Dems court states pro-gun vote
Scott Sonner ASSOCIATED PRESS
10/23/2004 11:09 pm
Associated Press/ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAHILL: He established the pro-gun Nevada Outdoor Democratic Caucus.
TONOPAH John Cahill stood up at a meeting of state Democratic leaders in this small rural town a year ago to complain his party was ignoring the impact tens of thousands of Nevada gun owners could have on the 2004 election.
When is somebody going to do something about Democrats and guns? asked Cahill, 58, a lifelong party member and former parole officer who teaches gun safety.
Cahills rant about the bad rap the party gets for being anti-gun hit home with many at that meeting of the Democratic State Central Committee in the high desert halfway between Democratically dominated Las Vegas to the south, and Republican-leaning Reno in the north.
Since then:
* Cahill established the Nevada Outdoor Democratic Caucus to organize the partys elected officials who are pro-gun rights and try to keep Democratic hunters in the fold.
* U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has received $4,500 in contributions from the National Rifle Associations political arm in his bid for re-election to a fourth term against Republican Richard Ziser.
* The AFL-CIO has launched a direct mail and telephone campaign to reassure union members in Nevada that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is a hunter who wont take away their guns.
In this election, my gun is safe. But my job isnt[/b], states an AFL-CIO mailer that started arriving in mailboxes a week ago. Both John Kerry and George W. Bush are gun owners and sportsmen. :twisted:
Your Second Amendment rights will not be in jeopardy when we elect John Kerry president, says a tape-recorded telephone message, but your job and your union will be in jeopardy if we let George Bush have four more years in the White House. :twisted:
Its the latest sign that Nevadas outdoor enthusiasts many cut from the mold of so-called Reagan Democrats could help determine whether this rugged Western battleground state sticks with President Bush as it did in 2000, or swings back Democratic as it did the two presidential elections before.
Ive done some research in this area and it is one issue that can really swing Democrats. Pro-gun Democrats are always ready to jump ship, said Ted Jelen, head of the political science department at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
It is one of the lessons of the Gore campaign (in 2000), that there is kind of a gun Democratic vote that really cares about that issue, he told said.
That view was echoed in interviews with veteran candidates, strategists and analysts across Nevada, where registration is divided nearly evenly between the two major parties.
It is an issue that has traction with a group of people who have very, very strong feelings about gun rights, said Richard Bryan, former Democratic governor of Nevada and two-term U.S. senator.
Aside from national security, Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons is hard pressed to name a more pervasive issue in his largely rural district covering most of Nevada outside Las Vegas.
It is an enormously important issue for the West. It is absolutely a baseline issue for Nevada voters, Gibbons said.
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A decade ago, then-House Speaker Tom Foley of Washington was among the Democrats who concluded that a vote on gun control legislation played a part in their historic loss of the House majority in the 1994 elections.
Bryan remembers campaigning that year with then-Rep. Jim Bilbray, D-Nev., who lost his seat to Republican challenger John Ensign, now one of Nevadas U.S. senators.
I would go to union meetings where Bilbray had very strong support almost a 100 percent voting record with the AFL-CIO. And frankly, all they wanted to talk about was guns, Bryan said.
I think it was a big issue, rightly or wrongly. They had been persuaded that Bilbray was a gun opponent, he said.
More recently, the NRA claimed credit for George W. Bushs victory over Democrat Al Gore four years ago.
You are why Al Gore isnt in the White House, NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre told more than 4,500 delegates at the groups annual meeting in Reno in April 2002.
In a speech that proved to be an early preview of his address to the GOP National Convention in August, U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., gave the keynote address to the NRA convention the first Democrat invited to do so in a decade.
What many do not understand is that the gun issue is not just about guns, he told the Reno crowd.
Its about values. Its about setting priorities. Its about personal freedom and trust, said Miller, who argued Gores stand on gun rights cost him Arkansas, West Virginia and Tennessee.
Whenever I hear politicians talking about gun control, it makes me wonder if they understand my values or my way of thinking.
Those words ring true with Cahill. He sees it when he visits meetings that many national labor unions hold in Las Vegas.
They have family values, said Cahill, an avid gun collector who moved to Nevada from the Midwest in the 1960s and worked 30 years as a juvenile parole officer.
They are union guys. Their dads were union guys. And then they let something like guns divide them, he said.
They say they will not vote for someone they think is going to take their guns away. It approaches a religious belief.
Bob McGowan, a longtime Democrat and Washoe County assessor, tells anyone who will listen that there are planks in both state party platforms supporting the Second Amendments right to bear arms.
Nevertheless, Republicans have been very successful in beating us up on that because of the perception. And the perception means a lot, McGowan concedes.
Though Kerry is a gun owner, he supports requiring background checks at gun shows and favored extending the recently expired ban on assault-style weapons.
Maj. Gen. Montano, former adjutant general of New Mexico who campaigned for Kerry in the West this summer, said gun control is more of a passionate, wannabe kind of thing than it is a real issue, because we are not walking around the OK Corral anymore.
I go back 10, 12 generations in New Mexico and Im a hunter, and I used to collect assault rifles, but I didnt mind the assault weapons ban, he said.
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Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, isnt convinced Kerrys effort to appeal to gun owners will work in Nevada.
One NRA ad attacking Kerry says, That dog wont hunt.
Maybe its an attempt by Democrats to court the rural vote, which looks like will go overwhelmingly to Bush, Herzik said about the Democratic push.
But Herzik warns the gun issue cuts both ways.
For every vote that John Kerry may be courting with a gun owner, hes at risk of alienating his more liberal base, which probably includes a lot of people who are both anti-gun and both anti-hunting, he said.
Try telling that to the Nevada Outdoor Democratic Caucus. The groups 165 members include two of the state Legislatures most influential mainstream Democrats in Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins and Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus. Another member is congressional hopeful Tom Gallagher, a former casino executive trying to unseat Republican Rep. Jon Porter, who was endorsed by the NRA.
Gallagher supported the recently expired ban on assault-style weapons, but he also is a hunter with a long interest in gun rights, Gallaghers campaign spokeswoman Mara Gassmann said.
It is important for hunters to know that he doesnt have any intention to take hunting rifles away. He is a big supporter of the Second Amendment and actually a pretty good shot, she said.
At least 41,000 Nevadans were licensed hunters with guns as of a year ago, according to the Nevada Division of Wildlife.
Its not known how many are among the states nearly 1.1 million registered voters. But their total is more than the number of registered voters combined in the 11 smallest of Nevadas 17 counties from Churchill Countys 13,282 to Esmeralda Countys 655.
Gibbons said theres a reason Republicans hold the registration advantage in all but one Nevada county outside the Las Vegas area rural White Pine County on the Utah border.
There is a perception out there that Democrats dont want Americans to be armed, and it is a justified perception, the four-term GOP congressman said.
Richard Gammick, Washoe Countys longtime Republican district attorney, said no self-respecting Nevada gun owner will believe the Democrats insistence that Kerry will support their rights.
The Kerry camp knows this is a strong gun state, that gun rights are a very volatile issue in this state. But to say that John Kerry is not against guns is amazing to me, Gammick said.
If people are paying attention, this isnt going to swing anybody. Hes trying to court everyone and you cant do that.
