I'm glad somebody is paying attention.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/afscme-fight-continues/ January 6, 2008, 5:42 pm
AFSCME Fight Continues
By Jim Rutenberg
As the Time magazine political blog The Page reported on Saturday, a group of American Federation of State, Civil and Municipal Employees leaders from around the country has written a letter to the union’s International chiefs protesting their production of mailings and radio ads attacking Senator Barack Obama’s health care proposals.
Their argument is that the while the International board is supporting Senator Hillary Clinton, it should not be engaged in attacking other candidates.
The AFSCME International president Gerald W. McEntee has just responded. Here is his statement:
Seven members of AFSCME’s 35 member board wrote a letter to me expressing concerns about negative campaigns. I believe that personal attacks have no place in our democracy. They degrade candidates, insult voters and reduce politics to name-calling. Negative campaigns attack a candidates character and integrity and they don’t stick to the facts.
While I am not, by law, allowed to participate in any way in the activities of AFSCME’s political action committee in this area, about this I am clear: AFSCME’s independent expenditure effort is not a negative campaign. Rather, it has contrasted differences between the candidates on the issues, and it has focused on the two frontrunners: Senators Clinton and Obama. In an Associated Press story on December 21, Senator Obama got it right when he was discussing campaign tactics and said, “If people are arguing about policy, that’s part of politics and that’s fair. AFSCME’s campaign has been fair and has stuck to the issues.
Health care is an issue where the candidates have a different approach. Obama’s plan does not cover every American. In fact, it leaves 15 million Americans without the medical care they need. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards plans do not leave anyone behind. They cover everyone. This is the difference that the AFSCME political action committee has highlighted. There are 15 million reasons to be opposed to Obama’s health care plan, and the AFSCME campaign is simply pointing them out.
While spirited debate during the primary season is healthy, I don’t think that any candidate or her or his supporters should say or do anything that would hurt the chances of the eventual nominee to win in the general election.
This is why I was troubled when the Obama campaign labeled AFSCME’s political action committee and some of the so-called 527 efforts (such as the one for Edwards in Iowa) as outside groups and special interests from Washington, DC, as if workers are somehow just like insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry.
Workers are not a special interest. We fight for the general interest. And working families and their unions will be critical to making the Democratic nominee the next president of the United States.
Its important for everyone inside our union, as well as all the Democratic candidates and their supporters, to remember that we are all on the same side with the same goal taking back the White House for America’s working families and making it the people’s house again.