“Hold-Your-Nose Time”
That’s what one union official told Politico about supporting Democratic candidates who didn’t fully back the labor agenda in the last Congress.
“We’re at a situation now where it’s the 218 strategy in the House. If you don’t have the gavel, if you don’t have 218, you are in serious doo-doo,” said Larry Scanlon, political director of AFSCME “The situation is, will you support a mediocre Democrat, [or] will you let a rabid Republican get in? For us, it’s a no-brainer.”
One can hardly expect Big Labor to do anything else. So can we finally see an end to those claims that unions will punish recalcitrant Dems at election time? If you’re passing out $200 million and thousands of campaign activists with one hand, it doesn’t really matter if you’re holding your nose with the other.
October 26th, 2010 at 22:13
Blanche Lincoln says hello. And state legislator Jean Berkey, up here in Washington.
Maybe the exceptions prove the rule, but it does happen.