July 22, 2009

Senate Democrats know the NRA will soon come a-calling again but they are savoring their victory on the Thune Amendment as a watershed.

Even though the measure stood little chance of actually passing both houses, the NRA-backed amendment would have given permit holders the right to bring their firearms across state lines. That frightened local governments who value their right to regulate -- and spurred the defection of two GOP elder statesmen, Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio).

Politically, the amendment was engineered to splinter the Democrats' gun-control base in the Senate from a new crop of moderate-to-conservative Dems who had been elected in pro-gun states.

On its surface that effort succeeded. But it also revealed the Democrats' new bend-don't-break strategy on gun issues -- and underscored a caucus-wide unwillingness to hand the GOP a Second Amendment wedge issue.

The Democratic coalition, which fractured on NRA-backed initiatives stripping DC of handgun restrictions and allowing the importation of concealed weapons in national park, bent again -- with Majority Leader Harry Reid himself backing Thune.

But Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer, who led the whipping effort to get the 40 votes needed to kill the amendment, say the vote showed that even NRA-fearing Democrats will draw the line when the group's agenda gets too radical.

"We found where the wall was," said Schumer, who described the win as a team effort that also included New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg and Ohio freshman Sherrod Brown, who lobbied Voinovich.

"We have a universe of 30 Democrats who have voted [with the NRA] and today we lost 20 of them," Durbin said. "But we got ten of them and most importantly, we didn't have to twist arms to get them."

Noteworthy Dems who voted for previous pro-gun bills this year but against the NRA this time included Minnesotan Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Oregonians Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, and Pennsylvania wild card Arlen Specter.

One senior Senate Democrat tells POLITICO that Schumer was informing his colleagues on the floor "I have five more Senators in my pocket," just before the vote.

Durbin, the majority whip, said that a fair number of the 20 Democrats who voted for the Thune amendment held their noses to do so -- while professing growing hostility to a group with a deep hold on the Midwest, South and Mountain West.

"Several of [the Democrats who voted with Thune] said, 'This is really disgusting,'' Durbin says. "They didn't believe they would face so may votes on guns this year. They are troubled because they ran on the premise of the Second Amendment but are really feeling like the NRA and Republicans are pushing these votes for political purposes."

Nonetheless, Durbin thinks the NRA and GOP will come back soon -- with amendments that are less radical and less easy to defeat.

"We're not going to win every time," he cautioned.