NRA becomes toxic when exposed to light, says Dan Gross:
In the weeks since George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin, corporate America has been force fed a crash survey of public opinion on gun policy. Some of America’s most popular –and message-savvy — companies announced their swift verdict when they, and then ALEC, withdrew support for the National Rifle Association’s paranoid, violent agenda.
You’d think with Gross’s background, he’d know that corporate PR departments generally eschew any kind of controversy. The reason they put the screws to ALEC is because they were looking to ALEC to defend their economic interests, and didn’t want to be associated with ancillary issues like gun rights or voting rights. Sean makes a very cogent argument that the real target of this was the Voter ID law. In this case, the astroturf campaign run by Soros seized upon the Trayvon Martin shooting as a means to defang ALEC, and ALEC, being largely funded by corporate interests, obliged.
But nothing in Gross’s wild eyed ramblings changes the fact that a movement that has people power does not require the use of ALEC. They believe the tide is turning in their favor. I think that entirely depends on us. It is time to awaken the sleeping giant. Tell your shooting buddies to get ready, because over the next several months, everything we worked for the past two decades is going to be under fierce attack, and it will all be on the line. All of it. But if we go into 2013 having beaten them, they’ll be finished. This is our opportunity.
So much for “moneyed corporate interests” being immune to public pressure. Wasn’t that the argument against Citizen’s United? (Not that anyone against CU will see the intellectual dishonesty there)
Thanks for the link.
Here’s what I don’t get. Why is the Obama administration letting its front groups stir up gun control issues right before an election? Are they really that stupid? Or do they think that they are politically smarter than Bill Clinton?
That must be it. They are so smart and so educated that they are going to succeed where Bill Clinton failed. I keep forgetting that the Left hates Bill Clinton as much as we do. They supported him because we attacked and impeached him, not because they liked the triangulating SOB.
He gets to make trouble for organizations opposing him, without actually suffering damage himself. For the folks who barely pay attention, which is most voters, Obama gets to keep clean, while using his attack dogs to stir up trouble for NRA.
Plausible deniability.
The lefty social issues are needed to get energy into the people who generally won’t vote but who came out in 2008 for Obama. Recent polling suggests that those “one-time voter” Obama supporters do not feel urgent need to vote, so they may just stay out of it. College students, minorities and supporters of lefty causes are the target. As are women (another topic).
Using Media Matters and other lefty groups lets them bring on the social arguments without actually doing it themselves. Sympathetic media organizations (NY Times, WashPo, etc.) can then pick up the signal and amplify it. But then again, the WashPo just got completely left out of the Pulitzers this year and are smarting over it – that’s what ignoring some of the biggest scandals will get you: nothing.
Polling also suggests 2008 is in play, but from another angle: in 2008 the argument was against “Bush” and the GOP due to high resentment from liberals for 8 years of whatever they did not like. This time around, the same conditions appear to be forming around Obama: you often hear the words, “anybody but Obama”. Democratic pollsters are hearing them, too.
The concern for Obama people is that their one-time 2008 voters are not energized and stay home, while at the same time a number of people on the right get off their couch and make it to the polls to vote against Obama, even if not for Romney.
These numbers are marginal, but if all the other demographics continue as they are, then the marginal votes are going to have a big voice. The only demographic right now up for serious contention is the so-called “women’s vote” and they have been tracking toward Obama until recently, when they leveled out some. White males are overwhelmingly Romney right now. Hispanics are about where they were expected to fall, though any Romney improvement there will gouge Obama math.
This is why the social issues are going to be forefront. It is a risky strategy that could backfire on certain issues (witness Catholic Church anger – usually a Democratic institution).
Riling up the 2A crowd is kinda dumb, and I don’t think the Zimmerman thing is about guns. I think it is really about race. They are going to dance a fine line there. Taking on guns issues is seriously risky, because some Democratic voters will switch on that alone, especially when you consider the union bosses have already signaled their displeasure with Obama. It opens the door to saying, “he doesn’t support anything I do, so I might as well stay home or pull for the other guy.”
What makes you think that Obama and his circle are in control? I’ve noted before that the bureaucracies are doing things that are making it hard for the political part of the administration to save political capital. What makes you think they have tight control of the various NGO Fellow Travelers?
Alternative version, much worse for the Obama Campaign – they are one of the front groups for $LEFTIST_ILLUMINATI$. I toy with the idea that George Soros is the one with his hand up the ventriloquist’s dummy. Not seriously, but every so often I wonder…
Kinda Amazing that Paul “Finger Twitch” Helmke was the saner more rational voice of the Brady Campaign.
And of course my meme that ALL Gun-Control advocates are Jadegold holds true!
I really don’t know much about ALEC, but I do remenber one of Paul Krugman’s articles about a month ago, where he makes the claim that they are the shadowy force behind all these evil “Stand Your Ground” laws. Of course anybody on our side of this issue knows the true nature of gun nuttery – that our strength doesn’t come from one central “hive mind” like the other side.
We will continue to be a force without ALEC (which I know almost nothing about) or even the NRA. They are a snake that can be crippled without their “head”.
ALEC devised so-called “model laws” for the conservative side of state and local legislatures. When it comes to gun issues, we have a number of model laws already enacted we can push from the state level using state-oriented groups.
– Florida’s HB45 (pre-emption with teeth) is already creeping into federal bills and I think this law is going to be copied in several places.
– Wisconsin’s laws on training and permits (statutory requirements) are also going to get interest.
– Anything in the so-called “Constitutional Carry” camp is already moving forward.
– Campus Carry everywhere
– Restaurant/Bar Bills are moving forward, pushed by state groups
ALEC did not define gun laws. We have a lot of examples we can use if we want them. Add to that the fact we have a lot of smart people always looking for ways to undo the damage already done.
Our movement does not need a central authority to give us strategy – The loss of groups like ALEC is not going to harm gun rights in the USA. The easiest way for us to devise gun-rights legislation is selectively erasing decades of gun control laws. We don’t need new ideas, we just need to undo the old ones.
This is why the prohibitionists have such a hard time. They need to constantly come up with new arguments. We just need to keep pointing out the fallacies of their old ones.
We don’t need a centrally-designed master strategy. The gun control crowd gave us our a guidebooks back in the 90s: we just open our handy state lawbooks and start hitting back.
Of course, we are playing for keep. We have something we did not have in the 90s – a verified, fundamental civil right.
It doesn’t matter. The media and powers that be have decided that obama will be re-selected as president. This ‘election’ is a sham and your vote has become totally worthless. With obama getting 10 times more campaign money from the wealthy, wall st. and big buisness. The house and senate will be totally taken over by democrats, SCOTUS will have at least 2 judes die and replaced with obama pawns, Heller and McDonaled will be overturned and the UN treaty WILL pass which will make gun ownership blanket illegal. Oh, and that EPA lead thing, that will pass too.
Expect him either to not bother anymore or to literally remove the 2nd ammendment from the US constitution.
And there is NOTHING you can do. No amount of anything you can do will change this outcome. Try as you might the decision has already been reached but the people that REALLY control the elections and the total end of gun rights in this country is 100% assured by 2016. I would like to be more optimistic but I can’t. We have already made sure that obama is re-selected president. The media and the left’s strategy of divide and conquer has already succeeded and due to that people will not vote for Romney.
Don’t suppose you want to put money on those predictions in total?
I understand the value of being pessimistic–after all, Idon’t think there’s ever been an election so handed on a silver platter that a Republican can’t screw up–but this is a bit over the top.
After all, when Reagan campaigned against Carter, Carter had the media support, and that wasn’t enough for Carter to win. Similarly, there have been candidates for office who won, despite being outspent 20 to 1.
While having the media and the donors on your side certainly helps, they aren’t everything. You need to be a good candidate, too–and Obama is *certainly* not a good candidate! He was only less bad than McCain, at least sort-of, until he actually took the Oath of Office. But this notion that Obama is some sort of Invincible Supervillian has always been absurd, from the get-go.
Of course, trusting Mittens when he gets into office is another thing entirely…