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Flynn, in 2004, 'encouraged' signing NRA as PR client

Mar 27, 2018 1:45 pm
Chris Bragg reports in Capitol Confidential that Democrat Brian Flynn, who has criticized Rep. John Faso for just saying his “prayers” were with shooting victims, and has called for “enhanced background checks” before civilians “get their hands on these weapons of war,” advocated for getting the National Rifle Association as a clinet in 2004. Flynn is one of seven Democrats running to challenge Faso in the fall. When he was president of a Manhattan-based public relations firm called RLM Flynn wrote in the Harvard Business Review about trying to sign the NRA as a client. “When clients questioned RLM’s political orientation, we told them: ‘You hire us for our communications skills, not our politics, so our personal positions are of little consequence,'” Flynn wrote in the 2004 essay. “That said, we also worked hard to recruit clients from across the political spectrum. While our Washington, D.C., office was largely liberal, we had quite a few Republican employees and clients in Los Angeles, and I encouraged the staff to pursue a contract with the NRA to help balance our work with a gun-control group.” Now Flynn says, “At the time the company for whom I worked, RLM, had almost exclusively left leaning, liberal clients – including a gun control advocacy group called The Center to Prevent Youth Violence. An employee – who was both a Republican and a gun owner – came to me with concerns that the company’s client portfolio was ‘politically’ imbalanced and too far to the left.... “For the record, we did not do business with the NRA or the gun lobby. To be clear, as a political candidate or representative, I would never take money from the NRA or any group that advocates against reasonable gun protections. I have never veered from my belief that we can support both the 2nd amendment and improved gun safety laws at the same time." Read the full story in Capitol Confidential.