Gun control ads have Democrats worryingBy: John Bresnahan and Reid J. Epstein
May 7, 2013 04:59 AM EDT
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s aides met recently with staffers of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to warn them: Targeting vulnerable Democrats like Arkansas’s Mark Pryor on gun control could backfire on the party, several sources told POLITICO.
It didn’t work.
Ads from the Bloomberg-funded Mayors Against Illegal Guns are going up soon in Alaska, Arkansas and North Dakota — three states with Democratic senators who broke with the White House on last month’s background checks vote.
It’s all got Democrats nervous about keeping their hold on the Senate, if they are under attack from not only Republicans but pro-gun control forces as well.
Bloomberg’s group has made its choice: Its radio spots in Arkansas will target the state’s African-American community, “without which Mark Pryor doesn’t have a prayer of getting reelected,†said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
Democratic senators and aides also note that Pryor has backed President Barack Obama and the leadership on other big issues such as Obamacare, banking reform and taxes, and Reid will need him on upcoming immigration votes.
The White House has also threatened to use Organizing for Action — the nonprofit group created out of Obama’s reelection campaign — to target vulnerable Democrats like Pryor over the background checks vote.
Democrats, though, fear that any public effort to “shame†Pryor would have two results: First, he will just dig in further and become less likely to support any revised background checks package; and second, Pryor would be hurt by the effort, leading to a Republican who openly opposes any gun control-related legislation — and other Democratic priorities — winning the seat.
On Heitkamp, who also voted against the background checks bill, Glaze said Mayors Against Illegal Guns must show there is a price to be paid for voting against the measure,
even though she’s not up for reelection until 2018.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=24858D63-EDF7-4177-83E4-CDCC0F6B69FCDid you all catch that last line?
I love blue on blue cannibalism, there is a lot to be said about it as a spectator sport. I think the biggest issue, though, is the democrats are going to have to learn the hard way (again) that the
actual third rail of politics is the 2nd Amendment. If they want to waste all of their non existent capital on gun control, I think we should get out of the way and let them.
