Heidi Heitkamp Has Gone From “Obama Is Amazing” To “I Stood Up To President Obama”

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Written By:
Rob Port

Sep 13, 2012
10:45am

There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance coming out of the Heitkamp campaign these days. Fresh off an MSNBC interview in which Ed SChultz suggested that Heidi Heitkamp has been “helped” in North Dakota’s Senate race by President Obama’s policies (video at the link).

But nothing could be further from the truth. Heitkamp has spent the entire election cycle trying to get away from Barack Obama. One of her state party’s national committee members was threatening legal action against people to get video of her saying Obama is “awesome” off the internet. In her recent debate with opponent Rick Berg Heitkamp said she wasn’t a “tall, African American skinny man” (audio here). And now, in her most recent television ad, Heitkamp is claiming she “stood up to Obama” on the budget issue and the Keystone Pipeline.

The problem with Heitkamp saying things like this is that people like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are spending big money to get her elected. Heitkamp’s campaign has received $10,000 directly from Reid’s leadership fund, and has benefited from millions of dollars worth of attack ads paid for by Reid’s Majority PAC. The Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee has also spent millions on Heitkamp’s race.

Does anyone really think that Reid and national Democrats are pouring millions into North Dakota to elect Heidi Heitkamp so that she can go to Washington DC and oppose Barack Obama’s agenda?

C’mon. Let’s be serious. Heitkamp needs to pose as somebody who opposes Barack Obama because North Dakotans aren’t going to elect an Obama supporter, which Heitkamp was up until she ran for the US Senate.

If North Dakotans want to elect someone who will oppose Obama – and that’s clearly what Heitkamp thinks given the tenor of her campaign – why wouldn’t they just elect a Republican?