The New Yorker’s John Cassidy writes a smart post on the aftermath of labor’s big defeat in Wisconsin and what it shows about “America’s Class War: Billionaires Against the Unions.”
Exploiting public concerns about debts and deficits that have resulted from an economic downturn largely brought on by Wall Street malfeasance, Republican politicians, backed by wealthy individuals and corporations, are looking to cripple the unions and balance local budgets on the backs of low- and middle-income workers.
In short, it’s a class conflict. On one side are right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, who exploit quirks in the campaign-finance laws and anxiety among taxpayers to further their conservative agendas, and shadowy corporate-financed organizations, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which helped draft many of the anti-union bills that Republican statehouses have adopted. On the other side are teachers, janitors, municipal administrative workers, cops, and firemen.
Over the years, to be sure, some public-sector unions have adopted restrictive practices and negotiated retirement agreements that can no longer be sustained. (At a time when New York City is laying off teachers, can it justify paying retired policemen and firefighters up to two-thirds of their peak salaries after just twenty years of service? I don’t think so.) But Republicans like Walker aren’t merely looking for concessions from the unions: they are out to destroy them.
Yes, but it’s only fair to note that 53 percent vote in Wisconsin contained very few billionaires—and quite a few union households.
— Here’s another paragraph from Cassidy’s piece:
Even when the economy is growing, there are constant conflicts about who gets what. The argument of free-market economists that productivity determines wages and profits is mistaken. Productivity determines the over-all size of the pie. How it is distributed depends on a variety of factors, including relative bargaining strength, international competition, labor laws, and the results of elections. Economics and politics aren’t separate spheres. They are two sides of the same coin, something that is particularly evident in the treatment of public-sector workers. With taxpayers footing the bill, every labor contract has political connotations.
And here’s a chart from the liberal Economics Policy Institute via Felix Salmon:
Correlation is not necessarily causation. But that’s an awful lot of correlation, and the declining power of labor is certainly one of the biggest reasons why income has concentrated at the top, which controls most of the capital.
Make sure to watch EPI’s brief video explaining the history behind the numbers:
— Finally, here’s an examination in The New Republic by labor activist Rich Yeselson on how and why labor power collapsed over the last thirty-plus years.
No, the real underlying story is that unions are losing their institutional legitimacy in modern America. The problem isn’t that most people hate unions. The problem for unions is that most people don’t care about them, or think about them, at all…
Most important, they knew, for better or worse, that unions had power. Sixty years ago, the UAW or the Mineworkers or the Steelworkers, not only deeply affected crucial sectors of an industrial economy, they also demanded respect from broader society—demands made manifest in the “political strikes” they organized, whether legally or not, to protest the issues of the day. Millions supported these strikes, millions despised them—but nobody could ignore them. The charismatic leaders of these unions, men like Walter Reuther and John L. Lewis, were household names to most Americans. Jimmy Hoffa was thought by many to be a “thug”, but his union, the Teamsters, could stop interstate commercial transportation in the country…
It’s this head scratching perplexity about the very point of unions—not the corporate and rightwing anti-labor rage, which is eternal—that is snuffing unions out like the air. Decline has begot decline in an endless feedback loop—the workers don’t have familial or community links to unions anymore and, thus, do not think unions are, even potentially central to their lives; the middle class professionals and writers aren’t, via the genuine power of a Hoffa or Reuther and their membership, exposed to a culture of union power anymore; and the politicians aren’t nearly as dependent on the money and votes of union members.
Joe Nocera:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/opinion/nocera-turning-our-backs-on-unions.html
"“The Great Divergence” by Timothy Noah is a book about income inequality, and if you’re thinking, “Do we really need another book about income inequality?” the answer is yes. We need this one...
Mostly, he grapples with the deep, hard-to-tickle-out reasons that the gap between the rich and the middle class in the United States has widened to such alarming proportions. How much have technological advances contributed to income inequality? Globalization and off-shoring? The necessity of having a college education to land a decent-paying job? The decline of labor unions?
That last one, I have to admit, caught me up short. My parents were both public high school teachers, who proudly walked picket lines when the need arose. My hometown, Providence, R.I., was about as pro-union a city as you could find outside the Rust Belt. But like many college-educated children of union parents, I have never been a member of a union, and I viewed them with mild disdain.
As Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union, put it to me: “White-collar professionals tend to appreciate what unions did for their parents. But they don’t view today’s janitors or nurse’s aides in the same way.” Instead, they — or, rather, we — tend to focus on the many things that are wrong with unions, exemplified these days by the pensions of public service employees that are breaking the backs of so many cities and states. Unions seem like a spent force, and we tend not to lament their demise...
Researching “The Great Divergence” reinforced Noah’s growing view that when liberals turned their backs on unions — when they put, in his words, “identity politics over economic justice” — they made a terrible mistake.
Noah places the high-water mark for unionism in the mid-1950s, when nearly 40 percent of American workers were either union members or “nonunion members who were nonetheless covered by union contracts.” In the early postwar years, even the Chamber of Commerce believed that “collective bargaining is a part of the democratic process,” as its then-president noted in a statement.
But, in the late-1970s, union membership began falling off a cliff, brought on by a variety of factors, including jobs moving offshore and big labor’s unsavory reputation. Government didn’t help either: Ronald Reagan’s firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981 sent an unmistakable signal that companies could run roughshod over federal laws intended to protect unions — which they’ve done ever since.
The result is that today unions represent 12 percent of the work force. “Draw one line on a graph charting the decline in union membership, then superimpose a second line charting the decline in middle-class income share,” writes Noah, “and you will find that the two lines are nearly identical.” Richard Freeman, a Harvard economist, has estimated that the decline of unions explains about 20 percent of the income gap."
"Yes, but it’s only fair to note that 53 percent vote in Wisconsin contained very few billionaires—and quite a few union households."
#1 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 8 Jun 2012 at 09:24 PM
And it should also be noted that:
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/06/03/9039/wisconsin-recall-breaks-record-thanks-outside-cash
"Walker, meanwhile, has benefitted from the state’s election finance rules that allowed his campaign to raise unlimited contributions from individuals after recall petitions were filed in November 2011. His challengers could take no more than $10,000 from individuals.
Through April, Walker’s top three donors combined gave more than challenger Barrett’s campaign had raised overall. Four of Walker’s top seven donors are out-of-state billionaires, including former Amway CEO and former Michigan gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, and casino magnate Adelson, who each gave $250,000.
Adelson has given $26.5 million to super PACs in the 2012 election — most of it to Winning Our Future, a pro-Newt Gingrich group — making him the most prolific super PAC contributor so far, according to a Center for Public Integrity report. Though he is known primarily for his support of Israel, Adelson also has an extensive history of bitter disputes with unions who want to organize at his exclusively non-union casinos."
And that Scott Walker used that 7ish to 1 money advantage to hammer the premise that the recall was not legitimate and that his opponents were extreme and hostile.
A misperception not helped by Tom Barrett who, instead of confronting Walker for being a corrupt little Koch dealer, tried to run on the premise he was there to "bring civility back" to Wisconsin.
Which meant you had two guys running on the "we should be civil" platform, one of which was claiming that this recall business was started by those "radical drum thumpers" that were all over the tv awhile back and one who was running on behalf of the "radical drum thumpers".
And therefore it never really became about Scott Walker breaking the open meetings law in getting his legislation passed, refusing concessions by the unions willing to negotiate, no-bid privatizing state assets, or that Tim Russell thing that's a brewing as we chat. It became a very similar thing to the public as the Clinton impeachment "Oh, this is a lot of bother while we have real problems going on. Can't we just MoveOn?"
Of course in Clinton's case, moving on didn't result in a bunch of unions being crushed to pay for $1.6 billion in tax cuts for corporations and $700 millionish for wealthy individuals over a decade.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 8 Jun 2012 at 09:34 PM
Any discussion of "income inequality" is incomplete with noting the "work inequality" that plagues our nation.
As I have demonstrated many times before, the simple FACT of the matter, according to census, data is that for every ONE hour worked by an adult in the bottom 20% of American households (by income), and adult in the top 20% works nearly TWELVE hours.
Talk about a "correlation"!... (Note that in Chittumland, this correlation is never mentioned at all).
I haven't crunched the numbers from the 1940 census, but I would not be surprised to find that in 1940, exactly the reverse was true - I suspect that in 1940, the poorer you were, the more hours you worked.
This modern "work inequality" demonstrates a fundamental change in our low-income society - from a hard-working, socially mobile and largely independent working class, to a lazy and dependent permanent underclass created by 80 years of liberal silliness.
#3 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 9 Jun 2012 at 12:05 PM
How many of those are old, sick, disabled, or caring for relatives who such? How many are single parents caring for multiple children under circumstances you wouldn't understand because you never bothered to try? How many people are just unemployed or under employed due to macro-economic circumstance not in their control?
As Michael Lewis recently put it:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S33/87/54K53/
Don't overattribute your fortune to skill when luck is likely as much responsible. Overattribution makes you unempathetic, unkind, more accepting of castes, and less accepting of sacrifice. We all stand upon the sacrifices of our forebearers, the question before us is whether our society will make its own contribution to the sacrifice or whether it will raid it. Our progress depends on this question.
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 9 Jun 2012 at 02:49 PM
It may not be a popular idea at TED:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/16/1092348/-TED-Talk-Middle-Class-Are-The-Job-Creators
But we are the job creators
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI
When inequality shoots up because you guys have decided to extract wealth instead of create it, you kill the consumer's ability to purchase goods with wages. When the middle class runs out savings and consumer credit, you get a crash. Your bankers kill economies, not build them.
FACT!
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 9 Jun 2012 at 03:02 PM
Work=Money.
I know it's a hard reality for lefties to absorb, but there it is.
Want more money? Do more work.
What a novel concept!
Rich people get old, just like poor people do. Rich people become disabled, just as poor people do. Rich people procreate, just as poor people do (only more responsibly).
The overriding distinguishing factor between the "rich" in this country and the "poor" is that the "rich" DO MORE WORK.
Your employment is always within your control. Not hiring in your town? Go somewhere else. Job doesn't pay enough to live on? Get two of them. Need money? Crush cans. Paint houses. Walk dogs. Flip burgers. Haul trash. Watch kids. Clean hotel rooms.
WHATEVER.
As to luck.. Some people are lucky, some aren't. Such is life.
It isn't the proper function of government to pick winners and losers or to presume to tame the mercurial winds of fortune.
Of course, those people who through misfortune or even their own misdeeds are truly incapable of caring for themselves, should be humanely treated as wards of the state through commitment proceedings.
Everybody else needs to either get a job or get lucky.
#6 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 9 Jun 2012 at 03:30 PM
"It isn't the proper function of government to ...presume to tame the mercurial winds of fortune."
Since the great depression? Yeah it is. Social safety net. Public services. Proper regulation of business practice to preserve public safety. Public insurance.
All stuff government does "to tame the mercurial winds of fortune."
#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 9 Jun 2012 at 04:50 PM
Thimbles: "Since the great depression? Yeah it is"
padikiller responds: There is no denying that the government has taken over the role of mothering its citizens.
But this not a proper role.
Nor is it a possible sustainable role, as evidenced by 80 years of social decline and by the creation of a lazy dependent permanent underclass of welfare mooches.
The "social safety" net is strangling the very people it is designed to protect and killing the economies of the countries that employed it.
Indeed, as history proves, the more that governments intervene in economies to provide services, the more misery and oppression ensues.
But the crap is hitting the fan, all around the world. In Argentina, there's a bank run. In Spain, there's a bank run. In Greece, there's a bank run.
If you try to buy a house in Buenos Aries with Argentine pesos instead of U.S. greenbacks, you will be shown the door in short order.
These countries, like ours, are running out of other people's money to give to leeches.
And Americans simply will not tolerate the either the government intrusion or the level of taxation necessary to sustain the kind of nanny Gubmint envisioned by the left. It just will never happen here.
Time pay the piper. Time to roll back the socialist nonsense and start demanding that able-bodied people take care of themselves and support their families.
Obama is toast. He has been exposed as a narcissistic, incompetent boob and he has managed the rather improbable political outcome of betraying his base while furthering alienating his opponents.
If the GOP takes the Senate, the next two years will be witness to one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of the U.S. We're dealing with a class of hardened mooches who will do anything - riot, burn, steal, maim and even kill before they will actually earn an honest living. Cutting loose the "safety net" will force a confrontation with these leeches - a confrontation that is inevitable.
#8 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 9 Jun 2012 at 06:06 PM
"But this not a proper role."
You try and sell that. It's unfortunate that many Americans like yourself are ignorant of basic civics (I don't know if they stopped teaching that since the texas school board ruled it communist or what) but people will be aware when you start cutting into their bone for your breaks and subsidies.
And that will be a revolution if you push it far enough.
"Indeed, as history proves, the more that governments intervene in economies to provide services, the more misery and oppression ensues.
But the crap is hitting the fan, all around the world. In Argentina.."
Funny you should bring Argentina up. It's true that it's run into a few snags dealing with the global financial crisis, a drought, and people panicking about the slow down from their experiences during the 2001-2002 crash (brought about by stupid right wing policies and neoliberal credit agencies who made the government contract and privatize services and assets and those actions turned Argentina's economy into a sinkhole. Ooo that doesn't support your point, does it padi. Sorry.).
But yeah, since we're on the topic of equality and gini scores:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/putting-the-gini-back-in-the-bottle/
"Can policy make a difference to inequality? In particular, can governments reduce inequality without killing the economy? ...
[It] is very interesting, to say the least: the remarkable decline in inequality that has taken place in Latin America."
#9 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 10 Jun 2012 at 03:14 AM
Thimbles wrote: "[It] is very interesting, to say the least: the remarkable decline in inequality that has taken place in Latin America."
padikiller responds: Equal helpings of misery is not social justice. A bigger slice of a rotten pie doesn't make things better.
Once again... The simple reality here is that all around the world, the Commie Gravy Train is derailing and the Socialist crack dream is ending.
People who produce wealth are tiring of providing for able-bodied leeches and these producers, all around the world, but particularly here and in Germany, are demanding that the mooches actually do a little work.
This aversion to work is the sole basis for the OWS/Commie so-called "revolution". The lazy mooches would rather riot than work for a living.
Well, too damned bad. Soon enough these bums will be working, either on their own or on a chain gang somewhere, and then American society will be on the road to restoration.
#10 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 10 Jun 2012 at 05:14 AM
Padikiller,
"riot, burn, steal, maim and even kill before they will actually earn an _honest living_." (emphasis mine).
Yes, I believe that is what it will come to. When you say in one post that people need to work more hours, since the richest work 20x more, and then in another post that the poor should get another job, flip burgers, and just work more hours -- I get a bit confused.
In the 80's I paid for my college education by working two full time jobs, plus one part time, with occasional extra work added in. I put in around 100 hours/week on top of class (summa cum laude). I think I got the idea that hours worked = money made is somehow related doesn't actually work if you are a putting in the hours.
A lawyer can work 100 hours a week to bring home enough to buy a standard mid-western house in about a year's time, sans mortgage. Yet, a 35 year old single mom can work a hundred hours a week and pay for rent on an out of the city one bedroom apartment.
Do me a favor. On Monday morning, 7am, go to a mid- to large city bus stop, and watch the people waiting for the bus. Yeah, they look ever so much like they just love waiting for that bus. In just ten or twelve hours, they'll get home via that bus route. I doubt you'd count the time spent waiting as "hours worked." They do, as it is time spent being "productive," getting to work.
Honestly, try it in Phoenix, or Houston, or Richmond. If you like it, stay for a week to see what your ideas actually say about you. I wouldn't bring your latte with you.
JJ
#11 Posted by JJ, CJR on Sun 10 Jun 2012 at 05:47 AM
JJ wrote: "When you say in one post that people need to work more hours, since the richest work 20x more, and then in another post that the poor should get another job, flip burgers, and just work more hours -- I get a bit confused. "
padikiller responds: What's confusing?
According to the U.S. census, for every ONE hour worked by an adult in the bottom 20% of American households (by income) an adult in the top 20% works nearly TWELVE hours.
Thus, the "rich" in this country are working nearly a dozen times the hours the "poor" are.
It is, therefore, unsurprising to find the people who work the most hours making the most money. What the Hell can be "confusing" about accepting this little truism?
JJ continues: "A lawyer can work 100 hours a week to bring home enough to buy a standard mid-western house in about a year's time, sans mortgage. Yet, a 35 year old single mom can work a hundred hours a week and pay for rent on an out of the city one bedroom apartment. "
padikiller responds: So? Make the choices you want to make to get the outcome you want!
You want to buy a house in a year? Become a lawyer and work your ass off.
You want to be poor and miserable? Become a single mom without an education or skill set.
Your choice. Nothing is forcing you to bust ass, go to law school, pass the bar exam, and compete for business. Nothing is stopping you from lazing around, lying on your back and procreating without an education or skill set.
You should have BOTH the freedom to make the choices you want AND the accountability for making them.
"Rich" people get that way by behaving in manner that creates and preserves wealth. "Poor" people get that way by behaving in a manner that destroys and wastes wealth.
The trouble you liberals have is that there is no valid objection to demanding that able-bodied people support themselves and their families. That is ALL that I am demanding here. The very notion of such a proposition burns your liberal britches to cinders, but you fellas know that it would be the height of silliness to actually say so.
So all we get out of you guys is obfuscation and redirection. Purported "confusion" and a change of subject matter.
Well it doesn't matter. No amount of dodging and weaving will prop up the welfare state at this point. The crap is really about to hit the fan. The American people are unwilling to sustain the deficit spending that pays for "single moms" to procreate with free housing, Snickers bars, Band Aids, etc. They are tired of funding the drug trade with welfare payments. And they are unwilling to see their taxes increased to support the permanent welfare underclass of our "Great Society".
Look at the polls. Look at Wisconsin and reflect upon the import of the election there. Not only did Walker survive the recall in the most union-friendly state in U.S., but he did so by a wider margin than he won the original election!
Change, it is a'comin'! Like in 5 months, unless Obama pulls one very huge political rabbit out of his hat.
#12 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 10 Jun 2012 at 08:32 AM
Some of the comments on here are just cruel, with lack of understanding as to how some people end up in the situations they are in. That is all I will say on it. I even vote republican but have a better understanding of human reality. You'd have to kill off those who don't or can't keep up because of mental or psychological reasons or because the father of the family deserted them or whatever.. you'd have to place them somewhere to get them OUT of your perfect society.
Everyone can't at all times be rich because things happen to people and at times people don't have the mental capacity or psychological resources to deal with it.
What we can do is find a way to curb the resources that are being spent on programs and not spend so much and not make as many people as dependent as they are, but expecting everyone to be the same and for that sameness to equate a standard of wealth is just absurd. No society has ever been that way. There have always been poor, disabled, ill, and those left behind.
Adult ebooks
#13 Posted by skypilot, CJR on Sun 10 Jun 2012 at 09:44 AM
padikiller wrote: Able-bodied people should be expected to support themselves and their families.
liberals dodge and weave: CRUEL! What about the people who can't take care of themselves? Think of the CHILLDRRENNN!!!!!!
padikiller responds: I'm not talking about disabled people or kids. You are. Because you cannot credibly refute the common sense notion that able-bodied people should be expected to support themselves.
As I have written a BAZILLION times, people who can't take care of themselves should be humanely cared for by the state...
BUT... I mean REALLY cared for. Not "cared for" in the sense liberals mean.
The standard liberal solution is to dole out cash to people who are disabled or incompetent. This is NOT "care". This is abuse and neglect. It just creates obesity, substance abuse, prostitution, gambling, fraud and all kinds of crime. Just take a peek in any local housing project or trailer park around midnight on the first of the month if you have any doubt about this.
A (good) mother doesn't "care" for her children by turning them loose on the street with a check once a month and letting them spend the money on anything they wish.
Truly "caring" for disabled people means supervising them in secure facilities. It means ensuring that they eat healthy food, exercise enough, maintain healthy body mass indexes, abstain from the use of alcohol and illegal drugs and that they get enough sleep.
As I wrote earlier... You screwy leftists can't argue with this reasoning, at least not credibly. You can't seriously make the argument that the Gubmint should dole out money to able-bodied adults.
So all you can do is to attempt to move the goalposts by obfuscation and by mischaracterizing my argument. Well, it ain't working.
The American people are simply sick of the welfare state. They are unwilling to pay the taxes necessary to continue doling out money to mooches.
#14 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 10 Jun 2012 at 11:44 AM
Gosh, it's been busy around here. Between work initiatives, holiday parties, shopping, wrapping, and being a mom, there wasn't much time left over. I'm going to try and do some catch up within the next few days. We had a lovely Christmas holiday, and especially enjoyed starting new traditions with our kids. (first year with kid(s) in the plural!) As always, I enjoyed decorating and wrapping, and let E get in and help a little.
#15 Posted by Michael Kors Outlet, CJR on Mon 11 Jun 2012 at 10:02 PM
If Padkiller really thinks that the average rich person works 12 times the hours of an average poor person ... well, I cannot begin to figure out where he's coming from. "Lies, damn lies, and statistics" comes to mind. A refresher class on average, mean, and median also seems to be in order.
Anyhow, I don't see Wisconsin as a defeat of labor as much as it is a defeat of endless referenda. Thank god. I hate the idea of recalling politicians who were freely and honestly voted into power for anything less than gross and egregious criminality/stupidity. But organized labor has been doing a lousy job of selling its benefits since the 1970s. Kind of late to be whining about the chickens coming home to roost now.
#16 Posted by Noah Body, CJR on Tue 12 Jun 2012 at 05:41 PM
That is terrible
#17 Posted by Mark, CJR on Tue 12 Jun 2012 at 10:10 PM
Overlooked in all of this commentary is a point made by my colleague Steve Zeltzer at laborvideo.org. The Democrats failed to field a pro-labor candidate. This was a race between Walker and Walker-lite. In the New Yorker, John Cassidy does not once mention Barrett by name.
---
Steve Zeltzer said:
A good example of this issue is connected to the current
political attack on public workers and pensions by both Democrats
including (California) Governor Brown and Republicans which must be answered. ...
One of the reasons for the failure of the recall in Wisconsin in
my view was that Barrett himself was anti-labor. He attacked
public workers in Milwaukee and also was a big supporter of
privatizing public education through the introduction of charter
schools. He actually denied in a debate that he was a candidate
of labor and also said that he would not necessarily veto a bill
that took away labor rights.
----
#18 Posted by Bonnie Britt, CJR on Tue 12 Jun 2012 at 10:28 PM
Perlstein has a column up:
http://m.rollingstone.com/entry/view/id/27950/pn/all/p/0/?KSID=5af785d52ca8c126fd23131dd10e2dfe&ints_viewed=1
"Some have pointed out that it is only natural that Walker won when his side outspent the opposition eight, or ten, or twelve times to one (there is no definitive figure, which is precisely the problem: our new campaign finance universe deliberately makes it hard to keep track of all the money)...
All good, sound, analysis – but my best explanation goes deeper, and says much more not just about Wisconsin, but about the entire structure of our political firmament: how Democrats do business, how Republicans to business, and how the world works as a result. My story is symbolized by the Election Day slap:
Now, understand, I don't know all the details here—for all I know the slapper is some schizophrenic maniac, smacking powerful people up and down the Dairy State. But the symbolism still stands. Apparently what happened was that Democratic candidate Tom Barrett gave a concession speech even though there were still votes to be counted... Mayor Barrett said he'd rather be hugged. He leaned down for said hug. And got slapped instead.
And therein hangs a tale: about grassroots Democrats who act like activists, who hold that slaps are sometimes what it takes to get the political job done, and Democratic leaders who act like you can solve all political problems with a hug. Which, pretty much, was Tom Barrett's entire election platform. As I explained here in May, the leading candidate in the primary to face Walker in the recall, TK NAME, ran with a take-no-prisoners strategy to restore union rights: she pledged to veto any budget that didn't restore collective bargaining. That meant that if she won the statehouse, Republican legislators in Madison could hold on to their anti-union law only on pain of shutting down the state.
Then, out of nowhere, little more than two months before Election day, a new candidate announced: Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Two days earlier, he had a $400-a-plate fundraising luncheon, closed to the media, hosted by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Here was a signal: Barrett was the Democratic Party Establishment's man... Barrett immediately announced a different plan to reverse the anti-union law if he became governor: he would call a special legislative session, in which he would introduce a standalone repeal bill. He would make it hard for his side on purpose. He would make the lions lay down with the lambs, Obama style. He would sell himself to the electorate as the peacemaker. He would follow the Bill Clinton strategy, triangulate against his own side. If swing voters hate union cronyism, he would prove he wasn't a union crony. "I'm not the union guy," he would say on the campaign trail—he was the guy the unions didn't want, and who tried to talk him out of running...
Tom Barrett, for his part, made plain which rally he personally preferred: the boring one. In Milwaukee, Brewer windbreaker, he introduced Clinton. In Madison, he showed up while things were winding down, never took the stage, and spent a few minutes walking through the crowd. After all, his main campaign argument was that he wasn't the activist guy.
And then he lost. For many reasons, I'm sure. But most of all, I'd argue, for campaigning like a Democrat. Just like Scott Walker won for many reasons—but not least, because he campaigned as a Republican."
And republicans cheat, lie, terrorize, sabotage to win elections.
#19 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 19 Jun 2012 at 04:07 AM
Perlstein has a column up:
http://m.rollingstone.com/entry/view/id/27950/pn/all/p/0/?KSID=5af785d52ca8c126fd23131dd10e2dfe&ints_viewed=1
"Some have pointed out that it is only natural that Walker won when his side outspent the opposition eight, or ten, or twelve times to one (there is no definitive figure, which is precisely the problem: our new campaign finance universe deliberately makes it hard to keep track of all the money)...
All good, sound, analysis – but my best explanation goes deeper, and says much more not just about Wisconsin, but about the entire structure of our political firmament: how Democrats do business, how Republicans to business, and how the world works as a result. My story is symbolized by the Election Day slap:
Now, understand, I don't know all the details here—for all I know the slapper is some schizophrenic maniac, smacking powerful people up and down the Dairy State. But the symbolism still stands. Apparently what happened was that Democratic candidate Tom Barrett gave a concession speech even though there were still votes to be counted... Mayor Barrett said he'd rather be hugged. He leaned down for said hug. And got slapped instead.
And therein hangs a tale: about grassroots Democrats who act like activists, who hold that slaps are sometimes what it takes to get the political job done, and Democratic leaders who act like you can solve all political problems with a hug. Which, pretty much, was Tom Barrett's entire election platform. As I explained here in May, the leading candidate in the primary to face Walker in the recall, TK NAME, ran with a take-no-prisoners strategy to restore union rights: she pledged to veto any budget that didn't restore collective bargaining. That meant that if she won the statehouse, Republican legislators in Madison could hold on to their anti-union law only on pain of shutting down the state.
Then, out of nowhere, little more than two months before Election day, a new candidate announced: Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Two days earlier, he had a $400-a-plate fundraising luncheon, closed to the media, hosted by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Here was a signal: Barrett was the Democratic Party Establishment's man... Barrett immediately announced a different plan to reverse the anti-union law if he became governor: he would call a special legislative session, in which he would introduce a standalone repeal bill. He would make it hard for his side on purpose. He would make the lions lay down with the lambs, Obama style. He would sell himself to the electorate as the peacemaker. He would follow the Bill Clinton strategy, triangulate against his own side. If swing voters hate union cronyism, he would prove he wasn't a union crony. "I'm not the union guy," he would say on the campaign trail—he was the guy the unions didn't want, and who tried to talk him out of running...
Tom Barrett, for his part, made plain which rally he personally preferred: the boring one. In Milwaukee, Brewer windbreaker, he introduced Clinton. In Madison, he showed up while things were winding down, never took the stage, and spent a few minutes walking through the crowd. After all, his main campaign argument was that he wasn't the activist guy.
And then he lost. For many reasons, I'm sure. But most of all, I'd argue, for campaigning like a Democrat. Just like Scott Walker won for many reasons—but not least, because he campaigned as a Republican."
And republicans cheat, lie, terrorize, sabotage to win elections.
#20 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 19 Jun 2012 at 04:08 AM