"Partly because there is no guarantee that she is, in fact, toast, and partly because it will make them stronger in the eyes of politicians in the future."
Yup, basically avoiding defeats and hedging victories, same as Bloomberg more or less has done (for instance, I'm positive that 90% of the money dumped into Washington was 'shock and awe' rather than actually necessary for throwing the election --now every pol in contact with Bloomberg knows exactly what he will do for them, and successes on the margins like Hickenlooper convince them it will make all the difference. Ironically, wasn't Bloomberg's support of Hick not nearly as fervent as for the recalls, let alone Washington? He might've cut his losses on Hick, but gotten lucky nonetheless)
If you think about it, it makes sense at least from the NRA's perspective, if not that of their contributors; the money's getting spent, regardless, so the only risk involved is whether they can crow about 'winning' afterward or not. Encourages a very conservative approach to activist spending (see sig line, but amend to "doing absolutely nothing loudly..."). I personally find that galling, since the ILA and other court-chasing groups actually take some real risk in their cases --they try to minimize the waste of their resources, but none of the cases are sure bets, so there is more incentive to aim higher to compensate. Not coincidentally, we've been having far, far more court victories than legislative ones, at least at the national level (or state level, where the issue is competitive)
If the NRA had focused even partially on actual pro-gun legislation over the last decade, as opposed to getting their anointed favorites elected then crowing about their influence, we'd probably have a more recent legislative victory than FOPA to talk about when describing all the NRA does for us. Keeping the third rail "hot" is important so more pols don't grab onto it, but our govt has been in contact with the 'untouchable issue' for nearly a century at this point with very little movement apart from the courts (Congress has not actively rolled back anything since FOPA to my knowledge, and not one of our supposedly 'gun friendly' presidents has does anything to loosen the grip on our throats with regards to ATF usurpation or import restrictions, nor even lobbied for congress to move on the same.)
TCB
That'll make it 54-46. GOP, a remarkable 9 member pickup.
