As Terry McAuliffe was starting to poll into the double digits in the Virginia gubernatorial race, gun control groups decided that it was a great time to throw their resources into the election so they could claim it was all about gun control.
However, the serious political observers disagree. The Washington Post actually declared Bloomberg the political loser of the day since his big last minute gun control ad investments could have been a factor in an assured Democratic victory whittling down to a 2% victory. US News is also on this story of how the shift to gun control as a campaign focus appears to have put the election at risk.
So while the gun control groups claim that this is some sort of mandate for gun control, the serious political class sees it very differently, and many also noted that the gun control groups cost Colorado lawmakers their jobs earlier this year. I guess we’ll see next year whether Democrats up for re-election think the Bloomberg money is worth the political risk.
I suppose the calculus could be “Bloomberg won’t hurt you more than 7 points so if you’ve got a commanding lead the money could help you in other areas.”
This is what I was talking about the other day. Bloomberg jumped in at the end, and then Cooch almost one. Let’s keep pushing that. And keep pushing Colorado. It doesn’t matter what Gun Control Groups say, or even the media. The serious political class knows what’s what.
On this front, it appears that liberal plutocrats are coalescing to attempt to buy up states. In Colorado, Amendment 66 went down in flames, by almost 2-1. But what is scary is that is was backed by Bloomberg and the Gates Foundation, who were trying to impose their ideas on an entire state not even their own.
The fact that the NEA dumped a fortune into this campaign – to raise taxes and thereby “improve schools” – is no surprise. For them, it is never about “the children” but about better and more jobs for themselves.
But the arrogance of the Gates and Bloomberg is frightening.
Fortunately, as was pointed out, the reaction of voter is rather negative to this meddling.
Andy B was correct. The funnies helped at the last minute. I would say that we matched Bloomberg’s 7% with ours.
Thanks. It was not a hard theory to come up with. I have seen enough examples over the years to be confident that advertizing an anti-gun position is never a vote-getter. At very best, say in an inner-city district, it won’t be a vote loser, but it is never a vote getter. So, knowing that viscerally, the clips I saw of the Bloomberg ads really pissed me off, I figured any gun guys who were dozing or otherwise unmotivated would probably be awakened by them and turn out to vote against McC.
Meant to say gunnies…
It must be nice to have so much money that you’ll throw millions into a can’t lose race just to try and dispel the notion that your money is poison.
The funny thing is his money probably made a difference in ensuring the GOP held its supermajority in the House of Delegates. If a candidate wins by double digits, he or she will almost always have coattails down the ballot to win some smaller offices. Our corrupt soon to be governor basically helped no one down the line (recount for AG and the useless Lt. Gov. Office the dens were never going to lose excepted)
It seems most if not all the dem senators went crying to the white house for help over Obamacare. they didn’t get what they were looking for. It would seem they are having a problem finding a winning issue for next year.
Bloomberg’s tactics have so far emboldened gun rights supporters in all the races he has reached his grimy little fingers into. Why are guns and ammo still flying off the shelves?
Bloomberg threw his money in at the last-minute when he knew that Cuccinelli was going down for other reasons. It was basically just a way to claim that VA endorses his agenda after the humiliating defeats in CO.
MAIG is releasing videos showing how they “Won in the NRA’s backyard”. They’re trying to portray a victory in some kind of deeply-red southern state, conveniently ignoring the fact that liberal Northern Virginia now carries the rest of the state no different than how NYC carries the rest of NY. But they’re hoping the ignorant masses don’t know that and still think of it as Ol’ Virginny suddenly having an epiphany on gun control.
well, the VA hooting sports pointed out that Sarvis was pro-self defense pro-gun, so between Cooch and Sarvis, more people voted for pro-self defense pro-gun candidates combined than voted for anti-self defense McAulliffe.
Yeah, but that doesn’t really mean too much for purposes of messaging in future elections. Telling Democrats that a 14-point lead dropped to a 2-point win in the course of two weeks after Bloomberg dropped $3 million into races there is something more politicians will take seriously.
I was under the impression the shutdown is what hurt Mr. Cuccinelli and the disastrous Obamacare rollout(not only the site crashes, but stories of people losing coverage) is what made this a nail biter in the end.
I won’t present myself as being any kind of expert analyst, so I am only speculating the way everyone else is. But I would observe that all of the faults of Obamacare had been in play for a month and five days before the election, including the periods when McCauliffe’s margin in the polls was expanding to double digits. It only began to shrink toward the end, in the period after the Bloomberg ads were launched.
Also, this may not be a valid comparison because we had no really high-profile races here in PA, but I was kind of expecting the Obamacare and shutdown situations to be motivators that would get people out to vote, as a sort of referendum on which party they blamed more. I see no evidence that that materialized. Voter turnout may have been a record low in our county for a general election, at 22 percent, and to my untutored eye, I could see no unusual or changed partisan biases in the outcomes. So I question whether the Virginia vote was any more of a referendum, on anything other than the candidates and their issues, than what it appeared to be here.
I have a suspicion Obamacare and the shutdown are being seen as “the” factors, only because that’s what the analysts and pundits went into the election expecting to find, so, voila’, they did.
I agree with Andy. I think Obamacare probably had something to do with it, but it was an issue even when the race was looking like a blowout. I’d say Bloomberg was responsible for at least half of that drop. These people underestimate how much gun control pisses off pro-gun Democrats, and there are more of them out there than lefty Dems usually want to admit. It’s the same type that sent Giron packing in Colorado.
To paraphrase Napoleon, “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s [copulating with the canine].”
GREAT Job, Mayor! You need to make sure the Dems run on Gun Control! WOO HOO! Can I get a check, too?
I saw tons of MCauliffe ads, usually before and after Cucinelli’s ads. Gun control was never mentioned. Nothing bad about McAulifee was mentioned, until the last week of the race. Cucinelli was clearly outspent, but he chose not to attack.
By omission, Cucinelli told gun owners to keep their wallets in their pockets and stay home on election day.