During this election year of voter frenzy over human issues it is easy for opinion page writers and editors to forget about the wildlife we share this country and the planet with. Except for the Native American Indians and us environmentalists, everyone else forgets to be good stewards of the lands and the animals during the distraction of election years.

In order to get this article published in these rabid political times, I will state my preference for one political office. Since I met and spoke to Hillary Clinton at length I will mention that, and although she is attempting to become America’s first woman leader (England, Israel, and India have already done so, among other nations), and must demonstrate her ability and toughness to compete on an equal footing with men aspiring to that high office, let it be known that she was an extraordinary person to meet and have a normal, non-political, conversation with.

She is warm and genuine, exceptionally bright, friendly, honorable and sincere, and looked me directly in the eyes and firmly shook my hand for a long time and impressed me like no other woman ever has before or since (with the obvious exceptions of ladies I used that line on before.) I had met and spoken with her husband Bill Clinton at an earlier date and she is every bit as intelligent as that Rhodes Scholar and former president of the United States.

I will choose her over good-guy-for-the-middle-class Bernie Sanders (who cannot win in the general election), and certainly over the zany, valueless, un-presidential candidate on the Republican side.

 As an add-on, I will mention that I held a Top Secret security clearance during my aerospace career and it is the sender who does the classifying of documents, not the receiver. Hillary did nothing wrong. It is not her job or authority to classify incoming documents. Not even the president does that. There are full-time government agencies/organizations to do that.

Yes, Hillary is widely hated in super-ideological, Republican majority, Montana politics, but none of those people have ever met her … they only accede to the wishes of the local Republican Tea Party disinformation machine that dictates they mindlessly hate her. If you want to “belong” to that machine you must march in lockstep, or else. Oh well … this is Montana … and the Republican Party is dying from irrelevance anyway.

Now, back to basics … the plight of our wildlife being long forgotten: The heinous, shameless, inhumane killing for profit of wildlife with traps scattered everywhere (sometimes killing pets and nabbing children or killing unintended wildlife); the ongoing morbid attempts to delist grizzly bears to hunt (kill) them for profit (through evil, self-serving, government-issued hunter and trapper and outfitter licensing fees); and self-serving, government-issued logging contracts in prime wildlife habitat (in “collaboration” with renegade, phony, pseudo-environmentalist, for fame and glory groups, such as Montana Wilderness Association); and invasive, abusive, noisy, gas and oil leaking, with toxic exhaust fumes, snowmobile access into critical wildlife habitat. Noise pollution prevents bighorn sheep from mating, and grizzly bear females from lactating for their cubs, even though hibernating six feet underneath the snow.

 Unfortunately, none of the many candidates for president cares anything about wildlife … they are all city-slickers, not outdoorsmen. The closest might be Hillary Clinton, since hubby Bill Clinton effectively passed the national forest “Roadless Rule” during his administration.

I served on then Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s “Roadless Rule Task Force,” beating down Republican Party attempts to over-rule it. So, I am counting on Hillary to continue that family tradition. She is my candidate of choice in order to save the animals.

Baum is a Badrock Canyon resident.