What do yesterday's elections mean for gun owners?

November 4, 9:41 AMGun Rights ExaminerDavid Codrea

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Doug Hoffman, Conservative Party congressional
candidate in New York's 23rd district, speaks
during an election night event in Lake Saranac,
NY, early Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009.
(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Depending on who's doing the talking, we're supposed to look at yesterday's elections as either "a troubling turn for president Obama," or irrelevant as far as being "a referendum on Obama."

Unless, of course, a conservative loses. Then it's "a blow to the right."

The Doug Hoffman campaign apparently feared answering specific questions about guns would hurt his chances. What really hurt him was NRA-endorsed Dede Scozzafava betraying the Republicans and endorsing the Democrat.

Some will now portray this as a loss, because a Republican previously held that seat, and Scozzafava was nominally in the gun rights camp. But her actions in the final days of the campaign show she was no more to be trusted than, say Kirsten Gillibrand.

As for California's 10th Congressional District race, where John Garamendi won, Gun Owners of America gave David Harmer an "A" rating.  Still, this wasn't so much a defeat for gun owners as the result of two-to-one Democrat over Republican demographics.

Let's take a look at victorious NRA-endorsed governor-elect Bob McDonnell in Virginia:

A reader and blogger sent McDonnell and R. Creigh Deeds the Gun Rights Political Questionnaire and they both ignored it. McDonnell also refused to sign the Virginia Gun Owners Coalition Pro-Gun Pledge.

McDonnell supported a gun-banner to replace him as AG.

McDonnell claims to now be against one-gun-a-month laws, but when it was up for enactment, he voted for it.

And then we have the New Jersey gubernatorial race, where Chris Christie ousted anti-gun Jon Corzine.

I wouldn't dance too hard, especially after reading Christie's old campaign mailer calling for a ban on semiautomatic firearms, deceptively portrayed as "automatic". But that didn't stop the Fudds from telling us they've done their "homework," and portraying him as the sportsman's pal. Just in case you thought either Anthony P. Mauro, Sr., or the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance have any relevance whatsoever to freedom...

Back to our title question, when it's all said and done, here's what the elections will be portrayed to mean: The Obama-loving media will discount any losses as being relevant to his agenda. The debate, instead, will focus on--well, here, I'll let Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen tell you:

[T]he battle between Scozzafava and Hoffman is indicative of an ideological fight within the Republican Party, and so far he sees that the “extreme voices are prevailing in that debate.”

This is what you'll see coming at us ad nauseum: democrats advising the GOP they need more, not fewer Dede Scozzafavas. Does anyone think they advise this because they want to help coach the opposition into fielding a better game?

It's basic Carroll Quigley:

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies."

And anyone naive enough to make political choices based on principle will be marginalized as an "extremist." Which can then be morphed into being a hater, and then somebody who needs to be on a watchlist...