Jacob brings up an interesting question in regards to the 2016 election cycle:
I wonder if [Governor Cuomo] was set up, possibly by supporters of Hillary and/or other Democrat interests who would benefit by his greatly diminished stature?  I haven’t seen anyone try and claim credit for knocking him down (yet.).
I’m not sure they are really playing that kind of 3 dimensional Chess, but the Clintons are well aware of what his issue is capable of. It does make you wonder if someone is thinking ahead. The Democrats don’t control that many states, and Governor’s mansions are usually one of the better stepping stones to the White House. O’Mally, Cuomo, Hickenlooper, and Malloy are all potentially strong rivals to Hillary in 2016, have all soiled themselves by voting for extreme gun control measures. Again, I’d be surprised, but the Clintons are very shrewd politically, and still have a lot of clout in the Democratic Party by being allied with a lot of big donors. This was probably a case of heads the Clintons win and tails the Clintons win.
UPDATE: And when you consider that the working class, blue collar Dems that Hillary was strong with and who also sent Giron packing in Colorado, it really does make you go “Hmmmm…” doesn’t it?
Obama, for his part, only went all in for gun control after he got reelected and was thus term-limted.
Interesting that a lot of dem govenors with aspirations didn’t note that bit of timing.
The simpler explanation is that it represents a schism between practical politicians like the Clintons and more ideological ones like Bloomberg.
Bloomberg seems to be attempting to force Blue Dog dems to either hop on the ideological bandwagon or get out of the D-tent. He seems to be willing to accept a smaller, more ideologically pure party. Honestly I suspect a lot of dems, feeling emboldened by their recent electoral victories and thinking that Demographics are Destiny, feel like they can go the left and jettison some of those knuckle-dragging rural union types in flyover country.
Clinton won by keeping the traditional Democratic party’s base active as well as being reasonably appealing to “blue dog” type voters.
Victims of their own rhetoric? The “conventional wisdom” is that the “God, guns, gays” wing of the Republican Party captured their national organization via the Tea Party. Perhaps the ideologues of the Democratic party wish to do the same to theirs?
Bloomberg is not a typical Democrat nor is he hyping the democratic party. He’s just an ideologue that has his own agenda and in the case of guns, the democrats are more likely to be his allies. He doesn’t care what party wins as long as they are anti gun.
He has changed parties several times whenever it suited him politically.
If it was a set up by the Clintons, there was some serious Judo going on, because Bill warned Democrats to stay away from the issue, as no good could come of it.
That just gives him plausible deniability!
I think Sebastian’s right on it being a heads-tails thing.
Either way they’d win.
Cuomo has a god complex, fueled by his privileged upbringing and the obsequious New York media. Fortunately, New York is an outlier, and what happens in New York has no bearing on what happens in the rest of the United States.
America has not suddenly changed, despite what the liberals and their media lackeys may think.
A New York Governor will NEVER become President of this country.