GOP Now Getting Concerned With November Elections

Democrats have picked up another House seat in a formerly "safe" Republican district this week. The latest win for the Dems comes in Mississippi where Travis Childers, a county chancery clerk, edged out Greg Davis, a mayor. President Bush carried this district twice with about 60 percent of the vote each time. But Childers ran as a strong social conservative. State and national republican leaders privately are saying, this wasn't supposed to happen. Of course, dirty tricks played a part (the racist roots of gun control emerge in the most unusual places).

So many in the GOP, while not enamored with presumptive presidential nominee John McCain, look at the Arizona senator as a potential savior for the party, should he be elected to the White House.

French news service AFP, writes the following:

"The rise of McCain as their champion is not without irony, since the 71-year-old Arizona senator has quarreled with his own party for years on issues as diverse as immigration, campaign finance reform and global warming."

I would add to that his support of gun control is of major concern to most thinking American voters. Gun Owners of America (GOA) gave John McCain the following "grades" in each of these years: 2000 (C-); 2002 (C-); 2004 (F-); 2006 (F-). He also co-sponsored a gun show regulation bill that Congress rejected as absolutely totalitarian in nature.

GOA notes that McCain's bill language would outlaw the private sale of firearms at gun shows, unless the buyer agrees to submit to a background registration check. Also, it could effectively eliminate gun shows because every member of an organization sponsoring a gun show could be imprisoned if the organization fails to notify each and every "person who attends the special firearms event of the requirements [under the Brady Law]." Thus, if the person responsible for handing out "Brady pamphlets" took a break to go to the bathroom, everyone responsible for the event could be sent to prison. Amazingly, the McCain amendment passed the Senate by a vote of 53-47, but was rejected by House of Representatives.

And finally, there is Mr. McCain's support of an extension of the highly flawed 10-year ban on certain competition rifles. The measure, as measured by numerous studies, did nothing to impact crime in the United States. He voted in 2004 for anti-self defense Sen. Diane Feinstein's bill, though the overall measure failed and the original "Brady law" expired that same year, just as the Congress which passed it in 1994 had intended from the beginning.

As a colleague and I discussed yesterday afternoon, pro gun and pro self defense programs really are not looking at gearing up for the November elections. We need to be looking at gearing up for the next four years.

For no matter who is elected to the White House, they are not our friend.

Nevertheless, republicans are concerned about November's Congressional elections.