Keith Ellison is trying to paint Keith Ellison as…

…soft on guns?

We’ll come back to that.

Klieglightitis – When I was in high school, my dad – a speech teacher – used to run this exercise where he’s give out clippings from newspaper articles and magazines, and give us thirty seconds to come up with a short speech on the subject.

I got a TV Guide article about Forrest Tucker, TV star of the sixites and seventies (famous for the original Ghostbusters, which unknown to most was actually a Saturday morning kids show before it was a movie).

As I walked up to the front of the class, I had the name “Forrest Tucker” roiling through my head, reminding myself not to make the uttelry obvious error…

…that, iI”m sure you guessed, was the first thing out of my mouth.   I was so busy concentrating on not pronouncing “Forrest Tucker” as “F****er”, it was pretty much inevitable.

A Slip Of The Lip:  And so when I saw Doug Wardlow say in his last debate on 10/22 that he “supported universal background checks”, I attributed it to nerves on a TV set in the midst of a high-pressure debate.

To read Ellison and the Strib describe it, they apparently don’t.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison hit his Republican opponent for attorney general, Doug Wardlow, on Wednesday for shifting his stance on background checks for gun sales, and Wardlow lobbed a new ad digging into Ellison’s past links to controversial figures.

Ahem.

There was no “past stance” on background checks.  There was a slip of the lip under pressure.

Of course, Keith Ellison is getting desperate:

Ellison pointed to Wardlow’s response during their Oct. 22 debate, where he said he would support criminal background checks on all gun sales.

Keith Ellison, holding conservatives to conservative stances on the Second Amendment, something Ellison wants to repeal?

We’ve slipped through the looking glass.

But look who pops up (emphasis added):

He later rejected that position when asked to clarify it by the Minnesota Gun Owner’s Caucus and during a conservative talk radio interview.

“Just to be clear, I absolutely do not support background checks for private sales,” Wardlow told Northern Alliance Radio’s Mitch Berg on Oct. 27. “I do not support a gun registry. I don’t actually support any new gun laws.”

I asked the question straight up.  He answered it straight up.   There was no reversal; merely a correction of a slip.

But in case that wasn’t clear enough: I’ve known Doug Wardlow a long time.  I did my first fundraiser for his first House race in 2010.    I did it again in 2012, and have done a few for his Attorney General campaign in the past year.

And if I had ever had the faintest whiff of a hint that Doug Wardlow – or any candidate – harbored “moderate” opinions on the Second Amendment and the law abiding American’s God-given right to defend their lives, property, community and freedom, I would never, ever do a fundraiser for them.

Ever!

I”m going to soooo enjoy watching Ellison flame out on Tuesday.