Tomorrow marks the end of this silly season, and I will be glad for that no matter what the outcome. For the past week or so, I have tried to tune out election related news, polls, etc. The only poll that matters is the one tomorrow.
Category: 2012 Election
Bloomberg’s Price – $257,000
Candidates who cozy up to Mike Bloomberg get a cool quarter million dollars plus in free advertising based on what he’s doing for the anti-gun Attorney General candidate here in Pennsylvania.
A super PAC founded and funded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is spending over $250,000 to boost Democratic Attorney General hopeful Kathleen Kane. …
The ad is airing on cable and broadcast in the Philadelphia market to the tune of $257,000, according to a buy tracked by the Sunlight Foundation’s political ad sleuth.
This race is a problem for Pennsylvania gun owners. Polls show Kane holding a huge lead, but they often have a high margin of error and still show about 1/3 of voters haven’t made up their minds, even this late in the game. The race is still winnable, but gun owners need to help out.
I’m not just talking about knocking on doors or making phone calls. With so many voters not paying any attention to the race, one of the best and easiest things to do would be to talk to any friends and family members and just let them know your choice. You don’t have to get into the gun issue, just make remarks that Freed is your candidate of choice based on his record as a prosecutor and encourage them to join you.
Kane has already promised CeaseFire that she’s going to work on undoing the concealed carry reciprocity agreements with all other states – not just Florida that has been demonized by the media.
Kane received a perfect score on CeaseFirePA’s questionnaire. In particular Kane has committed toa review of all concealed carry reciprocity agreements currently in place between Pennsylvania and other states,including Florida, and renegotiating or terminating those that do not meet Pennsylvania’s standards.
To give you an idea of how extreme you have to be to get a perfect score on CeaseFire’s questionnaire, not even an NRA D-rated Democratic Senator from Philadelphia could get more than an 85% agreement with them in 2010 when he was running for Governor. That’s how anti-gun you have to be – a solid F with gun owners and more extreme than even entrenched urban Democratic politicians.
Lets Get This Farce Over With
I can’t wait until next Tuesday. Not because I am looking forward to casting my ballot, or for the excitement of seeing who won, but because I want this election to be over. This has been one of the most obnoxious media cycles for an election year in recent memory. For the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to tune out election related news, most of which generally involve reading tea leaves based on this poll or that poll. There’s only one poll that matters, and that’s the one that happens next Tuesday.
I’m a Gun Guy, But …
Conor Whetsel, a person currently involved with the occupy movement, thinks the Louisiana RKBA measure on the ballot is dangerous, and also unnecessary because there’s already a Second Amendment. He notes:
During my military service, I was highly trained in weapons and tactical shooting, but even I doubt my own abilities to neutralize a threat in a classroom of hundreds of students; therefore, I highly doubt the ability of novice shooters to do the same. No amount of hunting, and practice at the range will prepare a student to make the life or death decisions necessary in a tactical shooting scenario.
I decided to check this guy out, and he did indeed serve in the military. How much do US Navy Petty Officers who work in the mail room of a ship receive advanced firearms training? I do not mean to denigrate service in a mail room aboard a ship; it is a fine and noble service to this country. But if, in the realm of public policy, you pass yourself off as a highly sophisticated military tactical shooter with an expert opinion, you have some ‘splainin to do if your resume says you worked in the mail room. I’m willing to be educated here by those of you with naval experience, if the Navy spends time and money to make their mail clerks expert tactical shooters, but color me skeptical.
I generally tend to be skeptical of anti-gunners claiming gunny credentials. I advise everyone else to do the same. Don’t trust, verify.
Tab Clearing
We seem to have a few dated stories in the tabs from before I started worrying about Frankenstorm, so I’ll dump them all in one post, so we can move on:
Ilya Somin echoes a lot of my sentiments about the candidacy of Gary Johnson.
Voting for Romney, with enthusiasm. I may do it, for some of the reasons mentioned, but it won’t be with enthusiasm.
Pumpkins for Peterson. Also here.
Anti-gun folks are going crazy with love over this piece, by I’m guessing one of their supporters. Because, you know, the vast majority of us believe gun safety is best taught to children by handing them a machine pistol and a beer. Do they even realize this is how a great many gun owners teach safe and responsible gun handling to children? This isn’t exceptional. It’s the responsible thing most responsible parents who own guns do.
Bloomberg Backing King in Maine Senate Race
He’s, of course, expecting Angus King to vote his way, which means against National Reciprocity. But of course, I’m sure he’ll be talking to the hilt about how he supports the Second Amendment and your hunting heritage. These people can’t win without lying.
Could the “Snor’eastercane†Impact Pennsylvania Elections?
So the “snor’eastercane†maps are tilting a little too close to Pennsylvania for my liking, especially when some forecasters are concerned that if/when it does turn inland, it could be worse than Irene.
I got to thinking, what does this mean for the election? I realize that this is likely to hit a solid week before the election. However, we had parts of our suburban Philadelphia county that were out of power and still had trees blocking roads a week after Irene which was just rain, not snow. The more rural areas of any state that is hit could be out for quite a while since this is supposed to be a slow-moving storm.
If Pennsylvania takes the hit, then the areas that would be hit later and possibly longer are strong areas for Republicans. While this likely won’t impact the presidential race much since Mitt isn’t likely to win, it will likely make a big impact on the closer Senate race and, more importantly for gun owners, the largely ignored and unknown to many voters Attorney General’s race. This doesn’t even get into the many state representative and senate races across the state.
If it follows the bottom part of the cone and heads toward Virginia, well, that could impact the presidential race. During one snow storm that wasn’t totally crazy, but definitely heavier than average, none of the streets in my mom’s Roanoke subdivision were plowed for four days. During the 2008 primary, VDOT left motorists stranded on the overpasses that they failed to clear and treat during an ice storm for about a day – that was right near the DC line, not a rural corner. If there’s one thing I learned living in Virginia, that state does not handle snow clearing very well at all.
Last year, I saw tweets and Facebook updates from people in Connecticut who were out of power for the better part of a week because of storms. Even if they could get out of their neighborhoods, they few places around them had power. That’s not impossible to imagine, either. While Sebastian and I regularly walk up to our polling place, and we’d be willing to freakin’ shovel a path for ourselves and our neighbors up there this year if we had to, what if they don’t have power over a widespread area? How would counties handle that? More importantly, if they had only a few polling places open, how would voters be notified of the changes if few had power?
The good news for any weather issues is that the enthusiasm gap favors the candidates who happen to be pro-gun in this immediate area. However, the bad news is that the areas likely to have any damaged fixed or power restored last is more friendly territory for our candidates. It’s an interesting, and not impossible to imagine, scenario with a very large weather system like Sandy.
The Problems with Making Up Your Own Facts
Our local Congressional race is between an incumbent freshman Republican and a challenger from the Democrats who is trying to make women’s issues a key part of her campaign. Except rather than being knowledgable on the actual issue, Kathy Boockvar has decided to just make up her own facts in the midst of debates. This can backfire, something she should learn today.
For example, she was talking about birth control and said that she believed 99% of Americans use birth control. 99% of Americans. Think about that for a second. She didn’t misspeak, she made her comment very clear – she argues that 99% of Americans use birth control. Now, I assume she factored into that “fact” that any man in a sexual relationship with a woman on birth control pills is also “using” birth control. I’ll accept that. I agree with that. What I don’t accept is her assertion that children are actively using birth control.
No, I’m not talking about 16-year-olds using birth control methods. I have no issue with that at all. I’m talking about her version of statistics. 99% of Americans. The Census says that nearly 7% of Americans are under the age of 5. That means that in Kathy Boockvar’s world of made up statistics, toddlers and pre-schoolers are in need of birth control. This is why you don’t make up statistics on the fly when you’re running for office.
Of course, I don’t expect that Boockvar has any desire to actually correct her statement, even though she has tried to make such issues the highlight of her campaign. When asked in the last debate about her specific ideas for tax reforms, she refused to answer by saying that she doesn’t believe in making promises or giving those kind of answers. Today, she was asked for specifics on what votes she claimed Fitzpatrick has made to deprive veterans of support, and she just answered that he took many, many votes without being able to give any examples. In her campaign, facts are optional and accountability is non-existent. Not to mention, her made up facts are really freakin’ creepy.
Muckraking in the 21st Century
Anyone who’s gotten politically involved to any degree will eventually run into a kook. Normally this will happen very quickly. Working gun shows in 2008, I ran into several. To some degree, since you’re not there to pick fights with people, you humor them for a bit and hope they move on. Usually it’s run of the mill conspiracy nonsense, or something that’s mostly harmless. Often time the kook wants to be heard. They’ll have their say, you can be polite, nod a lot, and they’ll move on.
When this James O’Keefe video first started, I was somewhat sympathetic to Patrick Moran, because he legitimately tried to steer the videographer’s energy back to legitimate tasks. And then he went completely off the rail. Full context is provided at the end, and I watched that too. I thought full context was worse than the editing:
I might have tried to steer this person back to legitimate tasks too, but once it became clear this character would not be dissuaded, I would have said “Well, what you’re talking about is voter fraud, and it’s illegal, and we don’t do things that way, sorry.” What I definitely would not do is offer some advise on how to pull it off.
Coverage of the Courts in NRA Ads
I was pleased to see this ad:
UPDATE: Also this from the Florida Senate Race: