Michael Bloomberg’s personal political action committee, the Independence USA PAC, is spending over $2 million in Virginia to run this ad (comments are disabled as usual, as the only “valid” opinion is the one in the video and God forbid anyone should express a different point of view). The ad is an attempt by Bloomberg to support the Dems’ candidate for Governor, Terry McAuliffe, by painting GOPer Ken Cuccinelli as a gun-toting lunatic who wants to give criminals firearms. The ad is pure propaganda, attempting to visually tie the three most notorious “mass shooting” perpetrators in recent years to the existence of the “gun show loophole.” Just one problem: none of the shooters pictured in the ad actually used that “loophole…”
From the Washington Post’s Fact Checker:
Emotional attack ads need to be scrupulous with the facts. While this ad does not identify the killers, the images are so familiar to Americans that many should be able to identify at least one of them.
We have a reasonable-person test here. Most viewers would assume the gun-show loophole would have thwarted all of these attacks, but that’s not the case. Thus it is misleading to use these images in the ad.
Also poking their sticking their formula-stained fingers into the electoral pie are Moms Demand Action, the same org whose recent rallies and protests actually drew more gun rights advocates to counter-protest than members of their own organization.
If the polling is to be believed Cuccinelli’s days are numbered. That could mean another state falling dangerously close to becoming another New York or California. But the really interesting thing is that all of these gun control advocacy groups are hitching their wagons to McAuliffe’s campaign, offering their support for something that is already more or less a done deal. And I think there’s a very good reason that they’re trying as hard as possible to be visibly associated with the Democrat candidate’s campaign.
The Gun Control Industrial Complex is still reeling form their massive failures this year. They were unable to pass any new legislation on a federal level despite having plenty of dead children to exploit. They failed to protect two Colorado legislators from a recall effort despite (because?) spending twice as much money as the NRA and gun rights groups. And their membership is dwindling in the face of record levels of popular support for firearms ownership.
As Robert is fond of saying, culture eats strategy for lunch, and we’re seeing the impact of that on Bloomberg and Watts. Their gun control advocacy campaigns are meeting significant resistance and failing to accomplish their goals, which is threatening to completely derail their agenda and relegate them to the sidelines of American politics.
The gun control advocates need a decisive win badly in order to maintain their relevancy and appear to be able to get something — anything — done. They need to be seen as still having power and influence, and for that they’ve decided to affix their leech-like suckers to Clinton family bag man Terry McAuliffe’s campaign.
They see the Virginia gubernatorial election as a done deal, and by giving him their “support” they can later claim that his election was an affirmation that the people of Virginia support their cause and agree with his pro civilian disarmament stance. The gun control advocates see this election as their Battle of Saratoga, when it may turn out to be more like Fredericksburg — the apogee instead of the stepping stone.
Stay tuned, because this is going to get interesting.