Democrats (who helped defeat bill) Risk Backlash After Opposing Obama Gun Plan

[Purveyor]

Four Democratic senators who defied President Barack Obama to help defeat gun-safety legislation are facing the wrath of activists who promise to make them pay a political price.

President Barack Obama said it was a “shameful day” in Washington when the Senate rejected a watered-down bill including expanded background checks for gun-buyers on April 17. Several groups say they plan to punish the four Democrats through newspaper and television ads, protests outside their offices, and automated telephone calls to constituents.

“The level of anger around this is higher than on anything I’ve seen in years, decades,” said Matt Bennett of Third Way, a policy group aligned with Democrats whose founders previously worked on gun-policy issues. “These senators do not have a suitable explanation for what they did.”

Three of the senators are up for re-election in 2014: Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mark Begich of Alaska. North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp was elected in November to her first six-year term. All are from states that voted for Republican Mitt Romney for president last year. And while the outside groups will target both Democrats and Republicans who voted against the legislation, they are particularly angry at the Democrats who broke ranks and some of the groups are targeting them over Republicans in their first wave of ads.

“We’re shocked,” said Po Murray, a spokeswoman for the Newtown Action Alliance, a group founded to press for stricter gun laws after 20 schoolchildren were killed in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14. “We can’t believe those whom we’ve elected to protect our life and liberty would choose special interests instead.”

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-22/democrats-risk-backlash-after-opposing-obama-gun-plan.html

[BlueCaliDem]

1. This is about all they can do, considering that the majority of Senatorial Democrats didn't want to

vote for filibuster reform that got them in this mess to begin with. Had Senatorial Democrats instead voted to do away with the filibuster rule (which they can always reinstate when they know a Republican President is going to win the WH) then we wouldn't find ourselves in this predicament. Then again, even if the bill passed in the Senate, the gerrymandered House would block it.

Still, Democrats could have shown goodwill had they eliminated or at least curbed the filibuster rule. They had this chance TWICE. They should've seen this coming with Randy Paul and Ted Cruz being elected by their mindless sheeple to obstruct President Obama's agenda. Teabaggers have readily admitted that that's exactly why they voted for these asshats.

The sanest thing Democrats could've done after more TeaBagger Senators were sent to DC - IF Democrats really wanted to help pass President Obama's agenda, which I'm beginning to doubt - was to at least curb the filibuster rule because you can bet your S.S. check that should America be stupid enough to vote the Republicans into the majority in Congress and another anti-American Republican president into the WH, the first thing Turtleman will do when the new senate convenes is get rid of the filibuster.

Looking at the timeline since 2009, I can only say that Congressional Democrats have no interest in passing laws based on the Democratic Party platform. They appear to agree more with Republicans than they do with President Obama. I believe this is nothing more than another scheme for us to get so angry that we'll send millions of dollars into PAC coffers, because the simplest solution was just to just get rid of the filibuster rule, and they were loathed to do that.