More than anything, it was an emotional blow to Obama. Obama's biggest loss

Never before had President Barack Obama put the moral force and political muscle of his presidency behind an issue quite this big — and lost quite this badly.

The president, shaken to the core by the massacre of 26 innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School, broke his own informal “Obama Rule” — of never leaning into an issue without a clear path to victory — first by pushing for a massive gun control package no one expected to pass, and then sticking through it even as he retrenched to a relatively modest bipartisan bill mandating national background checks on gun purchases.


It was a bitter defeat for a president accustomed to winning, a second-term downer that may — or may not — foreshadow the slow decline suffered by so many of his predecessors. Obama seems to have the public behind him, but it illustrated his less-than-Johnsonian powers of personal persuasion, the possible shortcomings of his decision to wait a month after the killings to present a plan and above all the limits of his go-to “outside” strategy of taking his case directly to the American people.

( Also on POLITICO: Obama laments "shameful day")

More than anything, it was an emotional blow to Obama, who was as irritated at the four members of his own party as he was at the 90 percent of Republicans who defeated the bill.

One administration official told POLITICO the White House was especially disappointed with Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D), the only dissenting Democrat not up for re-election next year, who refused to go along with the bill even after White House chief of staff Denis McDonough visited her office to make Obama’s case on Tuesday.

( Also on POLITICO: Gun bill hits brick wall in Senate)

Still, officials believed Heitkamp would have flipped if they had gotten closer to the 60 votes they needed.

“The president was tremendously committed and emotionally engaged. I watched the president with these families. He was there for them and really felt it,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who worked closely with the White House in the aftermath of the worst school shooting in the history of his state.

( Also on POLITICO: Senate gun control roll call vote: Senators who bucked their party)

“Background checks will happen,” he added, minutes after the vote. “This outcome is a delay, not a defeat.”

Added Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.): “I never saw a president fight so hard, a vice president, never on any issue… It shows us the cowardice of the Senate.”

In the end, however, moderates and conservatives in the upper chamber said they simply couldn’t deal with a flurry of progressive issues at once — from gay marriage to immigration to guns.

The other three Democratic “no” votes — Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mark Begich of Alaska — were never really in play, sources familiar with the situation told POLITICO.

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One senator told a White House official that it was “Guns, gays and immigration - it’s too much. I can be with you on one or two of them, but not all three.”

A glum Obama was sitting in the White House Situation Room for a previously scheduled national security briefing when news of the 54-to-46 vote broke, according to a senior administration official.

Obama wasn’t watching the proceedings closely on C-SPAN because he already knew the whip count; over the last few days, the president personally lobbied most of the red and purple state Democrats and Republicans sitting on the fence, and had already vented his frustration with a handful of Democratic hold-outs who were waiting to see what other would do before committing.

In a break from protocol — Obama seldom talks publicly about what other politicians say to him privately — the president called out the Senate, including members of his own party, for succumbing to bullying of the National Rifle Association in the Rose Garden about an hour after the vote.

“Most of these senators couldn’t offer any good reasons… there were no coherent arguments about why we couldn’t do this… it came down to politics,” a visibly agitated Obama said, flanked by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a clearly shaken Vice President Joe Biden and family members of Sandy Hook victims.

Senators on both sides of the aisle “caved to the pressure and started looking for an excuse, any excuse, to say no,” he said, adding that he planned to continue pushing on the issue.

“I see this as round one,” Obama intoned.

But privately, administration officials were looking ahead to the far more sanguine prospects of negotiating a bipartisan immigration reform bill — and expressed hope that clearing the decks on guns would raise prospects for a faster agreement. Despite Obama’s vow to fight on, one senior adviser to the president said “it was a fair question” to ask if Obama’s old campaign apparatus, Organizing for Action, could help create a groundswell of protest against the “no” voters in each party.

Within an hour of Obama’s Rose Garden remarks his political arm, Organizing for Action, announced it is launching a “day of action” Saturday. Supporters in states with what OFA believes are persuadable senators will hold events and be urged to contact their senators.

“We won’t sit around and let Congress drag its heels while Americans are coming together to demand action,” OFA executive director Jon Carson wrote to supporters. “We won’t wait for the next Newtown.”

While Senate Democratic leadership never trusted that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the top negotiators on the bill was bargaining in completely good faith, the White House continued to negotiate with him.

Obama called the Oklahoman this week and allowed that he is open to Coburn’s proposal – which came without the recordkeeping requirement the White House and gun control groups have publicly demanded – but talks broke down once Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) turned their sights to Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

The gun control groups central to Obama’s push never lost faith in the White House and praised its efforts even as it was clear the push would fail.

“Bribery isn’t what it once was,” said an official with one of the major gun-control groups. “The government has no money. Once upon a time you would throw somebody a post office or a research facility in times like this. Frankly, there’s not a lot of leverage.”

The White House and Senate Democrats won significant victories, but never generated enough momentum to reach the 60-vote Senate threshold to pass any gun control bill.

At several points allies thought they would win — but in the end only Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) followed Toomey, and gun control allies always assumed they would get them anyway, even on the “gold standard” bill Schumer introduced before the Easter break.

“I’m very disappointed and there is a sadness here that there was a tremendous bipartisan effort,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said. “Manchin-Toomey didn’t go as far as I would like to go but I supported it because there was a way to go for bipartisanship, so it’s enormously disappointed. I think today there are a lot of hard feelings.”

Mark Glaze, the director of Mike Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns said it was clear by Monday that Manchin-Toomey proposal wouldn’t get to 60 votes after the much-sought endorsement of the Second Amendment Foundation brought them no new support.

“You are not dealing with members who are looking for a reason to vote ‘Yes,’” Glaze said. “You’re not talking about members who are actually looking for solid facts or policy. You’re looking at members who are afraid of the NRA.”

By Wednesday, when it was clear to all the vote would fail, the Second Amendment Foundation rescinded its endorsement.

“The bottom line was that there were just not enough reasonable Republicans that Senator Toomey found,” said Matt Bennett, senior vice president of The Third Way. “This is not his fault – there just weren’t the numbers there to support what we were trying to do.”

Hours before the Wednesday afternoon vote, Biden all but admitted the White House would lose during a Google Hangout with four supportive mayors.

“This is going to be a close vote, but I can assure you one thing. That were going to get this eventually, we’re going to get this eventually. If we don’t get it today, we’re going to get it eventually. Because I think the American people are way ahead of their elected officials.”

Knowing the numbers were stacked against passing the Manchin-Toomey bill, Biden left the online chat hoping for divine intervention.

“I hope to God that there are 60 people up there who have the courage to stand up and understand that this doesn’t take much courage,” Biden said. “The people are with you.”

Families from Newtown, Tuscon, and Aurora watched from the Senator’s visitors’ gallery as the vote went down. A few cried, several looked on in utter disbelief. One woman, Patricia Maisch who wrestled a fresh magazine from Jared Lee Loughner in Tuscon, yelled “shame on you! from the gallery.

Said Roxanna Green, whose 9-year-old daughter Christina-Taylor Green , was killed in Tuscon said “we were all thinking it.”

“I’m very disappointed. It should just be common sense. We’ll all be back, we’re going to keep fighting,” she said.

— Ginger Gibson, John Bresnahan, Kate Nocera and Elizabeth Titus contributed to this story.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story failed to include Sen. Mark Kirk as one of the Republicans who voted for the bill.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: David Cohen @ 04/17/2013 08:47 PM CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story failed to include Sen. Mark Kirk as one of the Republicans who voted for the bill.