forests and streams effectively off limits to hunting and fishing. If a hunter or a fisherman cannot get close to the area he would like to hunt and fish in because the roads are off limits to the public, then the area is closed.

Mark Udall's dirty little secret is that he hates hunting, hates guns, and hates gun owners. He is just clever enough as a politician that he has found a public way to conceal that fact.