Giuliani"s Unwelcome Birthday Guests

The New York Observer ^ | 5/29/07 | Azi Paybarah

[SUSSA]

You said “Trust me the Union does not endorse the same candidates the rank and file would. In actuality, the firefighters don’t have much to say about it.”

The Union backed Bush so if they “do not endorse the same canditates the rank and file would” who would the rank and file have endorsed?

As pointed out to another poster, Battalion Chief Riches isn’t a union boss. Nor are most of the firefighters who are ready to get the real story about Rudy out to the voters.

Just because the union leadership happens to agree with the membership doesn’t make the members wrong. Nor does it mean that the members are blindly following the union leadership.

It was Battalion Chief Riches and the other firefighters who were on the ground on 9-11 who started the movement to Swift Boat Rudy, not the union bosses.

I can understand being suspicious of the leadership since they backed Bush twice, but they really didn’t have much choice either time. It seems to have been they went with the lesser of two evils rather than any deep liberal bias.

Now it seems the union leaders are backing their members (the real heroes of 9-11) in the effort to Swift Boat Rudy and I’m all for them.

If the firefighters start raising money to Swift Boat him I’ll contribute just like I did to the vets who Swift Boated Kerry.

I didn’t turn against Reagan because the Teamsters union supported him with money and workers. I see no reason to turn against the firefighters just because they got their union to support their effort to Swift Boat Rudy.

[sheana]

sheesh, I wasn’t talking about this specifically.
My husband was/still is the member of a firefighters union.....35 yrs now.
The Union does very little that he or anyone else actually agrees with politically.
I was just stating that the members really have no input into what the Union leaders do politically.