Last May, unions, in the person of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka warned Democrats that union members might no longer be Democrats' foot soldiers. Republicans promptly drove them back to the fold by attempting to destroy public worker unions.
It seemed curious at first that Mitt Romney decided that the best way to get votes in Michigan was to bash unions. But considering the Republican Governors and legislatures who made a business over the past 18 months of trying to utterly destroy public employees' unions, it makes more sense. Romney evidently decided his shot at getting any union votes had been pretty much sabotaged by his own party before he ever got there. He's not even likely to get the 25% or so he could have expected just because that's the typical Republican take from union members.
A week from the election on the 28th, and the polls show the two top candidates, Romney and Santorum drawing closer together in both Michigan and Arizona. Santorum is ahead by four points in Michigan, and Romney is about the same amount ahead in Arizona. But they aren't really campaigning, they're advertising on TV. Romney claims he has the ability to outspend Santorum forty to one, so he's just lobbing TV and radio commercials like hand grenades. They do not tout his ability... they simply attack Santorum relentlessly.
Santorum is spending what he has, and the ads are the same in form and style, but there aren't enough of them. He has to spend time with people in Michigan when he'd rather be campaigning in Ohio where Mitt has no history. Instead of bashing unions, Santorum ignores them and concentrates on arcane religious metaphors.
Both candidates need the delegates, but they're not fighting for the hearts and minds of Michiganders... because the primary is it. Michigan has elected a Republican Governor and legislature... again. And again they've done what they said they would; they've attacked state employees' unions, taxed the elderly, the poor and children, and handed that money to businesses and wealthy investors. Michigan will not vote for a Republican for President this year.
As Rochelle Riley, columnist for the Detroit Free Press said in her Friday column: "...at the end of the day, one was a governor's son who became a governor and got a governor's endorsement. The other: He was anybody but Romney."
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Comments: 22
On a secondary note:
Most political pundits believe that Romney will eventually win the Republican nomination. However that may not be the case since pundits are conceeding the red southern states to Newt Gringrich, thereby spliting the voting block. This may be a big mistake in assessment, inasmuch as Rick Santorum has made his platform not on economic issues but on the Bible and social issues. Both issues being what apeals to the so-called Born again Christians, Evangelicals and Teapublicans, a big voting block within the Republican Party in southern states. Newt may win his home state of Georgia and Romney may win Texas, but Santorum is in a very good position to win the blood red southern states of S.C. Ala. Miss. La. Ks. Mo. Ak. Ok.
Should the south be carried by Santorum, Romney and Gringrich will be forced to close the doors on their respective campaigns and Santorum will become the nominee, not Romney as has been projected.
"send Obama back to the ghetto"
I love the way you were so subtle in projecting your racism into this debate, it speaks volums as to your hate filled discriminatory mentality. Way to go man, you are one sneaky closet segregationist, aren't you.
Are you now or have you ever been a Union member, I would bet not. For, even Union members who consider themselves to be Independent voters never speak against the Brotherhood which protects them from ill treatment by their employers and fights to the bitter end for their workers rights through fair Collective Barganing Agreements. (CBA)
You might find it informative to speak with Union workers before deciding that Union workers loose their jobs because of Union affiliation. I can guarantee you that for any Union member who ever lost his job, another 10 were able to retain their jobs because of Union representation.
I am a life long Union member who retired from two seperate unions jobs over my 50 years as a proud American Union Employee. (Blue Collar Worker)
and he was so persuasive, that 20 years later, the same miners, sitting on the same barstools, still saying 'mines will be open again any day now - they cant keep them closed, they losing too much money - just tryin to break the unions!"
another 20 years, different people try to re-open the mines - the old 'union' people wont work there - and many of their kids wont either - they still think it is all a lie, that the companies were not losing money .........
trumpka convinced them of that idiocy.
meanwhiole, trumpka has never been without a job - makes more and more all the time - now in high 6 figures - as a union exec ........
meanwhile, the owners were all bankrupt - lost their homes, savings, investment, everything.
That's funny.
All things that the political left doesn't like.
And unlike union management, many vote Republican.
It's odd how people can be so ungrateful and vote against their own interests.
Unfortuneately, it's the old deeply ingrained sentiment of "American's like to do things individually". It's the, "No one will tell me what's best for me, I'll make that decision for and by myself."
At times, we become our own worst enemy in order to be self styled individuals. Such sentiment of individualism comes from our Constitutional right of "Freedom to Choose" a good protective article unless one allows it to over-ride one's reasonable thinking, such as, choosing to vote individually instead of voting with the majority as a block vote.
We are, without a doubt, "A Freedom To Choose Loving People"