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What the Anti's are saying(and doing)
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
A candidate who targets the voters
08/02/02
DAVID SARASOHN
I t's just summer, but already the 2002 election campaign has seen its opening gun.
From Our Advertiser
It fits neatly into a candidate's handbag.
Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer of Alaska, the likely Democratic candidate for governor, went shopping recently for a vital new candidate accessory. "On the campaign trail," she told the Anchorage Daily News, "it's nice to have extra protection in case somebody does not have the best of intentions."
With voters in the mood they are today, it's nice to be able to return fire.
Ulmer already owns eight guns, but she felt that none was quite suitable for campaigning.
"I need something compact," Ulmer told the newspaper, after checking out some hardware in a Yukon Valley gunshop. Presumably, it complicates your message to appear at a debate with a bazooka.
You could check all the campaign-reform groups that produce reports every two weeks on how to fix our politics, and you won't find any concluding that what we really need are armed candidates. Right now, Congress is arguing over whether to let airline pilots carry guns, but here we have a politician who couldn't make it through airport security.
From the perspective of people who spend lots of time asking candidates questions they might not want to answer, the image of pistol-packing politicians is less than reassuring. The next time a politician asks a reporter if he could rephrase that question, it might happen a little quicker.
Certainly, higher-level politicians have always travelled with armed police -- even if that doesn't seem quite the same as a lieutenant governor getting the drop on you. It's a particular interest of "higher-profile people," Andrew Arulanandam, a National Rifle Association spokesman, explained Thursday; "Nobody knows if and when they're going to be attacked."
The logical outcome is a candidate who asks both for your vote and that you make no sudden moves. In the new political world, when you shake a candidate's hand, make sure your other one is where she can see it.
It's possible, of course, that this idea may not sweep the country immediatedly. Ulmer, after all, is from Alaska, where the cold might predispose a candidate to pack heat, and where a candidate might find herself in a Kodiak bear caucus. Her blue-steel shopping list might be as much a political statement as a protection policy.
For an Alaska politician, knowing how to handle a gun is probably as vital as a New York candidate knowing how to handle a pizza, or a Chicago alderman knowing what to do with an envelope full of cash. Hearing that Ulmer was buying a new gun, one of her Republican opponents sniffed, "Only one?"
Imagining what the fall campaign could look like, it's a shame that a college basketball tournament has already copyright the name "Great Alaska Shootout."
Still, it's hard to imagine the political success of a campaign strategy that involves holding constituents off at gunpoint. You'd like to think politicians had a little more faith in their ability to deal with voters.
As Jerry Seinfeld once said, on the subject of soap commercials, if you're constantly dealing with bloodstains on your shirts, your laundry detergent may not be your biggest problem.
And giving politicians shoulder holsters does nothing to protect them against the greatest threat most of them face -- each other.
Certainly, even politicians are entitled to defend themselves, although most manage to do it with hugely uncomfortable press conferences featuring their families. But if you were thinking of the people in our society whom you'd want to see armed, politicians might not be at the top of the list -- even if you don't share Mark Twain's definition of Congress as our only native criminal class.
No doubt Lt. Gov. Ulmer is a very reliable candidate, and no doubt her keeping a handgun where other candidates might keep notecards makes everyone at her rallies safer -- and, if they know what's good for them, a lot more attentive.
But I'm glad the idea didn't first occur to Jim Traficant. David Sarasohn, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8523 or davidsarasohn@news.oregonian.com.
http://oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/editorial/1028289431288020.xml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
08/02/02
DAVID SARASOHN
I t's just summer, but already the 2002 election campaign has seen its opening gun.
From Our Advertiser
It fits neatly into a candidate's handbag.
Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer of Alaska, the likely Democratic candidate for governor, went shopping recently for a vital new candidate accessory. "On the campaign trail," she told the Anchorage Daily News, "it's nice to have extra protection in case somebody does not have the best of intentions."
With voters in the mood they are today, it's nice to be able to return fire.
Ulmer already owns eight guns, but she felt that none was quite suitable for campaigning.
"I need something compact," Ulmer told the newspaper, after checking out some hardware in a Yukon Valley gunshop. Presumably, it complicates your message to appear at a debate with a bazooka.
You could check all the campaign-reform groups that produce reports every two weeks on how to fix our politics, and you won't find any concluding that what we really need are armed candidates. Right now, Congress is arguing over whether to let airline pilots carry guns, but here we have a politician who couldn't make it through airport security.
From the perspective of people who spend lots of time asking candidates questions they might not want to answer, the image of pistol-packing politicians is less than reassuring. The next time a politician asks a reporter if he could rephrase that question, it might happen a little quicker.
Certainly, higher-level politicians have always travelled with armed police -- even if that doesn't seem quite the same as a lieutenant governor getting the drop on you. It's a particular interest of "higher-profile people," Andrew Arulanandam, a National Rifle Association spokesman, explained Thursday; "Nobody knows if and when they're going to be attacked."
The logical outcome is a candidate who asks both for your vote and that you make no sudden moves. In the new political world, when you shake a candidate's hand, make sure your other one is where she can see it.
It's possible, of course, that this idea may not sweep the country immediatedly. Ulmer, after all, is from Alaska, where the cold might predispose a candidate to pack heat, and where a candidate might find herself in a Kodiak bear caucus. Her blue-steel shopping list might be as much a political statement as a protection policy.
For an Alaska politician, knowing how to handle a gun is probably as vital as a New York candidate knowing how to handle a pizza, or a Chicago alderman knowing what to do with an envelope full of cash. Hearing that Ulmer was buying a new gun, one of her Republican opponents sniffed, "Only one?"
Imagining what the fall campaign could look like, it's a shame that a college basketball tournament has already copyright the name "Great Alaska Shootout."
Still, it's hard to imagine the political success of a campaign strategy that involves holding constituents off at gunpoint. You'd like to think politicians had a little more faith in their ability to deal with voters.
As Jerry Seinfeld once said, on the subject of soap commercials, if you're constantly dealing with bloodstains on your shirts, your laundry detergent may not be your biggest problem.
And giving politicians shoulder holsters does nothing to protect them against the greatest threat most of them face -- each other.
Certainly, even politicians are entitled to defend themselves, although most manage to do it with hugely uncomfortable press conferences featuring their families. But if you were thinking of the people in our society whom you'd want to see armed, politicians might not be at the top of the list -- even if you don't share Mark Twain's definition of Congress as our only native criminal class.
No doubt Lt. Gov. Ulmer is a very reliable candidate, and no doubt her keeping a handgun where other candidates might keep notecards makes everyone at her rallies safer -- and, if they know what's good for them, a lot more attentive.
But I'm glad the idea didn't first occur to Jim Traficant. David Sarasohn, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8523 or davidsarasohn@news.oregonian.com.
http://oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/editorial/1028289431288020.xml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878