Who's Afraid Of The NRA?

21 Comments

by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Sen. Greg Brophy’s opposing view noted for the record:

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A major story coming out of the 2012 elections last month concerned lavish amounts of money spent by favored Republican message groups–the most frequently-cited example being Karl Rove’s “Super PAC” American Crossroads–with an absolutely horrible “rate of return” on that spending as measured by candidates who actually won. In the case of American Crossroads, the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation estimated that only about six percent of the hundreds of millions spent by that group was spent in races where the Republican candiate prevailed.

So the question naturally occurred to us this weekend: how did the gun lobby do?

As the Washington Post reported right after the elections:

The Sunlight Foundation ran the numbers and found that after spending nearly $11 million in the general election, the National Rifle Association got a less than one percent return on its investment this cycle. That is, less than one percent of the money went toward the desired result.

The group supported 27 winning candidates, but most of its money was spent targeting winning Democrats (including over $7 million against President Obama) or bolstering losing Republicans (including $1.8 million supporting Mitt Romney and $500,000 backing Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock).

The NRA’s lobbying arm, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, fared only a bit better – 10 percent of its money went to winning candidates.

Answer: not real well, folks.

There are two ways to look at this situation. The fact that the National Rifle Association was able to bring tremendous assets to bear in races around the country demonstrates what an on-paper formidable organization the gun lobby remains. Certainly, Republicans can’t be expected to perform as poorly in every election as they did in 2012–it just wasn’t a Republican year, in so many respects that have nothing whatsoever to do with guns.

But the NRA’s extremely poor rate of return on its electoral spending in 2012, even lower than Rove’s embarrassingly bad success rate with the millions he controlled at American Crossroads, reveals something nonetheless important: the gun lobby doesn’t have any special powers of persuasion. Guns, as a partisan electoral issue, appear no more persuasive for Republicans than anything else they run on, and in 2012, that meant the issue wasn’t persuasive at all.

In Western states like Colorado, Democrats naturally run on a more deferential platform toward gun rights than their counterparts in, say, New Jersey. This reduces the effectiveness of gun policy as a GOP issue here, and also allows local Democrats to lead on gun policy reforms, when the moment presents itself, with a degree of bipartisan credibility. The simpleminded attacks against “gun grabbing” Democrats don’t work as well here, because our Democrats are less vulnerable to them, and better able to appeal to responsible gun owners.

In key ways, we’d say the much-feared “gun lobby” has an underreported bark/bite imbalance.

21 thoughts on “Who’s Afraid Of The NRA?”

DavidThi808 says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:26 am

Is that Feinstein’s legislation (and bless her heart for carrying it forward all these years) is changed to remove all of the exceptions.

Her bill was written to try and pass in a much more difficult political climate. With the present climate, I think a strong bill without 900 carved out exceptions can pass.

We have the opportunity to do what’s right, not merely what’s politically possible. I hope the legislators take advantage of this so horribly expensive opportunity.

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DavidThi808 says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:28 am

Can we start by questioning that assumption? I’m sure it’s fun to play with but so is dynamite.

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BlueCat says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:34 am

an extra long time to figure out when they can stop being afraid of the big bad bullies on the right. Years worth of polls agreeing with Dem positions in a big way are a must to get them to stop shaking in their shoes. Even then they have tended to proceed with let’s try to be bi-partisan and get the other side to make nice first over-caution. The changes we see now in backbone development have been a long time coming so let’s hope it’s the dawn of a new day for scaredycat Dems.

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Diogenesdemar says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:51 am

only melons will have ARs . . .

It’s the god-given right of every American to be able to hunt melons to provide sustenance for his family.

Melons are threatening the safety of our towns, our schools, and our homes. A home without an AR is an open invitation to a horrific melon tragedy. Vigilance . . .

The police can’t protect you from melons, they can only file the crime report.

A melon patch is the clearest proof we have, of this groups vile plans to remake our civil society.

Wild melons, bad. Tame melons, good state senators.

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Gray in Mountains says:

December 17, 2012 at 9:46 am

I’m certain that your local gunsmiths can manufacture parts. They can do it no matter what time it is. I know mine can. In addition if you become very familiar with your AR …. Oh never mind

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rocco says:

December 17, 2012 at 10:54 am

He represents a Fort Morgan area constituency that’s mostly older, white and rural.

While Newtown’s mostly white and small town, nothing could make the two more dissimilar.

Brophy’s constituency’s view of America is the result of Beck, Limbaugh, Lapierre, Fox, and Liddy. It won’t change.

To this demographic, assault rifles, automatic weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition are the trophies, the expression of the “My right to bear arms”, “Second Amendment means I get to own an assault rifle, just ’cause I can” crowd.

For Brophy to continue to live high on the hog, lapping up State Government bennys and the free ride that comes with being a State Senator that simply has to throw hate bombs to stay in office, he has to say and tweet the exact things he says and tweets.

This outrage will form into a “states rights” issue. That’s how the domestic terrorist organizations like the NRA will eventually react.

Sure, in States that have pure pinko representation, the results will be “arm the teacher” legislation. But in Democratic States, like Colorado, we have a real opportunity to address the gun loon problem.

Brophy’s outnumbered by clear thinking legislators not beholden th redleg businesses like the world’s leading arms dealer, Walmart.

Here we can do something.

Once, bucking the NRA could cost you an election.

We now have the opportunity to inflict political death on anyone that supports domestic terrorist organizations like the NRA.

God bless those victims in Newtown. We need to stop this lunacy and prevent those childrens’ deaths from being in vain.

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ClubTwitty says:

December 17, 2012 at 3:31 pm

Colo. gun background check requests break recordsDENVER – Colorado set a single-day record for gun background check requests the day after the Connecticut mass shootings.

http://www.gjsentinel.com/brea…

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Half Glass Full says:

December 18, 2012 at 2:47 pm

Leave it to Brophy to whine about losing his pwecious liddle AR-15 Penis Extender right now, as the children are being buried.

Brophy is the same colossal turd who sent out a twitter ridiculing a colleague as she was in the hospital.

Apparently seedless melons aren’t safe around Sen. Brophy. The clueless one atop his body is firmly in control.

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