POLITICO — President Barack Obama’s man in North Dakota couldn’t pitch in to help shame Sen. Heidi Heitkamp for her vote against gun control — he was busy with his new job selling Toyotas.
Organizing for Action’s top Montana official wouldn’t canvass the state to turn up the heat on Sen. Max Baucus because there was no reimbursement for the gas money.
Alaska Sens. Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski haven’t had to worry about running up against OFA’s influence there, since Obama’s former state director there has turned back to building up her own political consulting business — “I need to get to making money,” she said.
OFA’s pledge to punish senators who voted against gun control was the first big test of the group’s reach — and, undoubtedly, a difficult one, given that many of the senators voting no were in deep-red states where Obama lost badly. Even measured against those odds, there are almost no successes to point to: The group didn’t sway a single vote for the background check proposal, and so far, it hasn’t been able to make any of those who voted against it feel any heat.
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