To those who oppose Dean due to his position on guns

Assume Sarah Brady become President tomorrow with little change in Congress. Tell me how she passes even the small amount more gun control that Dean actually favors (he favors closing the gun show loophole as well as renewal of the assult weapons ban.) Be specific. I want to know exactly how she would get a Republican house (I will give you a Dem Senate) to pass this.

Could you please tell me?

You must think Republicans are just waiting to vote to repeal those tax cuts.

"from my cold, dead hands."

and maybe impossible. But I am not proposing voting against other candidates on that single issue. Gun control advocates seem to be doing exactly that on the gun issue. BTW now I do expect an answer since I gave you one.

I wish I had RiF's Can O Crickets graphic :)

the last batch just passed by bare margins, and if the Dems picked even a few Senate seats would be quite easy.

*edit* forgot about the House, we'll have to see how things go there. but if the defecit gets bad enough we might be able to persuade a few.

doesnt mean SQUAT in the end: ... he is a democrat: .. IF he wins the nomination: .. he gets my vote ....

End of story ....

The most intriguing thing about Dean is not the man, not his positions or stances on particular issues - most of his issue stances are pretty much boilerplate Demcratic fare - he IS a moderate, after all...certainly some of his positions (socially) are different than the other candidates -- guns, gays, drugs -- there is some distance there, some in a positive, some in a negative direction...Some stances are nearly identical to other candidates (Israel/Palestine, use of the military -- other than iraq, trade, and etc.)

The man himself is more aggressive, positive, and charismatic than most of the other candidates - he speaks with more passion and fire than all but Sharpton and Kucinich...

The real thing that Democrats should be paying attention to is the campaign.

The campaign is bringing in many who bolted from the party in previous elections (like me), and is bringing in people who have never been involved, and is bringing in formerly apathetic independents...

Now, imagine he does win the nomination, and fires up this pool of new people, who then vote straight ticket in the national election.

Imagine that this ups total voter turnout by 5% or 10%.

calculate the effect that could have on the house and senate.

Overcalculating Denas actualt support from Internet support is grossly misleading.

And for every one nre voters Dean gets to the ballot box, two are likely to sit outthe vote and simply not vote at all. There are many indications of this possibility all over the Internet, and even on DU. there are significant numbers of people who simply will not voite for Dean if he gets the nomination. More than enough to cost him the election.

A great many of these NEW TO POLITICS democrats brought into the process by Dean do not realize how much many of us old style liberal find Deans conservatism appalling and repugnant.

The fact that for th most part Dean represents an extremely REPUBLICAN type position would never occur to political neophytes.

surprise surprise surprise.

political issues. That doesn't mean that people throw out their beliefs.

Also, it's a complete myth that gun control is a losing issue. The Democratic Party has won three straight presidential elections running on a gun-control platform. Clinton had no problem and Gore got 500,000 more votes than Bush. It's a winning issue for Democrats because it shows that we're tough on crime, care about kids and family values.

The truth is that most Dean supporters (who are mostly young, white activists) don't care about an issue that is mainly important to soccer moms/dads in the suburbs and minorities in the cities. Most of the guns that wind up in the metropolitan areas are trafficked from rural and southern states.

Gun control is a federal/national issue, not a state/local one, no matter how much the State's Rights Democrats want to whine about it.

If Dean receives the nomination and doesn't get behind federal gun control, he will lose many votes, including mine.

If the pro NRA people think that we're going to let our party be hijacked, they have another thing coming.

I picked up the phone last week to hear a southern voice stating he was so and so from the NRA. I laughed and asked why in the world he would be calling me I'm the LAST person he should be spending time on. This is funny - he then asked to speak to Mr. blanketyblank (my husband and I have different last names). I told him there was no Mr. blanketyblank and hung up.

First, Clinton didn't run on gun control in 92. He did in 96 but also on the best economy in a good long time. We did lose several Congressional seats over this. Mine included (I live in Northeast Ohio).
Second, if you are going to stand on principle then it seems it should be one where the it matters on policy. Here you conceed it doesn't. Dean favors all of the gun control that Clinton ran on. Clinton didn't push for anything else. No registration, no licencing. Nothing.

is completely different than Dean's.. nice try. Clinton, Gore (and most Dems) view gun control as a federal issue. Dean takes the libertarian view, that it is a state's rights' issue.

Clinton was endorsed by gun control advocates, while they oppose Dean and his backward thinking.

Clinton and Gore's position on gun control grew stronger -- Gore 2000 was very pro gun control and won 1/2 million more votes than Bush, and that margin would've been far greater if Nader didn't run.

Clinton/Gore were vocal and proud of their gun control position, where Dean sucks up to libertarian/anti-government NRA types.

Clinton, never, as in not ever, endorsed registration of guns or any measure further than what he got done and closing the gun show loophole WHICH IS DEAN'S EXACT, PRECISE, POSITION. I will apologize if you can find even one quote of Clinton being for anything Dean isn't on this issue prior to 1996. Just one quote. You won't find it.

Do you really think that gun control had NOTHING to do with the repub sweep that year?

We lost Jack Brooks in the 9th of Texas that year. This is a man who had been in Congress since 1954, who did more for his district than most could ever hope for, who emasculated Ollie North during the Iran Contra hearings, and who had more knowledge about the federal government in his little pinkie than all of the freshman repubs from that year combined.

He lost because he voted for the Omnibus Crime Bill that summer, and it included numerous gun control provisions that the gun owners opposed. And even though he personally had opposed the amendment addiding the gun control measures in committee, the NRA refused to endorse him again, despite the fact that they had done so in the past for several YEARS. Brooks was a liberal (very for Texas), but he never supported gun control. And he was beaten by a militia type nut case who beat him over the head with that vote. Nice replacement there.

But I guess you'd have more in common with Henry Hyde than with Jack Brooks. Good for you. Hyde was, after all, the deciding vote in favor of adding the gun control amendments to the OCB. So is Hyde your hero while Brook is a goat?


Also, where do you get off by terming this stand "pro NRA"? Nothing could be further from the truth. I HATE THE NRA. But that does not mean that I am going to change my beliefs just because I am on the same side of this issue with them. After all, even the Eagle Forum opposed media consolidation earlier this year.

I just happen to believe that the individual should have more power than the government, and that I, as an individual, should be free to decide what type of objects I own (or not). Why do you take the conservative stand and distrust the individual so much? Why do you trust the government and want to give it so much power?

"Also, it's a complete myth that gun control is a losing issue." Eh? Have you ever tried to campaign for candidates in Texas? I have, so I certainly feel qualified to speak to this. It IS a losing issue for us. We have to campaign against repubs AND the national Dem party b/c of this issue. Try going into a union hall with an extremely pro-labor candidate to not get questions about labor policy, but whether s/he believes in gun control. It's frustrating as hell, let me tell you. And it does nothing but drive away thousands of voters we should be getting.

I am white, I live in a relatively high crime area (for the size of my area anyway), and I am adamantly opposed to further gun control legislation. I would rather attack crime at the source, the reason for crime. Studies consistently show that 85% or so of the prison population in the US never graduated from high school. Education, jobs, and a family/support structure are far more effective at fighting crime than merely having a law on the books that says thou shall not own a gun (after all, that approach works so well with drugs, doesn't it? :eyes: ). So if crime prevention is your reason for gun control, you are way off base.

specific region, right ?

I'm sure gay civil unions aren't popular in your area.

How about abortion rights ?

Let's throw them out too, to please the reactionary wingnuts who think they're going to control BOTH parties in this country.

And I'm no radical leftist -- I'm a moderate liberal.

The fact is, the Democrats in very conservative areas like Texas are going to have to run to the right in their local races to get elected anyway. Stenholm is a DINO because that's what his constituents want. But the national Democratic Party should not (and will not) move that far to the right in order to accomodate an ultra conservative region.

No matter where we move on gun control, the NRA will just keep pushing the issue farther right. If we were the NRA-lite party, the NRA would simply scare their base enough that it won't matter where we stand. The votes we will lose are the swing votes and moderate suburbanites like myself, for whom this is a major issue.

Dont think so?

Swing voting soccer moms/dads went to Clinton and Gore pretty solidly, because they viewed them to be moderate liberals who cared about the safety of their children.

Gun control is an issue I will never budge on. Like Al Gore, I want federal control of guns and their owners. I don't want your guns, but I want to make sure you are regulated and recorded in a central database -- complete tracking ability. There is no reason that guns should be less controlled and accounted for than motor vehicles.

I'm not a right wing libertarian -- I don't fear "big government". I'm a moderate liberal Democrat. I believe that the federal government should have control of a federal issue like guns. Guns move between states like air, therefore it is a federal issue. To argue that it's a state rights issue is preposterous.

If so you budged big time. Clinton never supported registration and never supported licencing. Who are you supporting now?

Personally, I am offended by the use of that phrase by the Dean campaign. In the South, the "states' rights" phrase has always been used by the segregationists, and everyone down here knows it.

What I said, is that it is a matter of CIVIL rights. I am not arguing that we do not need criminal laws regulating the USE of a weapon, no matter what kind of weapon it is (ie, a gun, knife, baseball bat, tire iron, etc.). That is of course necessary because criminal use of a weapon affects another individual (my rights end at your nose). But my mere possession of a gun does NOTHING to infringe on your ability to live your life as you see fit.

What I am saying is that the government should not have the ability to control what object(s) I possess. Possession is different than use- please look these words up in a dictionary if you are confused. If I want to own a gun, then by God, I should be able to. It's not the government's place to tell me that I can't. Just as it's not the government's place to tell me what substances I may ingest or whether I can or must bear children. Why would you ever want to give that kind of power to a political entity?

And personally, I do not believe that my "anti-gun control" stance is moving to the right as you said. I see my stance as the true liberal position, since I am putting my faith in the individual rather than the government. Remember that conservative political theory is based primarily on a distrust of the individual and a belief that s/he must be controlled. The parties' official stands on this issue present a flip flop of the normal political spectrum.

"I don't want your guns, but I want to make sure you are regulated and recorded in a central database -- complete tracking ability."
I did not say that I opposed this, now did I? You are assuming that people like me who are against the outright BAN of guns are also against any and all regulation, when that is just not the case. There is a HUGE difference between the two, you know. I simply believe that it should be legal for an individual to possess a gun, and yes any gun- but I did not say that some reasonable restrictions could not be imposed. For example, I agree with background checks and the 3 day waiting period. Those are merely administrative mechanisms which can prevent a weapon from ending up in the wrong hands without preventing a law abiding individual such as myself from purchasing it.

Please stop confusing support of gun owners' ability to own a gun with support of the NRA. The NRA is nothing but a repub interest group in drag.

Swing voters and soccer moms went to Clinton for economic reasons. It had very little, if anything, to do with gun control.

Show me one study that proves that gun control legislation has worked. How did the gun laws on the books prevent the kids in Columbine from getting their weapons? How did the gun laws on the books prevent the Long Island commuter train guy from getting his? And from what I understand, NYC actually has some verrry restricitve measures.

Good for you- don't budge on gun control. But again, does that mean you'd support Hyde over Brooks? Just curious.

Oh and btw- I AM a radical leftist. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Let's say we had a list of people who voted for Gore only because he was pro-gun control, and who voted for Bush only because he was the NRA's candidate. You're beyond delusional if you think the Gore list is longer.

let's see what happens.

The NRA will never support or take a neutral postion on an NRA-lite Dem. The NRA will find a way to scare their members and they will still all show up and vote for the true NRA party, the GOP.

I've already sent more money to Kerry because of this issue (Gore is my guy, but he's not running). Mark that on your "list".

If Dean gets the nomination and doesn't denounce the NRA and his previous "state's rights" BS, the gun-control lobby will fight Dean to the bitter end -- one NRA party is better than two. If this has to divide the Democratic Party -- so be it. The gun control lobby is pretty powerful -- a core Democratic constituency. You will never win the presidency with us against you. And as stated above, your NRA friends will be full force against you as well.

I don't even own any guns and never intend to. I just realize the issue is a loser. But you're even more delusional if you think Dean's position is identical to the NRA's.

that I am interpreting you correctly. Are you saying that there is no point in holding values different from those of a Republican Congress because they will not be put forward? Cause I am not real sure that I like that kind of thinking. See, it looks to me like you are justifying Dean's position by saying, "There is no point in even trying to be strong on gun control because the Republican's would let it pass. So Dean is being smart." If that is not what you meant, I am sorry. That is just what I got out of your hypothetical scenario.

So, you know, maybe denigrating the Republicans the way he does isn't smart if he is establishing his policies based on the theory that he will be working with a Republican Congress.

as stated above, he's no more soft on guns than Clinton.

What's the logic in ranting about how you want to confiscate all guns which will cost you loads of votes and then even if you somehow do get in you can't do it anyway?

btw, an Edwards supporter? Edwards obviously couldn't get elected in NC ranting about how he wants to take all guns away.

Where, oh where, did I say anything about ranting about taking anyone's guns away??

I SAID that I didn't think that I liked the idea that Dean's position is based on a convenience. I would prefer to think that he said these things because he believed them, not because this is what he thinks he needs to say to get along with his future Republican Congress.

I do not want to take away people's guns. NO, that is wrong. I really would like to take away people's guns. But that is not realistic. What I would like is to have mandatory and stringent background checks and waiting periods for guns.

Guess what I heard on NPR this morning?? That most of the weapons used in NYC crimes are bought in NC and sold on the NYC black market. Because here you can get guns cheaply and quickly. If there was a national standard, the people in NYC would hunt for their guns closer to home.

I just thought it would be ironic if an Edwards supporter was since I can't see any southern Democrat can't be any tougher on gun control than Dean.

a matter of convience? The man has been in politics since 1978 (some 20 years longer than your guy) and has had the same position on guns. It hasn't altered one iota.

'question' totally.

So, what was the point of your question, anyway? Cause if it wasn't that Dean might as well hold this position because it is pointless to hold another against a Republican Congress, then I didn't get it.

For me no single issue would cause me not to vote for a particular Democrat this time. But for some guns might. I think that for one to do that one should have some reason to believe the position of the candidate matters. Here it doesn't. We could elect Sarah Brady and get no more than what Dean has said he would try to get done.

I hope her standards would be a little higher than Dr. Dean's.

I won't shut up until I get it. Anyone using that clipped quote about justices in absence of a link to the original is spreading lies. And you just did.

you have no link. Class act yes siree.

You asked how Sarah Brady would pass minor gun control measures through a Republican-led house. I was pointing out that President's have the crucial power to appoint Supreme Court Justices, and that I would want a Justice that believed in gun control over the sanctity of state's rights. I'm sorry if that isn't classy enough for you.

Speaking of class, you were pretty quick to put me down. Don't you know Queer Eye is on tonight?

I watch Dean live them delayed 2 hours. The Supreme Court isn't going to order gun control and aside from some of Brady has upheld every gun control law passed. It isn't the Supreme Court that is the problem here.

I am sorry though in that I had assumed you were refering to the clipped quotes you and others had provided before.

What quotes are in question? If it was me, I'll try to retrace where I got them from. I may play hardball, but I don't cheat.;-)

he supposedly held in 97. He supposedly said he wanted judges who would quickly convict people. I can find no evidence of the place he supposedly gave it existing nor any article in a regular paper citing such a quote.

I don't ever remember coming across anything like that. I tend to gloss over a good deal of the specifics of Dean's Vermont tenure, unless I find them at least mildly shocking. But there are definitely Kerry supporters interested in that sort of thing.

I did assume something else. On Queer Guy wasn't that makeover something else? My lord what a fantastic job.

In the end I'll vote for the democrat, but I would much rather have somebody with a low NRA rating who favor gun control, than "NRA A rated" Dean.

What practical affect would that rating have? Clinton was reasonably pro gun control and in the aftermath of Columbine, with a much more Democratic House then we have now, got nada done. No registration, no licencing, no closing of the gun show loophole. If the slaughter of over 20 white, middle class kids coupled with a pro gun control President couldn't get anything done then just what do you think would?

On edit We still have less gun control than Dean advocates.