State of the Union guests spotlight struggle over guns

AP Photo/ Evan Vucci/ASSOCIATED PRESS

If President Barack Obama addresses gun control during Tuesday's State of the Union Address, he will have no shortage of interested listeners as pro-gun and anti-gun activist pack the House.

WASHINGTON ? Tuesday?s State of the Union address may prove as notable for the audience in the gallery as the words President Obama says from the podium.

Never before will so many guests be used so obviously as political props.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN OUR ONLINE PETITION

RELATED: HADIYA PENDLETON?S PARENTS TO ATTEND STATE OF THE UNION

Amid intense debate over gun control, more than two dozen victims of firearms violence or relatives of victims will be seated in the House gallery as invited guests of First Lady Michelle Obama or members of Congress.

The First Lady invited the parents of recent Chicago shooting victim Hadiya Pendleton, while Connecticut delegation members will bring citizens linked to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. People affected by the rampage at Virginia Tech and the mass shooting that nearly claimed the life of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona also will be present.

The invites have even produced a sort of counter protest. Also seated in the gallery will be rocker Ted Nugent, a National Rifle Association board member who was invited by Rep. Steve Stockman, a pro-gun Texas Republican.

RELATED: HARLEM GUN CONTROL ACTIVIST GETS CALL FROM NRA CHIEF

The tradition ? formerly, guests who were tied to a reference in the speech ? started with President Reagan?s 1982 address, when he invited Lenny Skutnik, a low-level federal worker who heroically saved a passenger of an airline flight that crashed in the Potomac River two weeks earlier.

Heroes like Skutnik soon became fixtures in the President?s box at the annual speech.?

But over the years, ?the tradition changed, as Presidents began inviting guests to help emphasize a policy point.

RELATED: OBAMA FOE TED NUGENT TO ATTEND STATE OF THE UNION

Members of Congress then got into the act, creating what has come to seem like a contest of one-upsmanship.

?I think these things have become so commonplace and used in such a political way that they have little to no effect anymore,? said Matthew Dowd, a former political strategist who once worked for President George W. Bush.

?The choir of supporters love it, and the opponents dismiss it as a political ploy, and for average folks, it just glosses over them. Everyone knows they are a part of Political Marketing 101, and so it isn?t effective.?

Mike McCurry, former spokesman for President Bill Clinton, said the new tradition of guests elevates the importance of aspects of the speech.

?I think the use of these ?everyday heroes? takes the drama up and away from the boisterous lawmakers on the House floor and helps move certain passages in the speech to a higher place,? he said.?

?Of course, it can be overdone, and it will be tricky to do around a memory so fresh and painful as Newtown. The temptation to overdo it is always there, so the White House has to be spare and smart in its choices.?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NydnRss/~3/a5ZmRMdJX8I/story01.htm

Rupert Sanders bachelorette penn state Ernie Els Teen Choice Awards 2012 Aurora victims usher