[lbo-talk] Obama & the unions

Joseph Catron jncatron at gmail.com
Sun Jan 6 14:03:34 PST 2008


On Jan 6, 2008 8:27 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> So a friend pointed out the other night that unions sponsored a bunch
> of Edwards ads in Iowa, and Obama denounced this as support from
> "special interests." This is was being post-partisan is all about.

It gets even better than that. Obama specifically criticized Edwards because the Alliance for a New America, a 527 group backed by the Service Employees International Union, aired commercials supporting him.

Having done the 527 dance myself, I know that they're forbidden by law from coordinating their efforts with any candidate or candidate's committee.

However, Obama reportedly bleated that "My attitude is if you can't get your former campaign manager and political director to do what you like then it's going to be hard to get the insurance companies and the drug companies to do what you like." (The Alliance is headed by Nick Baldick, Edwards' 2004 campaign manager.)

In other words, as I understand it, Obama denounced Edwards for *failing* to coordinate his campaign efforts with a 527, in blatant violation of existing federal law.



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