Primary Accountability

Debra Maggart was defeated by her primary opponent, pretty overwhelmingly. No word yet on whether her shrunken head will be added to the decor in Chris Cox’s office*. Word I heard from folks in Tennessee was that upon assuming a leadership position with the newly GOP house, she seemed to believe she could take gun owners for granted, and apparently wasn’t shy about telling them that. A strategy of primary challenging intransigent Republicans in an area where Democrats are also likely to be reasonable on the gun issue is a wise one.

* For our humor challenged friends in the gun control movement, this is what we call a joke. Chris Cox does not actually have a shrunken head collection in his office.

11 thoughts on “Primary Accountability”

  1. The Tea leaves are falling into place. NRA win here starts the ball rolling and we can build on this overwhelming defeat. (Even with the loss of those couple of Life Members)
    This, along with the mind numbing turn out at CFA on Wednesday, the likes of which I have never seen BTW, spells doom for President Obama and his Chicago gang in November.

    I fear they have awoken the sleeping giants.
    I smell a landslide pendulum swing coming.(Smells like chicken)

  2. No shrunken-heads? Not even wrinkled ones? I would like him even more if he had them, there’s always time to start a collection!

    1. Well, of course he doesn’t have them in his office. That would be gauche. He keeps them in a special trophy room, protected deep within the bowels of NRA HQ.

      1. Ah, that’s the real reason they had to build their new HQ, they ran out of room in the makeshift trophy room they fashioned after they started the ILA in 1975.

  3. “Word I heard from folks in Tennessee was that upon assuming a leadership position with the newly GOP house, she seemed to believe she could take gun owners for granted, and apparently wasn’t shy about telling them that.”

    Can you flesh that out a bit? Quotes, examples, whatnot? I’m still not embarrassed to say that, from a distance, and not being privy to the discussions local to Tennessee, I still smell a rat.

    I will concede that the good news is that the NRA demonstrated they can and will kick ass, to the extent of spending $75,000 to $100,000 in a state House race — which sounds a little over the top for that level, unless the purpose was just to demonstrate they can.

    But again, from a distance, all I seem to be able to acquire is commentary from people richly congratulating themselves for being on the winning side. If Maggart pissed off enough people to lose in such a lop-sided way — and it wasn’t just lopsided spending by the NRA — there should be copious commentary available about how and why people were so pissed off.

    I keep coming back to, that from all sources I’ve found, Maggart had a solid tangible pro-gun voting record, and screwed up on only the parking lot vote. Rogers it appears has NO record. Yet Maggart got on NRA’s hit list while a novice got some very heavy bread.

    That could be believable, if it weren’t for my remembering that NRA Director, Rep. John Dingell voted for the Clinton AWB — which certainly should have been a poison pill as compared to a mere state-level parking lot bill — yet shortly the NRA found it in their heart to forgive him, based on his proven support with other gun rights issues.

    Forgive me. I’m not seeking to spoil the euphoria. I just need some expert guidance on what the profound difference was, between those two examples. Maggart may indeed have poohed in church, but the magnitude and how is just not coming clearly through the “We Really Showed Her!” euphoria.

    1. A TN based blogger told me something along the lines of “Who else are you gun nuts going to vote for?” I guess she has an answer to that question now.

  4. Under Harry Reid rules, Chris Cox DOES have a shrunken head collection in his office until proven otherwise.

Comments are closed.