Jacob thinks Obama will sign HR822 out of political expediency. I think it could happen, but if I had to put money on it, I think he’ll veto. He’s not going to betray a large number of urban Democratic legislators in places like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and his home state of Hawaii. While a signature might help to make NRA’s opposition to Obama seem more ridiculous, who he’s going to put on the Supreme Court is still going to drive opposition.
So I see Obama’s pressures favoring a veto. While it’s true that the anti-gun people can’t do much to him, he’s going to need urban legislators and the machines they have access to get people turned out to the polls for him. I don’t think he’s going to want to risk that those folks are less than enthusiastic about him headed to the election.
But those urban machines are going to work overtime for him anyway. They have far too much financial stake in his re-election. And, Obama needs to win North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado, New Mexico, etc. All states where the NRA has a tremendous amount of power.
I think there’s a good case to be made that he’ll sign, but I think ultimately he’ll veto.
I’m not so sure he will veto it. In the end, the people he’ll piss off are going to vote for him anyway, 110% chance. it would indeed be a large pill for them to swallow, but what’s their alternative? The only possible downside is that it might slightly depress turnout among the urban Democratic faithful, but there’s also the potential to run ads touting it in rust belt and big sky states to tempt some white male moderates, who pretty universally support this and who Obama polls fairly badly with.
I think too much is being read into Obama not taking a position on HR 822. He need not expend political capital on a bill that he knows will not pass the Senate.
yep. Same is true for Scott Brown’s letter. He can say he’s not in lockstep with the NRA during re-election in Massachusetts and point to his letter to Menino – but at the same time we can’t criticize him because he hasn’t taken a vote on the bill (and won’t, since there likely won’t be a Senate vote).
+1 How many of those urban people #1: Would EVER vote for a Republican (ie: Ending the War in Iraq was a huge talking point in Obama’s campaign that he ignored after the election…and started dropping bombs in Pakistan and Libya)
#2. Have gun control very high on their radar. Healthcare and Welfare are probably bigger real issues.
And of course the other factor is that Obama (despite his involvement with the Chicago Machine, and the Joyce Foundation) has a fairly neutral, if not slightly positive record on guns. Put him up against a Mitt Romney who has a well documented anti-gun record, the NRA as well as pro-gun people as a whole might be forced to Endorse Obama, Sit out the race, or look like hypocrites for Supporting the anti-gun candidate because he has an “R” after his name and will likely to a John Kerry-style hunting photo-op.
I’d take Romney over Obama any day of the week. There’s a chance to pressure Romney to put the right person on the Court. Because he’ll be getting pressure on that front from a lot of other groups than NRA, to nominate a “true conservative,” he stands a much higher chance of putting another 2A vote on the Court than Obama does. Now there are certainly conservatives out there who would be against us, and we have to be mindful of that, but with Obama, you essentially have almost no chance.
I disagree. I’ve seen the small-scale political theater here in Mass. We’ve never had a Republican party in state so the Legislature its always a “Super majority”, We’ve had now a term-and-a-half of Deval Patrick who’s Obama’s college buddy and an ultra-lefty from Chicago. He’s also a narcissist and a fame-whore, rather than an ambitious political leader. Like President Obama, he has no goals, he just lets the Legislature pitch laws to him, and he signs them and makes a speech taking credit.
Meanwhile Romney was an ambitious RINO who wanted to make a political name for himself. He drafted and supported laws like Romney Care, and the permanent Assault Weapons ban, as well as all sorts of additional crap on gun permits and purchasing requirements.
I understand what you’re saying about the supreme court…but as a RINO I don’t think I could even trust him to listen to the right-of-center base.
Certainly I see him pitching RINO bills, and various partisan Republicans going along with them to be team players.
I would prefer Obama over Romney, because at least with Obama, he’s not going to care about his legacy when there’s golf and vacations to be had, and we’ll get another chance of getting some REAL small government candidates in 2016…
Most people seem to think this bill will be presented to the President as a stand-alone bill. Assuming it passes the Senate, it is not unlikely that the bill will be attached to some other, larger piece of legislation — such as an important appropriation bill — where the significance of HR 822 is deemed less significant than the fate of the larger bill. [Remember how we got National Park carry through an amendment to the so-called Credit Card bill?] As such, the President would have cover to sign the bill and simultaneously decry the HR 822 portion.
Obama has to go at all costs. We know what types he would put on the Supreme Court. Also, with 4 more years of not having to worry about re-election he would be free to try to do as much damage as he could. Like Chris Rock said, he would be doing some gangster shit. Even with Romney, heaven forbid, he has re-election issues like Obama has now and couldn’t turn on gun owners.
Romney doesn’t have to turn on gun owners, he’s already against us. I agree that Obama is worse for exactly the reason Sebastian states, but Romney is anti-gun too.
Don’t make the mistake of believing politicians have any strongly held convictions that can’t be changed by the right kind of influence. Romney has been kissing the right asses since he’s had Presidential ambitions.
My problem with Romney is that he’s unreliable. He could be kissing the right asses now, but he’ll toss you under the bus in a second if he thinks the political winds are blowing the other way.
This is true of many politicians, but most try to be reliable. Romney is a weathervane.