Dartblog

A poll recently released by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation shed light on an important voting block within the Republican Party: the sportsmen. A John McCain victory may be impossible without them. While McCain has been a relatively solid pro-gun voter during his tenure in the Senate, his lack of personal interest in the sport leaves many underwhelmed.

As reported in the L.A. Times, the Braun Research survey conducted a telephone poll of 1,009 sportsmen, of whom 45 percent indicated their intention to vote for McCain, with 31 percent leaning towards Obama. This is far from the commanding lead one would expect for the Republican candidate, and definitely not what he will need to win. In 2004, George W. Bush held a 27 point edge over John Kerry, despite a significant campaign (including that ridiculous picture of him “hunting” with an orange stovepipe hat) to win them over.

On a more personal level, 49 percent of sportsmen said they’d rather hunt with McCain, compared to 27 percent for Obama. The more pacific fisherman set was a more tolerant of Obama, though McCain still held the lead with 44 percent who would rather fish with him, compared to Obama’s 31 percent.

“They’re just not sure how much fun Barack Obama would be in a duck blind,” said Steve Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

As the election approaches, however, the NRA is gearing up to throw its support behind Mr. McCain.

President of the NRA Wayne La Pierre has seen Obama’s attempts to win over sportsmen and wrote this response today on his blog:

Barack Obama has already left his mark on the Democratic Party, if not the United States. Page 43 of the proposed Democratic platform marks the national party’s acquiescence to Senator Obama’s view of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

“We recognize that the right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans’ continued Second Amendment right to own and use firearms. We believe that the right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation, but we know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact and enforce common-sense laws and improvements, like closing the gun show loophole, improving our background check system and reinstating the assault weapons ban, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals.”

Obama used the “Chicago/Cheyenne” reference as recently as June, and this plank of the platform is almost an exact quote of Obama’s double-talk when it comes to the Second Amendment. I know that parties rally around their candidate, but not at the expense of our inalienable rights. In my next post, I’ll take a deeper look at what this plank in the Democratic platform really means.

If you want to preview his answer, just read these facts. Barack Obama, Hawaii man, Harvard man, metrop man, is a disaster on the Second Amendment.