Why Outdoor Politics?

"The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.” -Theodore Roosevelt

Where it all started

I got my start in politics in 1964, going door to door with my dad for Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign. By 1977, I was working for candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. In 1980, I wound up in Washington, D.C. working for U.S. Senator Warren B. Rudman. Since then, I’ve been immersed me in federal policymaking and the politics that surround it.

In those 40 plus years, I’ve worked for many organizations and dealt with a wide variety of public policy issues from U.S. Olympic Committee coins, satellite telecommunication, renewable energy, to land acquisition, the first amendment and natural resource conservation. I may not be an expert, but I have lots of experience. That experience has taught me that regardless of how good you may think your policy is, if you can’t get the politics right, the chance of seeing that policy adopted or enacted is greatly diminished.

Where is this headed?

As a student of public policy politics, especially surrounding conservation and outdoor recreation issues, I’ll use my experience to offer you, my readers, a view of the political machinations surrounding policy development in those areas. I’ll offer my two-cents on the how and why of actions, pose some questions about those actions and try to explain the good, bad and ugly that may come from those actions.

My point of view

If you look at the volunteer activities in my history, you see that most of that pro-bono work has been in dealing with natural resource conservation and outdoor recreation issues. I care deeply about our natural resources, their abuse is an anathema to me. Protecting our natural resources drives me to devote the time I do to the work I do. And from this vantage point in my life, I know the work is not for me but for my grandchildren and their grandchildren. As Theodore Roosevelt put it in “A Book-Lover’s Holidays in the Open.”

“Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying that ‘the game belongs to the people’ So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us to restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”

What’s in it for you?

My hope is these articles spark a conversation. Your comments and opinions are welcome and encouraged. But a note of caution; I’ll be the sole judge of appropriateness and acceptable behavior. As Captain Woodrow F. Call said, “I hate rude behavior in a man, I won’t tolerate it.”