How the National Rifle Association helped get Bernie Sanders elected

[RandySF]

BURLINGTON, Vt. — A few days before Election Day in 1990, the National Rifle Association sent a letter to its 12,000 members in Vermont, with an urgent message about the race for the state’s single House seat.

Vote for the socialist, the gun rights group said. It’s important.

“Bernie Sanders is a more honorable choice for Vermont sportsmen than ­Peter Smith,” wrote Wayne LaPierre, who was — and still is — a top official at the national NRA, backing Sanders over the Republican incumbent.......

As a candidate in 1990, Sanders won over gun rights groups by promising to oppose one bill they hated — a measure that would establish a waiting period for handgun sales. In Congress, he kept that promise. The dynamic served as an early demonstration that, despite his pure-leftist persona, Sanders was at his core a pragmatic politician, calculating that he couldn’t win in rural Vermont without doing something for gun owners.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-nra-helped-put-bernie-sanders-in-congress/2015/07/19/ed1be26c-2bfe-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html

[onehandle]

1. How 'calculating.' nt

[arcane1]

8. It is the Washington Post after all. They've been on a roll these past few days n/t

[daleanime]

2. And then awarded him....

a D (or is it D-) grade. Rather tsundere of the NRA, isn't?

[HooptieWagon]

3. Hillary voted to cluster-bomb children in 2006.

But maybe she's "evolved" now.
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/21/425303/-Hillary-Clinton-Voted-to-Continue-Cluster-Bombing-Civilians

[arcane1]

6. Michael Moore was in the NRA then. Under the bus goes he and all his works, I suppose.

Some idiots have already tried the scam of "blaming" Sanders for the Charleston shootings. Now we have this OP, conveniently posted right after news of another horrible mass-shooting.

Coincidence, I'm sure, and nobody will be saying Sanders has blood on his hands again. Nope! No connections will be drawn. Not here on DU!

[SunSeeker]

16. Every single Senate Democrat voted to fund the war in 2005 and 2006. nt

[arcane1]

4. For a guy who can't win, a whole lot of effort is being used to smear him.

Funny how none of the other candidates get this much effort thrown at them. Why is Jim Webb being so universally ignored?

[RandySF]

5. So the NRA didn't help Sanders in 1990?

I remember when Peter Smith wound up on their shitlist.

[arcane1]

7. Why do you care? He can't win.

Why waste precious time in your life (time you will never get back) on this fool's errand, when the outcome will be the same if you did nothing?

[RandySF]

9. Good point

[London Lover Man]

10. No.. I got a better question for her...

Where does she stand on gun control and what does she think of the LA tragedy?

[HooptieWagon]

11. So Hillary didn't vote to cluster-bomb children?

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/21/425303/-Hillary-Clinton-Voted-to-Continue-Cluster-Bombing-Civilians

[Ken Burch]

18. You're not saying it would have been more progressive to elect the Republican, are you?

Guns don't outweigh everything else on the progressive agenda...and Bernie has no compromises on anything else.

It's bullshit to argue that this makes him just as calculating as HRC. You know better than that.

And Bernie gets a D- grade from the NRA on his collective legislative voting record, so this mailout is trivial.

[ibegurpard]

12. And then gave him an F anyway.

Yeah they love him all right. I'm not going to speak to what people want as far as gun legislation where you are but where I am Sanders' positions on reasonable firearms regulations are right where they should be. Nor do I think we should be suing manufacturers of legal devices.

[Devil Child]

13. If Bernie Sanders is pro-gun

Then that makes me even happier I'm voting for him in the primary and the general election.

[Bjorn Against]

14. "Vote for the socialist, the gun rights group said"

Notice that the quotes are mine, the actual article does not even put quotes around "vote for the socialist" yet they claim the NRA said it about Bernie. Did the NRA run an ad saying "Vote for the socialist"? Somehow I doubt it, I find it far more likely that the Washington Post pulled that quote without quotation marks straight from their ass.

By the way the NRA pretty much hates Bernie, he currently has a D- with the organization and he supports background checks, limits on magazine size, and increased background checks.

[SunSeeker]

15. Well that explains why he voted against the Brady Bill. nt

[Ken Burch]

17. Compared to triangulation and "welfare reform", Bernie's gun stance is a trivial concession.

The welfare people drove millions of the poor into greater misery....Bernie's moderate position on guns hasn't harmed much of anybody(unlike HRC's IWR vote, which she KNEW would guarantee war).

And it does not prove that Bernie is just as cynical as HRC(who's past is too compromised and anti-progressive to ever allow her to be a progressive president).

[TheKentuckian]

19. If so then the NRA has done something good for the country after all.

We need another 534 like him at least.

[aikoaiko]

20. Good for the NRA supporting Bernie over a Republican (although Smith was a decent fellow, but still)

Interesting note: it's good to see WaPo is supporting a good friend.

Peter Smith is currently serving as Senior Vice President for Academic Strategies and Development at Kaplan Higher Education Corporation, a global education company owned by the Washington Post company

.

- from wiki

[frylock]

21. We're stuck in a 3-week cycle of rehashing the same nonsense..

because you guys have nothing of substance to criticize Sanders on. Next week we'll back to discussing orgasms and cervical cancer. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[George II]

22. La Pierre wrote to 12 THOUSAND NRA members? That's almost 6% of those who voted, if...

....all 12,000 got out to vote.