Bill Clinton to Democrats: Don’t trivialize gun culture“Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them,” Clinton said.
“A lot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things,” Clinton said.
“A lot of these people … all they’ve got is their hunting and their fishing,” he told the Democratic financiers. “Or they’re living in a place where they don’t have much police presence. Or they’ve been listening to this stuff for so long that they believe it all.”
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2013/01/20/bill-clinton-rural-culture-all-they-ve-got-their-hunting-and-their-fishiWhile some polls show that the public by-and-large supports several proposals for increased gun control, Clinton said that it’s not the public support that matters — it’s how strongly people feel about the issue.
“All these polls that you see saying the public is for us on all these issues — they are meaningless if they’re not voting issues,” Clinton said.
Clinton said that an National Rifle Association lobbyist threatened him over his veto in the state house, saying that the group would cause problems for his upcoming presidential campaign in rural states like Texas.
“Right there in the lobby,” Clinton said. “They thought they could talk to governors that way.
“I knew I was getting older when I didn’t hit him,” Clinton said. Clinton recalls telling the NRA lobbyist, “If that’s the way you feel, you get your gun, I’ll get my gun and I’ll see you in Texas.”
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=BECE5F84-7675-4ABC-B09E-91A268F975ECClinton said that passing the 1994 federal assault weapons ban “devastated” more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers in the 1994 midterms — and cost then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-Wash.) his job and his seat in Congress.
“I’ve had many sleepless nights in the many years since,” Clinton said. One reason? “I never had any sessions with the House members who were vulnerable,” he explained — saying that he had assumed they already knew how to explain their vote for the ban to their constituents.
Clinton closed his remarks with a warning to big Democratic donors that ultimately
many Democratic lawmakers will be defeated if they choose to stand with the president.“Do not be self-congratulatory about how brave you are for being for this” gun control push, he said. “The only brave people are the people who are going to lose their jobs if they vote with you.”http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/161867/
