>>> sawicky at bellatlantic.net 07/11/01 04:34PM >>>
I have a lot of sympathy for TDU and the Carey campaign, and we all do what we gotta do, but the fact is their financial actions were a major boo-boo and, at the very least, gave away any relative advantage they might have been able to claim with respect to the Hoffa forces on the issue of corruption.
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mm: You can't really speak of TDU and Carey in the same breath here. As you note later in your post, it was Carey's AFL-CIO and Democratic Party coterie that undertook this "major boo-boo" not Ken Paff and the comrades at TDU. Despite the role of the TDU in mobilizing support for Carey, Paff was never taken into the inner circle. Moreover, when the "major boo-boo" came to light, TDU wasted not an ounce of breath trying to extenuate, "explain", justify, or defend it. The TDU's position, from the first - it happened, it's horrible for our side, now we have to pick up and rebuild - was to my mind a model of principle.
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I do think there are elements of heightened political militancy in the Hoffa regime compared to some other Internationals, since it is less subservient to the Democratic Party. Hoffa made the Dems a bit uncomfortable (as did the UAW) by refusing to roll over and endorse Gore immediately. Maybe Carey would have been as good in this regard, but in light of how his campaign was financed, I doubt it. _________________________________________________
mm: Of course, in the end, Junior did roll over, so there's not that much political militancy to be found. In terms of rank and file, militancy, compare the Overnite fiasco to the UPS strike.