Julie Hirschfeld Davis provides some sport in the Baltimore Sun (via the Boston Globe):
RACINE, W.Va. -- In a few short weeks, just as the clock ticks down on the last days of the presidential race, West Virginia's fall hunting season will begin.Although the article mentions bird hunting, one can only hope that Lurch will show up with his trusty 12 gauge to stalk "Bambi". (We won't tell his pals in PETA, will you?)
Thousands of people around this important swing state will take their guns and head for its verdant forests and broad valleys in search of fowl and other wildlife, just as their fathers and grandfathers did before them.
And some of John F. Kerry's supporters here hope the Massachusetts Democrat will be among them.
Democrats in West Virginia know that many of their state's voters guard their gun rights jealously, and that their fear in 2000 that Al Gore was out to take their weapons -- stoked by Republicans and the National Rifle Association -- helped seal the former vice president's defeat.Lurch doesn't need to hunt "gobbles." He's got plenty of them already.
That's why Kerry stood on a stage here last week, proudly hoisting a shotgun and telling a throng of mine workers that he would like to go "gobble huntin' " with them as soon as possible.
The scene boosted Kerry's image with at least one voter attending Kerry's Labor Day rally. "It cleared one problem up for me, with the guns," said Paul Cooper, 62, of Madison, who wore his Navy garrison cap under the hot sun. "He can't be against our guns, or want to take mine, if he's got one of his own."I guess you can fool some of the people, some of them time. Lurch is easily the most anti-gun presidential candidate in history and a few photo-ops don't counteract his voting record. Aside from wanting to
ban all semi-automatic shotguns, all detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifles and many other guns, calling the whole lot "assault weapons"my favorite is his voting to ban center-fire rifle ammunition. I guess he won't need it as long as he uses his trusty 12 gauge. But it better not be the evil "assault weapon" shotgun the union members gave him in Racine, not to speak of the Communist Chinese assault rifle that he claims to have brought back from Vietnam. Of course, he could just be funnin' us on the latter. It wouldn't be the first time.
