Thursday, September 12, 2013
The Heroic Senators Angela Giron and John Morse
What the pro-gun voices are not telling us, busy as they are with their celebratory gunfire over this, is that Colorado has 35 State Senators. The NRA cherry-picked the most vulnerable ones to punish and one of them said it best, the new gun control laws still stand.
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Interesting that the most vulnerable ones would include the Senate President. And after this recall, the Democrats now seem to only hold a one seat majority. As for the laws still standing, you can never tell what might happen next session.
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting to see that the bill limiting magazine size to fifteen rounds passed the Senate with a one vote majority. The background check law passed on a straight party line vote.
And the other seat, Giron's, was in a Democrat stronghold where registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans 2:1.
DeleteYeah, democratic gun nuts.
DeleteNo, Mikeb. They're called Americans. You know, that group you can't understand.
DeleteHeroes do good deeds while risking themselves. You meant to call these ex-senators villians.
ReplyDeleteMike,
ReplyDeleteWhat is your evidence that the National Rifle Association cherry-picked the most vulnerable senators to recall?
From all the news stories that I have read, a couple local guys were dismayed and took it upon themselves to start the recalls. I have not seen any evidence of any involvement from the NRA other than a monetary donation at some point.
- TruthBeTold
Right you are, TruthBeTold. The NRA's involvement (beyond a token contribution of $595), though very helpful, was pretty late in coming--after locally organized and financed petition drives had already done the heavy lifting in getting Morse and Giron (oath breakers) subject to recall votes in the first place.
DeleteThe NRA, ad the local groups as Kurt rightly pointed out, picked the most vulnerable. What do you think they did, picked the hardest ones or picked a few at random.
DeleteUse you head, man, and stop asking for evidence about things that are obvious.
The NRA, ad [sic] the local groups as Kurt rightly pointed out, picked the most vulnerable.
DeleteThat's odd--I don't remember pointing out anything of the sort. What I thought I pointed out was that much of the heavy lifting was done without the NRA and its resources. I can't help but wonder what might have happened if those resources had been brought to bear in the petition drives to get the other targeted senators on the recall target list.
What do you think they did, picked the hardest ones or picked a few at random.
Let's assume for the moment that there's something to this--that the NRA did carefully choose its targets (and by "carefully choose," in this context, I mean put significant money into each and every recall election ever held in Colorado history). Are we to take that as an indication of weakness? Choosing one's battles carefully, thus expending one's resources efficiently, is somehow less respectable than heedlessly charging in without care as to how to most efficiently pursue one's goals?
That's funny--I remember seeing Bloomberg's political savvy praised when he exercised care in the selection of targets for his bullying:
Howard Wolfson, a longtime aide to Bloomberg who guided the superPAC, said they were looking for "the right race and the right set of circumstances."
The first thing they wanted was a clear contrast between the candidates on an issue of real concern, such as guns. Wolfson said Baca, a Blue Dog Democrat, had gotten high ratings from the National Rifle Association.
Another measure of the right race was one that wouldn't be on everybody's radar.
"We deliberately chose a race that had not been targeted by others. We didn't want to be in the middle of a crowded field. We wanted to stand out," Wolfson said.
And if the race was a sleeper, without much outside money, there probably wouldn't be much inside money, either. Wolfson said it meant that "we would have a big impact, based on our ability to go on television versus the candidates' inability to go on television, from a financial standpoint."
Besides the high-priced TV buys, Independence USA PAC mailed fliers across the district that went after Baca on guns. The superPAC spent about $3.3 million on the race — nearly three times as much as both candidates combined.
So he picks a target, based on a long list of very specific factors, comes in with triple the sum of cash spent by both candidates, and is hailed as some kind of Vulcan chess master when it works.
Meanwhile, gun rights advocates win both of the first two recall elections ever held in Colorado history--including one in a heavily Democrat district--and it's no big deal, because they "cherry picked" the battles.
Enjoy your Kool-Aid, Mikeb.
Mikeb, too much is obvious to you, and all of it lacks evidence.
DeleteMike, local groups only have one choice in whom they recall- their local representatives.
DeleteI guess the fact that the recall succeeded despite a 6 to 1 funding disadvantage means that the myth that "Citizens United causes elections to go to the highest bidder" has now finally been soundly debunked. Decency and morality trumped Bloomberg's billions.
ReplyDeletePoliticians across the country who might be tempted to vote for infringements on that which shall not be infringed are watching, and now know that Bloomberg and his fortune can't necessarily save them from the second worst fate they'll deserve if they succumb to their forcible citizen disarmament temptations (care to guess the worst?).
This is true only in very select places.
Delete