The epic meltdown of the gun-grabbers
by Michelle Malkin
MichellMalkin.com
COLORADO SPRINGS — Quick, call the CDC. We’ve got a Rocky Mountain outbreak of Acute Sore Loser Fever. After failing to stave off two historic recall bids on Tuesday, two delusional state legislators and their national party bosses just can’t help but double-down and trash voters as dumb, sick, criminal and profligate.
The ululations of gun-grabbing Democrats here in my adopted home state are reverberating far and wide. Appearing on cable TV Thursday to answer the question “What happened?” Pueblo State Sen. Angela Giron sputtered that she lost her seat due to “voter suppression.” Giron whined to CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin that voters “weren’t able to get to the polls” and that there was “voter confusion.”
“Voter confusion”? My goodness. You’d think there were no public libraries, local television stations, talk radio, newspapers, blogs, Facebook, Twitter or government websites to get information about the elections. (Oh, and pay no attention to the massive 6-to-1 spending advantage that Giron and her fellow recall target John Morse, formerly the president of the state Senate, enjoyed.)
“Voter suppression”? Dios mio! You’d think there were New Black Panther Party thugs standing outside the polls shouting racist epithets and waving police batons!
But no, there was no “voter confusion” or “voter suppression.” In fact, as the Colorado Peak Politics blog pointed out, the “majority of turnout in (Giron’s) district was Democrat, by a large margin. And she still lost. Voter suppression (is) not even believable.”
Giron lost in her Obama-loving Democratic Senate District 3 by a whopping 12 points. The only significant complaint about voter suppression came after the polls closed — and not from anyone in the district, but from out-of-state Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wah-wah-wah-sserman Schultz of Florida. The majority of constituents who signed the recall petitions against her were, um, Democrats. Would Giron care to argue that voters from the same party that put her in office are too dumb and confused to comprehend her state’s own Constitution and election process?
Giron was defeated not by elite Republicans and nefarious NRA bigwigs, but by a former Clinton supporter/police chief/campaign neophyte and a couple of upstart citizen activists who make a living as plumbers.
Grassroots organizers in both Pueblo and El Paso counties with little to no previous electoral experience researched the state constitution’s recall provisions and put in the hard nose-to-the-ground work of gathering thousands of petition signatures in a brief period. They did their homework, adhered to the law and made their voices heard. As I’ve reported in my column over the past several months, it was a David vs. gun-grabbing Goliath battle from the start.
Only after the local citizens got the ball rolling — catching flack from establishment GOP types who initially opposed the disruptive process — did national organizations weigh in with help. And the campaign cash they provided was still no match for nosybody Bloomberg, Vice President Joe Biden (who personally lobbied state Democratic legislators) and their gun control-freak company.
The significance of this unprecedented battle cannot be overstated. Self-government won. Demagoguery lost. All the Bloomberg bucks in the world couldn’t buy immunity for his water-carriers in Colorado. The role of Second Amendment-supporting, limited-government-advocating local women in pushing back against false smears was invaluable. The “reproductive rights” fear-mongering failed. And the use of social media to organize echoed other successful tea party efforts.
The problem for the gun-grabbers wasn’t that the voters were uninformed. It was that they were too informed. Voters paid close attention when state Democrats rigged the game during the legislative debate over extreme gun and ammo restrictions that will do nothing to stop the next Aurora, Columbine or Newtown. They watched fellow citizens being blocked from testifying, pushed aside for out-of-staters. They heard Morse accuse gun owners of having a “sickness in their souls.” They heard him brag to liberal zealots that he was ignoring their “vile” e-mail.
They rejected Giron’s sneering at grassroots organizers as “special interests.” They didn’t buy that their birth control would disappear. They weren’t swayed by shooting victim Rep. Gabby Gifford’s husband’s emotional appeals or distracted by Bill Clinton’s last-minute robocalls.
“What happened?” The reasons these petty tyrants lost are as simple as ABC: arrogance, bitterness and contempt for the people. As more and more self-empowered citizens are learning, you can’t fix this stupid hubris. But you can vote it out.
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2013