"Any wind still left in the sails of gun control advocates likely died—at least for now—when Colorado voters successfully recalled two state senators on Sept. 10. This stern punishment came after lawmakers in the Mile High state toughened regulations on background checks and limited the size of ammo magazines.
It was a rout. Billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg led a team of deep-pocketed out-of-towners in trying to rescue state senate president John Morse and his colleague Sen. Angela Giron, both Democrats. But the grassroots rebellion, fanned and funded by the National Rifle Association and other conservative groups, was more motivated. Said Tim Knight, a leader of the uprising: “Tonight is a victory for the people of the state of Colorado, who have been subject to the overreach of a Democrat agenda on guns, taxes and accountability.” Time
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i will abstain from gloating. pl
Col: They have a nice State Capitol in Colorado. However, the final set of starts at the top of the Rotunda is not for the faint of heart.
Should be “stairs.”
Good for my neighbors to the south.
Us country folk are not impressed by the coastie high rollers.
Conservative elections in Australia and Norway, Putin judoing Obama all over the place, and now this.
Its been a good week.
Col Lang
“From my cold dead fingers ” Charlton Heston ( He was a Scot yes ? )
Colonel Lang,
As always, I will try to follow your fine
example, no gloating. Instead I will just exult
and rejoice and take malignant pleasure
and satisfaction in the defeat and failure
of Bloomberg and the other anti gun crazies.
Nightsticker
USMC 65-72
FBI 72-96
So The Nation now characterizes citizens exercising their right to vote to be a ‘rebellion’ if they vote againsst the candidates backed by liberals and an out of state billionaire? That’s a bad sign if they keep using that kind of language to characterize political opponents.
A good gloat well earned and delightful to observe.
One funny omission from that article that I heard mentioned on Reason.com was that Nanny Bloomberg and his buddies outspent the NRA and pro-2nd Amendment groups something like 8:1. The above quote makes it ambiguous who spent more…
But as a Coloradoan, I’m glad that my fellow citizens down south managed to enforce some accountability to their representatives.
~Jon
“Tonight is a victory for the people of the state of Colorado, who have been subject to the overreach of a Democrat agenda on guns, taxes and accountability.” Time
This is just the beginning of the madness:
http://twitchy.com/2013/09/11/colorado-grass-roots-to-gov-hickenlooper-youre-next/
http://www.ibtimes.com/northern-colorado-secession-will-north-colorado-become-americas-51st-state-1343797
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Colorado
I think the two most important take-aways from this article are:
1. Money spent is no longer necessarily a good indicator of a winning campaign.
2. Organizing a successful recall campaign is far easier in the internet age.
The article cited used the word ‘rout’. I don’t see that. John Morse lost by only 350 votes of 18,000 cast. Angela Giron, however did get drubbed losing by a solid 12% or ~4150 votes of ~34,500 cast. (As a quick aside it is interesting that Ms. Giron won her seat in 2010 by a similarly wide margin and Mr. Morse also won with percentage majority nearly identical to what he lost by yesterday.) As a point of reference, each Colorado State Senate district is approx 143,000 people, and the two Senate districts in yesterday’s recall have an registered voting population of ~70,000 each. So a very small majority of voters in a low turn out, off, off year, recall election ousted two Senators, who were elected to full terms, by larger numbers of voters in the scheduled 2010 general election. Putting aside the issue of guns for a second, is this a positive development for the state of Colorado, or for our nation’s democracy?
The other thing I don’t quite understand is why take on only two senators, when three or four would’ve changed control of the state Senate? As it stands, even after yesterday’s recall the Democrats still control both houses in Colorado. So, beyond the symbolic victory, what was gained?
Col., yesterday some posters danced around with the idea of citizenship and national service to earn the right to vote.
In relation to that, I’m curious what your take on this recall election is, beyond the gun control issue.
nickB
Both your points are important. Money does not necessarily buy victory and the power of the interet i skilled hands is grest. pl
My own takeaway is that people don’t like to be scapegoated for the actions of a few.
Hopefully we’ll settle into some kind of detente over guns. There are not enough lily white uber-liberal districts in the USA for them to win on this issue. Add to that low turnout in competitive districts and you’re looking at political disaster.
Will Reks,
In my experience, gun control is an issue that crosses party lines.
I seem to recall the Col. describing the issue more aptly in geographic terms: islands of support for gun control (cities), in a sea of gun rights (everywhere else). I have wondered if gun control would be better approached from a geographic point of view: controls should be applied as population density rises, and removed in less populated areas. Clearly, one size does not fit all. Just a thought.
I see the growing movement towards recalling elected officials, absent a crime, as a more troubling issue.
Those two were the only two out of four who organizers were able to get enough signatures to force a recall vote.
Thank you for the clarification. That makes sense.
Nick, I am not well-versed in the issue enough to tackle it at length.
As for your second point I think it is simply a a result of today’s polarized politics. My state experienced a recall election recently because the Governor signed a bill revoking collective bargaining for most public unions. It failed because most people rightly saw that this was not an offense worthy of recall. I hope this does not become a trend but it really depends on the issue.
Well, I disagree with you all about gun control.
But what I am delighted to see is people breaking out of their silence and passivity.
There are a thousand issues in America in which the majority is being overruled and jerked around by a minority.
Usually that minority is small and it’s rich and it takes away things from the rest of us that we do not want to give.
So just as I was happy to see the rise of the Tea Party even though I disagree with the Tea Party on most issues, I am happy to see that the citizens of Colorado exercised their rights and privileges as Americans and made their feelings known.
Nothing makes me happier than the idea of a newly energized American public sticking up for itself.
I hope that all Americans wake up soon and stay awake. We’ve been asleep for far too long and have paid dearly for that.