by Given that the gun prohibitionists don’t know astroturf from the real grassroots, it is not surprising that the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is proclaiming Dudley Brown as “one of the pro-gun extremists behind the recall of CO State Senate President John Morse.” The Dudley Brown in question is the head of the National Association for Gun Rights and the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.
One of the men behind the recall of Morse and Giron? Not quite.
From the Denver Post in April when talk of a recall first surfaced:
Dudley Brown, director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, thinks the time and money would be better spent taking out Democrats in swing districts in the 2014 election.
From the Colorado politics website, Colorado Peak Politics, which posted this yesterday:
Neither the NRA nor Rocky Mountain Gun Owners did diddly squat to get the recalls on the ballot. These recalls, and most especially the Giron effort, were grassroots at their most raw.
From the Denver Post’s The Spot blog which said this of Brown yesterday:
In April, as two recall efforts were already underway and there was talk of recalling Gov. John Hickenlooper and other Democrats, Brown said he wasn’t so sure recalling the politicians was the best strategy. He told The Denver Post then he thought the money would be better spent taking out Democrats in swing districts in the 2014 election.
From The Gazette of Colorado Springs in a feature on the grassroots organizers behind the recalls:
The four men behind the Colorado State Senate recalls on Friday laughed sardonically at the suggestion that outside interests – namely the GOP and NRA – are driving their campaigns to unseat four Democratic lawmakers.
“I think some people clamored for some help at the beginning,” said Victor Head, who led the successful campaign to force a recall election of Sen. Angela Giron, D-Pueblo. “They said ‘where’s the heavy hitters, where is the big interest in this, this has national implications’ and they never showed up.”
Have Dudley Brown and NAGR finally stepped up for the recall fight? Yes, they have as of late yesterday when they began running a 30 second spot seen here in the Colorado Springs TV market.
I’m glad to see Dudley Brown finally step up to the plate. However, to call him one of the people behind the recall is to totally diminish the hard work done on the ground by the actual grassroots activists like Victor Head of Pueblo, Tim Knight of Durango, Anthony Garcia of Brighton and Grand Junction attorney Erik Groves who organized the Basic Freedom Defense Fund.
"However, to call him one of the people behind the recall is to totally diminish the hard work done on the ground by the actual grassroots activists…." (emphasis added)
The bolded section is the point, isn't it?
They need to advance the fantasy that grassroots support isn't any more effective than big donors, when the reality is that real grassroots makes ALL the difference.
It's just like saying the recall effort is being pushed by the NRA – which has, in reality, been ambivalent and non-committal at best. It takes the focus off the people working at the ground level, and moves it onto the "corporate gun lobby."
It's all media spin. Smoke and mirrors.
@Archer: You are absolutely correct. That is exactly the point. We don't need six and seven figure grants from the Joyce Foundation or Mayor Bloomberg to get the job done when we put our minds to it.