Land Issues As Political Weapons

"[Bush and Kerry] campaigns are using highly charged land issues to demonize opponents and mobilize key political followings -- for Kerry, environmentalists, and for President Bush, the rural West -- that stand poles apart on those issues. It's especially valuable currency in swing Western states such as Oregon.

Campaign rancor has distorted even the terminology. So many levels of meaning are attached to a term such as "healthy forests" -- the label for the president's initiative to head off severe wildfires -- that nobody can say exactly what it means."