Wednesday, November 08, 2006

GOA "Unaware of Any 'Publicity Campaign'"

I informed Gun Owners of America about the 1911 Forums thread where an email reply ostensibly from an NRA representative about the Ron Paul race was posted.

Here's what I sent:
Please note the following (scroll 2/3 way down the page to comment by ‘kjhof]):

http://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=157138

“We have been receiving a bit of communication from NRA members after the latest publicity campaign from GOA regarding Ron Paul's NRA-rating. GOA does this to encourage folks to join their organization rather than NRA. Think about it: if they said NRA was doing everything right, they wouldn't have any members. Only in trying to stir up disagreement among our members, do they reap the benefits.”

I haven’t seen this publicity campaign the NRA rep refers to. Have you sent out alerts on this, or is there a web page you can refer me to?

Also, will you give me a “for the record” comment on the NRA allegation?

Thank you,

David Codrea

Here's what I got back:
David,

We are also unaware of any "publicity campaign" on this issue. Other than publicizing his GOA rating as we do with all candidates we can identify, we have not been active in Paul's district this election. (No alerts, no postcards, etc.) And of course, we gave Paul his usual A+ rating.

Regarding a "for the record comment," we consider all of our responses to e-mailed questions to be on record unless specifically stated otherwise. We don't have any idea what the quoted passage is referencing, if anything.

I also feel obligated to point out that it is by no means uncommon for forum threads to include inaccurate information, misattributed quotes, and even outright false or manipulated posts. Do not interpret that to mean I'm at all suggesting such has been the case in this instance. I'm pointing it out because, since GOA has been unfairly tarnished in those ways more than a few times over the years, we are obligated to give NRA-PVF every last bit of the benefit of the doubt. So I suppose the sound bite would be: "I would be interested in seeing the original e-mail -- with all header information included."

In liberty,

--Craig.

Craig Fields
Director of Internet Operations, GOA

I have not been able to access the 1911 Forum site since yesterday afternoon. I'll keep trying with the intent of contacting poster "kjhof" about this.

3 comments:

  1. The reply from GOA seems much different in tone and demeanor than any NRA correspondence I've received or seen posted don't you think?

    The GOA rep seemed genuinely concerned about addressing your points and was civil and professional, even towards the NRA which routinely ignores or dismisses the contributions of GOA.

    I'd say that my membership dues for the GOA are well spent.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm the kjhof (didn't have any inspiration for a name when I joined) from 1911 Forum. I'm currently paying on a lifetime membership to the NRA (as well as one to GOA), and like everyone else here, was (and still am) outraged at the NRA's "B" grade for the Honorable Dr. Paul, and very dissatisfied with their "explanation." The NRA needs to learn that they're not the only game in town for gun rights advocates.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I discovered an inadvertent mistake in a GOA rating for a local candidate.

    GOA quickly solved the problem.

    No excuses, to nothing, just good business.

    The get my vote for accuracy, and for immediate corrections if a problem is discovered.

    Imagine trying to get through to the NRA regading such a matter.

    ReplyDelete

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