It’s Amazing What An Election Year Will Do For A Red State Democrat’s Opinion About Obama

Tweet

Written By:
Rob Port

Jan 20, 2012
11:16am

Earlier this week, in an effort to distance herself from President Obama, Democrat Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp came out swinging over the decision to continue delaying the Keystone XL pipeline. Today she repeated that criticism in a conference call with reporters, and aligned herself with Republicans:

Heitkamp doubled down on her criticism of Obama in a Friday conference call with reporters where she said the president’s decision was an example of all that is wrong with modern politics.

“People in Washington talk a big game about creating energy jobs, getting off our addiction to foreign oil, but when the time comes, our leaders in Washington today continue to play political games and get in partisan squabbles on getting the job done,” she said.
In another rare move for a Democrat, Heitkamp praised the man she hopes will be her partner in the delegation, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), the popular former governor elected to the Senate in 2010.

“I know that Sen. John Hoeven has been very active on this issue. He understands the impact,” Heitkamp said. “I will work with him.”

Obviously, Heidi Heitkamp doesn’t want to run her 2012 campaign with Obama’s record (which is extremely unpopular in North Dakota) hanging around her neck. But Heitkamp’s position on Obama now is awfully contradictory to her attitude circa 2008.

“I think Obama is going to be amazing,” said Heitkamp in a video taken at the Demcorat National Convention in Denver. “I think that we are on our way to a better United States in the next eight years.”

Some reporter should ask Heitkamp if she still feels that way about our president now that she’s going to be on a ballot for election as opposed to just being a liberal cheerleader on the sidelines.