Time For A Democratic Wedge Issue

by Steve

Suppress your laughter when I tell you the NRA’s long-awaited contribution to the post-Sandy Hook debate today was to point everyone’s attention away from guns to everything else.

NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre this morning dismissed the notion that the pro-gun group of about 4 million members would support any kind of gun-control laws, instead saying that "the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

There is no surprise here. Wayne LaPierre was never going to advocate anything that would reduce the profit margins of gun makers, and it only cements into permanent place the complicity of the NRA in the deaths of these victims and those that came before them all these years. What is still surprising is why the national media would even care from this point on about what the NRA says about anything after incredulously suggesting that the only solution was to put more guns into every elementary school. Yeah, that’ll stop nutcases from shooting up schools with automatic and semi-automatic weapons – see Columbine.

Now that the NRA has formally jumped the shark on this issue once and for all, I have a suggestion for the DNC, DSCC, and the DCCC. The GOP has expertly managed to find wedge issues and manufacture outrage to drive up turnout in the off-year elections: see 2010. It’s time for Democrats to do the same. Now that the NRA mother ship has spoken and pulled the strings of all its GOP flying monkeys, the Democratic organizations and media machine should take note of which 2014 GOP incumbents, House and Senate parrot the NRA party line from this point on. Media drumbeats should be started in these districts and states to insert the message out there asking why the GOP seemingly only cares about rich people and gun manufacturers instead of Main Street and school kids.

Democrats should focus their messaging around isolating these pro-gun extremists who oppose background checks, assault weapon bans, and other steps to keep weapons of war off our streets and out of our classrooms. Simply ask why does the GOP think school children and seniors are expendable to protect gun makers and millionaires.

Democrats should use the issue of guns and taxes as their wedge issue for 2014, and watch the GOP implode as the Tea Party scrambles to fend off primary challenges - from the center.