Posts Tagged ‘polls?’

Herman Cain Soars to the Top of the Republican Field

October 2, 2011
But where does he stand on the Second Amendment?

According to a new Zogby poll this week, Herman Cain has soared into the lead and now sits atop the Republican field. Here are the latest results:

  • Herman Cain (28%)
  • Rick Perry (18%)
  • Mitt Romney (17%)
  • Ron Paul (11%)\
  • Newt Gingrich (6%)
  • Jon Huntsman, Jr. (5%)
  • Michele Bachmann (4%)
  • Rick Santorum (2%)
  • Gary Johnson (1%)
Cain is one of a few Republican hopefuls who have taken a strong stand on issues that are important to political conservatives. But where does he stand on the Second Amendment?
Some of the top contenders (such as Rick Perry and Ron Paul) have pro-gun records to run on. Others (such as Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich) have very mixed or anti-gun records in their haunted past. But Cain has no legislative record.   We have no history in public office by which to judge him — which is why it’s so important that GOA gets an answer back from him on GOA’s Presidential Survey.
Otherwise, we only have bits and pieces of speeches and interviews that Cain has engaged in.   And while those statements help somewhat, they also raise more questions than they answer.
For example, in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer earlier this year, Cain expressed strong support for gun rights: “I support, strongly support, the Second Amendment. I don’t support onerous legislation that’s going to restrict people’s rights in order to be able to protect themselves as guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”
But in answer to a follow-up question asking whether states or local governments should be allowed to impose gun control restrictions, Cain said, “Yes. The answer is yes, that should be a state’s decision.”
That’s an answer that needs further explanation, especially given the fact that almost one year earlier to the day, the Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. Chicago that states and localities were limited with respect to interfering with a citizen’s right to keep and bear arms.
Now, to be fair, it could be that Cain is thinking: As President, it’s none of my business what the states do on guns or any other issue. A true constitutionalist (unlike the current President) would understand that the federal government has limited powers and is restricted to exercising the 17 or 18 powers that are spelled out in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Moreover, a true constitutionalist would understand that the states — as James Madison said — have “plenary powers” to try different approaches. As goes the cliché: the states are separate “laboratories” for public policy experiments.
Cain’s statement about state gun control does raise some important questions though:
  • Is he aware that the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment wanted to impose the Bill of Rights — and specifically the Second Amendment — upon the states?
  • What does he think about the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonald? Does he agree that states and localities — subsequent to the Fourteenth Amendment — are constitutionally barred from banning guns?
  • And what about concealed carry outside of one’s home state? As President, would Herman Cain sign or veto a bill like H.R. 2900, which provides for concealed carry recognition amongst the states?
We don’t have answers to these questions, and that’s why GOA’s Presidential Survey is so important. It asks about concealed carry recognition, the renewal of the semi-auto ban and repealing gun restrictions (like the Brady law and various import bans). Plus it gets the candidates’ views on issues such as UN gun control, undoing existing anti-gun Executive Orders and reining in the BATFE.
GOA has sent a survey to Herman Cain, but so far, he has not returned a completed questionnaire. And here’s where you can help.
ACTION: Please contact the Cain campaign and urge him to return GOA’s Presidential Survey. You can contact Herman Cain by cutting-and-pasting the message below after going to his contact page here: http://www.hermancain.com/contact-us
—– Pre-written letter to Herman Cain —–
Dear Mr. Cain:
Congratulations on your rise to the top of the Republican field. According to Zogby, you now lead in the polls.
I know that you have taken some strong constitutional stands in general. However, I would like to know where you stand on the Second Amendment in particular. I know that you have made some positive statements on firearms, but there have been other comments which have caused concern.
Gun Owners of America tells me they have sent you a Presidential Survey, but that you have not yet returned it. Their survey asks about issues that are very important to me including concealed carry recognition, the renewal of the semi-auto ban and repealing gun restrictions (like the Brady law and various import bans).
Would you please return GOA’s Presidential Survey? I look forward to hearing from them that they have your questionnaire in hand.
Sincerely,

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, News, Politics, States Rights, Wordpress Political Blogs | 4 Comments »

The Arizona Immigration Law

June 9, 2010

There is another poll having to do with the not really controversial law passed recently in Arizona regarding illegal immigration.

Take the poll and see the results HERE.

Why do I say that it is in fact not really controversial? When the approval rate is as high as it is that shows a lack of controversy. In fact, the only controversy about it is brought to you by

One

Big

Ass

Mistake

America!

Hat Tip to Texas Fred!

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Immigration, Law, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 5 Comments »

Gun-Control Activists aka the losers Bloomberg and Menino

April 21, 2010

Backed by more sheer propaganda the New York straw purchase felon and his cronies are set to assault the rights and freedom of Americans everywhere yet again. More states need to assert their authority and simply arrest these people for being the treasonous goofballs that they are. I’m sure that Bubba would rather enjoy their company…. Read on.

Gun-control proponents, outspent and outmaneuvered on Capitol Hill, are pushing back this week using the anniversaries of two high-profile tragedies to make the case for legislation that would close gun show loopholes.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino (D), is expected today to unveil a lobbying blitz to prod Congress to approve legislation that would require background checks on all firearm sales at gun shows.

The group will launch a six-figure media campaign that includes both national cable and selected state advertising spots as well as an online petition drive.

“The truth is the conventional wisdom is just wrong that you can’t do a gun issue,” said John Feinblatt, Bloomberg’s chief adviser for policy and strategic planning. He cited polling that shows support for closing the loophole and added that both President Barack Obama and his GOP opponent Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) pledged to close the gun loophole during the 2008 presidential campaign.

“The mayors are ready to say, ‘Now is the time to do it,’” Feinblatt said. “This is not a gun-control issue. It is a crime-control issue.”

The announcement comes on the 11th anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado and days after the third anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech.

Lori Haas, whose daughter was killed in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, said requiring the background checks is a “middle-of-the-road position to take,” one that has already been approved by 17 states.

Haas, a spokeswoman for the victims’ families, said that even though the killer at Virginia Tech, a university student, did not buy a firearm at a gun show, “the connection to Virginia Tech is we know what happens when guns get in the wrong hands.”

The group Virginians for Public Safety sponsored an ad this week in the Richmond Times Dispatch that urged the state’s Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb to back legislation. Haas also said she is scheduled to talk to Warner about the issue this week.

In Colorado, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, which also helped in the Virginia media campaign, underwrote an ad in the Denver and Boulder newspapers calling on Sen. Mark Udall (D) to sign on to the gun show bill. The state’s other Democratic Senator, Michael Bennet, has already agreed to co-sponsor the legislation introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

In the House the measure is co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), whose husband was killed and son severely injured in a shooting on the Long Island Rail Road.

The latest lobbying effort, however, comes at a time when the political climate has grown increasingly inhospitable for gun-control forces. The Democratic leadership has not been eager to push gun-control measures that they fear could generate a backlash for lawmakers who represent more rural or conservative districts.

Furthermore, anti-gun-control groups have been increasingly bold in pushing their agenda. They recently convinced the House leadership that the only way they could muster enough votes to pass a bill granting the District of Columbia a voting Representative was to include a provision that would largely gut the remaining gun-control laws in the District.

Other gun-rights groups have become more brazen in their public demonstrations, with one organization encouraging participants to bring their guns to a rally Monday in a national park in Virginia just outside of D.C.

In 2009, anti-gun-control groups spent almost $5 million on federal lobbying compared with the $261,000 that gun-control groups spent, according to a CQ MoneyLine analysis of lobbying disclosure reports filed with Congress.

The top-spending gun-control group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns Action Fund, spent $123,00 last year, most of which was paid to the Democratic lobbying firm the Raben Group.

The National Rifle Association, the biggest anti-gun-control group, shelled out $1.9 million on lobbying in 2009. It was followed by Gun Owners of America, which spent $1.4 million, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which spent $1 million.

“It is a very powerful lobby. They are very good at what they do. They are good at intimidating lawmakers,” said Tom Mauser, the spokesman for Colorado Ceasefire, whose son was killed in the Columbine shootings.

Even though Colorado voters approved a referendum that closed the gun show loophole in 2000, Mauser said the surrounding states have not, meaning that guns purchased by people with criminal records are still coming into the state.

An NRA spokeswoman said Monday that the group did not want to respond to the latest lobbying effort by the mayors until it had been officially announced.

However, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action has posted on its Web site a rebuttal to what it called “the Gun Show Myth.”

The NRA said official firearm dealers are required to conduct background checks on those buying guns at shows. Only a person who is not a dealer can sell a firearm from his personal collection without conducting a background check. The gun group said less than 1 percent of criminals obtain their guns from gun shows.

“Many legislators have proposed to restrict gun show sales, but their proposals would simply create a bureaucratic nightmare — shutting down the shows while leaving criminal markets untouched,” the NRA statement said.

In 1999, the Senate included a provision to close the gun show loophole as an amendment to a juvenile justice bill. The legislation passed by one vote, with then-Vice President Al Gore casting the tie-breaking vote, but the provision died in conference.

While the measure has languished, advocates for the bill say the public is on their side. They cite a survey done last year by Republican pollster Frank Luntz for the mayors group that found 69 percent of NRA gun owners favor the background checks at gun shows.

They also argue that moves by some of the most conservative gun groups, such as bringing guns to political rallies and into Starbucks, could backfire.

“It will actively help our side when people see how extreme it is getting,” Mauser said.

SOURCE

Citing twisted poll numbers and the words of a hopeless hoplophobe do nothing for credibility either…

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, Men's Issues, mysandry, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 4 Comments »

FAUX POLLS: Bloomberg strikes out against Gun Owners yet again!

February 20, 2010

Every since back in college during a Poly Sci class we were shown how to skew polls I have not been a big believer in them. Unless of course, it is something along the lines of obamacare with huge demonstrations by grass root people responding to some action that they are just plain dead set against. Well, the straw sale felon of New York City is getting his comeuppance…

On Dec. 11, 2009, we noted that a poll paid for by anti-gun politician-activist Michael Bloomberg, claiming to show that NRA members support gun control, was conducted by a pollster who has been reprimanded and censured by two professional polling organizations, and who (of course) doesn’t have access to NRA’s confidential member list.

Since then, gun control supporters have cited the poll in numerous newspaper editorials, opinion columns, and letters to editors, all attacking NRA’s opposition to gun control. Recently, however, Bloomberg’s pollster, Frank Luntz, admitted how he gets polls to turn out the way his employers want. In a “Penn and Teller” interview posted on YouTube, Luntz says, “The key in survey research is to ask questions that people care about the answers [sic], and to ask the question in a way that you get the right answer.” He added, “[W]ith just a single change of wording, you’ll get a very different reaction in terms of how they think and how they feel.”

Thanks, Frank, for making it easier for us to write letters to newspapers pointing out why no one should take your “poll of NRA members” seriously.

SOURCE

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, News, Politics, Stupid is as Stupid Does, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on FAUX POLLS: Bloomberg strikes out against Gun Owners yet again!

“It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.”

December 12, 2009

The latest from the felon Bloomberg reveals just what lengths idiots such as he, and others like Lautenberg, Schumer, and the usual gang of suspects will go to with the express goal of depriving you of life and liberty through the destruction of the Bill of Rights.

This week, anti-gun New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, released the findings of a poll conducted by a political consulting firm called “The Word Doctors,” whose slogan is “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.”  Word Doctors’ president is a pollster who has been reprimanded by the American Association for Public Opinion Research and censured by the National Council on Public Polls, and who says that the key to polling is “to ask a question in the way that you get the right answer.”

At some other time in our nation’s history, an organization like this would not have been commissioned to conduct a poll, and perhaps it would not even have existed. At a minimum, its poll would have been considered biased and rejected by every newspaper in the country.

But today, as the distinction between editorials and news has become blurred, information is treated so superficially that a catchy word or two is enough to get someone elected to public office, and some in positions of authority cannot conceive of the concept of shame.

Thus, earlier this week, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) excitedly called attention to the bought-and-paid-for Word Doctors “poll,” which claimed that a majority of NRA members and other gun owners support Lautenberg’s bills to prohibit the possession of firearms by people placed (often mistakenly) on the FBI terrorist watchlist (S.1317), to require gun show promoters to send ledgers of customer information to the federal government (S.843), and to let the FBI retain records for 180 days of every gun purchase approved by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)  (S.2820).  The poll also claimed support for Bloomberg’s proposal to rescind the Tiahrt Amendment, which prevents unfettered release of BATFE firearm trace data.  (Bloomberg, of course, wants to use the data in lawsuits against the firearms industry.)

But did the poll really show such strong support?  Certainly the participants didn’t have much information to go on.  The poll didn’t explain that the watchlist has been under fire by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s office and the ACLU for improperly including the names of innocent people, and that many innocent people have been mistaken for those who are on the watchlist. It didn’t explain that Lautenberg’s gun show bill would do much more than require NICS checks on private gun sales at gun shows.

The poll mischaracterized the issue of NICS record retention. Instead of informing poll participants that the accused Ft. Hood murderer had been investigated by the FBI and found to not constitute a terror threat months before he went through a NICS check to purchase the gun he allegedly used in the murders, the poll simply asked whether “the FBI should be able to access and keep information about gun purchases by terror suspects in cases similar to [the accused Ft. Hood killer’s]?” Worse, Word Doctors misinformed poll participants by telling them that the accused killer was still under investigation at the time he purchased the gun.

The poll also asked if participants agreed that “The federal government should not restrict the police’s ability to access, use, and share data that helps them enforce federal, state and local gun laws,” when in fact the Tiahrt Amendment fully allows access to trace information, as long as it’s related to crimes that they’re actually investigating.

And the poll also claimed that a majority of gun owners want to “balance” their rights against the need to stop criminals from getting guns. But what it actually asked was whether gun owners agreed that “We can do more to stop criminals from getting guns while also protecting the rights of citizens to freely own them.” Coupled with the poll’s findings that an overwhelming majority of gun owners believe “Criminals . . . should be punished to the maximum extent of the law” and “Law-abiding Americans should have the freedom to choose how to protect themselves, based on their personal situation,” it’s fair to conclude that gun owners understand the two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive.  Since the ideas are compatible, they don’t require a “balance,” as suggested by gun control supporters.

Notably, Lautenberg mentioned none of the poll’s findings that undercut the anti-gun agenda, and Dionne mentioned few. These include findings that an overwhelming majority of gun owners:

  • Thinks President Obama will try to ban guns;
  • Agrees that the Supreme Court’s decision in last year’s Heller case was correct;
  • Agrees that the Second Amendment should prevent all levels of government from infringing the right to arms;
  • Agrees that people should be allowed to carry guns for protection in national parks;
  • Agrees that people should be allowed to transport firearms in baggage on Amtrak trains;
  • Agrees that gun laws should be less strict or left as they are; and
  • Opposes or is neutral about gun registration and an “assault weapon” ban.

One final note: Since Word Doctors had no access to NRA membership lists, there’s no way the pollsters could verify that any of the “NRA members” actually were NRA members.  While this is a fatal flaw, we mention it at the end only because the poll’s other flaws were even worse.

SOURCE

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, mysandry, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 1 Comment »

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