http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/schlussel.html
MOSES DELIVERED the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai.
And, in this election, Moses may deliver the battleground states for George W. Bush.
Over the past two weeks and this week, NRA President Charlton Heston has been making the rounds in key swing states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (as well as Tennessee, Arkansas, and Virginia). And he’s having an effect.
Heston’s rousing speeches, coupled with those of NRA VP Wayne LaPierre, have Democratic interest groups, like the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, quaking in their boots. And for good reason. In states like Pennsylvania, an estimated 1.2 million gun owners could tip the balance for Bush and other candidates.
At an NRA/Heston rally I attended in Flint, Michigan, two arena-sized rooms overflowed with NRA supporters from as far away as Northern Michigan and Southern Ohio. From places like swing-voter laden Oakland County, Michigan. NRA organizers expected 1,500 attendees at the Heston event. They got over 7,000. The Flint Generals, a pro hockey team and the sole sports franchise in town, can barely get decent attendance at the IMA Arena, even giving tickets away. Heston and LaPierre filled it to capacity, as well as an adjoining auditorium, with a crowd as enthusiastic as that of a Metallica concert.
And these weren’t stereotypical pick-up-truck, camo-wearing, gun-toting, hunter types. There were women, like the Gen-X female Oakland County attorney with her husband. There were union workers wearing UAW jackets. And there were young, upwardly mobile professional dressed in suits. And a variety of others – all of whom used to be given votes for Gore and the Democrats. But Heston and LaPierre delivered impassioned orations on why they should be voting Bush and other pro-2nd Amendment candidates.
It’s very effective in Michigan, home of pro-gun rocker Ted Nugent, where the Presidential election and key Congressional races could come down to who delivers better –the NRA or the unions.
The unions realize that Heston is winning that fight. The LA Times reported that around as 40% of Midwest union members are gun rights sympathizers. If not NRA members themselves, they have a strong affinity for the group or its message. Their identification with the 2nd Amendment is much stronger than their identification with the union. Moses holds more sway these days than the union slug.
Heston
That’s why, last week, UAW President Stephen P. Yokich sent out an attack on Heston and the NRA, pleading with union rank-and-file members to vote for Gore. Desperately trying to assuage gun-owning union members’ fears of Gore Gun Control.
In a “Worker-to-Worker Special Bulletin” to all UAW members, Yokich wrote: “Brothers and Sisters: . . . . Like many of you, I’m a hunter and a sportsman. No one enjoys hunting and target shooting more than I. . . . a lifetime member of the NRA since . . . 1957. Take it from me Al Gore supports your right to own guns. . . . The NRA scare campaign is just plain wrong. . . . I want Al Gore to be my president – not Charlton Heston.”
But many union members --gun owners-- would rather have Charlton Heston as their President. They wish he were running.
And Yockich’s shameless plea rings hollow. Because gun owners have been hearing from Clinton and Gore for eight years. Eight years of Gore pronouncements that school shootings, a la Columbine, demand standing up to the NRA and the gun industry. Eight years of a man who once was a pro-NRA Congressman and Senator becoming one of its worst avowed enemies. And now he wants to change back again, just as easily. Gun owners aren’t buying what this gun rights chameleon is selling. Following Heston’s and LaPierre’s lead, they’ll spend their currency in this race—their votes—for Bush.
That’s why Gore is now trying to run away from his pro-gun control position. It’s a loser. It’s why in the second and third debates, Gore tried to do the same snow-job that Yokich’s UAW is trying to do on gun owners, saying Weird Al suddenly doesn’t want to take gun-owners’ rights away.
But even Yockich’s support of Gore is thin. Gore, like Bush and the Republicans, supported NAFTA and favorable PNTR trade status for China, and Yokich hemmed and hawed for months before endorsing him. There’s no union issue to marry union members to him.
On the other hand, under Heston, the NRA’s membership, including union members, has grown by over a million in just the past year. That’s because hunters and other gunowners fear the Al Gore who said he wanted to require licensing and registration of gun owners, something Hitler did prior to instituting strict gun control. And these gunowners have seen a preview of the future in the Clinton Administration.: a Justice Department, whose Attorney General, Janet Reno, stood by the legal opinion of Assistant US Attorney William B. Mateja that only National Guard members are covered by the Second Amendment (Emerson v. US).
And Heston is matching Gore’s campaign strategy, plank for plank, belying any Gore consistency. Gore talks about choice on abortion. The NRA talks about choice to defend one’s self against criminals. Al Gore talks about the top 1%. Heston talks about “fighting blue blood elitists,” like Gore and Rosie O’Donnell, privileged with gun-toting security, while they want to take the average man’s gun away. Gore speaks of Supreme Court justices who would take away abortion choice. Heston speaks of justices who would take away freedom – 2nd Amendment choice. Gore speaks of civil rights and hate crimes. But Heston marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famed 1963 March on Washington.
Over 4 million NRA members –and many more pro-gun allies-- are hearing Charlton Heston’s civil rights message about freedom: “Al Gore – You will never get out guns or our votes.”
Message to Al Gore: When Moses talks, voters listen.
MOSES DELIVERED the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai.
And, in this election, Moses may deliver the battleground states for George W. Bush.
Over the past two weeks and this week, NRA President Charlton Heston has been making the rounds in key swing states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (as well as Tennessee, Arkansas, and Virginia). And he’s having an effect.
Heston’s rousing speeches, coupled with those of NRA VP Wayne LaPierre, have Democratic interest groups, like the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, quaking in their boots. And for good reason. In states like Pennsylvania, an estimated 1.2 million gun owners could tip the balance for Bush and other candidates.
At an NRA/Heston rally I attended in Flint, Michigan, two arena-sized rooms overflowed with NRA supporters from as far away as Northern Michigan and Southern Ohio. From places like swing-voter laden Oakland County, Michigan. NRA organizers expected 1,500 attendees at the Heston event. They got over 7,000. The Flint Generals, a pro hockey team and the sole sports franchise in town, can barely get decent attendance at the IMA Arena, even giving tickets away. Heston and LaPierre filled it to capacity, as well as an adjoining auditorium, with a crowd as enthusiastic as that of a Metallica concert.
And these weren’t stereotypical pick-up-truck, camo-wearing, gun-toting, hunter types. There were women, like the Gen-X female Oakland County attorney with her husband. There were union workers wearing UAW jackets. And there were young, upwardly mobile professional dressed in suits. And a variety of others – all of whom used to be given votes for Gore and the Democrats. But Heston and LaPierre delivered impassioned orations on why they should be voting Bush and other pro-2nd Amendment candidates.
It’s very effective in Michigan, home of pro-gun rocker Ted Nugent, where the Presidential election and key Congressional races could come down to who delivers better –the NRA or the unions.
The unions realize that Heston is winning that fight. The LA Times reported that around as 40% of Midwest union members are gun rights sympathizers. If not NRA members themselves, they have a strong affinity for the group or its message. Their identification with the 2nd Amendment is much stronger than their identification with the union. Moses holds more sway these days than the union slug.
Heston
That’s why, last week, UAW President Stephen P. Yokich sent out an attack on Heston and the NRA, pleading with union rank-and-file members to vote for Gore. Desperately trying to assuage gun-owning union members’ fears of Gore Gun Control.
In a “Worker-to-Worker Special Bulletin” to all UAW members, Yokich wrote: “Brothers and Sisters: . . . . Like many of you, I’m a hunter and a sportsman. No one enjoys hunting and target shooting more than I. . . . a lifetime member of the NRA since . . . 1957. Take it from me Al Gore supports your right to own guns. . . . The NRA scare campaign is just plain wrong. . . . I want Al Gore to be my president – not Charlton Heston.”
But many union members --gun owners-- would rather have Charlton Heston as their President. They wish he were running.
And Yockich’s shameless plea rings hollow. Because gun owners have been hearing from Clinton and Gore for eight years. Eight years of Gore pronouncements that school shootings, a la Columbine, demand standing up to the NRA and the gun industry. Eight years of a man who once was a pro-NRA Congressman and Senator becoming one of its worst avowed enemies. And now he wants to change back again, just as easily. Gun owners aren’t buying what this gun rights chameleon is selling. Following Heston’s and LaPierre’s lead, they’ll spend their currency in this race—their votes—for Bush.
That’s why Gore is now trying to run away from his pro-gun control position. It’s a loser. It’s why in the second and third debates, Gore tried to do the same snow-job that Yokich’s UAW is trying to do on gun owners, saying Weird Al suddenly doesn’t want to take gun-owners’ rights away.
But even Yockich’s support of Gore is thin. Gore, like Bush and the Republicans, supported NAFTA and favorable PNTR trade status for China, and Yokich hemmed and hawed for months before endorsing him. There’s no union issue to marry union members to him.
On the other hand, under Heston, the NRA’s membership, including union members, has grown by over a million in just the past year. That’s because hunters and other gunowners fear the Al Gore who said he wanted to require licensing and registration of gun owners, something Hitler did prior to instituting strict gun control. And these gunowners have seen a preview of the future in the Clinton Administration.: a Justice Department, whose Attorney General, Janet Reno, stood by the legal opinion of Assistant US Attorney William B. Mateja that only National Guard members are covered by the Second Amendment (Emerson v. US).
And Heston is matching Gore’s campaign strategy, plank for plank, belying any Gore consistency. Gore talks about choice on abortion. The NRA talks about choice to defend one’s self against criminals. Al Gore talks about the top 1%. Heston talks about “fighting blue blood elitists,” like Gore and Rosie O’Donnell, privileged with gun-toting security, while they want to take the average man’s gun away. Gore speaks of Supreme Court justices who would take away abortion choice. Heston speaks of justices who would take away freedom – 2nd Amendment choice. Gore speaks of civil rights and hate crimes. But Heston marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famed 1963 March on Washington.
Over 4 million NRA members –and many more pro-gun allies-- are hearing Charlton Heston’s civil rights message about freedom: “Al Gore – You will never get out guns or our votes.”
Message to Al Gore: When Moses talks, voters listen.
