Gun Politics New York

With the latest polls showing Hillary crushing The Donald in New York, both Republicans and Governor Cuomo are worried about the fallout.

First is Senator Jack Martins:

“Republican Jack Martins, running for Congress in a battleground Long Island district, is among the Republicans this year who are not endorsing Donald Trump, but still voting for him this year.  In an interview with Bill Samuels’s Effective Radio on AM 970 this weekend, Martins acknowledged both Trump and Hillary Clinton are “flawed candidates.” … “Thankfully, I’ve always run as an individual. I’ve had the opportunity through elective office to take stances of different things and people know who I am, so I’ve been able to use that and show through experience that I listen, I work across the aisle, I get things done,” Martins said …”

This mealy-mouthed answer is the best he could come up with running against a guy who has been busy registering the dead?

Next is Cuomo:

“Gov. Cuomo’s new commitment to Democratic control of the state Senate after years of backing Republicans is a direct result of Donald Trump’s sinking presidential campaign and the possibility it will take GOP senators down with it, senior Democrats told The Post. They also said Cuomo’s new stance … results from his fear that anything short of genuine support for fellow Democrats this year could blow up in his face in the form of a primary campaign against him in 2018 …”

The possibility that Cuomo could get knocked out by the Trump train is one of the few positive aspects I can think of about his campaign.

“… Another prominent Democrat said private polling data showing Trump’s support in New York state sharply declining over the past two weeks convinced Cuomo “that the Democrats have a good chance to take the Senate anyway, so he might as well get on board.” “The polls indicate that several Long Island Republicans may be swept out to sea because of Trump’s unpopularity,’’ the Democrat continued, naming Sens. Kemp Hannon and Carl Marcellino (R-Nassau) as being especially vulnerable …”

Not just on the Island.  There are ~4000 newly registered Democrats in Bill Larkin’s district so he could go.  Plus he turns 89 soon.

Republicans have a chance at a pickup in Buffalo with Chris Jacobs, who is popular and wealthy, but SD-60 is still nearly 2-1 Democrat.  Even if he wins, right now I expect Republicans down 1-2 Senate seats.

The NRA is probably starting to regret the decision to endorse The Donald:

“… “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment,” Trump said during a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday.  “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” …”

I don’t believe Trump wants to encourage violence against Clinton, however his poor choice of words makes it easy to see why some people are upset over these remarks.

If this were simply a gaff I’d just write it off, but Trump keeps on doing stupid shit like this when there is lots and lots in Clinton’s past, policies and position statements, that could easily be used against her.

Now he’s trying to spin the uproar as media bias:

“… “Media desperate to distract from Clinton’s anti-2A stance,” he said on Twitter Tuesday evening. “I said pro-2A citizens must organize and get out vote to save our Constitution!” …”

No, that is not what you said.  If that is what you meant you could have said something like this:

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment if she gets to pick her judges.  That won’t happen if Second Amendment people turn out and vote for me in November.”

Was this hard?  No.

Here’s my offer to the Trump campaign:  Hire me and I’ll be your point man on gun issues.  Just pay in cash, no checks or Trump steaks.

State of Politics reports:

“There has been a lot of happy talk lately from the so-called “regular” state Senate Democrats about making inroads towards a reconciliation with IDC Leader Jeff Klein in advance of what they hope will be a successful election season that results in their winning back control of the chamber … But IDC Leader Jeff Klein threw cold water on the idea of a peace agreement during a Capital Tonight interview last night, saying any speculation of a reconciliation, or about who might be in the majority come January 2017, is “premature.” …”

This tells me that Klien thinks as I do that the Republicans will lose a couple seats in the Senate and with the IDC will form a governing coalition like before.

Governor Cuomo jumped on the gun control bandwaggon with last night’s speech at the DNC convention:

“… “We fought the NRA and we won, and we outlawed assault weapons to keep them from the hands of mad men who are killing innocents.” …”

According to the Washington Post the speech was a stinker:

“… The New York governor will forever be compared to his father — legendary liberal New York governor Mario Cuomo. That’s a tough legacy to follow, especially when it comes to big speeches at Democratic conventions … But, Andrew Cuomo is simply not the orator that his father was and his speech never reached the heights some had hoped for him …”

Perhaps if he had chosen a more popular topic it would have gone over better:

From what I know of @NYGovCuomo, talking to an arena full of people who aren’t paying attention cannot be making him happy. #DemsInPhilly

— Bill Hammond (@NYHammond) July 28, 2016

The Governor forgets that the price of his “win” was the end of his own presidential aspirations.