How badly will Bill White's membership in an anti-gun group hurt him in November?

Jay Root of the Associated Press has a little story that spends most of its ink insinuating that Texans are crazy for caring about Second Amendment rights so much and downplaying Bill White's anti gun record (link). Excerpt follows...

"There is really no such thing as a moderate position on guns that's going to help in Texas," said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

As mayor of Houston, White joined Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group that supports individual gun rights, but wants more controls on gun show sales, restrictions on the reach of conceal-and-carry laws and more oversight of federal gun purchase records.

White said he joined the gun-control group in 2006 at the urging of its founder, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. That year, Houston's crime rate hit a 12-year high.

"I joined because Mayor Bloomberg told me that that we needed to do more to crack down on guns which were transported in violation of federal law," White told The Associated Press. "I believe that people shouldn't steal guns and sell them to people where it's against the law for them to have guns, period."

In 2009, facing his first statewide political campaign, White quietly resigned from the group. White says he quit because the group opposed a federal law that would have allowed conceal-carry permit holders to carry their firearms across state lines.

Perry spokesman Mark Miner questioned White's reason for leaving the group, saying he only quit after he caught flak from pro-gun Democrat John Sharp when both were running for the U.S. Senate. White's name had appeared earlier on a letter opposing the expansion of rights for conceal-carry permit holders.

"He's totally lying," Miner said. "He is anti-gun and he'll do anything including lying to try to get elected."

"Lying" is a big one... I wonder what else Mark Miner will end up calling Bill White by the end of this race...