Part Two:
Vastly Expand the Number of Votes Cast by Working Families
Starting with the gubernatorial campaigns in 2005 and 2006 and continuing through the presidential campaign of 2008, we should
a. Use Our Power in states with heavy concentrations of union households. Forget about narrow casting with sandwich programs and create a comprehensive grassroots program, a program with measurements, targets and accountability, aimed at states like New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Washington and California.
Those five states produced 15.1 million votes for the Kerry-Edwards ticket – 27 percent of all the votes they received. And yet, those five heavily unionized states saw NO candidate appearances, NO television ads, NO activity by the 527’s, and virtually NO efforts by the AFL-CIO or its affiliated unions.
Compared with states like Wisconsin and Minnesota that saw turnout levels in 2004 of 72 and 73 percent respectively, those five states had turnout levels ranging from 38 to 54 percent. By leaving the most powerful and potent unionized states out of their electoral equation, Democrats lost the popular vote by 3.5 million votes and left state and local candidates stranded.
With 46 million fewer voters expected to vote in the mid-term elections of 2006 than voted in 2004, it is imperative that organized labor focus it efforts on turning out our vote. And it must involve its allied constituencies in that turnout effort starting immediately.
b. Use Our Power to challenge Corporate America in the targeted states by pushing ballot initiatives that would:
i. Create new jobs and new industries using the resources and power available to state governments;
ii Dismantle the insurance industry’s lock on an outdated regulatory process that inflates the cost of health and auto insurance; and
iii Link state government contracts for goods and services provided by corporations to the right to organize and the imperative to Buy American.
c. Use Our Power to increase the membership of WORKING AMERICA and the activities of our other coalition partners in the targeted states in order to increase voter awareness and voter turnout in the gubernatorial campaigns of 2005, 2006 and the presidential campaign of 2008.
There is a nearly one-to-one relationship between the critical gubernatorial campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and the most vulnerable Democratic and Republican United States Senators up in 2006. But there exists a clear difference in how those campaigns normally operate – gubernatorial campaigns often rely more heavily on the “ground game” while senatorial campaigns tend to concentrate on the “air game.”
Given how the gubernatorial campaigns in states like the five mentioned above plus Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida will set the stage for presidential campaign in 2008, the need for an effective “ground game” can only be met by expanding Working America’s success to those ten states.
d. Use Our Power to discipline politicians who take organized labor’s financial and organizational support and then vote against our members’ most basic interests. Develop measurements that accurately reflect a Member of Congress’ complete record, including procedural and committee votes. And whenever a Member of Congress’ record warrants a primary challenge, even if their ultimate defeat is unlikely, then a union member should be recruited to run and his/her campaign should receive the full support of the labor movement.