On the liberal, liberal, liberal,
You will hate him, hate him, hate him
And be miserable, miserable, miserable:
The leaders of the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union have agreed to coordinate spending millions of dollars in the midterm elections to support pro-union candidates, most of them Democrats.
The two labor organizations say they have a combined $88 million or more to deploy in this year’s election cycle. It’s not clear how much of that money they will pool together.
The renewed alliance between the two big labor groups comes as Democrats are battling to retain control of both houses of Congress. The AFL-CIO and SEIU plan to target elections in 26 states, all but five of which they consider battleground territory, including California, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
From the people who brought you the weekend, right? Soon, they’ll bring us Year Zero:
The AFL-CIO executive committee voted unanimously this morning to join One Nation, Working Together, a new national coalition of labor and civil rights groups that has as its purpose to “reorder America’s priorities by investing in the nation’s most valuable resource – its people.”
Reorder America’s priorities, huh? You mean like liberty first, then life and the pursuit of happiness? Or amber waves of grain ahead of spacious skies? Those priorities?
Doesn’t sound like it:
The labor, civil rights, environmental, faith and other organizations that have formed the new coalition intend to replace unemployment and economic crisis faced by the country’s majority with “nothing less than a future of shared prosperity for all our people,” the AFL-CIO said in a statement after it voted to join One Nation.
“None of us alone have been able to achieve our priorities,” said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO.One Nation’s first official act as a coalition will be a march on Washington on Oct. 2, which unions say will energize an army of tens of thousands who will return to their neighborhoods, churches, schools and voting booths to prevent a Republican takeover of Congress in November and begin building a new permanent coalition to fight for a progressive agenda.
I just returned from a vacation among a wide variety of middle Americans, and I didn’t get the impression that they wanted anyone messing with their neighborhoods, churches, schools and voting booths. In fact, some of them would likely punch you in the nose if you tried. They’ll be happy to work together to pull someone’s pick-up out of a ditch or prepare a meal for someone who’s not doing well, but they would probably be suspicious of anyone talking about “a future of shared prosperity for all our people”. That would sound like taxes and income redistribution to them, and to me.
The Republican National Committee finished the 2nd quarter with $5 million in the bank (less $2 million in debt); not much of an arsenal against the $88 million of the AFL-CIO/SEIU. There are other Republican/conservative funds out there, but still. Big Labor fights dirty (see Martha Coakley’s thugs) and has the money.
Might makes Left, not Right.