PA Bill Number: HB1472

Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...

Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...

Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT

Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024

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Gunning for Hillary :: 02/24/2017

The NRA's unheralded role in 2016. There are many claimants to the honor of having nudged Donald Trump over the top in the presidential election. But the folks with the best case are the National Rifle Association and the consultants who made their TV ads.

The NRA did just about everything right. It endorsed Trump last May when he was still just the de facto nominee. The goal was to persuade Second Amendment supporters who’d backed other candidates to unify behind him.

The NRA planned ahead. It had lined up TV time months beforehand when rates were lower. That saved money. Thus when the Access Hollywood tape threatened to capsize the Trump campaign a month before the election, the NRA had cash on hand for a fresh ad to steady Trump.

Mar 06, 2017 | By Fred Barnes

There are many claimants to the honor of having nudged Donald Trump over the top in the presidential election. But the folks with the best case are the National Rifle Association and the consultants who made their TV ads.

And the NRA kept track of every word Hillary Clinton uttered on the subject of guns. This wasn't new. It's what an interest group does. Once she was the Democratic nominee, they were ready to shred her claim to back the Second Amendment and the right of women to own guns.

Democrats helped too. They made the mistake of going on offense on gun control. They were playing with fire. But the issue proved irresistible after Terry McAuliffe stressed gun control in his successful race for governor of Virginia in 2013. McAuliffe didn't get any gun restrictions passed, but he hooked Democrats. Next was the former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. He poured millions into Senate races in 2014, tightening the Democratic party's attachment to gun control.

"That's when the politics changed on the Democratic side," says Brad Todd of OnMessage, the Republican firm that created the ads for the NRA. They softened the image of gun owners by featuring women. The ads were cleverly sequenced, the final one suggesting Clinton would create a Supreme Court majority opposed to the right of individuals to own guns.

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton had persuaded Democrats to avoid the gun issue as a political loser. That was wise advice and spared Democrats years of grief. But first President Obama, then Hillary Clinton changed course and stepped forward on gun control.

In her primary fight with Bernie Sanders last year, Hillary gave gun control top billing. She harped on it in debates and it got her to where she wanted to be: to the left of Sanders. He fought back clumsily. Vermont has many gun owners, and Sanders wasn't willing to alienate them completely, not even in a presidential race.

Hillary eased off on guns in the general election, only addressing the issue when asked. And in the second and third debates with Trump, she was.

"I respect the Second Amendment," she said in the second debate. In the third, she went further. "I also believe there is an individual right to bear arms." But she quibbled with the Supreme Court ruling that upheld that right. She would gut the right by mandating that guns in homes be kept in pieces "to protect toddlers."

Clinton's debate comments turned out to be the least of her worries. The NRA had decided to go all out to defeat her. Its series of ads ran from June through early November.

Just before Clinton's acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, an ad ran in four battleground states and on Fox News and sports channels, the same formula followed in airing later ads. It featured a woman, Kim Corban, who changed her mind about having a gun after she was raped. "My fear of firearms disappeared when I got my second chance at life," she said.

In August, an ad showed Clinton arriving at a private airport in a motorcade of black SUVs. She's been "protected by armed guards for 30 years," the narrator says. "But she doesn't believe in your right to keep a gun at home for your self-defense."

The next ad began with a woman, fearing a break-in, who leaps out of bed and rushes to get a gun out of a safe. The gun vanishes. "Hillary Clinton could take away her right to self-defense," the ad says. "And with Supreme Court justices, Hillary can."

Then came a crucial and timely ad. That it had been produced in July meant it was available to be aired immediately. And it was, the same week the Access Hollywood tape was leaked with Trump's crude talk about groping women. A young woman tells of fighting off a man who was wielding an eight-inch knife. "I carry a pistol," she says. "I fight back. That's why I'm still here."

This ad contrasts Clinton with Trump. "Every woman has a right to defend herself with a gun," the woman says. "Hillary Clinton disagrees with that. Donald Trump supports my right to own a gun."

The ad series ended between the eighth and ninth innings of the seventh game of the World Series. Again, the NRA had money to pay for ads on short notice in both the sixth and seventh games.

The final ad focused on the 4-4 tie in the Supreme Court on guns. Clinton sides with the four anti-gun liberals, the ad says. "Hillary's made her choice. Now you get to make yours. Defend freedom, defeat Hillary."

How do we know these ads were critical to Trump's victory? We don't know for certain and never will. But after the election, OnMessage polled 5,100 voters in Florida, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

The poll found that more NRA supporters voted for Trump in 2016 than for Mitt Romney in 2012. This meant 208,000 additional votes for Trump in North Carolina, which he won by 173,000 votes. In Ohio, he got 479,000 more votes from NRA backers and he won Ohio by 447,000. In Pennsylvania, Trump received 421,000 additional votes and won by 44,000.

A second group was tested in June 2016: the 19 percent of voters in the battleground states who viewed both candidates unfavorably. The poll found that 60 percent of them supported the NRA. Moreover, it found that most were "very willing to believe" that Clinton was corrupt and hypocritical. And it found that "most women" polled were conservative and liked the Second Amendment.

There was a third test. The post-election survey found that 3 percent of 2016 voters in battleground states said they hadn't voted in 2012. And 79 percent of them were supporters of the NRA. "This means 784,000 NRA supporters in battleground states did not vote in 2012 but did vote in 2016," the pollster said.

This is neither definitive nor conclusive evidence the NRA elected Trump. But it certainly suggests that the NRA ads played a critical role. And it's the best case I've heard for crediting anyone with tipping the election to Trump. Absent the NRA, I think we know how Trump would have fared. He'd have lost.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/gunning-for-hillary/article/2006969