Candidates Playing It Safe on Gun Issues

[dusty64]

Mar 1, 2:21 AM (ET)

By SIOBHAN McDONOUGH

(AP)


WASHINGTON (AP) - Doug Hattaway tells a cautionary tale for the candidates of 2004 from the annals of the last campaign.

Al Gore's presidential campaign spokesman was flying over the candidate's home state of Tennessee in 2000 when he overheard this complaint from a couple of men talking in business class: "The problem with Al Gore is he'll take our guns away."

"I knew we were in trouble," said Hattaway. When he heard that exchange, he realized the rap against Democrats as antigun was taking hold, and not only among the stereotypical working-class Southerners drawn to the National Rifle Association.

This time around, Democrats have lunged toward the middle on gun control, avoiding edgy proposals like gun registration and gun-owner licensing and sticking with stands that almost match, at least rhetorically, those of President Bush.


"The agenda has not changed so much, as their embracing of a principled agenda that can be enacted rather than throwing away elections on policies that are going nowhere," said Hattaway, now a consultant who helps a moderate gun-control group.
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040301/D811E8P80.html