Apparently American Gun Owners Alliance, a group I’ve never heard of until reading this article, is “encouraging its members to support McGinty”, apparently unaware that there is the option to not cast a vote in that race if you think Toomey is unacceptable. Go ahead and do that. I wouldn’t blame you. This is the kind of shit that makes me want to beat my head against a brick wall repeatedly. Seriously guys, you have more options than voting for one party’s candidate or the other if you want to send a message.
And to be clear, I’ve expressed before that I’m not sure it’s in our short term interests to knife Toomey’s candidacy in 2016, as opposed to 2022. So I’m also sympathetic to the groups that are reluctantly holding their noses. Sure, McGinty will be more junior than Toomey, but I feel a lot better about our chances to boot Toomey from that seat in an off year primary and holding the seat than I do about getting rid of Kate McGinty if she gets in. There’s also the possibility that Toomey can be convinced that his political self-interests resides in “coming back to Jesus,” so to speak. Stranger things have happened.
Thank you again for signaling your virtue about NOT VOTING. But let me remind you that however BAD Toomey is, he still has a (R) after his name. And if the next prezzi has a Senate full of “D”‘s, we can be assured of LOSING THE SUPREME COURT. Would that qualify as cutting off your nose to spite your face? You want to “do something”, then advocate for an Art.V constitutional convention. Congress is NOT going to give up it’s power. It has to be TAKEN AWAY. Term limits for ALL ELECTED AND APPPOINTED POSITIONS. Balanced budgets. Revise the rules Congress operates under to end their ability to exempt themselves from the laws they pass. Once that is accomplished, your holier than thou attitude won’t matter.
Did you miss the second paragraph?
The second paragraph was so tepid, I couldn’t tell what you were advocating.
I can see both sides of the argument. But I lean more toward we’re better off with Toomey in that seat than McGinty. I’d rather deal with Toomey in an off year election. Though, 2022 seems pretty far off to me right now.
Toomey is a self serving dickhead. Since nobody primaried him, you got what you got. 6 years from now, ? Nationally, every Senate seat matters. Either we get the asshole Trump or Hitler protegy Hitlery. PA may decide. Which side do you want to be on?
Also, if “Everyone I don’t like is literally Hitler” is the caricature of the left, “Virtue Signaling” is the same thing to the right. Sometimes people just disagree with you.
OH he has an (R) next to his name? WELL SOLD! I mean Toomey will sell us out on every gun control that matters, including SCOTUS. But at least he has an R.
And I think you need to look in the mirror for virtue signaling.
This is basically my view: There are a whole host of issues where I can’t trust him to vote the way I want him to vote, so I don’t see keeping him in office to have any significant benefit.
He’s willing to “cross the isle” to vote for all kinds of stuff democrats push, like gun control, so how can I trust him NOT to “cross the isle” when it comes to a bad SCOTUS pick?
On the other hand, strictly on the issue of firearms, his willingness to “cross the isle” is MASSIVELY bad for our issue: It gives cover to other RINOs who believe that they can get away with voting for “bipartisan” legislation, but can’t afford to be credited as a co-author. Toomey has been a credited co-author of an anti-gun bill that he has pushed no fewer than three separate times. Getting rid of him is a priority.
It has been my decision to vote for that butt head toomy in hope that the R group has more members in the senate than the D group. Yes, it’s all about the USSC.
What were Toomey’s pro-gun bona-fides prior to his election to the Senate?
What other 2A-related bills has he voted on, and which way did he vote? Was he ever really pro-gun, or did he just mouth the platitudes and have an ‘R’ after his name?
The reason I ask: You can’t have a “come back to Jesus” moment if you were never with Jesus to begin with.
His record was decent, but he had made statements indicating that he was open to restricting private sales.
“You can’t have a “come back to Jesus†moment if you were never with Jesus to begin with.”
Maybe not, but you [i]CAN[/i] have a “come to Jesus” moment. There are plenty of people born to other faiths that end up converting.
Well, in that analogy, almost every politician is faking it.
I smell a false flag operation.
I wondered that too.
Does your flag have a fringe on it? Do you pledge allegiance to the Queen of England?
He means anti-gun folks pretending to be a pro-gun group to promote Dem candidates. We’ve seen it before.
It is not a false flag op. I’ve know the folks behind AGOA for years. They are hard-core, 110% committed, dedicated, pro-gun and long-time OCers in NE PA. While it has been a couple years since I last talked to them, I’m sure that they are saying just what they mean and are disgusted by Toomey’s pandering and “treason” to the cause of fundamental liberty.
I disagree with the tactic – there is a lot more at stake than just the background check issue. If President and Senate both go “D” this election, we are probably totally screwed, with the nation looking a lot like CA has gone. We’ll be looking back fondly at fighting over just background checks.
I have NEVER before been so disgusted with the products of the political sausage makeing machine. However, I’ll eat the “R” choice since it will probably only make me sick for years, vs. the “D” wich will probably kill me.
Absolutely right JD and man it has been years! Miss you brother!
Hey JD and yes it has been a long time brother!
I sent this to Sebastian via email but I will also post it here:
Actually I never said in any article that I (or we) support McGinty. What I said (unless some editor bastardized the AP article again) was that we wanted to send a message to Toomey and the Republican party that we would not tolerate an anti-gun Republican that was backed by Michael Bloomberg. What none of these articles said (even though I specifically told Marc Levy from the AP during the interview) was this:
1. If Toomey is re-elected under Bloomberg’s ‘flag’ it will tell the Republican party that they can run, and win, using anti-gun rhetoric and money. They don’t care how they win they just want to win. At that point I can’t ever see another true conservative Republican running in this state again, especially up against Casey in the next election.
2. Toomey, if reelected will become a senior senator that will sit on several committees that could very well allow anti-gun bills out to the floor for a vote and honestly I think he will be beholden to Bloomberg to do that. We have seen him work against us several times before and with his new found power and backing he will do it again.
3. McGinty, even though we can’t stand her, would have next to no power whatsoever during her first term. She can bark and yell all she wants but that’s about as far as she could go.
4. I also told the AP reporter that it’s a scary election because if the witch becomes president and the Senate goes Democrat she will have the power to appoint SCOTUS judges that could effect us for decades. But I don’t think the Senate will go Democrat and even more so I know there are several pro-gun Democrats that could still hold them back. That being said I can also see Toomey voting to approve and anti-gun judge.
So yeah we are screwed in PA no matter how you shake it BUT if we just sit back and allow the PA Republican party to become true RINOS we are also screwed for many years to come.
DC Dalton – founder of the American Gun Owners Alliance
Thanks for the clarification. This pretty much sums up my feeling. Toomey is Bloomberg supported. He is our enemy. Why should we supported any Senator that is Bloomberg support, R or not? He will sell us out every way to Sunday if he wins, because then our gun vote is meaningless. They know they won’t need it.
We shouldn’t vote R because R. We should vote because they will support gun rights. Toomey won’t. We’ve seen what he’s done while up for election. Imagine now what he’ll do if he’s not.
Exactly my point … if we let the Republicans ‘morph’ into Democrats and we don’t tell them NNO! we are as bad as they are
I have known Dave Dalton, and AGOA, for years and he is a dedicated supporter of our Constitutional Freedoms. Dave and AGOA positions on Toomey are correct and mirror our, Firearms Owners Against Crime, concerns as well.
My points are geared toward the ethical positions of our organizations. IF it is perceived that we are ‘in any way’ not holding Toomey accountable for his positions in violating our ‘core beliefs’ then other politicians ‘will’ consider this retrenchment on our part as a an ethical lapse that can be exploited. This is why we worked so hard with trying to educate Toomey, DeSousa and Blackburn on the issues and how a failure to reconsider will be painting us into a political corner.
To explain, when we were at the 2nd Amendment Rally an activist made this same argument at a table in the morning with all of the gun owners of our group (@15) At the very next table was a group of pro-gun House members. When this was brought up I went to those legislators and asked them this question: IF we still supported Toomey after what he has done (they ALL knew) would that cause us (gun owners) problems down the road? To a ‘man’ and ‘woman’ (there were 8 legislators present) they ALL said, without equivocation, YES. In politics, the ‘lowest common denominator’ becomes the new standard. THAT is precisely the danger that the Toomey situation presents for all of us.
SO, Toomey ‘squeaked’ by last time ‘with’ our support and ‘if’ he wins this time after betraying us, politically, we will be neutered. This is the much larger disaster than McGinty winning. Make no mistake that I am in any way saying McGinty is not a disaster but Toomey is an even bigger one that will have long term consequences at not only the federal level but across the board.
It is also important to point out Toomey’ positions on Sotomayor (would’ve voted for her) and the deluge of Obama nominees to Federal Court that he has overwhelmingly supported. Toomey also was on the wrong side of two of the four votes on the ‘No Fly-No Buy’ issue. He has also failed to challenge the Obama Administration on their changes to the ITAR procedures and did ‘not’ sign the letter to John Kerry on this matter either. Oh, let’s not forget that the Toomey/Manchin bill on UBC had ‘critical flaws’ in it that Toomey admitted to my face (with witnesses) that he knew about, but did NOT correct. The list of misdeeds goes on and on.
This is why, on our (FOAC) voter’s guide, we have ‘no suitable candidate’ in the US Senate race. In politics perceptions are everything and we cannot and will not allow our hands to be tied by a self-serving oath-breaker. Additionally, our standing firm will encourage other candidates to know they can count on our positions on issues being firm and unwavering.
In the Primary, Toomey lost 251,000+ votes in under voting. In PA that is a clear sign of ‘no confidence’ and almost replicates the Sen. Santorum disaster. Seems like Republicans never learn that we ‘do’ care about Freedom.
Kim Stolfer
FOAC, President
http://www.foac-pac.org
Just glanced through the American Rifleman article about the Senate races this year. Of course absent from this article was the PA Senate race. Looks like the NRA wants to avoid another Harry Reid situation.
Look, from a PR standpoint, we’re screwed either way. Bloomberg is backing Toomey and CeaseFire is backing McGinty. In other words, regardless of who wins, an anti-gun group is going to scream about having a “mandate” and “beating the NRA”.
I tend to agree with the points our FOAC and AGOA cohorts are making here. While there’s no way in hell I’m voting for McGinty or supporting her, I’m also not going to vote for a Republican who has been backed by Bloomberg. The minute a pro-gun federal or state legislator realizes that changing demographics will elicit re-election even by backing away from 2A rights, they will do it (See: Eastern PA). Supporting Toomey sends that message loud and clear I feel like.
Not backing Toomey is kind of like sabotaging the supply dump as your army retreats. We know we lost this one, but let’s think strategic here. Would it be easier to primary Toomey out in 2022? Many of our compatriots seem eager to stay on the sinking ship of social conservatism, so anybody running against him will be a hardliner in a state increasingly becoming blue. Or can we boot a junior Senator out for a R that is pro-gun but not crazy enough in other areas to draw too much attention to it? Our prospects for the Senate in 2018 are better as well, so by the time McGinty runs for re-election she may not even matter all that much anyway.
And as for the USSC, well, I have don’t have much faith in Toomey opposing any anti-gun nominee put forth by a Clinton WH.