Pennsylvania is being touted by the Brady Campaign as a model of the gun lobby’s ineffectiveness:
As for the next primary state, Pennsylvania, the state with supposedly the highest per capita NRA membership, gun control supporters regularly win there statewide: Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Al Gore (against strong NRA opposition) in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004.
Even more telling, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell – someone who just two years ago said, “I believe with all my heart that we need more gun control†– has won two gubernatorial elections against NRA-endorsed opponents, beating Mike Fisher in 2002 by nine points and Lynn Swann in 2006 by 20 points.
I would point out that Rendell was completely mum on the gun issue in his election and reelection campaigns. It wasn’t until he had lame duck status that he started pushing the issue harder. Fisher and Swann ran awful campaigns, against a well financed and smooth talking Ed Rendell. Rendell is a talented politician, Fischer wasn’t, and Swann wasn’t even a politician.
But the point is valid. Pennsylvanians are often Democrats before they are gun owners, and will pull the lever for an anti-gun politician if he has the right letter after his name in a national race.
But the Brady’s make the mistake of assuming that running on gun control is a vote winning issue. It is a vote losing issue, because there is no passion for gun control in Pennsylvania, or anywhere else. Not enough to make people pull the voting lever based on the issue. Take a good look at the picture here. Every single one of these folks showed up on their own, many taking a day off work to attend. And this is with very little involvement of the NRA in the planning or promotion of this rally. It was all state level groups who organized and promoted this. There are many of us who will vote on the gun issue alone, when it comes election time. The real reason groups like the Brady Campaign lack any real political power is because they have no grass roots. Where are the anti-gun people linking to me to challenge my assumptions? Where are the anti-gun commenters? Why does the City of Philadelphia have to provide bus service and give days off work to get people to turn out to rallies favoring gun control?  The passion is on our side, not theirs, which is why we win and they lose.  They can try to spin it all they want, but that’s the reality.
“The real reason groups like the Brady Campaign lack any real political power is because they have no grass roots.”
Oh, but don’t you realize that the Brady Bunch has 150,000 e-activists that recieve their emails?
Oh wait, that’s just us doing reconnaissance, never mind.
You make a more valid point about pro-gunnies voting on the gun issue alone. The antis don’t really vote for a candidate based soley on their gun-control stance. I even take it a step further and vote based on their stance on the entire Bill Of Rights and the Constitution, not just the 2A.
It’s just the usual wishful thinking on the part of the libs who seem to think that if they close their eyes and click their heels together three times and wish REAL hard what they wish for will become reality. Not that they’d ever recognize reality.