Now we have confirmation of what many analysts and President Barack Obama have long contended: Republicans will vote against something simply because Obama wants it. And in this case it was background checks — the one part of gun control that SEEMED as if it was a slam-dunk after Newtown.
But in the end, Obama’ hatred (plus not wanting to lose the NRA campaign cash cow) sunk it — now confirmed by Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey:
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) revealed that some members of his party opposed expanding background checks for gun sales recently because they didn’t want to “be seen helping the president.”
Two weeks ago, only three Republican senators voted for the bipartisan background checks amendment sponsored by Toomey and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), despite overwhelming popular support for such a measure.
“In the end it didn’t pass because we’re so politicized. There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it,” Toomey admitted on Tuesday in an interview with Digital First Media editors in the offices of the Times Herald newspaper in Norristown, Pa.
And, of course, when something true is voiced by a partisan that doesn’t totally support his political sports team, he then faces a firestorm of anger and demands that he take it back. And so:
The Times Herald noted that in “subsequent comments,” Toomey “tried to walk that remark part-way back by noting he meant to say Republicans across the nation in general, not just those in the Senate.”
Last week, Toomey placed more of the blame on the president himself, telling the Morning Call, “I would suggest the administration brought this on themselves. I think the president ran his re-election campaign in a divisive way. He divided Americans. He was using resentment of some Americans toward others to generate support for himself.”
Manchin has argued, however, that the National Rifle Association’s decision to score the vote was the main reason the compromise amendment on background checks failed. Without it, he believed, 70 senators — well above the 60-vote threshold needed for passage — would have supported it.
But it’s clear the were two key reason, apart from Senators who genuinely are opposed to any kind of gun control (which is likely a small number) and aren’t influenced by these two factors:
1. The NRA
2. Not wanting to be seen as helping Obama and/or giving Obama what he wants so he doesn’t have it part of his legacy.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.