Former US president Lyndon B. Johnson was famous for driving his guests around his vast Texas ranch. US President George W. Bush, when he ran for governor in 1994, went hunting at the same event as his Democratic rival, then-governor Ann Richards, as each sought to burnish their credentials as average Texans.
Former US president Bill Clinton acknowledged in his memoirs that he believed Democrats lost to the Republicans in 2000 because they failed to appeal to hunters like Bush did. In 2004, both Bush and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry devoted parts of their Web sites to hunters.
But hunting is no longer a surefire way to connect with blue-collar voters, say many in Texas. These days, the sport is more often associated with millionaires than backwoodsmen.
"In recent years there has been the sale of tens of millions of hectares of public lands for private mining and logging which is no longer accessible to the blue-collar hunter," said John Rosenthal, president and co-founder of the American Hunters and Shooters Association in Frederick, Maryland.
"The lack of access to public hunting lands is the number one reason that hunters drop out of the sport," added Bill Brassard of the National Shooting Sports Foundation in Newtown, Connecticut "There appears to be a trend toward pay-to-hunt operations."
On the King Ranch's 333,865 hectares, a one-day deer hunt costs at least US$1,000 per person, according to the ranch's Web site. Quail is US$450 per gun per day. A three-day outing could cost US$5,500 or more. In Sarita, the only town in county, where the elementary school for ranch workers' children and county offices are located, Diana Mata, the dispatcher for the Kenedy County Sheriff's Office, said she remains an avid deer hunter. But "unless you know someone on the property, it's not as easy to go hunting anymore."
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