Here's the full Wall Street Journal article. They didn't have it on their website, so I went to the library, Xeroxed it and keyed the damn thing in, so there might be a few typos.
Lots of interesting comments in it, which gives us some comfort that we ARE making a difference.
"Guns N’ Ballots
High at the top of media orthodoxy is the idea that opposition to gun control is a loser at the ballot box, especially in the wake of high-profile killings like Columbine. But a special House election in California should help pop this liberal balloon.
The race was between Marta Macias Brown and State Senator Joe Baca. Both sought the Democratic nomination for the seat held by Mrs. Brown’s husband, liberal icon Rep. George Brown, until he died in July. Though Mr. Baca was well-known, Mrs. Brown had going for her the longest winning streak in American politics: 35 out of the last 36 widows who’ve run to succeed their husbands in office have won. She also brought her own qualifications to the job, having worked as a close aide to her late husband for a decade.
It soon became clear, moreover, that the two candidates agreed on almost every issue except one: gun control. But Mrs. Brown’s constant mailers attacking Mr. Baca as “the radical gun lobby’s favorite Democrat” quickly transformed her into a media darling. According to her campaign manager, Bobi Johnson, the “No. 1” point in her platform was “reducing gun violence”. Though Mr. Baca muted his staunch support for gun rights slightly, and sensibly voted to ban unaccompanied minors from gun shows, the National Rifle Association stood by him.
National reporters touted the race as a leading indicator of how the gun issue would affect the 2000 election. “After Columbine, the political dynamics of the gun control issue have shifted.” claimed the Washington Post’s Juan Williams. The liberal PAC Emily’s List chimed in with $250,000 in donations and a poll showing Mrs. Brown beating Mr. Baca by 32% to 15% if voters were aware of how the candidates stood on gun control. With history, sympathy and cash on her side, Mrs. Brown not only outspent Mr. Baca but secured the endorsement of two newspapers. Even the White House helped by taking the unusual step of asking Mr. Baca to stop using a standard-issue photograph of him posing with President Clinton in his literature.
As it turned out, the anti-gun frenzy was all for naught. Even though the Tuesday election came within a week of the senseless shooting of churchgoers in Fort Worth and a day after voters received a Brown brochure with photographs of assault rifles and a school crossing sign shot up with bullets, Mr. Baca prevailed. he will face Republican Elia Pirozzi in a November runoff.
But you won’t see many headlines about Mr. Baca’s victory, because it goes against the liberal belief that gun control is a winning issue. And the media buys into the myth because polls consistently provide incomplete data.
In 1994, for example, just before the stunning GOP takeover of Congress, polls found 89% of Americans backing the Brady Bill’s five-day waiting period for gun sales. But a closer reading found that only 33% thought the Brady Bill would reduce gun-related crimes. The point is that gun owners are highly-motivated voters, and when given the chance to make them, their arguments are often persuasive. They cite studies such as those which have found that states with concealed-carry laws show greater decreases in crime, which helps explain why 31 states have passed them in the teeth of liberal opposition.
Now, we are not Second Amendment absolutists, and a policy debate on how to increase gun safety and better lock up criminals who use guns is appropriate. Such a debate would find, for example, that gun buyback programs don’t work, because people mostly turn in junk, and registration of all firearms is little better, because criminals typically arm themselves through theft.
It’s probably too much to expect that the failure of Mrs. Brown’s hysterical anti-gun campaign will be taken into account by the media types intoning about the 2000 campaign. But we take some confidence in a public which time and again has demonstrated at the polls that it well understands the difference between reasonable restrictions and political hype."
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If you can't fight City Hall, at least defecate on the steps.
