Junior's bidding for the self-interest of his union, bartering support for ANWR for a promise of Project Labor Agreements - apparently on the order of a guaranteed additional 25,000 members for the Teamsters. He's getting the Dems to support him on trucking rules.
It's more cynical independent politics-- not the kind of labor independence most progressives like, but the real alternative to the more progressive alliance many other unions have made with environmentalists, feminists and civil rights organizations within Democratic Party politics.
-- Nathan Newman