Posted on 11/07/2014 2:57:51 PM PST by jazusamo
Politically, are labor unions finished? It appears that might be the case. Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker once again humiliated organized labor with his comfortable re-election last Tuesday. While polls showed a close race, Walker beat his Democratic opponent, Mary Burke, by a 6-point margin 52/46.
Labor unions had put Walker in the cross hairs ever since his 2010 gubernatorial victory, failed to oust him in the 2012 recall (Walker received more votes in this election than in the 2010 race), and came up short again in this contest.
Walker is now a definite 2016 contender, with a reputation of being unbeatable given the political environment that he presides in, but what do labor union attribute to their serial failure to get rid of this guy; it’s the Koch brothers (via Politico):
What the labor movement now has to ask itself is: How could it lose three times — in 2010, a 2012 recall vote and now in Walker’s 2014 re-election — to the nation’s most blatantly anti-union governor? How especially in Wisconsin, cradle of the early 20th-century Progressive movement and birthplace of public-sector unionism? If not here, where?Much of the answer, as Trumka’s statement suggests, is that labor simply can’t match the financial resources available to Walker through the Koch family and other pro-business allies. But another part of the answer is surely labor’s inability to break free of a decades-long steep decline that prompts many of its natural allies to judge it politically irrelevant.
…
Of six anti-labor governors the AFL-CIO targeted for defeat earlier this year, Walker occupied pride of place. “It’s not been tough for us to get volunteers in Wisconsin,” Trumka boasted late last month on MSNBC. “He’s sort of like the poster child of that across the country.”
Walker was labor’s public enemy No. 1 practically from the moment he was elected. He stunned public employee unions a month after the election when he said that weakening them was essential to bringing state spending under control. He was looking, he said, at anything from outright decertification to various “modifications of the current laws in place.”
Then again, Trumka also predicted Alison Lundergan Grimes would beat Mitch McConnell. That race ended up being a blowout, where Grimes was slaughtered by the soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader 56/41.
So, it’s probably not prudent to look into Trumka’s crystal ball when it comes to elections.
Also, the Koch brothers, again; yes, Americans for Prosperity was projected to spend at least $125 million on the 2014 midterms, but one donor alone–Tom Steyer–blew $73 million on progressive candidates.
And, when you go the OpenSecrets, there are a lot of labor unions on the top donor lists for527 groups and organizations.
Also, when you have a candidate who runs on her corporate bona fides only for the electorate to discover that she was reportedly fired by her own family for incompetence, that’s not dark money’s fault; that’s just bad candidate vetting.
Walker is like the old wristwatch ad.... Takes a licking, and keeps on ticking... I do hope Trumka has a good supply of depends.
I looked up (Open Secrets dot org) how much money the Unionistas funneled into the 2014 midterm election as a whole and it was an ungodly amount - hundreds of MILLIONS of confiscated union dollars wasted.
WASTED! And THAT does my heart good!
Love My Gov! :)
That does my heart good, Diana, was just going to ping yopu. :-)
“...is that labor simply can’t match the financial resources available to Walker through the Koch family...”
That is not true. See my post above about the hundreds of millions funneled to Dems from the Unionistas.
Mary Burke, via the unions, OUTSPENT Walker in the Governor’s race.
Yep, from what I read about the Walker/Burke race the unions and Rats were targeting it and funding it big time to get rid of Walker.
That makes his win SO MUCH BETTER!
Not wasted at all... it was "shovel ready" stimulus. Like fixing broken windows.
Scotty Walker should take the James Cagney role in “Public Enemy”, where he sits in his P.J.s at the breakfast table, and after an argument, James pushes a grapefruit right into Mae Clarke’s face. Trumka can sit for the Mae Clarke role, albeit with some heavy pancake makeup.
"Building on his Academy Award-winning screenplay of the classic film, Budd Schulberg's On the Waterfront is the story of ex-prizefighter Terry Malloy's valiant stand against corruption on the New Jersey docks. It generates all the power, grittiness, and truth of that great production, but goes beyond it in set and setting. It is a novel of strength and fallibility, of hope and defeat, of love and betrayal. In his Introduction, Mr. Schulberg writes: "The film's concentration on a single dominating character, brought close to the camera eye, made it esthetically inconvenient, if not impossible, to set Terry's story in its social and historical perspective…suggesting the knotted complexities of the world of the waterfront that loops around New York.""
http://www.amazon.com/On-Waterfront-Budd-Schulberg/dp/1566638410
I know somebody on Walker’s Short list of “Get-Even-One O These Days” Chris Christie, who could have provided much needed campaign funding in the last weeks of the race. Chris is alarmingly self-centered.
Absolutely right. And don’t forget all the smaller battles he’s fought and lost, from the occupation of the capitol to pouring money down the rathole of the least qualified horrible choice for a supreme court judge to going after Alberta Darling to essentially buying a year’s time from the Milwaukee DA to come up empty. All those millions and Trumka has nothing to show for it. Nothing.
Trumka is truly the biggest loser in Wisconsin. Mary Burke is #2.
Enjoy!!
Let me see, 100’s of Democrat rich fellas like Soros, Buffet, countless wall street dynamos and all they have is two Koch Bras with a little money on our side. Yep, it’s the Koch Brothers for sure.
Thank you YHVH, for enabling Gov. Walker to win!
Walker has survived another trial by fire against the liberal establishment. Another reason he’ll make a good Presidential candidate should he decide to run.
Really, in the history of Unions, has anyone been more effective than Walker at crushing their dreams?
Cruz/Scott 16
Governor walker is truly special. He is our generation’s Reagan.
No one has been vilified more, had the kitchen sink thrown at him repeatedly, and they’ve got nothing on this good, smart man.
The Clintons are terrified of walker and wanted him defeated.
Hillary is elitist, Scott is middle class, doesn’t even have a college degree, which to me makes him very attractive to blue collar voters
Hillary is old, Scott is young
Hillary is yesterday, Scott is tomorrow
Hillary is Hollywood and Wall Street, Scott is Main Street USA
Hillary is Washington, D.C., Scott is flyover county, anti-Washington (which is why the GOP cannot nominate a sitting us senator, we need a Govenor)
Polar opposites, which is exactly what we need.
Walker-Martinez - absolutely no one in DC on GOP ticket. No one. Their voting record will be picked to death. Every time we nominate a sitting senator, we lose (Goldwater dole McCain Landon). Last time GOP won presidency w a sitting us senator? Warren Harding in 1920, nearly 100 yrs ago.
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