Chris Murphy Digs In To Help Elect More Anti-Gun Officials

Outside of the gun rights community and his state, almost no one has heard of Sen. Chris Murphy. The Connecticut senator isn’t exactly a big name, in the grand scheme of things.

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Connecticut isn’t exactly the biggest state, and he hasn’t been in the Senate long enough to amass much in the way of power. It’s not like that stops him from trying to act like a big deal, though. Especially when it comes to guns.

Now, he’s trying to help raise a pile of money to help elect more anti-gun politicians to office, so he might do more than yell at the clouds.

Chris Murphy is out to fight the gun lobby with a money bomb.

And he’s lining up some of the biggest names in Democratic politics to try to make the impact as big as possible.

“It’s time to take this movement for a test drive and see how big and powerful we are,” said the Connecticut senator, who has established himself as a national leader among gun control advocates since the shooting in Newtown occurred in his old House district, just after he was elected to the Senate in 2012.

Murphy is calling his effort NR8, identifying seven Democrats running for House seats and Jacky Rosen, running against Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, in races that they’ve determined are both winnable, and which would have an immediate impact on changing gun laws.

The goal is to raise $1 million in one day, scheduled for next Friday, Oct. 5, then split the cash between the candidates. It won’t be a PAC—just a pass-through for the money, and a combined list won’t be assembled for any future use.and splittinhg [Tom’s note: This is in the original, and I have no idea WTF Politico is trying to say here.]

The plan is to send an email that will simultaneously hit the lists of Hillary Clinton and Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tim Kaine, Richard Blumenthal, Jeff Merkley, and Brian Schatz, along with Reps. Steny Hoyer, Ted Deutch, Robin Kelly and Joe Kennedy. It’ll also hit MoveOn, Everytown, Giffords, Moms Demand Action, Pride Fund and the Brady Campaign.

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In other words, he’s going to hit pretty much every liberal–and thus, anti-gun–email list he can to try and raise a million bucks.

Of course, let’s also be honest for a moment. $1 million divided among seven candidates is a shade under $143,000 each. While that’s a large sum of money, depending on the race, it might not be enough to accomplish anything.

And that’s assuming Murphy can raise that kind of money, something I doubt.

After all, many of the people on those lists don’t have bougie things like jobs. Those are for other people, not them. They have more important things like fighting “The Man.”

Whatever.

Still, it does sound like a hell of a time to launch a counter-money bomb. I’ve never organized anything like that, but it would be hilarious for the NRA to raise a couple million in donations for pro-gun candidates in those seven races. Especially if Murphy fails in his endeavor.

Either way, let’s understand one very important thing. These mid-term elections matter. They all do, but especially this one. Send the anti-gunners a clear signal that we have no use for the crap they’ve been peddling.

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