Keeping House and Senate seats matter.
“I believe in the Second Amendment, and I don’t see any contradiction
between the Second Amendment and laws that keep guns out of the hands of criminals.”
– Hillary
Clinton
Clinton isn’t alone, because Democrats have learned the lessons the hard way.
The irony in this statement is that her husband did a great service
to the Republican takeover in 1994 by relentlessly pushing his symbolic “assaualt
weapons ban.” According to Stanford political scientist Morris
Fiorina, it probably cost the Democrats at least six seats in the House (including
Speaker Tom Foley from Eastern Washington and Jack Brooks, the long-time Texan
head of the House Judiciary Committee), not to mention dooming the candidacy
of Rep. Andrews in Maine, who was running against Olympia Snowe (I believe)
for the Senate. (One might be curious as to what kinds of advice she gave
Bill with regard to pushing the bill so hard and forcing House Democrats
to take a predictably costly vote for no political gain–and, for that matter,
no real gain in public safety, either, given the basically symbolic nature
of the bill).
The parts above in bold really are the bottom line. The “assault weapons
ban” didn’t ban assault weapons. It was feel good legislation that gun
manufacturers and owners walked around. The non gun owning public just doesn’t
understand how this works. Many bought into the title of the legislation even
though it didn’t do what the title suggested.
However, let’s refrain from hunting photo ops, unless of course you look like Montana’s Brian Schweitzer or James Webb. Democrats don’t shoot varmints.
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