GOP hopes to keep guns in spotlight

Republicans believe Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling striking down Washington D.C.’s handgun ban has revived gun rights as a campaign issue, benefiting the GOP up and down the November ticket.

“The gun issue is not going away,” said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the Republican presidential candidate. “We are going to drive it. We are going to keep talking about this issue.”

{mosads}Republicans will be aided by the National Rifle Association, which promises to do “everything” it can to hit Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (Ill.) on the issue.

A year ago, Obama’s campaign said he supported D.C.’s gun ban, but Obama offered support for the Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday.

NRA executive director Chris Cox said the group “fully intends to tell this story all over America” via billboards, radio buys, television buys, grassroots organizing and by creating a heavy internet presence.

“This case is galvanizing gun owners,” Cox said. “The fight truly just starts now.”

Congressional Republicans also hope to benefit.

The National Republican Congressional Committee sent out a release Thursday targeting Democrats in competitive House races who did not sign an amicus brief opposed to the gun ban. Fifty-five senators, including McCain, but not Obama, signed the brief, along with 250 House members.

Democrats downplayed the power of the issue this fall.

“I think it plays differently in every state, but you’ve seen Democrats who have taken strong positions consistent with their values and their state’s values,” said Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). “What you’ll see from national Republicans is an attempt to dig out of any issue to dig themselves out of the hole they’re in.”

Some Democrats think the ruling will remove the issue from political discourse because the decision affirmed the individual right to bear arms.

“If the Supreme Court had ruled the other way, it would have provided groups like the NRA and the Republicans with a political issue,” a strategist familiar with competitive House races said.

Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment on the political implications of the decision, saying Obama is focused on “the substance of the decision.”

Bounds and Cox insisted gun rights will play to McCain’s advantage in the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. Bounds also said the issue will work for McCain in “all these red western states where Obama thinks he will be competitive.”  

As a result of campaign and organization efforts, Bounds hopes that by November, “if you are a voter who owns guns, you will not vote for Obama.”

National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) spokesman Ken Spain said the NRCC will try to portray Democrats who did not sign the brief as out of touch with their district.

“In a district like [Rep. Carol Shea-Porter’s (D)] where New Hampshire voters take great pride in being able to exercise their constitutional rights, this could certainly be problematic,” said Spain. He said the NRCC would use the strategy on a district-by-district basis.

In addition to Shea-Porter, the NRCC is targeting Democratic Reps. Bruce Braley (Iowa), David Loebsack (Iowa), Jerry McNerney (Calif.), Dennis Moore (Kan.), Patrick Murphy (Penn.), Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.), and John Yarmuth (D-Ky.).

“Liberal Democrats running in many of our Senate races such as Colorado, New Mexico, and Louisiana are trying hard to hide from their anti-gun records but at the end of the day voters will know which candidate is on their side and see through their pandering,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokeswoman Rebecca Fisher said.

“This decision puts them in a very difficult position going into November knowing they are on the wrong side of the majority of voters.”

In another sign of the GOP line of attack, McCain quickly revived Obama’s comments about Americans hanging on to guns or religion out of bitterness in a statement released shortly after the decision.

“Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right — sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly,” McCain said in a statement.

The decision yesterday made allies out of McCain and the NRA, which have had a somewhat tempestuous relationship in the past over the Arizona senator’s sponsorship of a bill closing the gun show loophole. The gun show loophole relaxes regulations on the sale of firearms, such as background checks, at gun shows.

“While we have had disagreements with McCain, we have twenty plus years of agreements,” Cox said on Friday. He hailed McCain’s decision to sign the amicus brief, declaring that move “critical to ensuring the Supreme Court victory.”