All about guns, legislation and politics in New York
Here is the second NRA television advert they are running in battleground states:
It’s better than the first one, but I’m not impressed with it either. Cut it down to ~45 sec. by removing some of Obama quotes at the beginning and the handgun ban part at the end along with changing the imagery of hunters to something along the lines of what Oleg Volk creates would make it more effective and appealing to a wider audience.
The New Yorkers Against Gun Violence PAC made $250 campaign contributions to each of these candidates. Vote against all of them:
In AD-109, Phil Steck is running a television ad attacking Jennifer Whalen for supporting, among other things, CCW. While it is not unusual for candidates to bring up their opponents stand on guns and/or endorsements from NRA/NYSRPA, I cannot recall anyone trying to make that an issue in a paid political ad. He’s not likely to get any $support out of NYAGV, Brady, etc. for doing it.
I have not seen a single Obama/Biden yardsign anywhere and only two bumperstickers. Being a heavily Democrat state I found that a bit odd. This report at the Washington Examiner may explain the reason for their absence:
“A new survey of presidential campaign ads reveals that those from Mitt Romney and President Obama jazz Republicans, pushing GOP enthusiasm 42 percent higher than it was in 2008 for Sen. John McCain …”
According to NY1 reporter Zack Fink, Mayor Mike is going to do some ads for candidates he’s supporting:
Mayor bloomberg says he may do 1 or 2 ads for candidates his super pac is endorsing. Adds “There is not a lot of time left” for campaigning
— Zack Fink (@ZackFinkNews) October 23, 2012
I wonder if that will include former Congressman Dan Maffei who is in a tight rematch with Ann Marie Buerkle for the CD-24 seat.
Bloomberg has run a bunch of print and broadcast ads promoting gun control around the country before and received nothing in return. If he wants to blow some more cash on ads touting Maffei’s F rating from NRA all that will do is turn out the vote for Buerkle. NRA has already done a nice full color mailer on her behalf.
Mayor Mike on what he wants his super PAC to do:
“… The point of his super PAC, he said, was to provide “spine” for politicians under that sort of pressure, which is why, for instance, it is supporting the re-election of Representative Robert J. Dold, a Republican from Illinois. Mr. Dold got a “D” from the National Rifle Association for backing some gun restrictions. “You’re not going to beat the N.R.A. overnight,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “As you get going, people start realizing that there’s a sane group of people out there that want them to do intelligent things, and that that’s where their support is going to come from.” …”
That’s nice, except for the fact that Independence USA PAC, like Mayors Against Illegal Guns, is funded almost entirely by one person: Bloomberg himself. There’s no “group”, it’s just more astroturf wrapped around Bloomberg’s ego.
By and large, the antigun groups have given up on directly influencing elections through PACs and GOTV efforts. Being astroturf they don’t have a constituency like NRA to raise money from or tell whom to vote for and appear to be shifting towards more “educational”/public relations type activities in an effort to still appear relevant.
A couple of polls are showing challenger Randy Altschuler slightly ahead of incumbent Congressman Tim Bishop in CD-1. Bishop barely squeaked out a win in ’10 against Altschuler by 263 votes. The district has a slight Republican enrollment advantage so hopefully this along with NRA’s endorsement of Altschuler and a general disgust with the Obama administration will be enough to push Bishop off the cliff this time around.
Da Mayor is putting his money where his mouth is:
“New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he will spend an “eight-figure” sum on local, state and federal races across the country, “with a focus on issues including gun laws and education policy.” …
Despite Obama’s public support for a new AWB, Mayor Mike isn’t satisfied:
“… “I think what we did get was a perfect example of obfuscation and very little honesty,” Bloomberg said. “If you think about it, the president, as I remember, said he wants more conversation. Well, we’ve been saying this for quite a while now. We don’t need more talk. We need some leadership. Governor Romney said he brought both sides of the debate together. Well, why isn’t he trying to do that right now? … Then they had all this gibberish talking about education, that education is the solution to stop the killing. My recollection is that if the Aurora theater shooter, he was a PhD candidate, OK? And Virginia Tech, the massacre was committed by a student at a first class university … The solution is to prevent all people who shouldn’t have guns from getting them.” …”
The antis got an awful lot out of Obama last night and it is going to cost him politically. They should be happy with that.