General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Tomorrow's New York Daily News cover, posted without comment: [View all]SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)Here's my link: http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance Where's yours?
An estimated $577 million, or 69 percent, of outside super-PAC and nonprofit spending supported conservative causes, and $237 million went to liberal candidates and causes.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/12561-big-money-breakdown-why-2012-is-the-most-expensive-election-ever
Yes, Obama, not being a 47%-hating, tax-return-hiding oligarch, got a lot more small donations than Romney. But Romney still outspent him. The Dems' money was spent getting Obama and key Dems in office, not fighting the NRA. The NRA, as usual, spent freely, as did the gun manufacturer lobbyists. But the real tell was how little lobbying the NRA actually had to do in order to get its way. As noted in the Huffington Post, "The group's power in the halls of Congress is so evident that it is rarely challenged."
"If word gets spread around the floor that this is an NRA-scored bill, in the past anyway, that has been that," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), referring to the group's practice of counting certain votes to rate lawmakers' loyalty. "It is palpable on the floor when the message that is spread around is that the NRA is scoring this. It's like a wave."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/gun-lobby-nra_n_2317885.html
And no, Dems in vulnerable districts can't match or fight the NRA. Sad, but true. Feinstein is brave, but she is in a safe district. The NRA gets involved in a race and scares the crap out of the other side. They also come in on local propositions, killing gun reform, where just a few million dollars can overwhelm the progressives.
I'll never forget the shit the NRA pulled in my very blue California in 1982, when it poured in over $5 million against a grassroots proposition to require gun registration and to ban gun purchases by mail (Prop 15), blowing it out of the water. Even though Prop 15 started out ahead, the NRA's negative, misleading TV ad blitz doomed it. On Election Day 1982, California voters rejected Proposition 15, aided in large part by the NRA having registered more than three hundred thousand new voters at California gun stores. I had a friend who ran one of those NRA voter registration tables--paid by the NRA. My friend was the perfect NRA tool, sweet kid, but awkward man-child with severe insecurities; only his massive gun collection made him feel cool. And the NRA convinced him that Prop. 15 would lead to the loss of his guns. You might as well have told him he was going to be castrated. The NRA gave him the table, the No on 15 signs, money and the voter registration cards. He would set it up in the redder areas around L.A. and enticed people over like he was gathering a petition and then got the No on 15 people registered. Of course, the yes on 15 people would never get near him and would never get registered. Brilliant, eh?
Not only did the NRA bring down Prop 15, but it brought down Tom Bradley's Governor bid; before the ad blitz he was ahead in the polls and would have been our first black Governor. It's detailed in a book called Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist by Richard Feldman.
The NRA is evil. Pure evil. I hope their glory days are over. Sandy Hook really has changed the country. But you will continue to be its apologist. And for God knows what reason, the mods will continue to let you and your fellow gungeoneers pollute this board with right wing NRA propaganda, like your line about George Soros--straight outa Glenbeckibeckistanstan.