Gun Rights Organizations – Page 27 – Shall Not Be Questioned

NRA’s Outreach to the Undecideds

Adage has a really good profile on NRA’s recent campaign expenditures targeting undecided/low information voters in swing states. Here are some highlights:

[NRA has] invested upwards of $11 million this fall in TV, radio and online ads (not including a direct-mail and phone piece) aimed at undecided voters in the usual-suspect list of swing states that includes Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin and Virginia. A hefty 32% of that budget has been allotted for digital, including pre-roll video ads, full-page interstitial ads on news sites like denverpost.com, and page skins on Pandora, according to Brad Todd, a partner at the Republican media shop On Message Inc., which is handling the buying in electronic channels. …

[I]t’s suburban men who aren’t active hunters or shooters but who agree with the NRA philosophically or on the grounds of self-defense who are the focus of the ad campaign, which entered full throttle in October and will continue through Election Day. A decision was made to invest heavily in sports content and to mostly eschew news, a departure from the tack taken by Priorities USA and Restore Our Future, the super PACs backing President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Mr. Todd said.

“We believe that premium content matters for undecided voters because they don’t seek political news,” he said. “If they were political news seekers, they likely wouldn’t be undecided in October.”

Emphasis added by me. I just have to laugh about it. Low information voters are both annoying and a source of comic relief for those of us who follow politics. Hell, I had to raise an eyebrow at the woman wondering out loud this morning why we needed two lines – one of which was much shorter than the other. She didn’t even know that they were for two different precincts. I informed her, but I’m not sure she knew what a precinct was, she just kind of said “ah” and went quiet. But back to the topic of NRA spending, this is the breakdown compared to the campaigns in their October spending:

During the week of Oct. 15, for example, the NRA’s TV mix for the swing-voter campaign was 78% sports, 12% late-night (centered on the likes of David Letterman and Jay Leno), 7% prime time and just 2% news. Meanwhile, data Mr. Todd pulled for Obama backer Priorities USA for a week in October shows 40% of TV spending going toward morning programming — which suggests a focus on women — and that sports accounted for roughly 1% of gross ratings points purchased. Estimates for Romney backer Restore Our Future show spending more evenly balanced across times of day, but only 14% of GRPs going toward sports, Mr. Todd said.

There’s more detail in the story, so go read the whole thing if this sort of thing interests you.

We’ll probably be talking more about some of the things that NRA has done to really create a GOTV structure independent of parties and individual candidate campaigns this year that both Sebastian & I think has real promise at keeping the Second Amendment in the minds of voters who lean our way.

Sometimes the Media Surprises You

I’m surprised to see USA Today running an op-ed by Wayne LaPierre before the electionÂ that takes issue with a previous anti-gun editorial regarding the election. Traditionally, it’s been rather difficult for NRA to get opinion pieces placed with hostile media outlets. I guess the mainstreaming of the issue has its advantages.

Coverage of the Courts in NRA Ads

I was pleased to see this ad:

UPDATE: Also this from the Florida Senate Race:

Making the Case Against Obama

CNN is covering the NRA’s stepped up campaign for this election season:

The new commercial charges that Obama is jeopardizing people’s rights to defend themselves and specifically mentions the president’s nominations to the Supreme Court – Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

Finally! Bitter is working up some video of the Justice Stevens event, which I’m hoping can show how important the court issue is. Stevens was put on the bench by Gerald Ford, but at the time gun control was still a bipartisan issue. We’ll need to understand the importance of the Court as a movement no matter who controls the White House. It’s worth remembering that Bush wanted Harriet Meyers on the Supreme Court instead of Justice Alito. It was outrage from within the GOP, and among the various interest groups on the right in DC that brought her nomination down. Getting our people primed for a Court fight is one reason I want to see this issue get more coverage than it does.

A Bit on NRA’s New Media Efforts

NRA is running a Magpul raffle on Facebook. Obviously you’re not paying anything to enter the raffle, but you’re giving them your contact info, which helps increase NRA’s reach. They are also, with the upcoming election, they have announced a new Facebook App, which is roughly the social media equivalent of a bumper sticker, in that it’ll dress up your Timeline banner. I give NRA a lot of crap for technology disfunction, but this is a pretty good effort, and innovative. Certainly you don’t see any of the gun control groups doing anything like this.

Our Friends of the NRA Raffle

For those who bought tickets for our Bucks County Friend of the NRA 1911 raffle (and we thank each and every one of you who did), we did have our drawing last night for the three 1911s, and I am pleased to report that someone who got their ticket through our blog won the Kimber. This makes sense since we sold about 1/3rd of the 200 tickets in the raffle though the blog. In the interest of privacy, we won’t announce the winners names, but we will announce the winners had ticket numbers 25, 87, and 129. I thank everyone who played, because you really made an impact. As a new Friends of the NRA Committee, we have certain fundraising goals each year, and because of you all who entered, we exceeded that. Without you, we would have come in under our goal.

Our dinner, plus this raffle, allowed us to raise approximately $7600 for the NRA Foundation, half of which will stay in Eastern Pennsylvania, where it will be used to fund grants, most of which are related to youth shooting programs. Remember that every kid who learns to shoot, and learns proper and safe gun handling makes the anti-gunners cry, and that’s worth the price of entry even if you didn’t win.

We may do another raffle next year, or possibly one head of our dinner in spring. It has yet to be determined by our committee.

We Were Protested

Back from the legal seminar. Heeding God’s Call apparently decided they were going to protest, since I guess God doesn’t like Second Amendment law seminars. Throngs of people showed up, with tons of enthusiasm and energy. We were overwhelmed by their presence. Or not:

One woman is wielding a sign that says “Stop Shooting People,” which is a serious problem when you bring academics and lawyers together in one place. Perhaps they thought the seminar happening in the Ormandy Ballroom was just a clever cover for the arms bazaar that was no doubt occurring in the Mogadishu Ballroom on the next floor. But what was going on inside?

Clayton Cramer talking about the history of California’s Concealed Weapons laws. Seated to his right is Professor Nick Johnson of Fordham University, who had just given a talk on firearms and the black experience. Seated to the right of Professor Johnson is John Frazer, Director of Research for NRA-ILA who spoke himself, and also moderated the forum. Clearly very dangerous people who’d make a regular habit of “shooting people” if not for protesters holding signs.

Law Seminar in Philadelphia This Weekend

NRA is hosting a legal seminar this weekend in Philadelphia, which Bitter and I will be attending. There are people coming in from all around, so if you’re going to be there, we’ll see you there. I don’t know who is and who isn’t coming, but later tonight I’ll be giving Clayton Cramer a lift from the airport to the hotel where the seminar is hosted, so I know he’s coming at least.

Also, sorry for the light posting the past several days. I’ve been in the office, which kills two to three hours of my day on the commute, and because I’m not in the office all the time, I have to use my time here judiciously when there’s things I have to get done on site. We will return back to our normal schedule shortly.

NRA Ads

Jacob doesn’t think too highly of this particular NRA Ad:

While I am sympathetic to the fact that 15 second spots are cheap, and that’s not much time to get the message through, what is the message here, other than our Second Amendment rights are under attack? And we don’t get to that until we cover a bunch of things that have nothing to do with the Second Amendment.

And why is NRA having such a difficult time this election talking about the real issue, which is who Obama will put on the federal bench, particularly the Supreme Court? Do focus groups show no one cares about the Second Amendment this election? Even among people who supposedly care about the Second Amendment? Do they show that no one understands or cares about the courts? I’ve heard Court arguments coming from Chris Cox, the head of ILA, but I don’t hear it coming from anywhere else in NRA. It’s like we’re “All In” this election, but only that Obama is bad. And why? Well, you’ll just have to take our word for it. It wouldn’t convince me if I wasn’t already convinced.

UPDATE: Here’s the 30 second spot:

Chicago Tribune All But Accuses NRA of Stabbing Obama in the Back

This is beyond the pale:

When he ran in 2008, Barack Obama sang from the National Rifle Association hymnal: “I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in peopleâ€™s lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I wonâ€™t take your handgun away.”

It’s not surprising to see an interest group oppose a politician who breaks a promise. But the NRA is punishing one who kept his. This week, the group endorsed Mitt Romney.

So Obama never threatened to re-impose the ban on semi-automatic rifles disingenuously known as the “assault weapons ban?” He didn’t jeopardize the most important project we face right now, to define the scope of the Second Amendment in the courts, by appointing one justice who already voted to redact the Second Amendment from the Constitution, and another who likely will follow along as well? And the Obama Administration has certainly not worked with the UN to lay the groundwork for UN control over international trade in small arms? The Tribune acts like we’re insane to think anything other than confiscation matters.

OK, so Obama promised not to start a bloody civil war over by promising not to unlawfully confiscate private arms. That was never even on the table as a possibility, and it’s not a promise that was remotely hard for the President to keep. This is a straw man. It’s not the issue. The issue is that, objectively, Obama has put the Second Amendment in grave jeopardy though his court appointments, and is still on record as supporting banning the sale of a broad category of popular and common firearms. The case could be made that perhaps Romney didn’t deserve an endorsement either (given the Court risks, it’s not one I’d make this election cycle, but the case can be made), but that’s not what the Tribune has argued here. Sometimes I wonder if the media are just so many fools, or whether they think we’re fools.