Permanent Campaign: Obama to Use Re-Election Machine to Target NRA

by Ben Shapiro 17 Jan 2013

  The Obama administration puzzled many observers by leaving its campaign infrastructure largely in place in the aftermath of President Obama’s re-election win. Now we know why. According to Stephanie Cutter, President Obama’s former deputy campaign manager on Ed Schultz’s MSNBC program:

President Obama's network across this country, grassroots individuals, who organize, volunteered with their time to get the president reelected are much more powerful than the NRA lobby. And I think that you can expect to see that network activated, very soon. And for good reason.

Cutter’s words should frighten Americans accustomed to the usual ins-and-outs of politics. Unlike prior presidents, who leveraged their campaign into power, then got down to the business of governing, Obama is running a permanent campaign intended to destroy his political opposition completely.

This has been his agenda for years – only now, the administration is pursuing full-scale opposition openly from within the White House. In the past, the President relied on his allies in the 501(c)3 charitable world to do his dirty work. 

Last year, for example, President Obama set his lackeys at Media Matters and Color of Change on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which was then pushing voter ID laws. After George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, Obama quickly inserted himself into the proceedings, declaring that Trayvon looked like his fictional son. In doing so, he lent air to the mainstream media narrative that Zimmerman had shot Martin in cold blood, and used Florida’s so-called “stand your ground” law as cover – and ALEC had pushed for “stand your ground.” In reality, nobody at the Sanford Police Department ever cited “stand your ground” as the rationale for Zimmerman’s release, and Zimmerman never said “stand your ground.” This was all an attempt to gin up public indignation at “stand your ground” laws, and by extension, ALEC. The Obama-generated assault on ALEC ended with ALEC disassociating from its more controversial political positions, as organizations like Coca-Cola, seeking to avoid scrutiny, cut ties.

That wasn’t the first time Obama had used his allies outside the administration to attempt to destroy political opposition. After Rush Limbaugh called media moth Sandra Fluke a “slut,” Obama jumped in to call her with his condolences – though he was nowhere to be found when the media was labeling Gov. Sarah Palin a “c***” (actually, Obama’s super PAC took $1 million from Bill Maher, the cretin who said that). Obama then helped push a Media Matters-led boycott on Rush’s advertisers.

Now it’s the NRA. The NRA was always the target of the Sandy Hook-exploiting media. The NRA receives no public funding, and writes no laws. Yet the media immediately suggested that the NRA abandon its positions and those of its members or face public wrath. No such suggestion was ever made with regard to the ACLU’s defense of ultra-violent video games. That’s because the NRA is a serious opponent to the left’s public sway. And so it must be destroyed.

But Obama’s in his second term, so he sees no need to hide behind Media Matters any longer. Now he’ll just use that vast infrastructure he’s built to go after all of his enemies, the NRA included. This president has no interest in achieving policy solutions. He's interested in blowing up those who oppose him. The campaign never ends for President Obama.

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).

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