The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
The National Park carry rule was just suspended by the courts. There is one bit of good news out of this:
The court did grant NRA’s motion to intervene in the cases. Under federal law, NRA is entitled to an immediate appeal, and NRA will exercise that right.
It appears that sport shooters, collecters, and self-defense whackos (according to AHSA) aren’t the only ones spending more money on their hobby right now. Hunting license sales are also on the rise here in Pennsylvania, turning around after years of losses. In fact, archery, muzzleloader, furtaker, bear, and migratory bird licenses are also on the rise.
The former opponent of NRA-endorsed Congressmen Charlie Dent has been tapped to help women run for office. Even though we are not volunteers in that district, we did reach out to Dent’s campaign for signs and other materials when we did events on the northern edge of Bucks County since they would regularly draw some of his constituents. When I did a bit of research on the race to see what his competition looked like, it wasn’t hard to make the decision which one would be less of an embarrassment.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_7up-ZGams[/youtube]
Yes, came from out of no where. Or maybe another planet. We’re not sure yet. (To see the full speech described as a “meltdown,” click here.) It gets better. During the Congressional campaign, she lied about local banks folding, and the media was so concerned that her statements would end up costing shareholders and customers money – in addition to doing harm to two local employers – that they actually censored the debate and covered her mouth when she said the names.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUqC36DDRP8[/youtube]
So in addition to just being weird, her understanding of “business” (something the group tapped her for, according to their statement) could have cost her neighbors their jobs and savings.
There’s not much out there on her, but she seems to run for office and lose. She lost in a district that leans Democratic in both voting history and registered voters in an overwhelmingly Democratic year. So the Women’s Campaign Forum decided she was just the kind of leader they wanted to help them achieve their goals – getting more pro-choice women elected to office. Something doesn’t quite fit here.
Of course, though they claim to be non-partisan, given that their website is managed by Blue State Digital and they donated 97% of their funds in 2008 to Democrats, I guess we should be thankful they are bringing in a leader who doesn’t know how to win a campaign.
Those damn polar bears are up to no good. You think they are all cute, but then they go and screw us. Or rather, US Senators are up to no good in the name of polar bears – no good that will very likely get in the way of economic recovery and any efforts to encourage more energy independence.
Last year, the Bush Administration put the polar bear on the threatened species list. We interviewed NRA-ILA’s Darren LaSorte at the Blog Bash about the issue since he works on hunting policy.
As part of the listing, they Administration also said that federal permits could not be held up to lawsuits seeking to stop projects based on their potential threats to polar bears. Now, the Senate has voted to repeal that protection. You want more power plants? Sorry, that might kill a polar bear which might be threatened at some point in the future. You want more oil exploration? Lawsuits won’t be about the actual impact on animals around the exploration site, now they will be about the potential impact on animals thousands of miles away. This should be fun.
There is always some confusion about the NRA ballot. There are so many seats – many more than most people are used to in any organization – and the Nominating Committee supports more candidates than seats. But what happens when people get it wrong? Easy, their ballot is considered to be invalid. The folks who scan the ballots don’t aim to be Florida election officials, so they tend not to try and determine the proverbial hanging chads.
I will confess that one of my favorite times of the NRA Annual Meeting is when Jim Land gets up to read the election results. Included in that report is a summary of how many invalid ballots they received, as well as the reasons why various ballots were declared invalid. I find it quite amusing.
I realize that lines may make this chart a little confusing. However, they were easier to follow year-to-year than just plain dots.
Yes, as you can see, there are between 10 and 50 people who, for the last three years, have saved a ballot from a previous year and submitted that one. That’s impressive. It’s one thing if they just hold on to a copy of the old magazine, but to actually take the time to send in the ballot during the voting period the next year, that’s just crazy.
The most common problem is clearly too many votes. This year, you may vote for up to 26. However, if you don’t have 26 people that you’re just dying to vote for, then it is advised you limit your votes. So-called bullet voting helps your favorite candidates more than spreading out votes across the entire ballot.
I’m doing this guest post because I know Sebastian is busy this morning, and he asked me to post. Last spring, I did a couple of posts on my old blog about random facts on NRA voting. It was timed to the Annual Meeting since that’s where such announcements are made. However, I think these random facts and figures are far more relevant now than in May after all the ballots are cast. In light of that, I’ve now made pretty charts that, in some cases, make it easier to visualize the trends – or lack thereof.
For a little bit of background on this data, the 2006-2007 sources are the annual meeting reports from the previous year that I managed to hold onto after recent NRA meetings. The 2008 data was scribbled very quickly during the meeting in Louisville.
As you can see, during the last few years, voting member populations have remained quite stable. Even though we know through anecdotal evidence that NRA membership was rising as the threat of a Democratic presidency rose, the number of voting members didn’t change substantially. Based on this very limited data, we can reasonably assume that the biggest changes NRA sees in its membership are the folks who join for a year or two and then likely forget to renew or refuse to renew because their free hat didn’t arrive fast enough. If you stay long enough to become a voting member, you’ll likely stay active for a long time.
When working with such large numbers, it’s hard to see in the charts what the trends are in terms of voting. But by doing the math and plugging the percentage of ballots cast into a chart, we can get a better idea. I have no idea if the overall percentage of voting members is really on the rise. By only looking at three years of data, it’s impossible to see a trend. In 2006, there were few “celebrity” candidates, which may have lead to a depressed turnout. But, 2007’s biggest “celebrity” name was Ollie North, and 2008 was Tom Selleck. I would expect that Tom Selleck would generally be able to inspire more folks to return their ballots than Ollie.
While we wait for Sebastian to finish up his Board Member interviews, tomorrow I’ll do a post on how many people screw up their ballots – and the many bizarre ways they find to get it so very wrong.
So apparently the inability of some of you to read who authors posts means no more guest posting for me. No, this isn’t coming down as a request, but I’m appalled at how some of you are so ready to personally insult people that you can’t take the time to read an entire post in it’s context, including the author. So bye.
Anyone who lived in the DC television market probably remembers the Michael Steele ads from his Senate bid in 2006.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svzDQivKq8Y[/youtube]
I have to say, I like that he’s different. He’s an out-of-the-box thinker, or at least willing to give those who have ideas for these non-traditional messages a go. No, I don’t agree with him on every policy point. In fact, I probably disagree with him more than I agree with him. But the role of RNC Chair isn’t about setting policy or casting votes on the House or Senate floors. He’s there to raise money, promote the brand, and run a great election shop. It will be interesting to see how Steele performs.
A few days ago I outlined how people could step up and throw some visible and measurable support behind New York’s junior senator. I warned against gun owners who go with the “wait and see” approach that would encourage all of our guys to sit on the sidelines and show no support until she proves herself again. What were some of the early responses? “I will just sit back to wait and see.”
First, reward her for recent past behavior. The fact is that gun issues don’t come up that often in the Senate. She signed on to the Heller brief, joining only six other members of Congress from New York. She’s got a high rating based on her past actions which are the best prediction of her future actions. Even the wait-and-see advocate SayUncle admitted in his above-linked post that she’s said nothing that indicates she’ll be flipping on the issue.
Second, give her an incentive to stay with us. Show her that her position reaps rewards. So what if she frames the debate publicly as about hunting? That’s her family heritage and a background that many gun owners in her district share. In the latest survey, there were about half a million resident hunters in New York that spend about $788 million annually and support approximately 11,500 jobs in the state. That’s a pretty sizeable constituency. And if it makes her pro-gun record more tolerable for the NYC residents, so be it. Remember, Heller had nothing to do with hunting, and she supported it.
New numbers show that this is simply not a time to sit back to wait and see.
The survey of New York registered voters said 21 percent are prepared to support her in 2010 while 29 percent prefer someone else. A big part of that work she has to do is with her own party where that figure is 20 percent for her in 2010 and 28 percent against, (by contrast, 24 percent of Republicans say they would support her while 28 percent are opposed). Among Democrats, 63 percent would like to see someone challenge her in a primary while only 11 percent want to see her run unopposed.
Gillibrand’s biggest hurdle will likely be a primary challenge. There is a possibility that Rudy stepping into the general election could be a huge hurdle since they are statistically tied in a hypothetical match-up. And in that case, who would gun owners trust more: a Democrat who comes from the part of the state that still votes pro-gun and who has a record of supporting gun rights or a Republican who ran on gun control and ran the part of the state that has some of the most oppressive gun laws in the country?
After my last post, she has more than 150 new supporters on Facebook. There were some who confirmed via comments or emails that they donated. It’s time for others to get on board. She’s proven herself in the past, let’s reward her and show her that it’s a good thing to stick with us.
It’s pretty clear that the media is not going to let Gillibrand’s support of gun rights go away right now. Given that, it’s important that gun owners step up and support her.
One poll already shows that 26% of New Yorkers would be less likely to vote for her because of her pro-gun positions, whereas only 16% would be more likely to vote for her. Fortunately, 41% said they didn’t care. We need to show her that it matters. Those 16% need to show up and/or open their wallets. There’s no way that 26% will show up for the competition on any other day than Election Day. So let’s show Gillibrand that there is no loss to being pro-gun. That with an active 16%, we can easily top their 26%.
There are other things you can do like become a supporter of her Facebook page. It’s not as strong as getting on her email list, but it’s public, and they can get an idea of what their supporters are interested in.
One of the biggest risks I see for gun owners could easily be caused by our own inaction. Right now, the media is leaning on her, expecting her to change her positions. Other Dems are saying that now that she reprents the entire state, she needs to turn against guns. Because of this, I suspect many gun owners are going to convince themselves to take a “let’s wait and see” approach to getting involved. If we do that, we shoot ourselves in the foot. Get on board, show her we care and that we’ll support her, and she will be far less likely to give a damn about those anti-gun voters. If we can help her reach out to independents and finance her ability to reach out to Dems on other issues, then we will keep a pro-gun vote in the Senate.
She is going to need a lot of money. She’s only got about $250,000 cash on hand. She’s considered to be a great fundraiser, but a Senate race in New York is not cheap. She will need millions heading into next year.