Harry Reid, the NRA and the Lesser of Three Evils

By Shad Olson

Talk Show Host/Producer

Shad Olson Radio Network

In a country where image is everything, the power of effective and consistent branding is difficult to overestimate or quantify.  Sad but true, companies blessed with trademarks and product identification transcending the marketplace (think Coca-Cola, Kleenex, Smith & Wesson) can and do allow the substance of their product to slump and decline in ways that would almost certainly have deprived their initial rise to glory, and would likely doom their continued prosperity and reputation, if not for the powerful symbolism of their venerated past. 

For some, this exchange of symbol for actual substance is a cost-per-unit means to an end, often a way to temporarily trim the bottom line.  For others, it is a blatant exercise in arrogance and a calculated maneuver for political advantage.  Add the leadership of the National Rifle Association to the latter list, and all because they’re about to add Harry Reid to theirs.  Endorse him even, adding their august support to the wimpy, barely audible, socialist lib in his contest with an actual, verifiable conservative, Sharron Angle.  Pass the Maalox, and a box of Federal shells, and call it brand loyalty.  I know what I like, and which politicians I don’t. 

Coming from  our grandfathers’ NRA, endorsements of liberal elites like Harry Reid would be as out of place as a civet cat in a jar of beluga caviar, pelt intact.  In other words, it’s enough to make you wretch more than once.  As a lifelong member of the organization that has cornered the market on the gun lobby and reigned as a paragon of vigilant activism, I am unwilling and unable to remain quiet while watching the NRA’s courtship and outright consummation of philosophically inexplicable partnerships.  I refuse to dry heave in silence.  Endorsing South Dakota Democratic Congresswoman, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, was bad enough, but Harry Reid?  Obama’s right hand man, Harry Reid?  The man who has spoken openly in favor of a one-world, utopian police state, Harry Reid? 

To be fair, the NRA justification for supporting ‘Dusty Harry’ is a simple shell-game of backing the least objectionable horse.  If Reid loses his bid for reelection, the list of likely successors as Majority Leader includes both Dick Durbin of Illinois and Charles Schumer of New York, two of the most virulent anti-gun members of the U.S. Senate.  Ergo: NRA leadership considers Reid the least evil option for Senate leadership.  Close, but no cigar.  The flaws with that logic are myriad and damaging. 

To start, Reid’s lack of success in advancing the Obama legislative agenda makes his position as Majority Leader a tenuous perch, regardless of whether he punches a ticket back to Washington.  Secondly, it’s very likely Republicans are poised to nullify Democratic control of the Senate anyway, making a Reid endorsement an embarrassing and unnecessary gamble with little payoff. 

Third and most importantly, throwing support to Reid does lasting and indefensible damage to the NRA brand.  In reality, the difference between Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin is virtually indiscernible on a multitude of issues, not the least of which is the Second Amendment.  Reid has voted for a myriad of anti-gun measures, including the Clinton Semi-Auto Ban, laws to shut down gun shows, and a UN tax on American gun owners, to name but a few.   (Here is a more complete account of Reid’s anti-gun voting record – Editor).

But even if Reid’s voting record didn’t read like a wish-list for Handgun Control Inc., the NRA leadership’s blatant support for him would still do great harm to the organization.  A National Rifle Association with leadership willing to get ‘single-issue’ comfortable with the individuals eager to misapply their obnoxious and  misguided social consciences to ‘every-other-issue-except-gun-control,’ will very soon cease to function as a legitimate, cohesive and effective lobbying voice.  Unlike Reid, the NRA membership-at-large are not single issue voters. They are life and liberty Americans who love and admire parts of the U.S. Constitution not limited to the 2^nd Amendment.  They are Americans from rural states and red states who don’t take kindly to big government politicians who believe there isn’t a local problem that the Feds can’t and shouldn’t meddle with.  Regardless of the intoxicating rarified air of Washington D.C., there can be no justifying support of candidates who oppose a free and traditional America. 

What the organization’s leaders are banking on is an NRA brand so powerfully stamped on the brainpans, (and some might say the foreheads) of gun rights advocates that their loyalty reneges the need for careful electoral examination, candidate vetting and voting scrutiny.  What they should deservedly expect is an irate membership, brought to their feet by nothing less than an outright abdication of a proud legacy. 

For those of my fellow NRA members who find my words and criticism of our birthright champion on Capitol Hill too harsh and unwelcome, I offer no apologies.  It is our silence, and blind loyalty that have given current NRA leaders the audacity to pull twelve stunts too many in the name of political expediency and expanded influence.  If nothing else, make a call reminding NRA leadership that the current anti-incumbency sentiment sweeping the nation virtually guarantees Reid’s defeat, alleviating the need for such an unseemly alliance.  Better yet, remind them, too, that that same anti-incumbency, anti-establishment backlash can apply equally to organizations and executives grown so rich and fat on past laurels and focus group hors de’ oeuvres’  that they seem incapable of accountable responsiveness to their constituents.  It’s a dangerous time to be a fat cat, even if you’re several generations in the clear.  Flouting the will of an informed electorate has consequences, even for the biggest and nastiest watchdog on the block.