Category: 2012 Election

I recognize that NRA is a large organization. Whether it’s trying to balance the demands of more than 4 million members or even just trying to find consensus among the many divisions, it’s not exactly a small or easy operation. Even as large as it is, many employees carry more than their weight. The average gun owner isn’t keeping up with what’s happening in their own state, much less keep up with legislative happenings in multiple states. During an election year, there are hundreds of races to track in each state. With that kind of workload, mistakes happen. However, the response to those mistakes is not always what it should be – and that’s a problem.

From the Topeka Capital-Journal:

As a longtime member of the National Rifle Association and a concealed-carry permit holder, Rep. John Grange was surprised to see a card from the NRA asking members to vote for his opponent, Rep. Forrest Knox, in their state Senate primary.

Grange was even more surprised to see one of the reasons.

The card claimed that Grange “refused to answer” the NRA’s candidate questionnaire, which the card said is “often a sign of indifference, if not outright hostility, to the rights of gun owners and sportsmen.”

According to the article, Rep. Grange did complete the questionnaire and mailed it nearly two weeks before the stated deadline. NRA did post his A- rating on the PVF website, but he called to get a correction to the postcard which was obviously misleading. He was refused.

Grange said he was “really upset and crushed” that the NRA refused to send another card setting the record straight.

“They’ve lost my membership,” Grange said. “I’ll never renew.”

NRA better hope this guy has no future in politics – ever. It sounds like they have not only lost a member, but an ally. I doubt he would go anti-gun, but it would be perfectly reasonable for him to refuse to do any favors.

Before I jump on this too much, I do have a few things to add. One, I don’t follow Kansas politics to know if there’s some key reason why NRA would want to keep the attention focused on Rep. Knox and not concern itself with the blowback from screwing over an A- sitting lawmaker. Two, what I do know about Kansas politics is that I’ve been told there are massive divisions within the state GOP, so that may be key to inaction in this case. Three, I don’t know specifics of their histories on the issue, only that NRA currently has both candidates fairly well rated.

Now, on to my issues with this situation.

One, NRA owes local members answers on its decision to endorse. I don’t know what factors went in to deciding to endorse in a primary where there is no incumbent to the seat and the two candidates are A- and A+ rated. It’s not like there’s a clear anti-gun vote on the line here. Regardless, it doesn’t seem wise simply because of what is at risk – especially when the article cites the Senate as the road block for key legislation. They should answer questions from members in the district about why the endorsement was issued. If one candidate was truly worth the risk of pissing off the other faction of the GOP, then they should be able to say why that is the case.

Two, NRA screwed up a mailing that may not have been wise in the first place. Historically, NRA hasn’t mailed postcards for every endorsement. Why do it for a primary endorsement when both candidates are reasonably well rated? It’s a state senate race. Even if Rep. Grange had not returned the questionnaire, surely he had a voting record having been in office for seven years. The point is that saying he had no grade or did not ever respond to them, while adding in a jab that it might mean he’s really anti-gun, seems quite disingenuous. It seems they should eat the cost of another postcard mailing even if the endorsement stands.

Why should they correct the record? Because apparently this isn’t the only instance of this type of mistake in the state this year.

Regardless of the issues on the questionnaire, Grange was intensely disappointed at the NRA telling its members he refused to fill one out. He said he had heard the same thing happened to Sen. Jeff Longbine, R-Emporia, though Longbine couldn’t be reached Tuesday to confirm or deny it.

If this did happen in another district, they need to make sure that organization’s reputation for actually helping pro-gun lawmakers remains intact. Too many mistakes without a reasonable resolution won’t exactly send the message that NRA will make sure members know who to turn out for come election day. Even worse, it will breed distrust among NRA members who happen to support the candidates getting the shaft. If they follow Rep. Grange’s lead, it won’t just be about the lost members. There is a good chance they will speak out against the organization to other candidates for office.

Hopefully, Kansas Republicans – politicians and voters – will feel like mistakes are addressed in a reasonable and timely way. Like I said, there is likely more to the story than what the press is reporting, but that doesn’t mean that NRA needs to risk burning bridges because of silly mistakes that have fairly simple solutions. We have enough enemies of the Second Amendment without getting folks who are with us on most of the issues to walk away from the table.

I believe it was Jim Geraghty that coined the headline of this post, but it keeps turning around in my mind. Tam highlights a particularly vacuous campaign video appearing this season in Indiana. The worst part about an election like this is that the partisans, on both sides, have already made up their minds. Studies have shown that partisans are generally the best informed voters, when it comes to the issues, no matter what side you’re on. The rest of this silly season is bringing the folks, who barely pay attention, over to your side so you can actually win the election. Whether anyone likes it or not, you need these people to actually win.

So you get politicians making these vacuous ads, because they want the low-information voters* to like and identify with them — I’m a great politician, you see. I care about our troops, and you care about our troops too, so don’t you think I’m a great guy to vote for? I not only care about our troops in general, but out troops from your very specific tribe! How wonderful! —  The low-information voter won’t know much in November, but politicians will be hoping ads like this strike an emotional chord, and stick strongly in the memories of people who barely pay attention. This is how elections are won and lost, unfortunately, when partisans can’t decisively win on the strength of their base. That’s the case for neither party today.

In parliamentary systems, partisans are more free to be loyal to parties that most closely match their beliefs, and leave the coalition building to the politicians in the government. In our system, coalition building happens outside the apparatus of government, and compromises are forged in civil society. Some argue the former is better, but I tend to think the latter is. I’d much rather trust civic entities to make compromises than state entities. But the unfortunate side effect of forging coalitions in civil society is having to persuade the low-information voter that your guy is really their guy, and the result are ads like Tam highlights. I wish I knew how to fix that problem, without putting more power in the hands of politicians, but I don’t really have a good answer.

* Before libertarians get offended that I’m suggesting they are low information voters, rather than partisans, they are not. Libertarians are among the most partisan and informed around. But not enough people don the wookie suit to be a real factor in elections. You have many people who are libertarianish, but  a strong ideology that doesn’t involve a deity is a rare breed, whether your deity is God or Government. Winning the unwashed masses will take some degree of pragmatism.

I haven’t been able to follow much news since Friday because I’ve been behind the wheel of a car for hours on end every day. However, I just loaded up HootSuite to see this tweet:

pool corrects: Romney camp raised 10 million over the last 2 days (yesterday and today) not 10 day

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 23, 2012

Um, I might venture a guess that it means some constituencies around the country don’t have much faith in Obama’s response to the issues of the last few days. It seems to be a perfect storm to prompt a few groups to action.

Gun Owners: We’re a given. Gun owners are worried about what kind of gun control may be headed our way. Bloomberg was out of the gate with demands for more gun control before many on the East Coast had even tuned in to the morning news. The typical anti-gun leaders have been all over the media calling for more action. Don’t even get me started on the crap on social networking sites – celebrities wondering why guns are still legal at all in America and some pretty hateful comments from political activists. Most pundits agree that it’s not going to happen, but we need to see what they are going try rally support to ban.

Conservatives of All Stripes: Thanks to Brian Ross, everyone who has any opinion that maybe the country’s financial house could be in better order with less spending was attached to this plot inaccurately. The fact that a major media outlet would allow a reporter to go on the air with such a patently false and poorly “researched” assertion cemented in the minds of many voters that the media will go to any length to discredit a conservative message. The fact that Brian Ross still has his title of “Chief Investigative Correspondent” when he clearly is not capable of seriously investigating even the simplest of facts before going to air with such slander against a private citizen only adds fuel to the fire.

So, the great irony in this situation is that Obama might not actually have to do a thing in order to motivate the GOP base and GOP-leaning voters for Mitt. His base and perceived surrogates are doing a great job at convincing voters to flock to the other guy if this fundraising haul is any indication.

I have to admit, I’d be pretty stoked if Romney picked Condi. But it’s not going to happen. If Mitt nominates a pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage, pro-gun candidate, I’ll eat my hat. Mitt has enough troubles with the SoCos, given that he used to be pro-choice, and once engaged in platitudes about gay rights when he was Governor of Massachusetts. They’ll string him up if it’s Condi.

I know that the readership of this blog isn’t likely to need an explanation of what happens if the Electoral College ties. We know that it goes to the House of Representatives. But what about the actual votes from the House; how many folks have sat around discussing that aspect? I’ll be honest and say I haven’t really thought about it. The default thinking is that if the House is controlled by the GOP, they will vote for Romney. Of course, it’s not quite that simple…

Nonetheless, the fact remains that there are so many different ways to reach a tie that it behooves both sides to start dossiers on every House member to figure if any of them might be moved, under certain circumstances, to vote against their party, or to abstain. In the House, the vote is done not by individual member, but by state delegation. A state like Minnesota, with four Republicans and four Democrats, would presumably vote “present” unless a member didn’t vote for his/her own party’s nominee. By my armchair projections, Romney would probably win the support of about 28 delegations (26 are needed to win) — but several of those delegations would be by one-vote margins, meaning that if my projection is slightly off, or if a Member could be convinced to switch parties or to abstain, the margin would be even smaller.

How could this happen? Well, imagine a 269-269 Electoral College tie, but with Obama building up such large margins in populous states like New York and California that he wins a clear popular-vote margin. Cue the Occupy movement to protest in favor of the House voting to ratify the popular vote rather than by party. Cue the media to overwhelmingly push that same notion. Now look at a few GOP House members who won by only narrow margins, but in districts carried by Obama, where the media message would be that they have a duty to vote with the majority of their constituents. Obviously, all of this could get very dicey indeed.

Looking at your state, how do you think they could vote if it did result in a House vote?

For Pennsylvania, we’ll have 18 Congressmen. Five of those will absolutely be Democrats. One more will very likely be a Democrat. Six are safe for the Republicans, with five likely to lean that way. One is a GOP seat right now, but a true toss-up. I would say that Romney will have a solid lead in enough of the GOP districts that he’ll come out okay even with the Philly media going nuts over how it’s just not fair that we have to follow that stupid Constitution and the stupid election laws that allow those stupid Republicans to even have a vote.

UPDATE: And Dave Adams of VSSA has posted about how Virginia’s delegation could possibly vote if the presidential race went to the House. He outlines legitimate ways in which it could be 6-5 in either direction.

Story at Capitol Ideas. I’d get all “This is why we need to boot Casey out on his ass in November,” but I’m afraid both parties love themselves some good warring on drugs, and that goes double if it’s For the Children^TM.

Stuart Rothenberg of Roll Call seems to think the Democrats need to look to states other than Pennsylvania if they want to pick up Congressional seats in 2012. They point out two competitive seats being Jim Gerlach and Mike Fitzpatrick. Both have been made safer with redistricting, but still do not have what anyone would consider “safe” seats. But Gerlach has won consistently in tough years. Fitzpatrick is probably the easier pickup, but I doubt Obama will have much in the way of coattails. Meehan’s seat is actually looking surprisingly safe.