An outdoorsman who favors the candidates of `community’

Because of my apolitical propensities, I usually turn my back to the stale breeze of politicians. I don’t like their evasive answers to straightforward questions or their murky promises or maneuverings. Frankly, whenever I see newscasts of crowds cheering political candidates at rallies, conventions, or other such stumpings, I wonder how people can be so gullible.

But because so many of Maine’s outdoors traditions and cultures have become political issues, I admit to following the tracks of Maine candidates considered “big game” in today’s election and reading their signs with genuine concern. My reference to big game, you may have guessed, focuses on Joe Brennan, Angus King, and Susan Collins in their contest to become Maine’s “head guide,” so to speak, and the U.S. Senate race between Olympia Snowe and Tom Andrews.

I cut King’s and Brennan’s trails in the 1980s when the “Friends of the Penobscot River” successfully opposed the Swift River Co.’s proposal to build a hydroelectric facility at the site of the Bangor Dam. The hydro-dam project would have been a deterrent to the river’s Atlantic salmon restoration program.

King was vice president and legal counsel for Swift River, which also proposed a project to divert the waters of the Rapid River, one of Maine’s important brook trout fisheries. Thankfully, that project also went out with the tide. Now, King is presenting himself as the ultimate environmentalist and sportsmen’s advocate. In my opinion, he’s as much either one as I am an astronaut.

Brennan’s worse. During the “Battle of the Bangor Dam,” he was running for governor. Not surprisingly, his political instincts caused him to show up at a Penobscot Salmon Club breakfast, where he pledged his support to Friends of the River and all sportsmen involved in opposing Swift River’s proposal. But when he figured he’d hooked enough votes, Brennan finished his bacon and eggs and departed and no one ever saw or heard from him again.

Never, though, will I forget his remark when, as governor, he attended a presidential-salmon ceremony in Washington, D.C.: “This is as close as I’ve been to a fish since I played pool on Munjoy Hill.” God help us.

What Maine needs now more than ever before is a governor who realizes that fisheries and wildlife resources and sportsmen are important – in fact, integral – to the state’s economy. Personally, I don’t see that in either King or Brennan, in spite of their campaign posturings.

Although the times are changing as quickly as the seasons, Maine’s outdoors traditions and cultures remain strong. Make no mistake about it. This state is a community of sportsmen and, in this neck of the woods, the word “community” carries tremendous social, economic, and political weight.

Admittedly, because I couldn’t vote for King or Brennan in good conscience, I wasn’t going to vote, period. But after watching the gubernatorial candidates’ televised debates during the past week or so, I became convinced that Susan Collins best understood the importance of fisheries and wildlife resources and sportsmen to Maine’s economy. I think her positions on business, taxes, education, skinning the Legislature, and such are solid, and I believe Maine sportsmen will receive more mileage from her than they will from either the Independent or Democratic candidate. I think she’ll make a good head guide.

As for Tom Andrews, when it comes to Second Amendment rights – and, hereabouts, that refers to sporting firearms – he’s a dud. Olympia Snowe, on the other hand, has been a staunch supporter of a person’s right to own firearms, and she knows the value of hunting to Maine’s economy. Although Snowe disappointed a lot of people by reluctantly voting for President Clinton’s Crime Bill, which included a ban on some types of semi-automatic rifles, the majority of Maine’s sportsmen would want her on the political firing line when it came to supporting their rights and privileges.

Again, being apolitical, I’m not bashful about saying today I’ll cast my vote for Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Regarding the former, aside from the aforementioned, one reason I’ll vote for her is that she isn’t carrying a lot of political baggage. Regarding the latter, her experience in guiding Maine along Washington’s congressional trails will be valuable when she reaches the Senate’s political woods.

Most important, however, is that both women understand the meaning of the word “community” as it relates to Maine and its sportsmen.