First NRA ad of the season:
Category: 2016 Election
Illegal Immigrant Attempts To Kill Trump
Probably not the nationality you’d expect though. Several reports say he attempted to grab a police officer’s handgun that was not secured, but initial reports are often full of unsubstantiated details.
OF course, this was a nominally gun-free zone, and the guy’s plan relied on the fact that it was being enforced by people with guns…
(My local media are playing up the fact that the attempted shooter was a resident of Hoboken for a while. Why that has any relevance, I’m not sure).
Gun Control Groups Targeting Last Remaining Pro-Gun Dem Senator
The gun control folks are targeting Heidi Heitcamp, the only pro-gun Democrat left in the Senate. Holding out the possibility that Everytown thinks attacking Heitcamp helps her (which it probably does in North Dakota), they would be foolish to weaken her, and here’s why:
This is what the 2018 Senatorial Elections look like. You have potential Dem pickups, if they are very lucky, in Nevada. The rest the GOP has a solid lock on. But the potential GOP pickups are pretty astounding, assuming the GOP doesn’t blow it, which I have full confidence they can do! But some of those pickups are probably a given, even if the typical suck sets in.
The main reason I’m not dumping on Toomey too much, even though he’s pissed me off and lied to us, is because I need his R ass in that seat, and even though he’s a worm, if he wins he’ll keep the Dems from picking up that seat.
The Dems just need to pick up 5 of those, and we’re defending a lot of purple states this time. We don’t really have any plausible pickups except for maybe Nevada, but probably not, unless we’re very lucky, and the GOP is not usually lucky. We have a whole lot to lose. Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Florida. Do you feel good about that map? I don’t.
If the Dems were to pick up the Senate in 2016 and the White House, the Second Amendment is almost certainly dead, since the Heller and McDonald decisions would either be reversed or limited to their specific facts (which is pretty useless unless you live in Chicago or DC). If we lose the Senate, and win the White House, we’re more likely to get another Souter, since the Dems are certain to block all but the squishiest nominee. So the GOP has to hold the Senate in 2016 if we’re going to hold the line.
Seen on the Internets
I’ll offer this with no comment:
Bloomberg Piles on the Hillary Train to Save Her
Hillary is starting to feel the Bern ahead of the California primary, with some polls showing Sanders pulling ahead. I’m cheering for Bernie. I worry he might actually be harder to beat in the general election than Hillary, but I think we have to worry less about the Joe Biden switcheroo if Bernie can take the race outright. That’s probably why Obama is endorsing Hillary.
I’m also cheering Bernie because Bloomberg’s gun control groups have endorsed Hillary Clinton, like that comes with more than a few thousand votes nationwide. You can read their article in the Sacramento Bee:
Our litmus test for candidates is that simple. Do they side with the public, or with the gun lobby, whose vision is at odds with creating a safer country?
Oh, that is rich. NRA has five million members, and generally speaking is supported in increments of 25 dollars from its mostly-not-rich members.
Everytown and Mom’s Demand Action is funded almost entirely by a single megalomaniacal billionare, and suddenly they are the public? The gun control movement was dying before Bloomberg came along and flushed it with fresh cash, and it was dying because the public wasn’t engaged enough in the issue to keep these organizations alive.
I’ll be cheering for Bernie tomorrow. A Bernie win would show their endorsement isn’t worth much, even in a Dem primary.
NRA Seems to be Preparing a Serious Campaign Against Nevada Ballot Measure
Local news is reporting NRA has hired a campaign manager to run the campaign to stop Bloomberg’s Question 1 on the November ballot. A few days ago they were promoting a new infographic:
November will be here before you know it, take action NOW- Don’t let @MikeBloomberg NYC your Gun Rights #2A #Nevada pic.twitter.com/GnfW91PRtI
— NRA (@NRA) May 31, 2016
The fight in Washington State seemed to be mired in strategy disputes, but hopefully we’ll have a unified front in Nevada and at the least trim Bloomberg’s margin if not outright beat him. Remember that Bloomberg also has a ballot measure up in Maine as well.
Ballot fights are hugely expensive, and while Bloomberg has the money to keep doing this, he might be reluctant to blow a lot of money on a risky proposition. We have to make these ballot measures risky for him. As long as it’s a sure thing, he’ll keep doing it. Bloomberg is already back in Washington State for another slice of the cake in 2016.
More on the Trump Endorsement
A comment of mine on other Social Media corners of the Internet, even though I hate social media like a smoker who can’t quit really but ought to:
Seriously, if you had told me at the 2014 convention in Indianapolis that NRA would end up endorsing a dark horse candidate from Manhattan as their preferred candidate for President at the 2016 convention in Louisville (where he won that state), I’d have testified at your commitment hearing. But hey, it’s 2016, and we’re all crazies now.
It’s a mad, mad world.
Is Trump the Death of Social Conservatism?
But I don’t think I’m going to be adapting my views to the socially-conservative mainstream any longer, because I’m not sure these views are actually the Republican mainstream any longer. I knew social conservatism wasn’t quite as believed as was claimed; I knew many politicians claimed to be pro-life who were in fact pro-choice, and I knew many of the Beltway class of advisers, think-tank workers, etc. were pro-choice, or more pro-choice than the GOP was as a formal matter. They were certainly more pro-gay (if not always actually pro-gay-marriage).
This is what I’ve been saying. Trump took every southern state East of the Mississippi. The SoCo emperor has been shown to have no clothes. Whether you vote for Trump or not, I think there’s opportunity here for those who don’t believe in fighting culture wars using government. I’m just now sure how to exploit it.
I think the overall issue of this election is that the working class never recovered from the Financial Crisis of 2008, all the while DC elites were busy waging culture wars rather than helping said working class. Trump is the backlash. To a large degree Bernie is that same backlash reflected in the Democratic Party, but they’ve been able to keep Bernie down better because the Dems are actually less Democratic.
At the end of the day people will vote their pocketbook before anything else, and Trump and Sanders are talking pocketbook issues. That’s why “free shit” works on people, provided other people are paying for it. Cracking down on immigration sounds great if you’ve seen your wages depressed through competition with people who can live on less than you do. I think people who work for a living are tired of culture warrioring, which is honestly an hobby for elites. While they are falling further and further behind, the elites are arguing about bathrooms. Think of the absurdity of that, and you can understand why they’re willing to elect someone like Trump or Sanders.
Cruz and Kasich Out of the Race
Still quite busy with clients. Tomorrow should be better. But Cruz and Kasich have thrown in the towel. Part of me wants to celebrate with a drink! But then I have to consider that makes Trump the presumptive nominee for the 2016 race, which makes me want to have several drinks, maybe enough that I black out until after the elections in November.
I know at least one lobbyist in DC who is happy with the current state of affairs because the right people are hyperventilating over the idea of Trump being the nominee. I think the silver lining (for me at least) is that the SoCo groups in DC that claim to speak for christians and evangelicals are the most hyperventilating of the hyperventilators. So are the K-street consultants that have made a living ruining talented candidates with their bullshit, then moving on to ruin the next campaign. Trump won nearly every state east of the Mississippi, including southern states in the Bible Belt; states that Huckabee did very well in talking about what kind of “Jesus juice” he drank. All Trump did was say he was a Presbyterian. So where does the DC religious right political establishment stand from here? Their best hope is for Hillary to beat Trump, as seems likely if you believe the polling (which I don’t). I could almost enjoy this except for the fact that a lot of other issues I care about will likely get flushed down the crapper too.
The choice is made! The Traveler has come!
How Much Did the Gun Control Rhetoric Help Hillary?
Hillary laid the gun control rhetoric on strong in Connecticut, and it also happens that of all the states Hillary took in the “Acela Primary” she won Connecticut by the thinnest margin. While the fairly parse polling in Connecticut showed the race close, she didn’t effectively beat the margin of error in the polling averages. Additionally, while she took Newtown, she lost 5 out of the 8 surrounding towns to Bernie. She had been building on her lead earlier in the month. I’ve noticed that Hillary tends to do better the less she opens her yap.
I’m not saying guns was the prime motivating factor here, it’s just that often Democratic candidates retreat to the gun control rhetoric believing it will help them, when it’s pretty apparent it doesn’t. Donald Trump is running on a pro-Second Amendment platform, and comfortably blew Hillary out of the water on primary vote count in both Newtown and in every community surrounding it.