Fairfax, VA-Today the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) expanded its advertising campaign with the release of additional commercials further detailing Sen. Barack Obama’s long anti-gun record in battleground states across the country. The NRA-PVF commercials began airing Monday in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Minnesota and Michigan.
These ads, which expose the truth about Obama’s record opposing the rights of law-abiding gun owners, are currently running in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Colorado. The media spots feature a variety of people from all walks of life, including war veterans, hunters, families and former law enforcement officers criticizing the many anti-gun and anti-hunter votes cast by Obama as a state and as a U.S. Senator. NRA-PVF is also running Spanish-language commercials in several states.
I understand that NRA is trying to attack Biden here, and I fully support that, but I would beware of highlighting articles that have language like this:
Just imagine what the sneering left intelligentsia, in the United States and elsewhere, would have said if a Republican vice-presidential candidate had told CBS News that “when the stockmarket crashed [in 1929], Franklin Roosevelt got on television” and informed Americans what had happened.
Gun rights isn’t a left/right, Democrat Republican issue right? As it turns out, the article linked to had some bits that would have been far better to highlight from a gun standpoint:
The feminist Maureen Dowd has depicted Palin as “the glamorous Pioneer Woman, packing a gun, a baby and a Bible”. Professor Wendy Doniger, of the University of Chicago, has gone further, declaring that Palin’s “greatest hypocrisy is her pretence that she is a woman”. And the NBC News commentator Andrea Mitchell has been reported as maintaining that “only the uneducated would vote for Mrs Palin”.
NRA needs to be careful not to turn this into a left/right divide. It often is, but that’s not ideally how we want to frame it. It’s one thing to highlight gaffes from candidates who are against us, even if they are gaffes on other issues, but we must take pains not to come off as blatantly partisan when doing so, or diluting the pro-Second Amendment message by mixing them with other issues.
I actually won a gun in one of the raffles at the Bucks County Friends of the NRA dinner! I never win anything. From the Friends of the NRA merchandise:
NRA Edition Marlin .17HMR
Imported from Italy by Marlin, each rifle includes a carbon fiber dipped stock, four-shot and seven-shot clip magazines, and stainless steel heavy bull barrel. Perfect for a long day at the range or hunting varmint. With the NRA logo lasered on its stock, this rifle will boost any hunter’s collection.
That’s not all I got either. I bid in the silent auction too, and ended up with one of these, which I figure I can use to store powder and primers:
NRA Tool Chest
Up and coming Friends events are a hidden secret. The NRA limited edition Kimber Custom II 1911 went for 690 dollars. The Smith & Wesson .38 Small Cheif’s special NRA edition revolver went for like 320 bucks. This is a bit cheaper than you’ll get them on the open market, and all the proceeds are going to a good cause. The manufacturers donate these guns to the NRA Foundation to be auctioned.
Failure to prevent the airing of “false and misleading advertising” may be “probative of an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility” Cosmopolitan Broad. Corp v. FCC, 581 F.2d 917, 927 (D.C. Cir. 1978).
So basically, stop running NRA’s ads, or your broadcast license could be in jeopardy. They detail the WaPo’s FactCheck.org repetition as proof. This is Chicago politics at its finest folks. If you can’t win fair, win dirty. This is not how a free society is supposed to function. This is not the kind of man I want leading my country.
UPDATE: Instapundit links with a lot more. In other news, I really need to upgrade my server hardware. Turns out my little wireless router can’t handle an instalaunch too well.
I have been hearing anti-Obama ads on Rush Limbaugh today. Isn’t this a waste of our donations? If you are listening to El Rushbo, you aren’t voting for Obama, and you aleady support gun rights.
It’s not really that simple. For one, I don’t know how extensively Rush covers Second Amendment issues. I know he’s sympathetic, but does he cover all the bases? AHSA and a lot of the Blue Dogs have been doing everything they can to fool hunters and shooters into thinking Obama supports the Second Amendment. There may actually be people in Rush’s audience base who need to be reached with that message, even if it’s only to give them another reason to get out in November to vote against him.
It also never hurts to frame an argument that people can use when they talk to people who might not have gotten the message. There is value in someone saying “You know, I heard on an NRA ad that Obama tried to ban hunting ammunition.” to a friend who might not have good information. That’s probably the greatest value in preaching to the choir. NRA goal in advertising is to get the information out there, and get people involved with gun rights. Rush Limbaugh’s audience is likely to be receptive to that, which makes them a good target for advertising. Saying that NRA shouldn’t be advertising on Rush is like saying as an NRA Election Volunteer Coordinator, I shouldn’t be canvassing gun clubs, gun shows, and gun stores with anti-Obama literature. A good fisherman casts his net where the fish are.
