I'm The NRA

The National Rifle Association is putting its considerable muscle into the campaign.

Billboards now seen in at least 10 key states show a prancing French poodle, its fur fancily clipped for show, wearing a pink ribbon and a blue Kerry-for-president sweater. The text says: ``That dog don't hunt.'' And: ``For 20 years John Kerry has voted against sportsmen's rights.'' As Election Day approaches, the National Rifle Association is clearing its throat, ready to roar.

And some liberals appreciate the NRA's power enough to either feed off it, or use unconstitional means to muzzle it.

Labor unions have awakened to the NRA's power. For example, a flier published in Marseilles, Ill., by Local 393 of the Laborers' International Union lists three Kerry virtues. The third is that he will ``fix NAFTA'' (the North American Free Trade Agreement). The second is that he ``will continue to fight to protect overtime pay.'' But at the top of the list -- first things first -- is: ``Supports protecting our right to own a gun.''

Nationwide in 2000, gun ownership was a countervailing pull against union membership as a determinant of political sympathies: Union households with guns split 48 percent for Bush and 48 percent for Gore. In 2000, 80 percent of Tennessee union households had at least one firearm. In West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Michigan the percentages were 61, 60 and 55. Gore lost the first two states and might have lost the other two if he had not prudently stopped talking about gun control.

Some liberals who are no more respectful of the First Amendment than they are of the Second saw campaign finance reform as a way to inhibit the NRA from talking against gun control. Advocates of the McCain-Feingold bill for extending government regulation of political speech repeatedly mentioned the NRA as a group whose speech could be curtailed by complicating the process of financing political advocacy.