This is some seriously sloppy thinking:
Defenders of the idea of a filibuster on guns insist that the 2014 political calculations mean that there is little risk to their side if the legislation doesn’t make it. “You have to take it out of a national context and put it into a midterm viewpoint to make an adequate political assessment,” explained one senior Republican Senate strategist. “In the states that matter in 2014, and the states currently held by GOP Senators, there is not a lot of liability in defeating a gun control bill. How it is defeated is probably irrelevant.”
A look at the map proves that out. Of the 14 seats that Republicans are defending in 2014, just one — Maine — is in a state that President Obama won in 2012. Contrast that with five Democratic incumbents up in 2014 in states Mitt Romney won as well as two open seats in South Dakota and West Virginia where Romney prevailed, and you begin to see how the near-term politics may well not punish (and might even reward) those who put down a gun control law.
Why?
Well, look at this:
But, what’s good politics for Republicans in South Dakota or Nebraska or Mississippi is not necessarily a good thing for the GOP’s attempts to rebrand itself. Remember that expanded background checks have the support of roughly nine in ten Americans – a sort of no-brainer issue that typically guarantees congressional action of some sort.
When 90% of the public supports something, it’s unlikely that a majority opposes it in any state in the union. You can’t assume that the voters of South Dakota, Nebraska, and Mississippi are going to approve of a filibuster that kills universal background checks for gun purchases. There is no evidence for that. It is probably closer to the truth to argue that the voters in those states are sufficiently biased in favor of the Republicans that annoying them over gun legislation will not be enough to imperil Republican candidates there. In other words, Republicans might be able to get away with doing something unpopular, but they won’t be rewarded for it.
Filibustering gun control legislation will hurt Republicans in every district and state in the country. In many places, the pain will be minor, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t exist. The bill will get cloture and there will up and down votes on the legislation and many amendments to the legislation.
The problem isn’t that what the majority of voters in those red states wants – it’s what a majority of primary voters in those states wants. And supporting gun rights legislation will invite a primary challenge in 2014 that will certainly have the support of conservative activists that are overwhelming opposed to said legislation.
That’s why most of them will vote against cloture and the bill. But the cloture vote only needs five Republicans, and we will get at least five.
It’s interesting how different the dynamic is here from what you have with the budget situation. There’s no ticking clock here that the Democrats have to worry about. They can just spend the whole 113th Congress asking over and over why the GOP is so eager to put military weapons in the hands of homicidal maniacs. And I wish I wasn’t so confident of this, but it’s only a matter of time until the next massacre.
President Clinton wants to be known as Billy Jeff.
Sens. Ayotte and Isakson will not filibuster gun bill. Neither will McCain. Any others on the record, yet?
Graham and Coburn said they won’t support a filibuster too.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/04/09/1838421/top-republican-conservatives-are-too-scared-to-
debate-popular-gun-safety-bill/
Well, we know from the Happy Plutocrat’s campaign that Repubs don’t believe those lib’rul polls, so they certainly deny that 9 in 10 number.
The question is how weak the “gun” bill will have to be to get those 5 Repub cloture votes. I’ll guess pretty damn weak.
It looks like the only thing Reid had to give up was to allow amendment votes. The end bill will come down to those votes.
Politically the only real advantage to the GOTP of a senate filibuster would be in actually preventing the House – the seat of their federal power – from having to take up these popular gun safety measures.
Most of the senators threatening to filibuster are not up in 2014 and McConnell is absolutely desperate to curry favor with the wingnuts. If they back down on the filibuster and allow a vote then the five Democrats from redder states will be taking parallel political risks (in a general, not primary election) when they vote. If they filibuster and lose, same deal. But the real downside for the GOTP is for the House members – all up in 2014 – who will face OFA networking and Bloomberg money on top of the regular democratic cash.
The national GOTP knows that their House majority is in increased jeopardy if their already crazed incumbents are primaried from the further right. That primary risk is probably a greater danger to their House majority than the risks of an unpopular gun vote in the general. So a strategy to cut-off the gun vote at the pass seems like a reasonable way to try to avoid a vote in the House.
But if the Senate passes something then the onus for gun safety success or failure lies with Boehner and the GOTP.
I’m becoming more convinced that this is the issue that will bury the Rep Party in the hearts and minds of Americans.
Obama made the point yesterday over and over again that this is not political, not about him and that the Rep’s are not even allowing a debate. That framing, on an issue with 90% approval, when followed up by Obama travelling to the dens of the foolish 13, state by state, will pound them into the ground.
I didn’t think this issue would get enough traction. But Obama is renewing his effort; alot of people are putting their shoulders into the work and even with the polls dropping 10 pts on this, it’s not going away; awareness of the fight and work is becoming more appealing.
If won, at the end of the day Obama will give Americans not just a decent Bill on common sense gun control but the message that the Dem party doesn’t run from a fight. That is an astonishing prospect.
Wait until the end of the summer — fourteen months before the next election is the earliest that an issue will impact it.
As a very long advocate for gun control, there really isn’t that much “common sense” in the bill. Oh, sure it will make it more difficult for that large proportion of minority males that have been convicted of felony drug possession/sale to legally purchase a gun. However, as prisons/jails can’t even track inmates in their custody doubt that the background check system will improve by much.
CT’s new gun control law would have changed the outcome at Sandy Hook Elementary — the federal law not so much.