you kind of have to ask yourself - "whose side is Obama on?"

[bread_and_roses]

65. Our leaders can be as politic as anyone else

They have made a political calculation - period. If you take their words at face value, there's this nice bridge in Brooklyn ...

Richard Trumka is not stupid. Leo Gerard is not stupid. I may disagree with the political calculation they have made, but they are not stupid. They also, I am quite sure, know they have to somehow whip up a disenchanted membership, and so must present a strong front. I don't agree that slow boiling is better than a quick knife to the heart, but that's the calculation they've made.

I doubt that anyone outside the Labor movement has any idea of the extraordinary efforts it took to get the 2008 results below (I just took the first links I found with the info, but the numbers sound like those I recall we were given after the election, so I think they are fairly accurate):

Election results by group
Obama/McCain

http://www.gallup.com/poll/112132/election-polls-vote-groups-2008.aspx

Union families 64/36

http://www.edwize.org/poll-shows-key-role-of-union-vote-in-election

Obama won among white men who are union members by 18 points, while losing that group by 16 points in the general public.

Obama won among union gun owners by a 12-point margin, while losing that group in the general public by 25 points.

Union veterans voted for Obama by a 25-point margin. He lost among that group in the general public by nine points.

... This year’s campaign was the largest, broadest and most targeted effort in AFL-CIO history

... In all, the AFL-CIO’s program reached out to more than 13 million union voters in 24 battleground states.

I doubt Obama wins without those numbers. We achieved that by an extraordinary effort to penetrate the racism, the Reagan-democrat-ism, the social conservatism that have about the same prevalence among union members as among the general public.

The mistake our leaders made was ever trumpeting that they would "hold politicians accountable" without including an "except."

I expect the effort to be even greater this year, given that our leadership is going to have far less to work with than the hope that was generated in '08. But no one does turn-out better - the AFL-CIO will squeeze every vote that can be squeezed out of the membership. "Hope" probably won't play well this cycle, so they'll go with fear. The Democrats better hope that Romney keeps giving Labor fodder for the fear grist - if he starts to sound "moderate" it will all be a lot harder than it already will be.