Category: 2008 Election

I have to admit, I’m pretty awful at doing series type posts.  Blogging is such a random inspiration, that I rarely can keep up passion for these kinds of multi-part posts.  I still have a history of the PA Uniform Firearms Act to complete.   But I did want to finish rounding out the candidates speeches from the NRA Celebration of American Values that I started last week.

Fred Thompson

It’s no secret that I think Fred Thompson is the GOP’s best chance for retaining control of the White House in 2008.  I don’t think any of the other candidates are a strong with the base, personable enough to sway moderate voters, and have the star power of Thompson (those things matter, like it or not).   Thompson tried hard to play up the weaknesses of the other candidates, while hardly making them look like attacks:

But it’s not because I hang out there every day.  It’s because I wanted to demonstrate something that I think is important: that I will say the same things that I’ve been saying since 1994, and that what I say in New Hampshire, I will say in Florida and all parts in between. My philosophy does not depend on my geography, and I thought it was time I laid down that marker early on.

Swipe at Rudy

I enjoy gun shows.  I think that they’re a part of Americana. I don’t know that anybody would be against gun shows.  There are various kinds of regulations and proposals that would restrict private citizens who are not professional dealers or anything like that and place rules on them as they go there.  I’ve always been against that.

Swipe at McCain.

I didn’t notice a swipe at Romney in there, but just by taking a consistent position on an issue, Fred almost does that by default.

Rudy Giuliani

Without a doubt Rudy has a longer road to travel with gun owners than any other candidate, and his speech showed it.  I thought it was pretty awkward, but I give the guy a lot of credit for showing up and trying to reach out.

Rudy stressed more what we have in common than the differences:

And I believe there are several very important things that we have in common:  a commitment to keeping America strong and secure; a commitment to preserving and protecting the Constitution of the United States the way it’s written and based on what it means, not based on somebody’s social agenda or political biases or prejudices, left, right, middle, in between — it’s about what somebody else wrote and what they meant it to mean, and a judge is an interpreter of the law, not a creator of the law; and a commitment to protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens; and a real commitment to putting criminals in prison, which is where they belong and where they can’t do damage to the rest of society.

Rudy focused a lot on his accomplishments in fighting crime, but did unwittingly bring up a sore spot within the pro-gun community:

We need to have zero tolerance for crime committed with a gun. After all, it’s people that commit crimes, not guns.  (Applause.) They must be — you remember Project Exile in the 1990s in Richmond, Virginia.  Within two years, the gun carry rate among suspects in Richmond was cut in half, and 350 armed felons were taken off the streets.  All of this helped Richmond’s murder rate fall by 62 percent.

The NRA was an early supporter of Project Exile, and the program’s success led to the establishment of the national Project Safe Neighborhood.  So that’s the kind of success that I think we should build on, by providing funding to state prosecutors so they can screen out gun cases and refer the serious ones to federal court.  The funding can be used to hire more state prosecutors and to provide uniform screening of gun cases at a local level.

I’m a big supporter of getting criminals off our streets, but Project Exile is a blunt instrument that can and has ensnared good people with gun laws most of us would agree are unconstitutional, or at the least bad policy.  I favor throwing the book at violent offenders.  Throwing the book at some guy who called the cops to his house because they found a revolver, and he had a drug conviction 20 years ago, isn’t my idea of a prudent use of limited prison space tax dollars.

We’re all familiar with Rudy’s weird phone call from his wife, which saved him from misquoting the second amendment, so I won’t go over that again.

I was happy to see Rudy was asked some tough questions:

And question number one is, while mayor, you initiated New York City’s lawsuit against American firearms manufacturers, do you still believe that the American gun companies should be held liable for the unforeseeable criminal misuse of their products?

Short Rudy Answer: 9/11 changed things.  He was trying to use everything he could to reduce crime in New York.  Rudy also fielded a question on waiting periods.  His answers were creative, but I found them unsatisfying.

Awkward speech, but I do give the guy enormous credit for having the courage to come out and talk to what he undoubtedly knew would be a hostile crowd that would ask tough questions of him.   Part 3 will cover Bill Richardson, the only Democratic Candidate to pay any attention to us.

I’ve been looking at the speeches the various candidates gave before the NRA’s Celebration of American Values, and I’ll offer up a few impressions. I’ll split this up into a few posts, because there’s a lot that was talked about, and it’ll get too long otherwise.

Senator John McCain

McCain, whether you like him or not, has generally been pretty friendly to gun owners over his career. I have my differences with him on several gun issues, which he acknowledges:

Over the years, we’ve not agreed on every issue. We had differences over my efforts to standardize sales procedures at gun shows and to clean up our campaign finance system. I understand and respect your position. But while we may disagree on the means, we do agree on the need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, and, in the light of the number of my colleagues who have been disgraced or under investigation and are worried about indictment, agree that Washington needs cleaning up. Americans have lost trust in their government, and that trust must be restored.

But I’m as big a believer in the first amendment as I am in the second, and I can’t abide by a method of restoring trust that places limits on the speech of its citizens to criticize candidates for federal office. I will never forgive John McCain for McCain-Feingold. He either repudiates that, or he won’t get my vote.

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney tells us:

Now, as governor, I worked closely with the NRA and the Gun Owners Action League to advance legislation that expanded the rights of gun owners in my state. And my door was always open to you, and that will continue to be the case if I’m elected president. Together, we reduced burdensome bureaucratic regulations, we made it easier for people to exercise their constitutional rights.

This would be Mitt’s definition of working closely:

“Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts,” Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony on July 1 with legislators, sportsmen’s groups and gun safety advocates. “These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.”

Now, as it happens, the bill Romney signed actually helped out gun owners in Massachusetts in a number of ways, and kept the federal exemptions to the assault weapons ban in place when the federal ban expired. But you’d think from the Governor’s rhetoric, he was, you know, pandering or something. Mitt Romney? Pander? Naaah. At least he said he’d repeal McCain-Feingold:

And I’ll ask Congress to repeal the McCain-Feingold law which sought to impose restrictions on the First Amendment rights of groups like the NRA to advocate for issues we care about. Some parts have already been declared unconstitutional. We ought to get rid of the entire bill.

I couldn’t agree more, but can’t help but feel Mitt’s lips are chafing against my ass a bit too harshly. I’m surprised he didn’t offer to not only repeal the law, but personally eat the paper it’s written on at the Banquet for the Annual NRA Members Meeting.

Jacob picks up on a statement by Chris Cox:

“Historically, we have not gotten involved in primaries. We traditionally wait until after the conventions,” said Chris Cox, head lobbyist for the NRA. “That being said, given the candidates and the process and the front-loading of the primaries, it is a possibility that we could get involved in one of these presidential primaries.”

And comments:

What I would do in NRAs case would be a targeted mailing in certain states stating Fred Thompson and Bill Richardson are the prefered candidates in each party’s primary. No need to make up separate mailers, just list both guys on a single postcard to keep costs down. I wouldn’t give anyone an endorsement until after the primary.

I would consider only half of that.  I think it could be smart for NRA to become involved in the Democratic primary, because Bill Richardson has been a real friend to gun owners in the past, and all the other serious contenders are absolutely no friends of ours.  If you can give Bill enough of a boost to where he’s a serious threat to the other two candidates, you force Hillary and Obama to spend more money defeating their primary opponents.  It also will hold the Republican candidates feet to the fire, with the prospects a pro-gun democrat winning the endorsement in the general election.   It wouldn’t make much sense, in my opinion, to get involved if Richardson is a lost cause.

I don’t think under any circumstance it makes sense to back a candidate in the Republican primary.  If you pick a losing candidate, the eventual nominee is going to hold it against you that you actively helped his opponent.  In the general election, it might come down to two candidates hating you, whereas if you had stayed out, you might have been able to work with the eventual nominee, even if he turned out to be less than ideal.

I agree with Jacob that it makes sense to get involved in primaries because it’s easier to affect change in them, but one must use caution.  When you have multiple candidates vying for NRA’s affections, as is happening now in the current Republican primary, it wouldn’t be smart politics, in my view, to endorse one of them.  If you have a pro-gun challenger sparring with all anti-gun candidates, then it might make sense.

Clayton comments:

My guess is that the reason Giuliani has been getting a pass from NRA leadership is:

1. They perceive him as someone that can defeat Clinton in the general election.

2. He’s not a social conservative. I get the impression from who NRA leadership favors that they are libertarian, not conservative.

Maybe Giuliani has really changed his mind on this. But call me skeptical.

Well, at this point, it wouldn’t really make good political sense to snub Giuliani, Romney, or really anyone. It’s very early in the game, and the winner is far from clear. It would be unwise to alienate the candidate that walks away with the nomination. Giuliani is certainly, from a gun rights point of view, far far from a desirable candidate, but if he wins, that’s who we have to work with, if Hillary or Obama is the nominee.

If by some miracle Bill Richardson wins the nomination, then Richardson should get the endorsement, because he’s more pro-gun than any of them. But it’s probably going to be Hillary. Given that, if I were NRA leadership, I’d be very prejudiced to endorsing Giuliani for 2008, but would hold out the possibility, if we like how he treats us on our issues, of an endorsement in 2012.  In 2008, I would agree that we’ll help tar The Hildabeast, and make it clear to our membership what Hillary’s record is on our issue.  In short, I’d make people hate me by playing politics ;)

I agree with Clayton that I doubt Rudy has had a real change of heart. But I’m not sure that matters. What matter is that he understands where his bread gets buttered. It’s not ideal. As I mentioned yesterday, it helps to have a real friend in the White House, but absent that, a guy you can deal with is better than Hillary.