> Presidential candidates will now seek endorsements from two
> separate and competing labor groups, the AFL-CIO and the
> newly formed Change to Win Coalition, they noted.
Once again, I still don't see how this is anything new. The unions endorsed four different candidates in the primaries last year. You'll recall that AFSCME and SEIU were on the same side in that one. (Most unions backed Gephardt; the Firefighters backed Kerry; UNITE supported Edwards.) Unions routinely endorse different candidates in all manner of races at all levels. How, really, do the departures from the AFL-CIO change this? A difference of degree and not of kind, perhaps? Even if that's true, I think it's overblown. On electoral politics -- particularly in Democratic primaries -- there have been and will continue to be as many differences among the members of the two labor groups as there are between them.
> This cuts the legs out from one of their main GOTV
> [get-out-the-vote] groups," a Republican Party official said
> with undisguised pleasure
Once again, how? Volunteers and staff for GOTV are overwhelmingly recruited by the affiliated unions. How does this change things? (One possible line of argument is that some of the unions that have left or are considering leaving actually do the bulk of labor walks and calls for GOTV -- that in other words, they do most of the mobilization of other unions' members at election time. Let's say, for the sake of argument [ahem], that this is true in some places; then that still proves my point that the political program works because of affiliated unions and not the AFL-CIO qua AFL-CIO. And if unions still in the AFL-CIO are still not interested in getting their own houses in order enough to be able to run a decent political program without the help of, say, a few hundred "heroes" from SEIU, then the labor movement can still find ways to work together at election time -- through 527s or what-have-you -- without the AFL-CIO umbrella.) It's important not to take the braggadoccio of Republican operatives at face value, by the way.
- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories