I think folks can hold a reasonable opinion on either side of whether or not the NRA issuing a member alert over Holder’s confirmation vote is a wise thing. Erick at Redstate thinks they ought to go one up and threaten grades over Holder, which I think is considerably less defensible.
First off, threatening grades is something you can only get away with a few times, and we have no idea how many gun control bills we are going to need to stop in the 111th Congress. Each time you ding a politician’s grade, he has less incentive to care every subsequent time you threaten to ding it. Like a razor, it gets duller with every single use. At the end of a term, when a politician finds himself graded low, you better be able to unseat him, or he’s not liable to care about how you grade him in the next Congress. Why should he? The implicit threat of a low grade is that you lose your seat. It’s easy for Gun Owners of America to grade politicians on Holder because GOA does not use its grades as a political tool. GOA doesn’t have the membership numbers to threaten anyone’s seat, or offer material support to allies.
I would also mention to Erick of Redstate that The National Rifle Association is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP. NRA has no choice but to play nice with Democrats in the 111th Congress because they are in the majority. The Republicans do not have the votes to stop gun control bills short of using a filibuster in the Senate, and I’m sorry, but I don’t have faith that one or two RINOs in the Senate won’t break ranks with the party and vote for cloture on, say, a new assault weapons ban.
As a member, I expect the National Rifle Association to fight gun control in the 111th Congress. If they have to get down on their hands and knees and kiss Harry Reid’s rosey red ass as part of a deal to stop a gun control bill, I’ll buy them the lip balm.
