This is a rather amusing publication from NRA’s Political Victory Fund. I found it a gunbanobama.com:
Category: Politics
Troopergate
I can remember back when Troopergate meant officers in the Arkansas State Patrol cruising around looking for women to perform sex acts on the Governor. Now apparently it means the Dems sticking up for wife beaters.
Manion Running Last Year’s Issue
Bucks Right has a very insightful post on Congressional Candidate Tom Manion’s latest ad that’s running on the Iraq War. I agree with him. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be supporting Manion in the election, but I worry if his campaign is spending its very limited cash resources running ads that aren’t going to win him the election. No doubt the GOP fronted Manion because he could go toe to toe with Murphy on the Iraq issue, but that’s fallen from the front of people’s minds this election, and he’s going to need to distinguish himself on other issues if he wants to win.
Spread The Lightworker’s Word!
Barack Obama is telling his supporters to spread the word that he supports the Second Amendment. We’ll have to see if I run into any light bringers when Bitter and I work the Valley Forge Gun Show tomorrow to make sure everyone there knows about Obama’s record on the Second Amendment. Hopefully we’ll get a few more volunteers out of this effort too.
McCain Palinware
Bitter is promoting a line of McCain/Palin wear. If you buy one, proceeds from the sales are donated to the Unemployed Blogger Fund.
State GOP Can Go to Hell
Apparently the Pennsylvania GOP is unhappy that people will be able to wear whatever they want into the polling booth:
Officials from the state Republican Party Thursday morning criticized a decision from the Pennsylvania Department of State allowing voters to wear candidate T-shirts and buttons when they enter polling stations, saying the paraphernalia could sway voters and force polling officials to act as “fashion police.”
If the Pennsylvania State GOP were half as concerned about the fact that they have a ground game that’s utterly pathetic as they are about what people are wearing on election day, we might just be able to turn Pennsylvania for McCain this election cycle. GOP Chairman Bob Gleason needs to get back to the basics and stop worrying that people out there might just decide to exercise free speech.
UPDATE: I’ve since been convinced that my position on this issue was not well thought out. I tend to sympathize first with free expression, but for now I’ll agree that there’s value in a sterile polling area.
McCain on Gun Rights
Bitter points to an interview in Field and Stream where McCain talks about his positions on guns. He’s still supporting regulating private transfers, but he’s definitely mellowed on the issue a lot since 2002-2003 timeframe. The real fear is that a Democrat congress will send McCain a private sale bill and force him into a position where he either has to flip-flop, or piss us off. Either way, the Democrats win.
I’m actually surprised the Republicans in Pennsylvania didn’t try that with Ed Rendell more in his first term, when they controlled both the Senate and General Assembly.
Democrats for McCain
This woman is in my Congressional District, and although from a Democratic family, is voting McCain and Manion this year.
I am sure we have quite a few Dems for McCain here. I’m definitely one of them. I obviously still believe in my core values as a Democrat but have grown absolutely sick of what this party has become and how it no longer represents me. The reason I haven’t officially left the party is simple: I want my vote for McCain to be counted as a “Democrat vote for McCain” I was and still am a Hillary supporter. And there are LOTS of us who have come over.
I still basically can’t stand John McCain the politician — I will never forgive him for gutting the First Amendment with his ridiculous campaign finance law. But politics is never that simple. The person that heads the party’s ticket is a vessel for holding the coalition together, and getting a winning majority. The Republicans would have had a harder time finding a better candidate for that purpose in 2008 than John McCain, especially after his Vice Presidential pick.
One of the reasons I haven’t been hating as much on McCain as a lot of people probably has to do with where I’m from. I’ve spent the last eight years watching George W. Bush destroy the Republican coalition in the Philadelphia suburbs. Bush’s brand of conservatism is not one that the suburban Republicans can really get behind. Less intrusive government, yes. Balanced budgets, yes. Lower taxes, definitely. Less corruption? Sure. But Bush has largely ignored this part of the coalition, believing that if he just cut taxes, we’d go away and be happy. He was wrong, and the evaporation of Republican support in the suburbs here is a big part of that. Supporting Bush here is embarrassing, because he offends nearly everyone.
But McCain is the kind of Republican that Republican leaning people here can feel good about putting a lawn sign out for. You can say “I support McCain” without people looking at you like you’re from some kind of alien planet. McCain doesn’t seem to elicit the same kind of visceral hatred from Democrats (at least the sane ones) that Bush does. McCain’s reputation as a fiscal conservative and a reformer will play well here, and will give Republicans some issues to build a coalition around. For eight years now, they’ve had nothing.
I’m seeing McCain start to change that, and regardless of whether I’m pissy at him for supporting campaign finance, or ending private transfers of guns, he’ll be a useful vessel for helping rebuild a brand who we desparately need to win in order to secure a lot of things I do care about for the future. I’m not letting my reservations about McCain’s imperfections get in the way of that.
Who is Running Patrick Murphy’s Campaign?
The Inky is editorializing against Congressman Pat Murphy because he apparently doesn’t hate guns enough:
It sure looked that way yesterday, when Murphy voted with the National Rifle Association – and against the best interests of cities in his own backyard trying to stem gun violence, including Philadelphia.
Murphy was among 85 House Democrats who joined 181 Republicans in approving a bill that would roll back gun-safety measures enacted by the District of Columbia, after the Supreme Court struck down the city’s 32-year-old handgun ban in June.
I’d be willing to go to bat for Congressman Murphy if he was legitimately having a change of heart on the gun issue, but what does one of his staffers say?
Aides insist the congressman hasn’t changed his stripes. He still favors a ban on assault weapons and supports “reasonable gun laws.” The District of Columbia vote was about “striking the proper balance between constitutional rights and reasonable restrictions.”
Who is running this campaign? If you want to play the moderate-on-the-gun-issue suburban Democrat, the way Murphy is playing it is exactly wrong. It’s guaranteed to get him no allies.
I’m angry with Murphy’s support of the so called “assault weapons” ban. This violates one of our commandments, “Thou shalt not support gun bans!” HR1022, which Murphy has signed on to a sponsor, will ban most of the firearms that high-power competition shooters compete with, including the AR-15 and M1A. It will ban the Ruger 10/22. It will also ban all semi-automatic shotguns. That’s not moderate. That’s extreme. Murphy will get no support from us, no matter what he does on the DC issue, if he doesn’t withdraw his sponsorship of this bill.
On the other side of the card, the radical gun control activists in Philadelphia are furious that Murphy is supporting the Second Amendment when it comes to the Heller decision. Now even the Inky is calling him out for his ridiculous triangulation on this issue.
Patrick Murphy did not win Bucks County in 2006. He lost it narrowly. Because Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District includes parts of Montgomery County, and the City of Philadelphia, that was enough to win him the seat. Running on gun control, but only sort of, is exactly the wrong politics to play for this district. Murphy needs to pick a side, and I think the Congressman would find that truly embracing gun rights would find him a lot more support than gun control.
There are more than a dozen shooting clubs in Bucks County, several of which have memberships in the thousands. A lot of these guys are union members, and have common cause with the Democratic Party on other issue. Why is Congressman Murphy throwing these votes away for what measly support he’ll get from the few gun control proponents out there?
Right now his triangulation is ensuring that on the gun issue, Patrick Murphy is losing votes on all sides. That’s never smart politics.
Is This Not Leadership?
Congressman Jason Altmire was one of the representatives to get up on the House Floor last night to speak in favor of HR6691:
When the D.C. City Council decided to ignore a ruling from the United States Supreme Court and when the District of Columbia decided to play games with the Constitution of the United States, it was they that brought us to the point where we are today, where congressional intervention is necessary to uphold the rights of Washington, D.C. citizens under the second amendment to the Constitution.
As a signatory of the amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn the unconstitutional gun ban, I was outraged at the D.C. Council’s new gun restrictions. So I joined with Mr. Childers of Mississippi to help craft the Second Amendment Enforcement Act, which is the text of the amendment we are debating here tonight.
This bill repeals D.C.’s gun ban and permits law-abiding gun owners the right to keep their firearms in ways that will ensure their availability and use for self-defense. This amendment ensures that the intent of the Supreme Court and of the second amendment are upheld for all citizens, including those who live in the District of Columbia.
As I said before, when it counts, Altmire has been with gun owners. While I greatly appreciate the work Congresswoman Hart did for gun owners when she was in Congress, I think it’s hard to agree that Jason Altmire hasn’t been a leader on this issue.