By Chad D. Baus
“Traditionally, whomever is leading in polling one year ahead of the Presidential primaries becomes the eventual party nominee. If tradition holds true…there is a storm on the horizon…”
It’s been almost exactly one year since I wrote those words, warning of dark clouds looming for the Second Amendment in the 2008 Presidential election. Today is primary day in New Hampshire, and only the steady march of the calendar suggests that we are closer to knowing whether or not we will have a pro-gun nominee on either side of the ballot.
The polls today look much the same on the Democrat side as they did one year ago, with anti-gun candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama polling at the top. The only pro-gun Democrat in the field, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, remains a distant fourth (behind third-place anti-gun trial lawyer John Edwards), and is likely staying in the race at this point in order to angle for a V.P. offer.
On the Republican side, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Senator John McCain led the polls one year ago. As I and many other Second Amendment defenders have detailed throughout the past year, both candidates have serious flaws in their records that should raise warning flags for gun owners. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s deep campaign pockets helped pull him into front-runner status by summer of 2007, but gun owners’ worries only deepened – Romney too has an anti-gun record.
Today, the good news – if we can call it that – is Giuliani, McCain and Romney are sharing front-runner status with two truly pro-gun candidates – Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson. Political analysts can draw plausible scenarios which could still lead ANY of the five to the Republican nomination, which means that as polls open in New Hampshire gun owners have a 60% chance of having an anti-gun Republican on the ballot across from either Clinton or Obama.
It is my humble belief that the key reason for which Republicans have not coalesced around a single candidate is that they are not putting the most important issue first. As such, I am calling on Republicans across the nation to consider the following 77.5 million reasons for which the candidates’ record on the Second Amendment deserves priority above all other measures by which they are weighing these candidates.
