Gun Control is a Loser for Democrats

Apparently Daniel Squadron, who ran very heavily on his record on gun control, got trounced in the Democratic Primary for New York Public Advocate. This is probably a case where gun control wasn’t likely the reason he lost, but campaigning on it sure as hell didn’t help him. If it can’t motivate New York Democrats, how does Bloomberg expect to turn this into a winning issue nationally?

14 thoughts on “Gun Control is a Loser for Democrats”

  1. For years it has astounded me that Democrats do not get the message that gun control is not an issue that motivates anyone except us. We have had several local examples, and of course Dwight Evans in Philadelphia. It doesn’t hurt them with their prevailing constituencies, but when they try to move up, and base their campaigns mainly on gun control, they usually fail miserably. Yet no one seems to learn from it.

    On the other hand, I have heard Republicans attempt to make being pro-gun a big issue when they ran in predominantly Democratic districts, and also fail miserably. I guess the message is, being anti-gun is seldom a motivator, and being pro-gun isn’t, either, depending on the district. Those of us who are highly motivated by the issue remain a relatively small percentage of the voting population.

  2. If the anti-gun politicians in their “safe” districts learned that being passively anti-gun was the way to success in getting elected, and those in contested districts learned to avoid it entirely, we’d be able to really make headway.

    We have the numbers to constantly push incremental (so as not to raise alarms among the few die-hard anti’s) pro-gun legislation that we could get enough “moderates” to back on a case by case basis, if we didn’t have to worry about playing defense against die-hard anti pols looking to make their name promoting more restrictions.

  3. “how does Bloomberg expect to turn this into a winning issue nationally?”

    By exploiting any applicable tragedy as quickly and as often as possible.

  4. “how does Bloomberg expect to turn this into a winning issue nationally?”

    For some reason I’m thinking of that old joke about the merchant who lost money on every sale, but thought he could make it up in volume.

  5. The trend is looking good for Virginia. McAuliffe has come out in favor of CO style laws, “assault weapon” bans and the like. Then he added EPA coal limits to boot. If he hasn’t lost all of the votes west of Charlottesville by now, I don’t know what that would take.

    1. A scorpion like McAuliffe cannot help it. It is his nature to back all the leftist ideologies.

    2. A lot of that depends on turnout. How motivated are they in Western VA?

      1. Since many rely on coal and/or hunt, I suspect many of them are at least motivated to stay home. The danger is the motivation of urban centers. Given this is predicted to be a 40% max turnout, every vote will count. Especially in urban areas.

  6. If they want to vote DNC in this case, incline to stay home. If they are inclined to switch, then by all means go to the polls. I should have been a little more clear.

  7. Yep. I am going to work some campaign time in as well now it is crunch time. (It’s needed and has the most impact.) You?

  8. “how does Bloomberg expect to turn this into a winning issue nationally?”

    The answer is simple: He doesn’t. My theory is that Bloomy couldn’t care less whether gun control was electorally popular or not. His strategy is to simply ram stuff through in Democrat controlled states with promises of money and fame and if the pols that helped him get trounced in their reelection bid (or recalled), oh well. At least he got his laws passed.

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