Guns and politics
A good read by Jeff Knox on gun owners and elections:
In the end, Kerry lost no support from the anti’s by claiming to be pro-gun and gained nothing from the pro-gunners or the middle.
Meanwhile, Bush gained nothing from the anti’s or the “mainstream” but lost vital support from gun-rights activists. While the Bush team and the NRA are congratulating themselves, the belief that politicians are all liars who will say anything to be elected has been solidly reinforced and gun owner’s mistrust of the Republican Party has been rightly increased.
Another mistaken belief that has been reinforced is that of Republican strategists that gun-voters will always be with them. Former Republican National Committee Chair, Lee Atwater expressed it bluntly during George H. W. Bush’s reelection campaign when he asked, “Where else are they going to go?”
Though NRA made every effort to bolster the senior Bush in that election, his support of assault weapons bans and his earlier attacks on NRA itself were too much for gun-voting stalwarts and they went to Perot or to Clinton or just went hunting.
Read the whole thing.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:19 am
Great post. One of the things I keep getting across to Dems, moderates, liberals, etc. is that offering up the gun issue with make that Atwater bastard roll in his grave and Karl Rove have fits–if you offer an effective answer to “where else are they gonna go?” some of them can and will jump ship. And that will hurt the RNC badly. Taking the gun vote for granted will be one of their pitfalls, of that I’m quite sure.
January 31st, 2006 at 5:38 pm
Do you remember when W was asked during the debates if he had “made any mistakes”.
I think it would be great for him to come out and admit that supporting the renewal of the “AWB” was a mistake. I think it would shore up his right-wing support tremendously and cost him little from the left. In fact, it might even take a notch out of the left’s argument that he never claims to make mistakes and never apologizes.
heh