Clinton plays up duck hunting experience before Wisconsin contest Michael Roston

Published: Tuesday February 19, 2008



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Print This Email This Hillary Clinton may be aiming to win primary contests in Wisconsin and Hawaii this Tuesday, but on the campaign trail in recent days, it was her duck hunting experience that she wanted voters to pay attention to. According to the LA Times, Clinton first brought up her hunting experience in a campaign speech over the weekend. And on Monday, she offered more details of the time she succeeded in shooting a duck. "They wanted to embarrass me. So, OK, the pressure was on. So I shot, and I shot a banded duck," she said in an appearance. "And I was as surprised as they were." When a voter joked that she might teach Vice President Cheney, who accidentally shot friend Harry Whittington in the face while quail hunting, how to use his rifle, Clinton added in her own crack. "Once he's out of the office and the Secret Service is not around to protect people from him, we better be careful about where he goes hunting," the New York Daily News' Michael McAuliff quoted her saying. "A little gun-safety protocol would be useful, don't you think?" In a country where some voters value the Second Amendment more than any of the other protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, presidential candidates have had to tread carefully when discussing their experiences with firearms. When questions were raised about Democratic Senator John Kerry's commitment to defending the right to bear arms, the 2004 presidential candidate made photos available to the press of a duck hunting trip. But Kerry's public efforts made little difference to the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund, which declared that the candidate "wants to ban guns in America." Clinton may face similar attacks. Already the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action speaks of "De-Clintonizing America," warning that, "Hillary Clinton sits in the U.S. Senate while plotting a return to the White House." Democrats aren't the only presidential hopefuls who have been savaged for speaking too glibly about their limited hunting experience. When former Republican candidate Mitt Romney called himself an experienced hunter on the campaign trail in early 2007, he was forced to backtrack and admit that he had mostly shot "varmints." The explanation became a punchline on the trail for weeks afterward, likely harming perceptions of the candidate's sincerity. Video clips of Clinton's appearance can be viewed at a Fox News blog.



