by In a move that can only be considered imitating the National Rifle Association, Mayor Bloomberg and his Illegal Mayors plan to “grade” legislators on how they vote on gun control as well as their public statements.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the nonprofit group financed by Bloomberg (I), will unveil a scoring system Tuesday to award lawmakers grades of A through F, much like the National Rifle Association, which has derived much of its power by deploying letter rankings against politicians at election time. The group’s strategists briefed The Washington Post on the plans ahead of Tuesday’s announcement.
“For decades, the NRA has done an admirable job of tracking to minute detail how members of Congress stand on gun bills. We’ve simply decided to do the same,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which is chaired by Bloomberg and is made up of more than 900 mayors from across the country.
Glaze says they are trying to provide “guidance” to well-heeled donors who back gun control. The Washington Post notes that they are aiming this squarely at senators on the bubble in states like North Carolina and Montana. While their constituents do not back gun control, these senators depends on donations from states like New York and California to get elected or re-elected. This is the same threat that was used successively in Colorado against wavering Democrats.
The one thing that Bloomberg can’t imitate is the grassroots supporters of the NRA.
“The reason NRA scorecards are effective is that they have the weight of
approximately 5 million dues-paying members and tens of millions of
other supporters behind them,” NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said. In
a dig at Bloomberg, he added, “We’ll take that over the purse of one
billionaire any day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
When I start seeing Friends of MAIG banquets and fundraisers, then and only then will I believe that there is significant grassroots support for gun control. Until then, I will keep pushing my legislators to earn their “F” from MAIG.
Their efforts will provide an excellent guide of who not to vote for.
They don't know what freedom is. Those who come from communist countries do.
You really have to wonder about the statistics being cited. I was just reading a Yahoo! article that said how unfortunate it is the NRA was able to win another victory by pressuring Senators. The comments section is encouragingly and overwhelmingly pro-2nd Amendment.
The NRA is us. It is not funded by Bloombergie's money or some elite endowment. It is four million or so working people who happen to think that firearms are useful tools, not to mention good, clean fun.
You know, we had a Long Term RINO named LaTourette up here in Ohio (20+years) who decide last Election Cycle to Piss on the NRA AND say that ObamaCare is a "Good Thing."
Too Bad that when he went to start his Campaigning, he ran into a Bunch of Doctors and Gunnies who told him to Retire and not even THINK about asking for Campaign Donations. Then John Boehner had a talk with him.
Guess who pulled his name off the Ballot.
The only thing that does make this MAIG Grading worth while is what happens when the Candidate gets a "C" from MAIG AND the NRA.
Sounds to me like the local Party better step in and get some New Blood in that case.