When I was a foot soldier in the ground game, I saw something interesting — lots of ordinary people enthusiastic about voting who understood where their self-interest was. Granted, I was mostly talking to dems, in Reading PA and most of them were either black, brown, poor, old, women, or some combination thereof.  These are the people that the right does not consider “real Americans,” the voters who were completely invisible to Romney despite the blatant efforts of their own state legislature to keep them from the polls.   These were folks who were concerned about the health and safety of their communities, and there were enough of them to give the President a landslide victory (twice) despite all the money being thrown around by Rove and Company and all the propaganda coming through Fox news, and all the nonsense rumors being spread on the Internet.

I’m pretty sure most of these voters would have no problem with an assault weapons ban, and probably no problem with even more restrictions, waiting periods, background checks etc.  But even if the majority of Americans who vote aren’t there yet, (and even if Congress is a gerrymandered mess), the people could get there if the same effort was made community by community and door by door to reach them as was made to elect the President Whatever the political risks are, the Democratic Party needs to lead on this and so does the President.  What we don’t need is the Press Secretary saying stupid shit like now is not the time for the discussion.

If not now, when?