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The Big Gulp

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In the latest uproar over banning assault weapons, Wayne La Pierre accuses Mayor Bloomberg of trying to buy the American people.  Just in case you are curious the NRA has an annual operating budget of over $200 million, paying La Pierre a cool million for his efforts to "defend" the second amendment.  That's nearly 20 times the amount Bloomberg has pledged to push for assault weapon bans around the country.

Recently, we saw the ever resilient "Mama Grizzly" teeing off on Bloomberg's attempt at a Big Gulp ban in New York, proudly slurping from one of these half-gallon cups at a CPAC rally.  The Mississippi legislature followed suit by not only banning such attempted bans, but barring local governments from requiring nutritional information be posted at restaurants.  This from perhaps the most obese state in the nation, with the highest count of Type 2 diabetes.


These and many other issues have put the Republican party outside the mainstream, leading Andrew Kohut to speculate that the Republicans could face a major backlash in the 2014 midterms.  The only thing that appears to save them from total annihilation are sizable voting blocks in the deep South and large pockets in the Mountain West and Midwest, but it isn't anywhere near enough support to carry them in a national presidential election, as they found out in 2012, or even hold onto key House seats, judging by Elizabeth Colbert Busch's surprising popularity in South Carolina.

The Republican Party's response to this major electoral shift is a $10 million ad campaign aimed at potential Hispanic voters and better polling data so that they can more properly assess the political landscape.  However, judging by the blurbs that came out of CPAC this month it doesn't sound like the GOP is doing any major soul searching, just looking for new ways to sell their "brand."

Lalo Alcaraz 2013
The irony of course is that the GOP has no problem legislating morality when it comes to putting forward federal amendments against abortion and gay marriage, introducing "intelligent design" into high school curricula,and banning contentious books in local libraries. But, don't take away my gun or big gulp or there will be hell to pay!

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