Top 'wedge' issues backfiring on GOP
WASHINGTON
TWO OF THE pillars of America's right-wing establishment -- the National Rifle Association and President Bush -- have astonished the political world by bungling their allegedly superior ability to exploit "wedge" issues.
In the process, each is managing to yield the sacred middle ground to surprised and grateful liberals and to raise fresh doubts about the president's credibility.
The NRA has transformed its role of defender of the right to bear arms to that of a greedy special-interest group trying to fix court cases, protect assault weapons, and keep often shady transactions at guns shows from the minimal scrutiny of a criminal background check. President Bush has managed to raise doubts among his conservative faithful that he is truly committed to "defending" marriage from the efforts of gay couples to get married, and to end up on the most shaky political ground of all on which to raise the issue, attracting Republican as well as Democratic opposition. Instead of defending marriage, he is locked into his nominal support of a constitutional amendment that is going nowhere fast and has given John Kerry a way to wiggle off the hook of his own typically nuanced position.
Larry Craig is both the senior Republican senator from Idaho and an active member of the NRA's board of directors. It is continually clear that his public responsibility is to follow his private organization's political line. Craig was part of the NRA's push to enact legislation fixing court cases that have arisen over claims of negligence in the manufacture, marketing, and sales of firearms.
When Craig's bill reached the Senate floor last week, he faced difficulty defeating two attempts -- from the middle -- to amend it. One added an extension of the ban on 19 kinds of assault weapons, passed a decade ago, that is due to expire this fall and which Bush claims to want extended. The other closed the gun show loophole and subjected gun transactions among individuals attending these shows to a simple criminal background check.
Liberals and moderates in both parties combined to win both votes with minimal suspense. Faced with a conflict between its campaign to fix court cases and to eliminate all restrictions on firearms, the NRA decided it no longer supported its own bill. This forced Craig to follow orders. Not only was the bill killed, but the extension of the assault weapons ban that Bush said he wants remains unpassed by a Congress ruled by his own party.
The political implications are considerable. Four years ago, running as an advocate of new federal gun controls, Al Gore probably lost at least as many votes to the NRA and Bush in the hollows of West Virginia and in upcountry New Hampshire as he did to Ralph Nader. This time around, there is still no gun "issue" for the president to exploit.
Much the same is happening with gay marriage, with Bush's political guru and White House aide Karl Rove playing the part of Larry Craig.
While the issue was abstract, the president appeared to benefit simply by broad statements that sought political benefit for his "values." However, by following too closely the demands of anti-gay interest groups after the revolutionary legal developments in Massachusetts, Rove has managed to position his boss as an advocate of a constitutional amendment not only banning states from ever issuing marriage license to gays and lesbians but also permitting states to prohibit civil unions as well.
In the process, he not only lost Bush any chance at a gay vote that, with close relatives thrown in, probably approaches 10 million people; he also gave John Kerry a new way to raise gobs of money and to fight on much less dangerous ground -- as an opponent of using the Constitution to regulate marriage.
Instead of being painted as an advocate of gay marriage, which Kerry (to my regret) is not, he is now joined with more than a few conservatives and nearly all Democrats in opposing a federal usurpation of states' responsibilities that he is free to argue Bush is pursuing solely for election-year reasons. And Kerry is also free to condition theoretical support for a Massachusetts constitutional amendment on support for civil unions that include every one (there are more than a thousand) of the tax and other privileges that official marriage triggers.
Wedge issues can be land mines as well as gold mines. So far, guns and gays are dividing many more Republicans than Democrats, which is fitting payback for some tawdry politics.
Clarification: My Feb. 24 column stated that Ralph Nader did not "subject himself to the major rigors of competing for Democratic votes." He sought write-in votes in the New Hampshire Democratic primary and was listed on the Massachusetts ballot but did not file as a candidate.
Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com. 