With only three weeks to Election Day, both presidential candidates are scrambling to generate interest in their campaigns from what the general media might consider to be outlier interests.
Among them being outdoors enthusiasts – hunters and anglers, trappers and such. Thus both the Joe Biden and Donald Trump campaigns have created “sportsmen/sportswomen for (insert name here)” committees.
And well-known Ohioans are sitting around their respective candidate’s campfire rings, hoping to convince others they are happy hikers with their picks.
An examination of the two sides’ committees demonstrates that the whole truth and nothing but the truth is sorely lacking.
At least in the case of the “Sportsmen and Sportswomen For Biden,” the group has a slick web site. Actually, two websites.
Among the group’s six-point platform are such planks as “Conserving and Restoring the Great Lakes,” “Improving Access To Places To Hunt And Fish,” as well as finding ways to obtain access to federal lands now closed off for one reason or another – and doing so by 2025; which, not coincidentally, is when a second Biden-Harris (or Harris-Biden) Administration would be sworn in.
The committee’s scaffolding is a disciplined amalgamation offering more than enough political wiggle room should Biden succeed in accomplishing them and which consequently would then make his administration look very good.
And if the proposals don’t work out - or else are not passed - the failure could be laid at the feet of Congress or unto some well-oiled opposition.
Included in the committee’s sales pitch is – predictably - how evil the Trump era has proven for the country’s natural resources and by extension, sportsmen and sportswomen.
In what charitably is best called canned commentary (perhaps with a dash of accuracy), former Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Sean Logan says this the committee’s web site:
“President Trump has failed Ohio sportsmen and sportswomen by allowing our waters to become more polluted and our native wildlife face greater threats from invasive species and disease. That’s why we need Joe Biden, who will create millions of good jobs restoring habitat and recreational infrastructure that are essential for hunting, and fishing and growing Ohio’s tourism-based economy.”
Some of the other Ohioans serving on the group are U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-13), Ohio State Sen. Sean O’Brien (D-32), Franklin County Recorder Danny O’Connor, former unsuccessful Republican candidate for Ohio Attorney General Rocky Saxby, and unsuccessful 2018 Democratic candidate for Ohio Attorney General Steve Dettlebach.
Thus, what the Biden committee has done very right is both building its two web sites and also describing the group’s members with burnished bios. Along with their respective formulaic praise for Biden, of course.
Jumping over to the web site of the Sportsmen For Trump Committee (no “Sportswomen” in the title, but I digress) is the equivalent of a high schooler’s attempt at writing a term paper the night before it is due.
The committee’s single 62-word paragraph toting why outdoors people should re-elected Trump is short on generalities and even much shorter still on specifics.
And the profiles of the advisory committee members features them on small oval-shaped black-and-white photos with just their names being posted: No bios nor any boilerplate quotes as to why the reader should vote to re-elect Trump.
Thus while I know by first-hand knowledge that Trump advisory board member Mike Budzik is a former Ohio Division of Wildlife chief (his blurry photo image reminding me of a wanted poster from the 1880s, and I digress once more), I have absolutely no idea who are “Bubba” Saulsbury, Laurie Lipsey Aronson, a scowling Mark Geist, Clayton Reaser, or Kristy Titus.
In short, the Sportsmen for Trump group has proven as clumsy at its job of advocating for its candidate just as the candidate has done for himself.
Now we get to the elephant in the room: The Second Amendment and gun-owners’ right.
Here, the unspoken speaks volumes. With Trump, Second Amendment rights are front and center, even if his “Sportsmen For” committee’s bumbling short-coming fails to articulate that position.
Meanwhile, Biden’s committee’s shameful work on the subject is nothing short of guileful. There are those tell-all bio photos that demonstrate a very narrow perspective on all of the tools that sportsmen use: Plenty of double-barrel shotguns and a bolt-action rifle or two but no semi-autos representing the latter, let alone one in AR configuration.
It also is silent on the charge that Biden’s previous comments have suggested banning the Internet sale of not only firearms but ammunition and even firearms parts.
Too, there is the committee’s language. Officially the committee’s web site now says as to how Biden will ensure Second Amendment rights while also protecting “..the lives of innocent citizens.”
Even so, the committee’s early September press release launch included a bullet point that stated how Biden will “Protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans to purchase and responsibly use firearms for hunting and sporting.”
Missing then by the Biden-backing group is any acknowledgment as to what a massive segment of the gun-owning community believes: That the Second Amendment is not about bolt-action deer-hunting rifles nor over-under shotguns used to break clay targets or shoot ruffed grouse.
Obviously, it appears that for members of each committee the choice of a preferred candidate was easy. I suspect for many cynical voters, though, such a decision is not so cut and dried.
After all, as journalist and satirist H.L. Mencken once correctly observed: “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule and both commonly succeed, and are right.”
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com
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