<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238>
House of Labor:
In a briefing with political reporters held Wednesday by the AFL-CIO, AFSCME's Gerald McEntee praised the "neighbor-to-neighbor" voter mobilization program that the GOP ran in 2004 and contrasted it with the "stranger-to-stranger" program run by Democratic allies.
The Wall Street Journal's John Harwood told McEntee that he remembers Steve Rosenthal, the former AFL-CIO political director who ran Americans Coming Together during the last presidential election, telling him in 2004 that the Democrats were going to do better than the Republicans because the Republicans were making the mistake of relying on volunteers as opposed to ACT's paid workers. Harwood asked McEntee if labor no longer subscribed to Rosenthal's theory.
McEntee said Rosenthal's theory was "not necessarily" wrong, adding that labor may have to hire people for the political program. But he said the lesson should be don't hire someone in Philadelphia and put them in Phoenix.
The AFL-CIO has identified Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania as the four most important states in 2004 based on union density, key 2006 contests, and their importance in 2008.
The AFL-CIO believes there are 21 gubernatorial races, 15 Senate races, and 42 House seats (in 22 states) in play.
The AFL-CIO has broken down the House contests into: 28 "top tier vulnerable Republicans" who represent a district with "high" union density (average=28,000), 16 seats with "very high" union density (average=43,000), and 8 "top-tier" open seats (where union density is on average 28,000).