Since the Republican Presidential debate Monday night in Myrtle Beach, the political landscape in South Carolina has undergone a major shift that is moving in Newt Gingrich's favor. Newt's dazzling performance is now reflected in the polls with Rasmussen showing that he is now within 3 points of 'front-runner' Mitt Romney.
The Romney camp is fully aware of the shift against them. The campaign has launched an avalanche of negative ads, despite the candidate's personal statements in public denouncing them.
But Mitt, it seems, has his own problems brewing with a major voting block--gun rights activists, who are strong in South Carolina.
Romney raised the issue himself during Monday night's debate. When asked about his stance on the 2nd Amendment, Romney pointed to his rating by the NRA. While Governor of Massachusetts, Romney garnered an 'A' rating from the organization.
But many within the gun rights community blasted Romney and consider the NRA's rating system to be highly flawed. The organization rates candidates based not so much on their stance on unfettered firearms rights but their support or non-support for specific bills pushed by the NRA, some of which favor gun control.
The NRA's rationale for such a glaring contradiction is that in order to prevent anti-gun politicians from passing legislation that it considers to be 'much worse than the bill being considered,' it is better to compromise and pass a bill that contains some gun control than to allow anti-gun politicians to pass something much worse.
But the bottom line in such a strategy is that the NRA finds itself on many occasions supporting restricting the 2nd Amendment, although the Amendment itself states that the firearms rights of citizens 'shall not be infringed.' For example, the organization supported Governor Romney's gun control legislation in Massachusetts. The state now has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, along with New York, California, and Illinois.
As for Romney himself, his record on gun control is well-documented from his years as Governor of Massachusetts. The candidate is no friend of the 2nd Amendment.
Historically the NRA has supported every major piece of national legislation that contains new firearms restrictions, including the mammoth Gun Control Act of 1968.
All of this has led to a rift between gun rights activists and 'pragmatic' gun owners, as they are called. An example of the rift can be found here.
It is clear that not all gun owners are interested in unfettered gun rights. The NRA has developed a reputation more as a gun owners organization rather than a gun rights organization, which led Republican Congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul to describe the NRA's rival organization, Gun Owners of America, as "the only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington."
Several of the Republican Presidential candidates have demonstrated a lack of passion with regard to gun rights, in spite of their positive rating from the NRA--such as Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. But neither have a record as dismal as that of Romney. Of the current candidates, Ron Paul and Rick Perry have the strongest records on the issue of gun rights.
And one candidate who dropped out of the race, Michele Bachmann, is known for her strong stance in favor of unfettered gun rights. So is Sarah Palin.
As for the South Carolina Republican primary on Saturday, GOP voters in the state are beginning to realize that Mitt Romney does not represent their values. The question is, can Newt pick up the 3 points needed to at least tie Romney by Saturday? A tie would be viewed as a win for Newt, and Romney would be significantly weakened going forward.
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