{"id":7476,"date":"2013-03-08T08:57:09","date_gmt":"2013-03-08T13:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=7476"},"modified":"2013-03-08T08:57:09","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T13:57:09","slug":"gun-poll-passionate-protests-highlight-challenge-for-ny-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/03\/08\/gun-poll-passionate-protests-highlight-challenge-for-ny-republicans\/","title":{"rendered":"Gun poll, passionate protests highlight challenge for NY Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Can Republican majority leader Sen. Dean Skelos balance public opinion and a passionate base?<\/p><\/div>\n

Nowhere in the US is the political challenge facing Republican leaders more stark or more poignant than here in New York.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, the state has seen an explosion of grassroots conservative activism aimed at rolling back Andrew Cuomo’s tough new gun control law.<\/p>\n

North Country political leaders are all but unified in opposition to the SAFE Act, with a growing list of counties passing fiercely-worded resolutions calling for its repeal.<\/p>\n

Politicians stand in the path of that kind of zeal only at great peril.<\/p>\n

But here’s the twist.<\/p>\n

A new poll released this week by Marist — funded by the Wall Street Journal and NBC<\/a> — found that a strong plurality of New Yorkers think the new gun law is “about right.”<\/p>\n

In all, sixty percent of New Yorkers told Marist that the law was either the right approach, or didn’t go far enough.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, only 30% of those contacted by the survey think the ban on assault rifles and new restrictions on gun sales went “too far.”<\/p>\n

That thirty percent support for gun rights tends to be localized in Upstate in communities that already lean Republican, so the political landscape is more or less in sync with voters’ attitudes.<\/p>\n

But that arrangement makes it tough for Republicans to appeal to a wider pool of voters.<\/p>\n

The challenge, of course, will be for the GOP to try to hold their base, while also finding ways to appeal to a winning majority of New Yorkers statewide.<\/p>\n

They’ll have to balance those two priorities if they hope to win back state offices, like the governorship or a US Senate seat.<\/p>\n

In the heavily gerrymandered state Senate, even many GOP lawmakers come from purple or blue-leaning suburban districts, meaning they too have to lean toward public opinion.<\/p>\n

Which reveals — in part at least — why Republican majority leader Dean Skelos allowed the SAFE Act to slide through, why he voted for it, and why ten other GOP state Senators also signed on to support the controversial measure.<\/p>\n

This poll also suggests that overturning the SAFE Act through legislative action will be nearly impossible.\u00a0 That means the court cases now being filed against the gun control law may be the last, best hope for gun rights activists.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nowhere in the US is the political challenge facing Republican leaders more stark or more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7478,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7476\/revisions\/7478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}