Unions: Forever War

You’re hoping for another 1994, eh? Well, you’re not going to get it if D.C.’s biggest union bosses have their say — and they don’t just have a say, they have a checkbook to put where their mouths are. And both words and munitions are taking on an overtly combative tone.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting:

The AFL-CIO plans to roll out its biggest political campaign ever, surpassing the $53 million spent in 2008 to help elect President Barack Obama, to try to avert a repeat of the 1994 midterm election when Democrats lost a majority in Congress.

If that sounds a bit aggressive, that’s nothing compared to the powerful head of the AFSCME public employee union, who is saying “The time has come to draw a line in the sand…Regardless of your party affiliation, if you’re not with us, you are against us.”

(We’re pretty sure we’ve seen other people get hammered for using the same language, but we digress…)

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Tags: AFL-CIO, AFSCME, mid-term elections, political contributions, union dues
Posted Mar 3rd 2010 at 9:01 am in Big Labor | 83210123 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bjacobson/2010/03/03/unions-forever-war/Unions%3A+Forever+War2010-03-03+17%3A01%3A19Bret+Jacobson

The Top 5 Lessons of the November 2009 Election

The 2009 elections have come and gone.  New Jersey elected a Republican governor.  That is more of a surprise than the fact that Virginia now has a Republican governor (for the first time in 8 years) and less of a surprise than the Democrats winning House seats in New York and in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mixed results you say?  If so, is there anything to be learned from these elections?  The answer is no, because we should have learned these lessons already.   In case they have been forgotten, however, here they are:

5.   Off year Elections Are Hard on the President’s Party.  The President’s party loses 20 seats, on average, in the House in the mid-term elections.  When President’s approval rating is below 50%, that number doubles.  So it can be of little surprise that voters dealt the Democrats losses this November.

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Tags: Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie, Contract with America, mid-term elections, off year elections
Posted Nov 5th 2009 at 9:13 am in Congress, Politics, State Politics | 2583852 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2009/11/05/the-top-5-lessons-of-the-november-2009-election/The+Top+5+Lessons+of+the+November+2009+Election2009-11-05+16%3A13%3A57Thomas+Del+Beccaro