Posted on 10/13/2004 5:40:03 PM PDT by 45Auto
Billboards now seen in at least 10 key states show a prancing French poodle, its fur fancily clipped for show, wearing a pink ribbon and a blue Kerry-for-president sweater. The text says: "That dog don't hunt." And: "For 20 years John Kerry has voted against sportsmen's rights." As Election Day approaches, the National Rifle Association is clearing its throat, ready to roar.
By now, most of the persuading has been done and attention is turning to mobilization — getting intense constituencies to the polls. Few are more intense than the NRA. If New England is Red Sox Nation, the NRA is a coast-to-coast nation within the nation.
The American Association of Retired Persons, with nearly 36 million members, is the nation's third largest organization (behind the Catholic Church and the American Automobile Association). The NRA has "only" 4 million adult members. Thirty states and the District of Columbia have smaller voting-age populations. And whereas just slightly more than 50 percent of age-eligible Americans have voted in recent elections (51 percent voted in 2000), about 95 percent of NRA members vote. Liberals who lament voter apathy should be careful what they wish for.
Each of the 4 million pays $35 in annual dues. Polls indicate that another 14 million Americans think they are NRA members and an additional 28 million think they are affiliated in some way with the NRA because of their membership in one or more of the 35,000 shooting and hunting clubs.
In the swing state of Wisconsin, which George W. Bush lost by 5,708 in 2000, but where this year he seems to be slightly ahead, there are, according to a Census Bureau survey, 591,000 hunters — more than one-tenth of the population of approximately 5.5 million. In hotly contested Pennsylvania, there are 1.3 million hunters, about a million of whom take to the woods on opening day of deer season, when some schools and factories close.
Bill Clinton believes that advocating gun control cost Democrats 20 of the 52 House seats they lost in the 1994 elections that ended 40 years of Democratic control of the House. And appearing June 23 on "The Charlie Rose Show," he said this about the defeat of Al Gore in 2000:
"The NRA beat him in Arkansas. The NRA and Ralph Nader stand right behind the Supreme Court in their ability to claim that they put George Bush in the White House. ... If I had known how big the NRA problem was, could I have gone down there and spent three days calling people on the phone and hollering people in and talking to them and turned it? Probably. ... I think the NRA had enough votes in New Hampshire, in Arkansas, maybe in Tennessee and in Missouri to beat us. And they nearly whipped us in two or three other places."
Labor unions have awakened to the NRA's power. For example, a flier published in Marseilles, Ill., by Local 393 of the Laborers' International Union lists three Kerry virtues. The third is that he will "fix NAFTA" (the North American Free Trade Agreement). The second is that he "will continue to fight to protect overtime pay." But at the top of the list — first things first — is: "Supports protecting our right to own a gun."
Nationwide in 2000, gun ownership was a countervailing pull against union membership as a determinant of political sympathies: Union households with guns split 48 percent for Bush and 48 percent for Gore. In 2000, 80 percent of Tennessee union households had at least one firearm. In West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Michigan the percentages were 61, 60 and 55. Gore lost the first two states and might have lost the other two if he had not prudently stopped talking about gun control.
Some liberals who are no more respectful of the First Amendment than they are of the Second saw campaign finance reform as a way to inhibit the NRA from talking against gun control. Advocates of the McCain-Feingold bill for extending government regulation of political speech repeatedly mentioned the NRA as a group whose speech could be curtailed by complicating the process of financing political advocacy. There are 170,000 precincts in America and the NRA says it has election volunteer coordinators in every one. Even on Manhattan's Upper West Side? In West Hollywood? Yes.
By Election Day the NRA will have sent out 15 million pieces of mail to susceptible men. And women. One in three women owns at least one gun. Hear them roar, in numbers too big to ignore.
I love that ad..got a pic?
Over here...Check out #3...
Many thanks...OUTSTANDING!!!!
FYI..check out #3 this thread..
"A" gun???????? By that does the pansy French gigolo mean, ONE gun, as in singular?????? Any mention of the true purpose of the 2nd Amendment? It isn't about whitetail deer, Hanoi John, you gutless, quisling French pansy.
I haven't trusted the NRA really since they came out in support of CARA, one of the biggest attempts at property rights theft perpetrated by our government.
80% of Tennessee union households had at least one firearm? It was probably even higher in Tennessee confederate households.
Love the poodle!
That's just patently untrue.
As a Life Member I haven't paid annual membership due since 1988, and it wasn't $35 back then.
I ran into a guy at a gun show a week or so ago who was a member of the Plumber's Union, and he was complaining about the dilemma in which he finds himself at every election, where the Demonrats position themselves as pro-union, but he knows they are anti-gun and won't vote for them.
I've thought for a long time that the Republicans could make significant inroads among union members if they started an outreach program for union members and at the same time tried to sell businesses on the idea of getting cooperation from the unions in driving profits up.
If we could undermine the Demonrats' unholy union with the unions in that manner, we really *could* finish them off.
Another dumb lib photo opt.
Interesting quote from the 3rd debate by Kerry
Kerry quote: ""I was hunting in Iowa last year with a sheriff from one of the counties there, and he pointed to a house in back of us, and said, "See the house over? We just did a drug bust a week earlier, and the guy we arrested had an AK-47 lying on the bed right beside him.""
Seems to me the ban he wanted extended was already in affect a year ago, so this re-affirms that it had little or no effect on criminals.
Bump!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.