In 2006, Robert Casey unseated Rick Santorum from his senate seat. To be honest, I decided to vote for Casey, despite the fact that Santorum had an excellent record on guns, and was endorsed by the NRA. I voted for Casey because Santorum, quite honestly, scared the hell out of me with his views on a lot of social issues. Casey got a good NRA rating, and kept saying he was a friend of gun owners, so I figured he’d be willing to fight for us.
I would appear to have been wrong. I don’t think Casey is going to join the ranks of Chuck Schumer or Diane Feinstein any time soon, but he certainly doesn’t seem to be aware of the issues that are of concern to us, as his generic form letter response would indicate.
I’ve been singularly unimpressed by Senator Casey since taking office, mostly because I haven’t seen him doing anything.  Not that I want politicians to be busy doing things, other nursing a mild case of alcoholism in the local DC bars and eateries. If more politicians did that instead of making laws, we might actually be better off. But if Senator Casey dropped off the face of the earth, I don’t think I’d notice. Would anyone notice?
Clearly, if The Senator wants to be a friend of gun owners, if he wants to earn his NRA rating, and maybe get an endorsement someday, he needs to get his staff to do a better job of communicating with gun owners. We’re an important political constituency in this state, even for Democrats, and we’re not impressed by generic one-size-fits-all form letters.
This is exactly what I was concerned about when I went into the voting booth last year, and ultimately why I ended up voting for Mickey Mouse. Rick Santorum absolutely had to go. He alienated many with his clearly anti-gay rhetoric and his sticking his nose too far into the Terry Schiavo business.
I was, however, aware of Bob Casey’s absenteeism when he was State Treasure. Now sure, you can chalk it up to him running for the US Senate, although it’s certainly not a good excuse in my eyes. I absolutely had a gut feeling that he would pull the same crap as a Senator. Rather than give approval to a man that would likely be as visible as a gnat, I cast my vote for a fictional character.
And quite honestly, I like my senators to be visible. Yeah, Rick Santorum was a dick, but you know what, he was the 2nd most powerful Republican in the Senate.
I hate to accuse anyone of being naive, but even if you hated Santorum’s social policy positions, you should have known that a Democrat is going to toe the liberal line when he/she gets to DC. Part of that is attacking guns. How was the guy going to hurt you on social positions you care about – e.g., gay rights and right to die? You screwed up.
It was a risk. Gun rights ranks high up on my list of concerns with a candidate, but it’s not the only one. Advocating the the government has a place in people’s bedrooms is a pretty egregious sin in terms of your concerns over people’s civil liberties.
Had Casey been hard-core anti-gun, I might have voted differently, but he campaigned as pro-gun, and he won’t go hard anti if he wants to win again. Even Spector knows he has to kiss our asses if he wants to stay in office.
Casey isn’t going to look for ways to screw gun owners, and he’d probably be on our side when it would come down to voting, in most cases, but he’s certainly not going to do any favors for us either. I can tolerate Bob Casey for six years until. If his worst sin is that no one knows that he’s alive, I don’t have too much to worry about.
“I would appear to have been wrong.”
Had you asked me before the election, I could have told you that.
Too late now.
Too late, yes. But I can’t say I’m unhappy to be rid of Santorum. That’ll probably be my first and last vote for Casey.
Spector and Casey don’t have to kiss the ass of gun owners. They need only say the things that get them high ratings from the NRA. Once in office, they can continue to not say bad things while continuing to fund, and more importantly not investigating and not regulating the ATF and every other alphabet soup police agency prone to abuse the rights of the citizens. And, I’m not just talking about gun rights.
dc
Well, he was saying those things to gun owners too. I don’t recall hearing he thought the ATF was just great, and could use more money.
He’s a politician; moreover he’s a democrat politician. He would say anything and do anything to get elected and so he did and was. You bought into his schtick so enjoy the ride, because it will probably be a long one.
Hilary Clinton and Barrack Obama both say they’re pro-gun too. Do you belive them?
No, because they both have records that say otherwise. When faced with a new candidate, you only know what they tell you. That’s why NRA endorsed the incumbent. Bob Casey said he was pro-gun. That’s all I had to go on. Like I said, my main goal was getting rid of Santorum, because he said the government has a place in my bedroom. That crosses my line. I thought Casey had issues, but I figured I could put up with him for six years if that’s what it took to get rid of Santorum.