While the president’s executive orders on gun control seem designed to convey the sense that he is “doing something” during the last year of his presidency, they may also have the effect of strengthening Hillary Clinton’s standing in the upcoming primaries. An article in Politico theorizes that Hillary benefits from President Barack Obama making gun control a central issue, since she uses her extreme anti-gun stance to distinguish herself from her only viable Democratic opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Hillary is even taking the opportunity to imply that she is personally driving the president’s policy choices: “I was pleased because some of what he’d called for, I’d advocated for a couple months ago in the debates and in the campaign.” It remains to be seen how wise she is in the long run to bet her campaign chances on Americans’ hatred for guns—or on voters having a positive view of the current president’s record.
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