-By Warner Todd Huston
The New York Times had an interesting piece revealing the higher level of negativism that union workers pressed into political work are seeing from those they are pestering to vote leftward.
The Times notes that for unions the political environment is turning against them as unions continue to fall into disfavor. As the Times puts it, union worker pressed to political service, ?find themselves confronting a political landscape that is more daunting than any they have faced in decades.?
But Big Labor is still putting big cash into this election.
Labor leaders say unions will spend $400 million in this year?s federal, state and local elections, about the same as in 2008. Predictions about spending by conservative groups ? including Americans for Prosperity, Restore Our Future and Karl Rove?s American Crossroads ? suggest they may together spend at least $800 million on federal elections.
Unions are, of course, crying poor claiming that GOP operatives and super PACs are out spending them. But this isn?t really exactly the truth. It may be true that combined all right-leaning groups have more cash to spend, but all that money is not being targeted specifically to union issues. It is spread over the spectrum of conservative and Republican issues.
On the other hand, the millions that unions are spending are just for their issues and candidates. In other words, all that GOP cash isn?t targeting union issues while all the union cash IS.
The Times also notes something that unions don?t want you to know. The recent Citizens United case that all on the left constantly decry also helps unions and leftists to get big donations.
Moreover, the same Supreme Court decision that permitted unlimited donations to super PACs has also in ways benefited unions. The ruling in the Citizens United case and subsequent court rulings opened the door to unlimited corporate and union contributions to political committees and made it possible to pool that money with unlimited contributions from wealthy individuals. It also allowed unions to campaign beyond their membership for the first time ? to call and knock on the doors of nonunion households. As a result, unions boast that they will reach a far larger universe of voters than ever in 2012.
So, while unions pretend that the Citizens United case was a bad ruling, they are happy to benefit from it.
In any case, the playing field has been leveled t a great degree. It used to be that only unions had big money to spend on elections. Now everyone does. Of course, THIS is why unions hate Citizens United.
No related posts.
Source: http://theunionlabelblog.com/2012/09/05/ohio-union-political-workers-seeing-unwelcome-environment/
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