Senator Heidi Heitkamp Apparently Bullied Into Not Voting for a Presidential Candidate
Former President Bill Cliniton and U.S. Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp give thumbs up to supporters during a rally Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, at the Fargo Civic Center. Dave Wallis / The Forum
The last we checked in with North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp she was under fire from the far-left wing of her own party for being a supporter of Hillary Clinton.
Heitkamp’s backing of Clinton goes back a long way. In 2013 the Senator signed a letter with every other female Democrat in the U.S. Senate urging the former Secretary of State to run for president. But today that support has become something of a liability.
Not only did 13 members of North Dakota’s 22-member delegation to the Democratic National Convention sign a resolution accusing Heitkamp of being “disrespectful to the people of our great state … (and) the political process” for supporting Clinton, but apparently the Senator felt so threatened by this faction of her party that she decided to skip casting a vote for Clinton last night.
“North Dakota’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention awarded 14 votes to Bernie Sanders and seven votes to Hillary Clinton as she clinched the presidential nomination Tuesday, but the state’s most prominent Democrat missed the roll-call vote because of a previous commitment,” Mike Nowatzki reports. “U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a superdelegate who signed a letter in 2013 urging Clinton to run for president and endorsed her last December, still ‘strongly supports’ the former secretary of state for president, according to a statement from Heitkamp’s office.”
Heitkamp’s excuse for missing the vote is, well, pretty lame:
“Sen. Heitkamp had previous commitments at the convention, including speaking at events focused on energy, rural America, and Native communities – all priorities for North Dakota,” the statement said.
Right. The organizers of the Democratic National Convention kept a sitting Senator so busy with other events that she couldn’t cast her vote for the presidential nominee.
Give me a break.
Apparently Heitkamp’s staff thinks we’re all very, very stupid.
Meanwhile, the pro-Bernie Sanders faction of the North Dakota delegation says they were threatened with arrest for waving their Sanders signs around according to Reason editor Matt Welch:
North Dakota delegates say they were threatened with *arrest* if they didn't put down their Bernie signage by the time of the roll call.
— Matt Welch (@MattWelch) July 27, 2016
Unity!
Back to Heitkamp, is there any word to better describe what she did than cowardice? She’s been an outspoken proponent of Clinton for President for years now. Bill Clinton came to North Dakota to campaign for her in 2012, a move which probably helped her pull out an oh-so-narrow victory over Republican Rick Berg that year. Yet at the zero hour she gets intimidated into not casting a vote at all?
By members of her own party, no less?
North Dakota’s Democrats and their media sympathizers have been mocking certain Republicans from their state for their mealy-mouthed, half-hearted of Trump. And rightfully so.
But this stunt Heitkamp just pulled? It’s downright embarrassing.
