The addition of a gun-control plank to Terry McCauliffe’s gubernatorial platform has provoked the NRA into spending half a million dollars. In the Washington Post, Ben Pershing reports that:
The National Rifle Association is wading into the Virginia governor’s race with a six-figure ad campaign, potentially reviving a debate over gun issues that has been mostly dormant in the contest.
Beginning Monday, the group will begin airing $500,000 worth of statewide television and online ads hitting Democrat Terry McAuliffe for his firearms stances, according to NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam. The campaign is designed to benefit Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), a longtime gun rights advocate who has lagged behind McAuliffe on the financial front and can use the extra help on the airwaves.
Pershing then goes on to explain in detail the differences between the two candidates in this area.
Nah, just kidding! He doesn’t do anything of the sort. Instead, Pershing spends an awful lot of time talking about universal background checks, while steadfastly ignoring McAuliffe’s much less popular and much more extreme proposals to limit the size of magazines and to restore an archaic rule by which Virginians were restricted to buy just one gun per month. I wonder why that might be . . .