Posted on 04/24/2013 6:46:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A fun clip from yesterday’s show via RCP, not just because this little wishcast/harangue is so obviously the product of spite and disgruntlement over losing the big vote but because it’s so obviously wrong. If you saw the new data from Pew this morning, you know why. Ninety percent support for expanded background checks in no way means that 90 percent of the pubic is angry at the GOP over the Senate vote. Rather, the vote on Toomey/Manchin was more of a proxy vote on gun control generally: If you want more GC then you’re angry or disappointed, if you don’t then you’re fine with it even if you supported T/M. Sean Trende predicted that a few days ago, before the Pew data was released, in arguing why the vote almost certainly won’t hurt Republicans next year:
Finally, we need to remember that most Americans are relatively low-information voters who are unlikely to dig down into the details of policy papers and voting records. What they tend to do instead is use what political scientists call “shortcuts” to fill in a picture of what a candidate believes in.
For example, few voters vote primarily on the abortion issue (and those who do tend to be pro-life), but voters will use a pro-life stance to paint a broader picture of a politician as having ties to the religious right, or being opposed to broader women’s rights. Similarly, affirmative action doesn’t poll particularly well, and few politicians will actually run on the issue because it is low-salience and can paint a picture of someone who needlessly brings up a divisive racial issue.
My sense is the gun issue works the same way. While most voters are unlikely to punish a senator who supports, say, background checks, such support paints a broader picture of that senator as someone who possibly backs broader gun control, or who is liberal, or who supports an administration with mediocre national approval ratings. This is a real problem for proponents, and it isn’t likely to change anytime soon.
Gun control is, as Trende says, a proxy issue for ideology generally, which helps minimize the backlash over voting no on a bill that 90 percent of the public supports. If you like the idea of expanded background checks but don’t trust Obama or liberals or gun-grabbers generally, you can live very easily with Toomey/Manchin going down. Related to that is the fact that gun control is a quintessential (maybe the ultimate) “slippery slope” issue, if only because some of the left’s favorite proposals all but guarantee further action down the line. No one, including Joe Biden, thinks that banning “assault weapons” is going to stop mass shootings. There’ll be more, and when there are, further bans will be demanded. Give an inch now and they’ll ask for a mile later, almost necessarily. All gun-rights supporters understand that, so if you’re one of them, how broken up are you really about Toomey/Manchin failing, even if you thought the bill on its own merits was okay? Toomey himself seems to understand this. If you don’t trust Obama to protect your Second Amendment rights, you’re not going to go crying that the administration was denied an extra bit of power to regulate guns.
If Trende doesn’t convince you, read Nate Silver’s statistical analysis of whether the gun vote will hurt Republicans next year. Short answer: Probably not, unless the left can build it into some broader narrative about the GOP being “out of touch” on issues that voters care more about, like the economy. Who knows, though, if gun control will still be salient next November vis-a-vis other topics? If ObamaCare’s falling apart and insurance premiums are ticking upwards, who’s switching their vote based on what the Senate did about background checks 16 months ago? How bad would the next 16 months have to be for Obama that one of his best arguments against the GOP, worth spending lots of time and money on, is how they voted — with some Democratic support — on Toomey/Manchin? C’mon.
The guy’s delusional.
Joe is a metrosexual punk. Whatever the hell that is.
I can’t decide if lib’s are delusional or just lying.
The only problem with Republicans is their tendency to compromise our freedoms away.
And sending US jobs overseas.
Both of those. Other than that, they get it bigtime.
But both of those problems, are big, and growing in importance.
Psssst....hey Joe, have you been watching what’s been going on in the states?
That’s about it.
Just yesterday one of our local moderate to liberal columnists wrote about how foolish the 90% lie was and beating up on gun owners was even dumber. (He then listed several that he owns including an “assault rifle with a hi cap magazine.)
What exactly does the Left have on this guy?
Hey Joe, tell everyone about the dead women found in your office.......
The Dead Intern thing.
No one said 90% of the public supported THAT BILL. The 90% was supposedly people in favor of some way that a background-check question had been phrased on one occasion. For all we know, it might have been "If you knew that universal background checks would prevent another Newton or Aurora from ever again occurring, would you support them?". It was obviously asked very slantedly or they wouldn't have come up with numbers so out-of-line with every other gun control poll in recent years. You probably couldn't get 90% of people to tell you the sun was hot. Unless the whole thing was just cut from whole cloth entirely. Maybe they asked the IPCC to conduct the poll for them.
Joe rants about it every chance he gets - he gives misleading comments to support his arguments.
Most people don’t even know what the gun bill is nor can the MSM make it sound horrific if didn’t pass.
And the plane delays are pissing people off at Obama not congress - as I stood in line the other day.
It's not the GOP supporting the 2nd Amendment who have to look over their shoulder, Joe.
The last time liberals ran this play, the Democrats got their butts beat good!
Well there was also the Republican Party instituting corporate welfare and regulations that built up companies like ADL and Monsanto while largely destroying the small family farm back in the 1960s and 1970s.
To believe that the upper levels of the Republican Party were not socialists even back then requires either lies or ignorance.
I think it’s more likely that this anti-gun push has awoken a sleeping giant.
Just what purpose does old Joe’s show serve ?
-— And the plane delays are pissing people off at Obama not congress - as I stood in line the other day. -—
Tell us more.
I suspected as much, since flyers tend to be working people. Obama forgot that flyers aren’t low information voters.
Punditry is as sophomoric as polling predictions.
There was not a single year in the 1960s and 1970s when Republicans controlled either house of Congress. And they controlled the Presidency for only eight of those years -- 1969-77.
So, how the hell is the Republican party responsible for any corporate welfare, or building up ADL (sic) and Monsan"to or destroying the small family farm"?
Please elucidate.
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