The Patriot Post® · Shifting the Political Focus

Michael Barone: “Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist, a board member of the National Rifle Association, points out that 9 million Americans today hold state permits to carry concealed weapons. Back in 1987, when Florida passed its concealed weapons law, there were none. That is now a powerful constituency with an interest in opposing restrictive gun control legislation, which Hillary Clinton called for in a speech last week. In 1990, there were no charter schools, home schooling was widely illegal and only the first student voucher programs were just beginning in Milwaukee. Today, there are 1 million children in charter schools, 2 million children being home-schooled and hundreds of thousands of students in voucher programs from Arizona to Indiana to Tennessee. These form the basis of emerging constituencies, consisting of millions of parents, with interests in opposition to or in tension with those of teacher unions. Increasingly, the unions’ claims that they are the only champions of ‘the kids’ are coming into question. All these eddies and currents have the potential to shift the nation’s political focus and partisan balance, in various directions.”