Bill Clinton To Dems: Don't Trivialize Gun Culture

[listopencil]

By BYRON TAU | 1/19/13 4:55 PM EST Updated: 1/20/13 12:52 PM EST

Former President Bill Clinton warned a group of top Democratic donors at a private Saturday meeting not to underestimate the passions that gun control stirs among many Americans.

“Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them,” Clinton said.

“A lot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things,” Clinton said. “I know because I come from this world."

Clinton dedicated a substantial portion of his 40-minute address before a joint meeting of the Obama National Finance Committee and a group of business leaders to the issue of guns and gun control, saying that it was a test-case for President Barack Obama’s grass-roots movements.

“The way the Obama campaign won Florida, won Ohio, won this election by more than projected was the combination of technology, social media and personal contact,” Clinton said. That’s “the only way that our side will ever be able to even up the votes in the midterms and as these issues come up, really touch people and talk to them about it.”

Obama begins his second term facing an uphill battle on gun control — an emotional, divisive and difficult issue that the cool and pragmatic Obama would usually avoid.

Obama took 23 executive actions this week to curb gun violence, but his key proposals will need a vote from Congress to become law. With a GOP House unlikely to take up any new gun control measures — and even some Democrats expressing wariness — his only recourse is to make his case directly to the public.

Clinton said that Republicans have been struggling in presidential politics since 1992 — noting that 2004 was the only time a Republican has won the popular vote in more than 20 years. But, he said, the party has been successful in energizing its supporters for midterm elections.

“You have the power to really democratize America,” Clinton said. “You can do it on immigration reform, you can do it on these economic issues. You can do it on implementing the health care bill.”

But, Clinton warned, the issue of guns has a special emotional resonance in many rural states — and simply dismissing pro-gun arguments is counterproductive.

While some polls show that the public by-and-large supports several proposals for increased gun control, Clinton said that it’s not the public support that matters — it’s how strongly people feel about the issue.

“All these polls that you see saying the public is for us on all these issues — they are meaningless if they’re not voting issues,” Clinton said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...#ixzz2IfVgL2CM

[johnny961]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

Wow, I see someone wasn't following politics when he was Prez. He was a major gun grabber when he got in, and the NRA ate his lunch in 1994. Thereby losing the South permanently for his Party. Bill never liked guns. Was never a hunter. That's a simple and obvious fact.

He never was a gun owners friend, but he isn't stupid. He can see what that anti gun agenda did for the balance of power in Congress in his later years of his presidency. Thats why I think he is cautioning the hardcore liberals in his party to not completely scorn gun owners. Or thats my take on the OP.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by listopencil

True, but he was referring more to the nature of the political movement in each party rather than the actual issue.

This.

Can you play at the margins of gun control moreso than abortion? Sure, but when you're talking about significant change on a national level, you're talking about risking the office of everyone who votes in favor of it that isn't in some VERY solid bastion for your party.

It's just bad, bad strategy on a national political level.

Is it justified? That's what you have to decide. When LBJ signed the Equal Rights Act into law in '64 he reportedly stated "we have lost the South for a generation". Well, he was wrong -- it's already been two generations. Was it worth it? I would say so, on THAT issue. And not that these two issues will have such a long-lasting impact, but the bottom line is you BETTER freaking recognize what you're going to cost yourself in the long term if you want to get serious on those issues. You're more likely to gut yourself than you are to come out ahead.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

Wow, I see someone wasn't following politics when he was Prez. He was a major gun grabber when he got in, and the NRA ate his lunch in 1994. Thereby losing the South permanently for his Party. Bill never liked guns. Was never a hunter. That's a simple and obvious fact.

errr....the South was lost to the Democrats long before that.

How Democratic was the "Solid South". Pretty freaking Democratic. Here's the 1956 Election results. Those red states -- they're voting for Adlai Stevenson over the reelection of Dwight David Eisenhower.




Fast forward 8 years later (post Civil Rights Act) and the election of 1964, where LBJ (a southerner from Texas) trounces arch-conservative Republican Barry Goldwater.



Don't ask me why red is Democrat and blue is Republican, btw...


Anyway, you can look at most election maps and see the same thing pre/post Civil Rights Act. Solid South is pretty solidly Democrat pre-CRA, and solidly Republican post-CRA.

[Deberg_1990]

What was Congress and Clintons reaction after Columbine? For some reason i dont remember 'Merica being as stirred up over gun control after that as they are now? I remember people being more pissed off a the video game industry at the time.

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

errr....the South was lost to the Democrats long before that.

How Democratic was the "Solid South". Pretty freaking Democratic. Here's the 1956 Election results. Those red states -- they're voting for Adlai Stevenson over the reelection of Dwight David Eisenhower.




Fast forward 8 years later (post Civil Rights Act) and the election of 1964, where LBJ (a southerner from Texas) trounces arch-conservative Republican Barry Goldwater.



Don't ask me why red is Democrat and blue is Republican, btw...


Anyway, you can look at most election maps and see the same thing pre/post Civil Rights Act. Solid South is pretty solidly Democrat pre-CRA, and solidly Republican post-CRA.

I was clearly talking about Congress when I referred to 1994. As you know, that was a midterm election. And the South was absolutely not GOP congessionally back then.



In fact, all 10 statehouses of the old Confederacy were controlled by Dems in 1992. Both branches of each. Today none are. Glad I could give you the history lesson here.

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by johnny961

He never was a gun owners friend, but he isn't stupid. He can see what that anti gun agenda did for the balance of power in Congress in his later years of his presidency. Thats why I think he is cautioning the hardcore liberals in his party to not completely scorn gun owners. Or thats my take on the OP.

This is true. But I'm talking about the myth of Bill being a "southern boy". He's not. Al gore is not. George W legit is. Look where they all live post politics and what they advocate.


Bill hates guns and learned to hate them after he left Arkansas for Yale and Oxford. He knows its a loser issue for Libs so he cautions them on it - by rudely insulting gun owners in front of his adoring big city lib donors as they clank the china and eat their rubber chicken dinners.


He's a scumbag opportunist and insulting to rural Christoans. That said he was a very good President.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by listopencil

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

Hysterical.

So really, the government can do whatever the hell it wants so long as it can convince people not to be afraid of it?

Hysterical.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by listopencil

"We need to be a party where people know what we are for, not just what we are against,"

Oh I think people know what the GOP is for:

• starting wars
• BIG government
• spending
• borrowing
• crony capitalism/mercantilism/fascism
• Keynesianism with a tax cut on top
• bailouts

The same things the Democrats are for, except the bold. They just spend their money on different parts of all those things. And GOP, if you look at their history have supported BIG government since Lincoln.

Now, the grassroots such as you and I, we aren't for those things...except perhaps the mainstreamers are for starting wars.

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Hysterical.

So really, the government can do whatever the hell it wants so long as it can convince people not to be afraid of it?

Hysterical.

Your History teacher did you a grave injustice. Then again, it's hard to turn chicken shit into chicken salad.

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

Oh I think people know what the GOP is for:

• starting wars
• BIG government
• spending
• borrowing
• crony capitalism/mercantilism/fascism
• Keynesianism with a tax cut on top
• bailouts

The same things the Democrats are for, except the bold. They just spend their money on different parts of all those things. And GOP, if you look at their history have supported BIG government since Lincoln.

Now, the grassroots such as you and I, we aren't for those things...except perhaps the mainstreamers are for starting wars.

Don't forget legislating morality. The R's are really big on that too. Well, unless it applies to them.

[FishingRod]

Originally Posted by listopencil

Don't forget legislating morality. The R's are really big on that too. Well, unless it applies to them.

I agree and as a righty man that pisses me off. Add protect the public from their selves to the left and we are quickly running out of differences.

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by FishingRod

I agree and as a righty man that pisses me off. Add protect the public from their selves to the left and we are quickly running out of differences.

Yup. True.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by listopencil

Don't forget legislating morality. The R's are really big on that too. Well, unless it applies to them.

All law is based on someone's morality.

The state govts were left with this power and it was done by the states and local areas for a long time. Libertarianism is not Constitutionalism.

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

All law is based on someone's morality.

The state govts were left with this power and it was done by the states and local areas for a long time. Libertarianism is not Constitutionalism.

...and the only way to make that law fair, and therefore valid, is for it to follow a moral code that is universal. Not dependent upon a particular religious belief. That universal moral code is based on personal liberty. The idea is that citizens should be allowed to run their own lives as much as is reasonably possible, only allowing the laws that are necessary for a society to function. When you speak of Libertarianism you seem to be looking to the European concept of it, which has been likened to anarchy. When I mention Libertarianism I am referring to the American ideal of strictly following the concepts laid out in our founding document.