Journalist Accuses Anti-Gun Lawmaker Of Being Bought By Bloomberg

Rep. Lucy McBath campaigned for her House seat on gun control above many other issues and defeated Republican incumbent Karen Handel. It’s a line she’s pushed on and on.

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Well, that and the typical nonsense of claiming pro-gun lawmakers are only that way because they were bought and paid for by the National Rifle Association.

From time to time, I’ve argued that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If they can claim pro-gun legislators are bought, wouldn’t the same be true of anti-gun lawmakers who accept a great deal of money from gun control groups in order to be elected?

Well, now that the gun control grand sugar-daddy of them all is running for president, it seems the idea is catching on.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow on Wednesday accused Rep. Lucy McBath (D., Ga.) of being bought for her endorsement of Michael Bloomberg for president.

“Everyone has a price. EVERYONE,” Blow said in a now-deleted tweet.

Blow was responding to a tweet from Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Greg Bluestein, who noted that Bloomberg’s gun control group spent more than $4.5 million to help McBath unseat Rep. Karen Handel (R., Ga.) in 2018. Blow sent several tweets criticizing Bloomberg and his past support for the “stop-and-frisk” program, which gave New York police officers the authority to stop anyone they suspected of committing a crime without a warrant.

Earlier in the morning, McBath took to Twitter to praise Bloomberg for helping “fight back against gun violence” and said she is “proud to stand with him in this race.”

I hate it that Blow deleted the tweet because he shouldn’t have.

Let’s be honest here, there are a lot of lawmakers who got a lot of money from Bloomberg. How many of the endorsements he’s likely to get from those anti-gun officials is because they think he’s the best man for the job and how many because they want to make sure their steady flow of campaign cash keeps coming their way?

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After all, if pro-gun politicians can be bought and sold so easily, why would anti-gun politicians be any different? Especially in a case like this?

You see, I’ve always argued that the money generally flows from a candidate’s position on the issue. If they are pro-gun, groups like the NRA will donate. If they’re not, Bloomberg will. In that regard, no one is really paid to maintain a pro- or anti-gun position.

But with Bloomberg’s situation, it’s a little different. Here’s someone who has doled out millions over the years to get politicians elected. It’s not a nameless, faceless organization but an individual. Now he’s running for president. It’s hard not to look at any and all endorsements he gets and wonder whether or not there’s a little quid pro quo going on there.

Rep. Lucy McBath is just the first of potentially many who will have to justify any endorsement for Bloomberg after he funneled a lot of money into their campaign.

In truth, though, how much justification can you really accept from someone whose entire political existence arguably hinges on that money coming in?

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