At Hauppauge gun rally, GOP foes target NY's senators

Republicans waging long-shot campaigns against New York's Democratic U.S. senators launched broadsides against them Sunday at a Hauppauge gun-rights conference and predicted the imminent defeat of incumbents Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer.

"I'm called the underdog, I don't care," said consultant Jay Townsend of Cornwall-on-Hudson, who is challenging Schumer. "This is how revolutions are made."

And former congressman Joe DioGuardi, Gillibrand's opponent, called on the 1,000 people at the Sportsmen's Association for Firearms Education's Civil Rights Conference to help him "take back America." He said Gillibrand had betrayed gun-rights advocates by changing the stance she had held in Congress after Gov. David A. Paterson appointed her to the Senate last year.

"You know her already, because some of you elected her," DioGuardi said at the conference, held in a union hall. "She said she slept with a gun under her bed; she sounded like Annie Oakley. But then she got to the U.S. Senate and met Chuck Schumer. And now she says she sees eye-to-eye with Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg. When I think about Kirsten Gillibrand, I can get whiplash, that's how much she has changed."

Gillibrand spokesman Glen Caplin said she has fought for tough gun laws in the Senate.

"The fact is that the Brady Campaign [to Prevent Gun Violence] has endorsed Senator Gillibrand because she has written the toughest anti-trafficking law in history to crack down on gun traffickers and corrupt gun dealers, and get illegal guns off the streets," he said.

Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association's executive vice president, urged the crowd to back conservative candidates for federal and state office. The NRA supports DioGuardi and Townsend.

"The ruling elites sit there in their offices in downtown Washington, and it's all a big joke to them," said LaPierre. "They're playing a sick game of manipulation to polarize the country."

Townsend, who has $10,566 in campaign cash compared with Schumer's $23 million, made the harshest comments in the three-hour session. He demanded that Schumer debate him, which the two-term incumbent has thus far refused to do.

"You gotta love this guy, Schumer, with his act," Townsend said. "He's up here every Sunday, waving his piece of paper, saying he got this grant or that project. I want to say, 'To hell with your handouts, just pass the tax cut and sit down and shut up.' "

Schumer spokesman Mike Morey declined to comment.