Politics – Page 229 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Challengers Lining up for Murphy

Looks like we have another one. Jim Geraghty likes his resume. I agree, he looks like a good candidate. He can neutralize some of Murphy’s strengths. I have no idea where any of the candidates stand on the Second Amendment yet, but once the serious candidates get separated from the non-serious ones, it’ll be something to look at. It’s not going to help much to replace Murphy with a Republican like Jim Greenwood, who represented this district before, but was no friend of gun owners.

This big question in 2010 will be whether the GOP will be willing to spend any real money in the 8th. They have fights in the 6th and 7th congressional districts, which are open seats, and will no doubt be targeting Kanjorski, Holden, Carney, Altmire, and Dalkemper as well. That’s a lot of races, and Murphy is sitting on a ton of cash. But cash doesn’t mean squat if the Dems don’t turn out next November. I think the GOP still stands a good chance.

Fixing What Shouldn’t Have Been Broken

People are starting to notice that the gun rationing law passed in the fall at the behest of soon-to-be-ex-Governor Corzine has some serious problems. I’m put off though that the powers that be are claiming they just suddenly realized this:

“As it stands now, retailers would be prohibited from purchasing guns from their suppliers,” said Burlington County Prosecutor Robert Bernardi, who leads the task force. “I think that was an oversight when the legislation was passed.”

The law exempts sales between licensed gun dealers, but not purchases from distributors or manufacturers, which are classified differently under New Jersey law.

It wasn’t an oversight. They were told what this legislation would do, and they didn’t care. Once they bought the vote of Fred “One Gun A Month” Madden, they passed it, and Corzine signed it. Consequences be damned. We’ll fix the problems later, you know, if we feel like it.

We Have to Get Rid of Levdansky

After surviving a challenge from Monica Douglass last election, State Representative David Levdansky has been taking his “Lost and Stolen” show on the road, in an effort to weaken preemption in Pennsylvania by getting municipalities to pass illegal ordinances regulating guns.

“We are on the same team with him,” said Mary Beth Hacke, of West Mifflin, a board member of CeaseFirePA, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing gun violence through advocacy and education in the communities.

“By this ordinance passing in communities it will make it easier for passage some day in Harrisburg. ‘You’re not hearing the voice of your own constituents,’ will be the message to legislators,” she said.

It’s worth noting that no local municipality has yet to charge a single person with violating these ordinances they are passing. So if they are so useful for fighting crime, why is that the case? This is useless legislation. The anti-gun people know it’s useless legislation. They are pushing it in a desperate move to find a working formula in Pennsylvania. If it works on this issue, you can bet they are going to try it on other issues.

Levdansky has hopped into bed with the opposition, and we have to get him out of office in 2010.

Republican Gay Bashing

Every once and a while I say the GOP needs to lay off the gay bashing. Usually someone demands to know what the GOP is doing against gays. This!

I’m not expecting the GOP to come out for gay marriage or anything, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask to start moving in the direction of acceptance. There are ways this can be arranged without embracing gay marriage, and there’s not much to be objected to in the language of the Rhode Island bill. The GOP is going to lose a generation of voters if they continue this track.

Bloomberg’s Pennsylvania Investment

Don’t let it be said that Bloomberg can’t make the most of his money. Although I guess we shouldn’t underestimate a multi-billionaire.

In Pennsylvania, once he lost mayor after mayor to pressure from NRA members, he sent his shared Brady Campaign staffer to recruit. But, wisely, they kept their cards close to their chest. They refused to release names until after Election Day. For the 17 they lost, they updated with 66 new ones. Now, that’s not a clear addition of 66. Without even really digging in deep, I know at least a few of those new mayors will be gone by year’s end. They already planned to retire, or in one case, the town voted to do away with the mayor’s office. (Changing local government system isn’t unheard of here, another non-MAIG township in our area voted to do the same thing last week.)

View Bloomberg’s Anti-Gun Mayors in Pennsylvania in a larger map

As you can see by the updated map, he added a good chunk of his mayors out in the western part of the state again. I haven’t done a formal count, but I would not be shocked if the western part of Pennsylvania is now home to half or very nearly half of the anti-gun mayors.

Not all of the mayors are up at the same time, so there will be more municipal races to fight in the next year to two years. And more importantly, if your mayor’s name is on this updated list, make their phone ring off the hook. Make this a distracting issue for them. Give them a headache from the stream of phone calls from you and your shooting club buddies.

Making Sausage

This article over at Politico gives you some idea what Nancy Pelosi had to do to pick up the votes she needed to pass the health care bill through the House.

How Dems Can Avoid Disaster in 2010

Over at Capitol Ideas, there’s also some good advice for Republicans:

Find Candidates That Fit Their Constituencies And Districts. If he were advising Democrats, Republican consultantÂ Ray Zaborney of Harrisburg said he’d tell them to “find people who are true to where your party is, but make sure you modernize your message.”

Fresh off a trip to Virginia, where he advised state Republicans,Â ZaborneyÂ pointed to GOP gubernatorial candidateÂ Robert McDonnell, who he says beat DemocratÂ Creigh Deeds last week by appealing both to moderates and the party’s conservative base.
“Bob McDonnell is as conservative as they come, but he talked about issues people care about,”Â Zaborney said.

He contrasted McDonnell with the example ofÂ Doug Hoffman, theÂ Conservative Party candidate who was defeated by DemocratÂ Bill Owens, handing the Democrats a win in New York’sÂ 23rd Congressional District for the first time in a century.
Unlike the doctrinaireÂ Hoffman, who was backed by national conservatives,McDonnell “stayed true to his principles, but moved past just tax cuts and vouchers for education,”Â Zaborney said.

“The one who wins is the one that consolidates both sides of their party best and, of course, the middle,” he said.

I’ve never believed the common wisdom often heard on conservative talk radio that if only we ran candidates who were conservative enough, we’d be guaranteed victory. It’s certainly a mistake to run left leaning candidates like Scozzafava in a district that could support a right-of-center moderate, but Doug Hoffman probably wasn’t the right man for that district. Understand that he lost in a year when Democratic turnout was pitiful. He might have won the seat for one term, or two, but if he governed too far to the right of his district, he’d be open to an attack from the center. If anyone doesn’t think that’s a possibility, just ask Rick Santorum.

Whether Republicans want to admit it or not, the Democrats have made great gains by running candidates who tailored their message to their districts, and are now using it to push an agenda that is far to the left, even for many of the Democrats they used to get their majority back.Â I fully believe the Democrats will be punished in 2010 for running too far to the left of the country, but it’s hard to argue the strategy hasn’t been effective for promoting a progressive agenda. The GOP has a lot they can learn in the example.

It Won’t Save You

Democrats refusing to vote for Corzine because of his crusade to bring gun rationing to the Garden State. As we’ve been saying for a while, gun control isn’t an issue that can salvage a political career, even in New Jersey. It really is the last refuge of scoundrels.

Hat Tip to Dave Adams

Movement on Castle Doctrine in Pennsylvania

Looks like the House Judiciary Committee will be considering the castle doctrine legislation next Thursday, the 19th of November. NRA is asking people to contact the members of the judiciary committee to support the measure. The actual House Bill is HB40. Look over it, it’s a pretty standard type bill. Major provisions:

Eliminates the duty to retreat within one’s home, including attached structures like porches, decks and patios. Exception for people who are using their property to further a criminal activity, so if someone is running a grow operation, and shoots someone breaking in to steal some pot, they can’t claim castle doctrine. Also applies to vehicles, including non-motorized vehicles.
Eliminates the duty to retreat on the streets provided you are in fear of grave bodily injury or harm, and provided you are not engaged in criminal activity. Criminal activity is this instance is narrowly defined as to not include things like spitting on the sidewalk. If you’re a drug dealer, you won’t be able to claim castle doctrine if you end up in a gunfight with a rival.
Clarifies the definition of loaded firearm to include magazines being secured in a separate pouch, rather than specifying a separate container, provided the magazine is secure, and the ammunition covered. This means you only need one range bag, provided it has a place to secure the magazines.
Provides for civil immunity for actions that are ruled self-defense. If the perpetrator sues anyway, it’s a loser pays system, so you can recover attorneys fees. There is no civil liability immunity if you accidentally hit a bystander, so this is not absolute.

To there you have it. Call the reps listed. No doubt there will be a lot of huffing and puffing by politicians, interest groups, and the media about the world will end if this passes. Many of them will never read the bill, or just have an agenda. But I have read it, and will continue to report.

UPDATE: Thanks to Sean for reminding that ACSL will be holding a lobby day on November 18th in support of the Castle Doctrine bill. I didn’t realize they had set a final date, but it looks like they have. Time will be from 9am until sometime in the afternoon. They will meet outside the security checkpoint at the South Entrance to the Capitol, the one with the water fountain outside.

More PALCB Fun

It seems the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, the state’s wine and liquor monopoly, is sending their employees to charm school:

Added bonus,Â Heyl finds in this week’s column that customer complaints have actually increased since theÂ LCB sent its employees to Charm School, going from one complaint in every 324,000 liquor purchases, to one complaint in every 288,000 liquor purchases.
Say what?
Asked for an explanation,Â Joe Conti, the liquor board’s CEO, didn’t really give one.
“Eighty to 100 complaints is really so anecdotal that I don’t know that we’d use those as a barometer” of the [charm school] program’s success, he said.Â Contialso told Heyl that the courtesy training was part of an overall strategy “to provide our patrons with a superlative shopping experience … the (LCB) board felt strongly that we had to do this.”
Fair enough. But if you’re going to spend $173k in public funds, you usually have the right to demand that things get better. Or ask for your money back. If theÂ LCB is serious about running itself as a business, it might want to start acting like one.

Recently a patron at our local LCB store became so irate, he threw a bottle through the window. I wonder if that was registered as a complaint? I grow increasingly tired of having to trek over to New Jersey to get any reasonable wine selection, or buy real top shelf liquor. I can’t believe we’ve been unable to create a constituency for privatizing the LCB in Pennsylvania.