2010 Election – Page 4 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Party First. Your Rights, Second.

This ABC News article hints that we may have some trouble in an upcoming Republican Congress:

National Republicans are furious with the National Rifle Association, their natural ally, for endorsing 58 incumbent Democrats who support gun rights. And with Republicans aiming to win control of the House, some are promising retribution for the NRA next year.

â€œIn about a week, the NRA will find themselves on the bad sides of a few dozen new Republican members of congress. They have put their credibility â€“ and also that of their members â€“ on the line for the sake of ingratiating themselves with a bunch of liberal Democrats who are about to lose, and lose badly,â€ said one senior GOP operative who requested anonymity to speak freely.

So these “dozen new Republican members of congress” are willing to put their party affiliation ahead of the Second Amendment and the Constitution? Looks like we may be headed back to the days with Republican majorities that weren’t really willing to do much for us. Remember folks that the last Republican Congress got us Lautenberg, the Gun Free School Zones Act, a ban on purchasing of handguns by those 18-20, and oh yeah, PLCAA. Gotta throw at least one bone to the gun nuts.

Now it would seem some want us to go back into an abusive relationship with the GOP. If any of the new freshman GOP critters want to hold a grudge against NRA, I sincerely hope NRA will be willing to involve itself in primaries to get them out.

Understatement of the Year

From a writer to the Allentown Morning Call: “Callahan, Dent differ on gun control laws.” I’m glad someone is getting the word out about this race. PA-15 is one I’ve been keeping a nervous eye on, because Callahan is the first MAIG mayor to run for Congress, as far as I know, and he hasn’t left the group or denounced it. Fortunately, Dent is leading Callahan, and I couldn’t be any happier about that. Still, the poll next Tuesday is the only one that matters, and this race isn’t one to take for granted. Callahan has been the first serious challenger Dent has faced for a while. Here’s hoping Callahan has to go back to being a MAIG mayor instead of an anti-gun Congressman.

New Campaign Tactic

Dave Adams is pointing to a tactic similar to the one I inadvertently stumbled upon earlier in the week. It seems that the DCCC and Democrats across the country, are busily attacking third party candidates in their races as dangerous tea party conservatives. This obviously raises the profile of the third party candidate, and, if the plan works out, draws enough die-hards over to the candidate to split the vote sufficiently to allow the Democrat to come out on top.

I’d put this in the category of a dirty trick, but if it works, I can promise you’ll see more of it, on both sides.

Patrick Murphy Tied to Voter Fraud

The Courier Times is doing a story about Patrick Murphy’s campaign allegedly engaging in voter fraud. Will 8th District voters be able to overcome the margin of fraud? This kind of election year accusation is common, but I would point out that the Courier Times is hardly a friend of the GOP or the right.

Poll Standers

Looks like everyone needs poll standers this year. What is a pole stander? Basically, someone who hands out literature to folks coming into the polls. Yes, there are people who are walking into the voting booth, that aren’t firm on who they are going to vote for, or who can’t quite remember the name of that person, running for some office, who they are planning to vote for.

The purpose of the poll stander is to get those few extra votes as folks head into the polls to make their small contribution to the future of our Republic. The unfortunate thing is campaigns always need them, and the even more unfortunate thing is I can never find people willing to do it when I ping my volunteer list. I can understand why no one wants to phone bank, because a lot of people hate getting phone calls, and don’t want to do it to other people, or just plain hate talking to people on the phone. Poll standing generally just requires handing out campaign materials people can peruse while waiting in line to vote. It may involve talking to people some if they have questions, but that’s not the majority of the job.

I think I’d have better luck recruiting poll dancers some days. Maybe I could do that for heavily Democratic areas, and then hopefully a lot of the men at least would never make it in to vote.

At What Point Do You Just Walk Away?

I know I asked this just a couple of weeks ago, but why on earth is Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato even trying at this point? It really just makes him look a little more pathetic that he’s trying so hard and actually slipping in the polls. Two polls released late last night & today put him down 14 and 15 points, respectively. The money race hasn’t changed much, either. Corbett is outraising & outspending him, and still has more left in the bank.

If we didn’t have to worry about how tight the Senate race between Toomey & Sestak has been lately, then it would just be comedy gold. Unfortunately, we gun owners can’t take any votes for granted this year. And, as much as I’m gloating about Onorato’s failing campaign, there’s still nearly a week left, and voters are fickle and pissy this year. There are still too many races around Pennsylvania and the rest of the country that are too close to call.

Of course, I would argue that Corbett’s campaign could still use some help. There’s a good chance that these double digit leads won’t stay that large until Election Day. But, because Onorato has embraced a strategy of pushing gun control as a key component of his campaign, we need his campaign to fail miserably. We need him to lose and lose big. We need to remind Ed Rendell & his buddie in Philadelphia that we still outvote them, and gun control still pisses us off.

Renaming Rhode Island

Apparently renaming a state is on the ballot this November. See, the official state name is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. They want to drop the Providence Plantations part, since plantations is a code word for slavery, or something, even though Rhode Island never really participated in that kind of slavery.

Hat Tip to Cam Edwards.

Political Violence

Much hay is being made of this incident at a Rand Paul rally:

It’s temping in political discourse to think your side is better than the other, but it’s self delusion. I don’t care if your issue is saving puppies, I’d estimate at least 5 to 15% of your fellow activists are complete assholes. So save me the lefty moral outrage. Personally, I don’t think either the stompers or stompee in this case can claim to be without wrong doing in this particular incident, though only one side bears any legal wrong.

So I do condemn the men who unlawfully restrained and stomped the MoveOn employee, but I also condemn the immature actions of the MoveOn employee that stoked this fire.Â The Other McCain in his analysis of what’s going on:

When I wasÂ covering the big rally in Searchlight, Nevada, I remember Sarah Palin being hustled through a phalanx of security without time to say â€œhelloâ€ or shake hands with her supporters. Even with a press pass dangling around my neck onÂ a lanyard, I was careful not toÂ make any moveÂ that Palinâ€™s security might interpret as potentially threatening.

Now imagine ifÂ some crazy woman at SearchlightÂ had come shoving through the crowd wearing a blonde wig and carrying a sign mocking Palin.

You see what Iâ€™m talking about? Iâ€™m not advocating, endorsing or defending the stomping of heads. Iâ€™m just saying that this mob scene in Lexington was exactly the sort of situation whereÂ these kinds of incidents happen. Itâ€™s unfortunate and wrong, but it is ridiculously misleadingÂ to politicize this incident as if it were somehow typical of those â€œcrazy right-wingers,â€ which is what Boehlert, et al., are attempting to do.

That’s why I can’t totally forgive her actions even as I condemn what the two individuals did to her. There were police present in the video if you look closely. One of the stompers is chastising police for refusing to do anything about the woman, but what were they going to do? It’s not illegal to wear a wig in public with a sign. They couldn’t have done anything until she did something illegal, and that something has to be more than approaching the candidate through the crowd, which last I checked was legal. If she had a weapon in her hand, this would have been completely different, but she had a sign. She actually would have been completely justified in using force against the people attempting to unlawfully restrain her.

CeaseFirePA Attacking Corbett

So implies CeaseFire PA, who I can’t imagine has the cash to actually air this video:

Ryan Hacke was killed in 1997, four years before Pennsylvania entered into a reciprocity agreement with the State of Florida, under a different Attorney General than Tom Corbett. His death was certainly a tragedy, but it has exactly nothing to do with the issue being touted.

What you never hear about is Vaughn Mathis, the criminal that murdered Ryan Hacke. We give kudos to Allegheny County for actually prosecuting criminals, which is more than you can say for Philadelphia, but in 1993 Mathis plead guilty carrying without a license and having a firearm with an altered serial number, a first degree misdemeanor and second degree felony respectively. He received probation, though at this point it was illegal for him to purchase or possess a firearm, or get a license to carry in PA or Florida.

It’s worth noting that if he had gotten the maximum allowed under law for the initial weapons charge, he never would have been on the streets to murder Ryan Hecke. But it doesn’t stop there. Mathis was out on bail awaiting trial for rape charges, terroristic threats, and aggravated assault when he committed the murder. The crimes he was out on bail for were committed in 1995, and two years later the state had not yet gotten around to trying him. He was only tried on that arrest after the Hecke murder.

In all this talk of loopholes, guns, our opponents are forgetting about the piece of human debris that pulled the trigger, and the justice system that failed to keep him behind bars and off the streets.

Category: 2010 Election