The Washington Post is reporting that MAIG is going to get into the grading business, noting that they are aiming to be a full counterweight to the NRA. I’m always surprised by anti-gun groups making this declaration, and then imitating NRA’s tactics. Without millions of single-issue or very near single issue voters, grading candidates won’t accomplish anything. It’ll amount to a tempest in a teapot. The only place MAIG can be a counterweight to NRA is in media buys, and then only because they are backed up by a billionaire mogul, and even with media buys, the benefit there is more likely scaring politicians rather than actually mobilizing a voting base.
People were surprised at my concern, when all this started back in December, because the anti-gun folks don’t bring much to the table. This is true, in terms of votes. But we only tally votes every two years, and in the mean time, perception is important. The gun vote has been greatly weakened the past two elections, in terms of perception, because of a combination of it not really being a top issue, and weaknesses on the top of the ticket. The great question is whether the gun vote was dead or merely sleeping. The reaction of the base in the past few months has indicated that it is the latter, but the true test will be the 2014 elections.
Every election since 2008 has been the most important election ever, and we’ve kept losing them (and yes, from a gun perspective, 2010 was a loss, because it wiped out the blue dogs, which was the Dem incentive to avoid gun control, hence where we are right now). MAIG can not be permitted to credibly claim victory in the 2014 races. Even if nothing substantive on guns gets through Congress up through 2014, if we think we’ve won, rather than just thinking we won round one, and go back to sleep, our gun rights will still be doomed in the long term.
UPDATE: Jacob came to the same conclusion about the futility of MAIG letter grades.
