“Having a gun in an advertisement is a way to summarize your opposition to the Democrats, to Barack Obama, your suspicion of big government, your valuing of individualism, and it also expresses a kind of sense of power that is very appealing to base voters in the Republican Party.” – State University of New York in Cortland political scientist Robert Spitzer, quoted in Meet The Newest American Running Mate: The Rifle [via npr.org] [h/t SS]

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26 COMMENTS

  3. The video is old. She won and last I heard she was up on Braley by 9 or 10 points. About time Iowans came to their senses if you ask me.

    BTW, you can see the anti-gun bias here. They act like 2nd amendment supporters are all hard right conservatives, and independents wouldn’t like a pro-gun message.

    • Got that right. Iowa has been voting for both ends of the ticket for decades. I’ll put Tom Fing Harkin up with any of your libtard progressive Senator from ANYWHERE for nomination as the leading useless POS of the Senate.

      Should be a huge antiObama year and Braley looses in landslide. Ernst should be able to turn out the conservative base and the libtards stay home. She is not a RINO. Braley is a truly useless flaming progressive. A trial lawyer (a slickky boy/slimy one as well) that excites only the true believers in the dem party.

      • I never understood how a third of any electorate could vote for Harkin AND Grassley. That should be your first clue that you’re a moron and shouldn’t be voting.

        Ernst seemed like a natural choice to me since she had the backing of both the establishment and the Tea Party. That and Bradley’s poke at farmers should seal the deal. Not wise in this state.

  4. Democrats like Joe Manchin and Alison Grimes have also used guns in their campaigns. However, Dem office holders usually give in to the antigun party platform when pressured by party leaders or mega wealthy donors from Hollywood, San Francisco and the Hamptons.

  5. “Having a gun in an advertisement is a way to summarize your opposition to the Democrats, to Barack Obama, your suspicion of big government, your valuing of individualism…”

    Mmmmmm – OK.

  6. Old yes, and I noted a glaring error in the op article, it cites npr.org.

    Can’t we all just stop doing that. ; )

  9. “Having a gun in an advertisement is a way to summarize your opposition to the Democrats, to Barack Obama, your suspicion of big government, your valuing of individualism…”

    Oh no, more helpless and downtrodden victims of the gun and its evils.

  11. Argggg…I just wasted a minute reading this claptrap. Brandishing? Belligerent? There ARE some vast differences between the dumbocrats & republitards.
    And where can I win an AR 15?

  12. I forget who it was, but during the Texas primaries this year one of the Repub candidates was shown strolling through a gun store!

    If they think this won’t play well with independents, they are wrong. More of the country is pro-gun than not and I actually find some comfort with a candidate displaying their 2A bona fides. Granted, I’m an independent and one-issue voter, but I haven’t talked to anyone who doesn’t like the 2A message that isn’t a Democrat.

    Being in Texas, even some of the Dems are pretty pro-2A as well. The gun control platform for the Dems is quickly turning into a plank.

  13. Rah, Rah go political base politics!

    I see this no different then a democrat standing in front of a abortion clinic, closed coal firing plant, standing next to union workers or in a Gay Pride parade. They are stumping for the base of their party or depending on the state, whatever is popular in that region. They will say whatever they believe they need to say to win elections. Wendy Davis, the liberal Democrat running for governor of Texas, had to come out and say she’s for open carry of handguns but we have no idea if she is for real. Manchin had plenty of gun ads, how did that turn out?

    Optics are nice, but you must check the veracity of their claims. Anyone can say whatever they want, the hard part is if they mean what they say? A sure check is what have they done in the past?

    November is coming, make sure you vote, but be careful who you vote for because political chameleons are everywhere and nobody knows if their colors are true.

  14. Signals an opposition to Obama, the Liberal/progressive drive for complete and utter submission to tyrannical government, a complete rejection of the hive mind Borg like denial of personal responsibility that being a free human being requires.

    Yep, being a gun owner and supporter of the second amendment says a lot.

  15. You would think that Progressives and Liberals would appreciate the presence of a gun in political advertising; After all, firearms were always prominent in Soviet propaganda art. And in the teachings of Mao. And Che. And Fidel. And all of the other Progressives and Liberals who strove to improve the lot of The People by killing them in wholesale numbers for their own good.

  16. Well, the lectern jockey interviewed for the story isn’t too far off, actually. He misses the mark, though, when he refers to the “sense of power ” associated with firearms. By citing that separately and subsequent to individualism, he doesn’t mean it to be the same as that. He means it to be power imposed on others, power that comes from the firearm. Well.

    In reality, the relevant power isn’t in the firearm and it isn’t about projecting power at all. The power is within yourself, being empowered to accept and act upon your responsibility as primary defender of and provider for yourself and your family. The firearm is a reflection of that personal, internal power driving yourself, not the source of some generic, external power over others.

    That’s why liberal tough guy stunts, from Dukakis’ 1988 tank ride to you-know-who’s shotgun and mom jeans routine last year, are so laughable and fail so miserably. People know that an authentic symbol necessarily must, well, symbolize something real. The symbolism backfires when there’s no connection to an underlying reality. Or worse, the symbol is intended to conceal the exact opposite reality.

    • I thought that Dukakis looked soooo adorable when he was bouncing around in that tank. The embarrassed look on his face was priceless. I’m surprised that Mike didn’t get his own bobble-head doll out of it.

  17. I typically feel that Democrats like to take rights away from US Citizens.
    Republican’s however, like to take the rights away from foreign people on their own soil.

    Voting between the two has the likeness of choosing between a white slimy bird dropping and a freshly dropped cat turd.

    There are notable deviations to the above statement however. For example, George H. W. Bush thought it was a great idea to cease importation of other countries firearms into the US simply because… “He didn’t like them.” Of course the rest of this country absolutely wanted to swallow his opinion like a buttery chocolate right? Nevertheless, at the recommendation of “Secretary of education” no doubt, Herbert “walk your freedoms into the garbage can” saw the measures passed in 1989. Today we call them 922R compliance, the most illogical, unreasonable ideas ever fathomed by any known organism.

    As a whole, I would choose republican over democrat. However, i’m certainly not going to excited about either.

    Now entertain yourself with these funny pictures about how voting doesn’t really matter:
    http://www.youngagain.org/images/nancy.png
    http://www.davidicke.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/legacy_images/stories/2010-02/governmentstillgetsin.jpg

  18. Spitzer was one of my old professors actually, political science and journalism. Dude is about as anti-2A as it gets and is a fine example of how institutional politics and tenure have rotted academia from the inside out (yet he was still far from the worst prof I had in this regard–my sociology professor and a couple of others I had in Poli Sci were bonafide nutcases).

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