Thursday, February 5, 2009

Deconstructing Brady

From an article by Howard Nemerov, examining Brady Campaign claims about the election results:
Of the 25 Congressional races where a Brady-endorsed candidate went up against a NRA-endorsed candidate, Brady won 13. A 52.0% does not bode well for anybody claiming that this election was a mandate for anything, especially since all the head-to-head Brady winners were Democrat. Depending upon how much voter dissatisfaction on other issues impacted this election, Brady’s slight edge here may actually indicate a lack of voter support for their agenda, because voters considered issues like the continued Iraq involvement and the economic downturn the result of Republican policy, a trend that began with the 2006 election when Democrats retook Congress.
...
Brady Campaign endorsed 167 Democrats out of 172 total endorsees (97.1%). Considering that House Democrats had a 58.9% winning percentage, and that Democrat candidates graded “A” by the NRA had an 86.2% winning percentage, it is impossible to find any indication that Brady’s 52% head-to-head winning percentage indicates any mandate on gun control, or that the election was in any way related to gun control. It appears more likely that Brady simply benefited by riding the coattails of the Democrat victory.

Article here. Lots of statistics for the numbers geeks.

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