>Nathan Newman wrote:
>
>>Politics is about choices in use of resources. Unions and their allies
>>have
>>made the judgement that minimum wage and fair share health care are two of
>>the best strategies to make advances for working people this year. And
>>there are campaigns supporting both of them in states across the country.
>---------------------------------------------------
>This is an important point which has wider applicability beyond this
>discussion.
>
>One of the great misconceptions in politics, especially on the left, is that
>you get to "choose" your campaigns, rather than have them chosen for you by
>the opportunities which present themselves.
But large actors, like organized labor, can redefine those alternatives. Unions like SEIU have chosen to make a big deal out of "fair share" health schemes - this wasn't presented to them by someone else. It's very hard to imagine a real grassroots movement spontaneously developing over something as wonky as pay or play - it's a creature of policy professionals, enthusiastically embraced by unions that don't want to rock the boat too much.
Doug