NRA ads up the ante against Kerry

POMEROY, Ohio -- Sure, Wayne Pullins has seen the pictures of Senator John F. Kerry hunting. It seems to Pullins that every chance the Democratic nominee for president gets, he picks up a shotgun and aims at something -- and makes sure the cameras are close by to shoot him.

But Pullins isn't buying it.

"He's [gone] out and done the photo PR of shooting trap and one thing and another," said Pullins, who owns the Pioneer Hunting Depot on Main Street. "It makes him look progun. But I don't care what you say. Your actions will tell me who you are. His actions tell me he's antigun."

The National Rifle Association is running an aggressive campaign against Kerry this year in this once-grand Appalachian town across the Ohio River from West Virginia, all across the Buckeye State, and in other battleground states, too. By Election Day, the group will have spent $20 million on television spots, billboards, radio advertising, leaflets, and district-by-district voter mobilization in the hopes of convincing the NRA's 4 million members -- and the rest of the 4 in 10 Americans who own guns -- that a Kerry administration threatens their Second Amendment rights.

In one spot, running in high rotation in Ohio and other swing states, NRA lobbyist Chris Cox urges sportsmen not to be fooled by Kerry's assertions that he is a hunter. "He just plays one on TV," Cox says.

NRA leaflets and billboards feature a white poodle sporting a pink bow and a blue Kerry sweater, and the slogan, "That dog don't hunt."

The NRA cites votes by Kerry in his 20-year Senate career supporting gun control measures, such as the recently expired ban on assault semiautomatic weapons, and his votes and public statements favoring making some California land off-limits to hunters, allowing lawsuits against gun manufacturers, and closing a loophole allowing some people to buy guns at gun shows without submitting to background checks. When the assault weapons ban expired in September, Kerry criticized President Bush for failing to push the ban -- which Bush said he supported -- back onto the Republican-dominated House agenda.

The NRA ran a similar, though smaller-scale, campaign against Vice President Al Gore in 2000. The group and some Democrats claim the NRA characterization of Gore as antigun helped sway voters in West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. "It just really made an impact on Gore," said Sue Maison, chairwoman of the Democratic Party in Meigs County, which includes Pomeroy. "They had leaflets, commercials on TV, T-shirts. This area is very rural, and it's a hunter's paradise, and they played a huge role in defeating Gore."

In the debate Wednesday, there was little daylight between Kerry and Bush on the issue of gun control. Bush said he, like Kerry, favors closing the gun show loophole and supports the assault weapons ban. Kerry called Bush's inability to force a reconsideration of the ban "a failure of presidential leadership." But even though Bush holds some of the same positions for which the NRA has pilloried Kerry, the NRA endorsed the president Wednesday because he has mostly expanded the rights of gun owners.

"We have stated on the issue of the assault weapons ban that we disagree with the president, but there are numerous other issues where we agree with him," said Andrew Arulanandam, NRA director of public affairs. "John Kerry has a 20-year record of voting against the rights of hunters and sportsmen. NRA members and gun owners are a politically savvy voting bloc. What matters to them is voting record, not campaign rhetoric."

Whether the strategy will work this year is hard to predict, however. Although Pullins is not convinced Kerry is a sportsman, plenty of other Ohioans are, said Kathy Roeder, spokeswoman for the Kerry campaign in Ohio.

"John Kerry is not an easy target for them on this," she said. "He stands up and tells people he's for the Second Amendment. He and George Bush are the same on the gun issue. Let's talk about issues where there are differences. Ohio has continued to lose jobs. The only time anybody has lost a gun over the last eight to 12 years is because they had to sell it."

Some doubt that the NRA swung states in Bush's direction in 2000.

"In 2000, the NRA did a wonderful job of spinning the election results to say Al Gore lost because of the gun issue in states like Arkansas and West Virginia," said Peter Hamm, communications director of the Brady Center to Stop Gun Violence. "The truth is, the NRA's top-priority states in 2000, Pennsylvania and Michigan, went to Al Gore."

Nonetheless, some politicians were afraid to cross the NRA after 2000, Hamm said. This week, Hamm's group is purchasing air time in Philadelphia, Miami, and Cleveland to run spots criticizing Bush for failing to act on the assault weapons ban. His budget is minuscule compared with the NRA's -- several hundred thousand dollars compared with the NRA's millions. But gun control advocates have also joined the America Votes Coalition to mobilize Kerry supporters on Nov. 2.

The issue of gun control can be tricky, politically: Both candidates are trying to appeal to gun owners without alienating suburban women voters who support gun control measures. Hamm says Kerry is doing it, however.

"Kerry has been a strong supporter of reasonable gun safety legislation throughout his career," he said. "The NRA is trying to convince their supporters that means he's unpatriotic. The idea that being for a ban on assault weapons, or for closing the gun-show loophole, means you're opposed to gun ownership is a complete crock. It's how the NRA keeps the money rolling in."

It's also one of the ways the Republican Party solidifies its base. Gun control, like abortion and gay marriage, may not be discussed openly very often in this campaign, but the candidates' positions on those issues send important signals to voters -- particularly conservative ones. Democrats are hoping that the potency of those litmus test issues will be diluted this year by bigger concerns over the war in Iraq and the economy.

Over the last four years, Pomeroy has hit particularly hard times, the closure of a coal mine and some manufacturing plants putting hundreds in the area out of work. The unemployment rate in Meigs County is 15.9 percent, the highest in Ohio, said Maison, the county Democratic Party chairwoman. She says that this year, locals are more concerned about jobs than guns.