Atlas Puked...
Posted on 09/21/2007 12:52:11 PM PDT by redwill
The AFL-CIO leadership just put a number on its commitment to the general election: $53 million, the federation is set to announce.
That's money that can be used for unrestricted "member-to-member" communication in House, Senate, and presidential races around the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
The AFL-CIO leadership just put a number on its commitment to the general election: $53 million, the federation is set to announce.
That's money that can be used for unrestricted "member-to-member" communication in House, Senate, and presidential races around the country.
That's up from $50 million the group spend in the last presidential cycle, 2004, and $40 million in the 2006 midterms.
“Today the AFL-CIO is sending a powerful message that we are going to change the course of our country in 2008 by electing a president and candidates at all levels who are committed to restoring the promise of America to working people,” says AFL President John Sweeney in a statement. "America’s workers are more energized than ever before. They are determined to create an historical political realignment in Washington that will work to rebuild our ailing middle class and restore hope to the millions of workers who have been left behind by seven years of Bush Administration corporate-friendly policies.”
AND: As Marc Ambinder notes, there's just no Republican counterpart.
The Massive Scope Of The AFL-CIO's Political Program
21 Sep 2007 01:38 pm
By Marc Ambinder
Remember: all of this -- almost all of this -- goes to help Democrats.
Later today, the AFL-CIO will announce that its executive board approved a $53 million budget for its 2008 political program, the largest ever sum for a political cycle.
AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman will oversee the deployment of more than 200,000 volunteers to 23 priority states, including Ohio, pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Five house seats in "union-dense" districts and six Senate seats will be targeted.
In Ohio, where union households comprised 28% of the vote in 2006, the AFl-CIO plans to reach out to more than 1.4 million voters.
The labor federation will partner with other groups and use reams of consumer data to market precise political messages neighborhood-by-neighborhood.
"Our members are building an army to make more calls, knock on more doors and turn out more voters than ever,” said AFSCME President and AFL-CIO Political Committee Chair Gerald McEntee. “We're going for the Trifecta: the House, the Senate, and the White House.”
In total, the AFL-CIO unions will spend about $200 million on Election 08 efforts, according to AFl-CIO estimates.
Virtually all of that money will be used to help Democrats.
Republicans have nothing like the AFL-CIO. And for the first presidential cycle in recent memory, the Democratic Party institutions will have a financial edge.
And there's more: next week, the Change To Win labor federation will meet to sketch out its political program. One CTW union -- the SEIU -- plans to spend in excess of $30M by itself.
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I hope there’s a nice rank-and-file revolt over union management rubber-stamp support of open-border Democrats. I never could understand how union members could accept a permanent, legal, low-wage workforce.
So the unions have more money to donate to Dems even though they have fewer members and have “suffered” under 7 years of GWB?!
The irony is that the DemocRATS have done more to kill jobs than the Republicans by far. Think of the defeat of the development of the Anwar area oil fields cost 10,000 union jobs.
I wonder if their members will remember that amount when they strike and the strike fund runs out after a couple of weeks, like it always does.
No kidding, I just don't get it. On the other hand a huge number of unionists now are public employees of some sort or another. Those people don't fear illegals and want them to one day vote for the politicians who expand Government and "create" jobs through taxation.
I cannot stand these commie unions! Pathetic that they can harvest this money from their memebers, and pathetic that they blackmail companie sinto paying wages so high so they can steal this money from their memebers. Unions are truly a scourge upon free societies.
I wonder what the Republicans will do with their $5.00 share.
What happened to McCain / Feingold? /s
They had a financial edge in the last elections as well when you count all the money spent by the moveon.org and other groups. They probably outspent the republicans two to one.
And it’s JUST beginning...
Remember, the ENTIRE system has been set up to ELECT HILLARY, nothing more, nothing less...
Considering the unions in CA managed to find, levee and borrow $100 million to attack Arnold during his 2005 “special election” campaign, $53 million nationally seems like small potatoes.
I wonder if Obama will ask them to put that towards scholarships instead?
It all depends.
The unions filed suit to try and keep Mexican trucks off our highways. (Yeahhhhhh)
Yet they solidly support the Donks. (Booooooooo)
Go figure.
No kidding. This is compulsory dues money. I've no objection to union PACs -- that's voluntary contributions. But this is shotgun-to-the-head dues dollars.
The use of compulsory dues money is far and away the biggest perversion of the campaign finance system.
Rank and file must secretly send a message at the voting booth in 2008!
Atlas Puked...
Yes, their politicians won’t always be in favor by the voter, in fact, it’s very popular to vote the incumbent out.
Federal Labor Board: Employees Need Not Object Twice to Obtain Detail of How Union Officials Spend Forced Dues
http://www.nrtw.org/b/nr_700.php
Right to Work attorneys force NLRB to abandon one of its numerous pronouncements enabling union officials to seize workers’ dues for politics
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