Bloomberg News held a roundtable discussion with President Obama’s campaign manager and Montana politico Jim Messina, who also used to be a top staffer to Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT).
In one of several articles stemming from the interview, Bloomberg.com has a piece headlined: “Baucus Proves Democrat Foil Bowing to Montana on Revenues“
Here’s an excerpt:
Just one Senate Democrat opposed the party’s majority on the estate tax, a medical-device tax, a possible carbon tax, online sales taxes and the revenue-raising budget plan. He’s the senator in charge of tax policy: Max Baucus of Montana.
“Not the first time that that has occurred,” Jim Messina, who was Baucus’s chief of staff from 2005 to 2008, said yesterday in an interview at a Bloomberg Government luncheon in Washington. Messina is now chairman of Organizing for Action, the non-profit group organized after Obama’s re-election campaign to press his agenda.
Democrats control 55 votes in the 100-member Senate. The budget passed 50-49 March 23, with Democrats Baucus, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Pryor of Arkansas voting no. All are up for re-election next year. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, who is retiring after the 2014 election, was absent.
Bloomberg noted that Baucus did not explain his vote, but it seems pretty clear that the 2014 election explains it all.
Aside from re-electing Max Baucus, enacting new gun control laws is another top priority of Messina. Here’s another report at Bloomberg.com
Messina told Bloomberg News that OFA already has begun working on other state issues. For example, he said, the group has asked supporters to push for legislation in Illinois that would permit same-sex couples to wed and is beginning to help defend New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s gun-legislation package.