David Parker has done a commendable job lately of covering
the impact of big money in the Tester/Rehberg race. I fully expect a variation
of Gresham's
law to apply as negative ads funded by outside groups drive away a civil discussion
on issues important to Montana and the west. Here is one version of how that
will go down.
Politics is all about frames, images, and themes - the
simpler the better; think Willie Horton. The most effective frame captures a
basket of issues in a single image around which political rhetoric and an
emotional storyline is constructed. The frame for this race is Canis lupus - the grey
wolf.
Today,
there is not a more divisive issue in the Greater Yellowstone region or most
western states than the reintroduction and subsequent management of the grey
wolf. It is the quintessential political frame bound up as it is in the
economic history of the west, environmental romanticism, private property
rights, as well as the science (and politics) of public land management. The
wolf stirs reaction from most citizens of the region as well as politicians at
every level of government. One’s stance on wolf policy clearly demarcates a
cultural divide between the old west and the new west.
Apex
predators like grey wolves are large, charismatic, and potentially dangerous.
In most parts of the world, they are often the targets of extermination
programs, poaching for profit, and perceived to be a threat to private
property. At best, many people find them difficult to live with. Others find
them intolerable. The reason is that humans, especially those who make a living
off the land, share habitat with creatures that can, and do, kill and maim.
They damage property, they force us to live differently simply because they
exist.
The grey
wolf was once widespread across the whole of North America but eradicated in
most of the contiguous U.S. by the 1930’s. By 1977, the war on the wolf was officially
won. In 1991, after much political maneuvering, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service proposed a recovery plan for the grey wolf to large and remote expanses
of public land. When the Clinton administration took office in 1993, the
science and more importantly, the people were in place to make reintroduction a
reality. Bruce Babbitt, the administration’s Secretary of Interior, Mollie
Beattie, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Renee Askins, a
highly motivated and articulate citizen champion of the wolf, formed the core triad
that would return the wolf as a “nonessential experimental population” under
the ESA. The reintroduction effort was a political as much as an ecological
event.
The reintroduction was
politically heavy handed and was seen across the west as a federal usurpation
of property rights – real and implied. Conservative politicians knew an
effective frame when they saw one and immediately, wolves were used as an expedient
shortcut to garner support from rural interests and argue against broad based
public land management. The most vocal opponents included the agricultural
community who run livestock near the park boundary and property right advocates
who saw the reintroduction as a way to move publicly subsidized ranchers off
public lands. Wolves, they argue, threaten property rights when they cross over
onto private land and kill livestock and even pets – sometimes viciously so. Hunters
blame the wolves for decreased elk harvests and use them as an excuse to launch
political attacks on wolf advocates.
Pro wolf supporters
insist reintroduction simply restored the ecosystem to its former condition.
They often point to regional and national polls that show respondents favored
reintroduction 3 to 1. Those who favor wolves on the landscape present them as
a symbol of wild places, ecological harmony, and even as a regional political entity.
They depict the wolf as the embodiment of nature in all its forms especially as
symbols of wilderness and empty spaces. Their stake in public land management
is often for amenity and recreation values.
In reality,
the anti-wolf position is the most current form of proxy for the perceived “war
on the west” that has raged since the sagebrush rebellion of the 1970s and the
wise use movement that followed. The controversy is one grounded in state vs.
federal control over public lands and resources and wolf reintroduction efforts
are simply the latest incarnation of the struggle to recover the commodity
economy of the west. Oddly enough, the position of both candidates is very
similar – to remove the wolf from the ESA list and let states manage them. They
use the frame differently however.
Denny
Rehberg sells himself as a rancher in the tradition of the west and so is an
advocate for the commodity economy in all its forms – publicly subsidized
mining, timber production, energy exploration, and ranching. In fact, he is a
land developer but very effectively uses the “wolf frame” to argue for a public
lands policy that favors production over conservation. That position would cut
budgets for public land programs and result in smaller government. We can
expect those positions to take front and center in the coming months.
Jon Tester
is a farmer and teacher. His position on wolves, like his position on
government in general, seems to be to pragmatically manage them as one would
any other resource without political drama or hyperbole. The language in his plan
to remove gray wolves from the ESA list framed the solution as reflecting
“Montana values” with “a
responsible, common sense plan.” The tone for his campaign rhetoric will be
“let’s live with the wolf as a neighbor – perhaps not one of our choice but one
we are faced with”.
The wolf
frame will appear explicitly and implicitly in many forms during the campaign -
as it should. It is an efficient way to communicate with the constituencies of
both parties. It is an effective use of imagery and theme. I would go so far as
to say one’s position on wolf management is a predictor of how you will vote.
Let’s watch as wolves to make their appearance in Montana politics over the
next few months.
