Unions Da 1.0 - Antonucci - GT 11 - NDT

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UNION$ SHELL
Unions and Obama making up crucial WINDOW
Stein 2/18/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/18/wisconsin-protests-obama-labor-delicatedance_n_825353.html
Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has
worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center
for Public Integrity. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is
a graduate of Dartmouth College.
At that point, however, Wisconsin had become a proxy war for the philosophical battles of Washington;
and, as such, the president's participation in the process -- or lack thereof -- was being closely studied for
broader meaning. Any additional statement of solidarity, labor activists stressed, would not only lift the
spirits of the protesters, it would solidify a base vote that has, at times, seemed unenthused with the
current administration. "I think that people understand that when attacked you must fight back and they
are energized by that. And I think the lesson of what people will learn from this is that moving forward you
have to stay engaged and keep fighting. And we will see that take place in 2012 in the electoral scene as
well," said Karen Ackerman, the political director of the AFL-CIO. "People are reminded that there are
consequences to elections, that it is important who gets elected." So far, the president's engagement has
been cheered. "We think to come out publicly and say, as far as he is concerned, that this seems to be an
attack on public unions ... it was a wonderful statement he made," said McEntee. That good will,
however, be tested in the weeks ahead, as a government shut down in Madison and similar protests
elsewhere seem likely to consume more of the president's attention and time. On Friday, White House
Press Secretary Jay Carney reiterated the president's concern about the underlying objectives of the antiunion legislation. But aides to Obama declined to say whether he would visit Wisconsin in the week
ahead, despite protesters' pining for a visit. One top Republican strategist described the situation best,
when he noted the debate has allowed labor and the president -- never really trusting of one another -a limited window in which to patch things up. "Labor unions and the White House might not be in
bed with each other, but they're definitely having make-up sex right now," the strategist emailed.
[INSERT LINK THAT PLAN ANGERS UNIONS]

Union support key to Obama 12 money
Silver 2/26/11
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/the-effects-of-union-membership-on-democraticvoting/
former East Lansing debater
How important are labor unions to the Democratic Party? The question isnt easy to answer. Perhaps the
biggest way that unions help the Democrats is by donating to them: unions are among the top
contributors to Democratic campaigns and left-of-center causes, having given tens of millions of
dollars to them in 2010.
Money key to #WINNING

Friedman 3/14/11
http://www.nationaljournal.com/dailyfray/obama-39-s-reelection-obstacles-unemployment-andfundraising-20110314
Uri Friedman is a staff writer at The Atlantic Wire.
Fundraising: Andy Kroll at Mother Jones says the Obama campaign's biggest challenge will be to raise
enough money to counter "conservative heavyweights" like the Koch brothers, the Chamber of
Commerce, and Karl Rove's Crossroads groups--all newly empowered by the Supreme Court's Citizens
United ruling. Obama, NBC's Michael Isikoff reports, will need to lean more heavily on deep-pocketed
fundraisers and Democratic groups in 2012 than he did in 2008 because his ability to raise money from
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small donors online will be hampered by the bad economy and, perhaps, by diminished "grassroots
enthusiasm."
Losing sets the Middle East on fire

Curiel 7/28/10
http://trueslant.com/jonathancuriel/2010/07/28/what-just-might-happen-if-obama-loses-in-2012/
In 1993-1994, he lived in Lahore, Pakistan, where he taught at the University of the Punjab as a Fulbright
Scholar. His work appeared in San Francisco Chronicle,[1] Columbia Journalism Review,[2] and Tablet
Magazine,[3] From October 2005 to April 2006, he was a Reuters Foundation Fellow at Oxford
University. In the Fall 2009 semester, he is teaching a journalism course at the University of California,
Los Angeles. In February 2010, he will teach at Whitman College
The November balloting will also lay the foundation for President Obamas next two years in office and
his re-election campaign. Any number of scenarios could undermine Obama in 2012. If (God forbid) a
9/11-style attack hits the United States that summer, or, say, the economy goes into a deep tailspin, then
Obama will become the first one-term president since George H.W. Bush. In Obamas wake, the
Republican Piranha whove been circling the White House since 2008 (Palin, Romney, et al.) will feast on
the Democrats political carcass. Here are three scenarios: ** President Whitman: After narrowly beating
Jerry Brown for the California governorship in 2010, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman gets drafted for the
2012 presidential campaign and reluctantly accepts then steamrolls her way to 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue. Whitmans appeal the first woman Republican to head the ticket; her success in Silicon Valley;
her (anti-Palinesque) ability to speak coherently about the economy, foreign affairs, and her vision for
America makes her the surprising choice for independents and conservative liberals who helped
springboard Obama in 2008. Whitmans running mate, Newt Gingrich, secures her standing among
Conservatives, especially in the South, and like Joe Biden in 2008 with Obama he reassures a
potentially jittery public that his ticket has the necessary experience. War in Iran: The Republicans
ascension marks the return of chickenhawk diplomacy. Instead of the Obama administrations reasoned
approach to Iran, the new administration relies on all-or-nothing antagonism, leading to the third Gulf War
in two decades. What ensues are thousands of new military deaths, a dangerously destabilized Middle
East, and an oil crisis that shocks Western economies for years. As in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. tries
to shepherd in a friendlier government, but now all three countries connected geographically, religiously
and historically become the worlds leading front for insurgency against the United States.
Extinction!!
James A. Russell, Senior Lecturer, National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, 9 (Spring)
Strategic Stability Reconsidered: Prospects for Escalation and Nuclear War in the Middle East IFRI,
Proliferation Papers, #26, http://www.ifri.org/downloads/PP26_Russell_2009.pdf
Strategic stability in the region is thus undermined by various factors: (1) asymmetric interests in the
bargaining framework that can introduce unpredictable behavior from actors; (2) the presence of nonstate actors that introduce unpredictability into relationships between the antagonists; (3)
incompatible assumptions about the structure of the deterrent relationship that makes the
bargaining framework strategically unstable; (4) perceptions by Israel and the United States that its
window of opportunity for military action is closing, which could prompt a preventive attack; (5) the
prospect that Irans response to pre-emptive attacks could involve unconventional weapons, which could
prompt escalation by Israel and/or the United States; (6) the lack of a communications framework to
build trust and cooperation among framework participants. These systemic weaknesses in the
coercive bargaining framework all suggest that escalation by any the parties could happen either on
purpose or as a result of miscalculation or the pressures of wartime circumstance. Given these factors, it
is disturbingly easy to imagine scenarios under which a conflict could quickly escalate in which
the regional antagonists would consider the use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. It
would be a mistake to believe the nuclear taboo can somehow magically keep nuclear weapons
from being used in the context of an unstable strategic framework. Systemic asymmetries between
actors in fact suggest a certain increase in the probability of war a war in which escalation could
happen quickly and from a variety of participants. Once such a war starts, events would likely develop
a momentum all their own and decision-making would consequently be shaped in unpredictable ways. The
international community must take this possibility seriously, and muster every tool at its disposal to
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prevent such an outcome, which would be an unprecedented disaster for the peoples of the region,
with substantial risk for the entire world.
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TRICK (ALSO AT TOO FAR)

They misunderstood our disad profoundly.
***
Their too soon arguments work VERY well - for us!!!

***
Theyre probably right. Its too soon for durable PUBLIC PERCEPTION, or ANY of
their link turns. They tanked their own offense.
Its NOT too soon for MONEY. MONEY is the only DURABLE ASSET for elections
and THAT battle is HAPPENING NOW
NBC news 3/14/11
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/14/6266835-first-thoughts-march-madness
One... Billion... Dollars: The Mideast may be in turmoil and Japan devastated by an earthquake. But
President Obama will have domestic politics on his agenda Wednesday afternoon when he speaks to
more than 300 top Democratic party fundraisers at a Washington hotel, NBC's Michael Isikoff reports. The
goal: mobilizing the fundraisers to gear up for the 2012 presidential race and start raking in political cash
for what many expect will be a record smashing, $1 billion re-election warchest. The event, a meeting of
the Democratic National Committees national finance committee and its national advisory board, is
effectively the kick off for the president's fundraising efforts for his re-election campaign, according to one
Democratic party source (who asked to remain anonymous talking about the president's plans.) Here's
the Center for Public for Public Integritys Peter Stone reports on the DNC event this morning and citing it
as one example of how the presidential fundraising sweepstakes is already beginning in earnest.
This internal link MAGNIFIES the further the election TIMEFRAME

Sieffe 8
http://www.ralfseiffe.com/money.html
Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago and is a political analyst and
columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.
This eternal truth holds that cash on hand is worth more than funds that will materialize later because
cash is immediately useful and the future is uncertain. In politics, the functional equivalent is early
money because it can be spent right now to build name recognition and sometimes just reporting it can
intimidate rivals into staying on the sidelines. Early money is the most important ingredient in a
campaign so politicians work hard to raise it.
AND the window for this relationship is RIGHT NOW thats STEIN 2/18
AND UNIONS remember longer than voters
Bai 7
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/whos-interests-are-special/
Matt Bai, who covers politics for the Sunday Times Magazine, is the author of The Argument: Billionaires,
Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics. I went to Tufts and Columbia's Graduate School
of Journalism, where the faculty generously awarded me the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. Early in my
career, just out of college, I was a speechwriter for what is now the U.S. Fund for UNICEF,
Mr. Obama has essentially charged that Mr. Edwards is a hypocrite because, while Mr. Edwards has said
he favors banning unregulated campaign money from outside groups, his campaign is getting millions of
dollars worth of assistance from outside contributors namely unions. Whats remarkable about this line
of attack is that, while Mr. Obama is aiming squarely at Mr. Edwards, he also risks alienating some of the
most powerful interest groups in Democratic Washington. More likely, Mr. Edwards believes hes being
true to his convictions about money in politics because he simply doesnt see union money as part of the
problem. The general view among Democrats is that special interests are people with power
(pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors), while unions are dues-paying institutions that
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aggregate the power of ordinary Americans. To put this another way, if your boss plunks down 500 bucks
for 100 lottery tickets, hes using his wealth to unfairly game the system. If you and your co-workers each
contribute 10 bucks to buy the same 100 tickets, then youre simply pooling your resources in order to
give yourselves a fighting chance. Theres an attractive logic to this argument, except that, in practice, it
runs into some nettlesome inconsistencies. For instance, the National Rifle Association is also a duespaying group that aggregates the power of its members, as is the National Federation of Independent
Businesses, and I doubt very much that Edwards or other Democrats would describe these as anything
other than special interests. Just like the N.R.A., Big Labor tries to manipulate elections to gain access
and favor for its members. That doesnt make unions a corrupting influence; as Andrew Stern, the
president of the Service Employees International Union, always says, unions have been the greatest
antipoverty program in American history. But it does make labor a special interest, whether Democrats
like it or not. If youre going to base much of your presidential campaign on ridding politics of unregulated
money from influential interest groups, then you cant expect to just exempt those groups you happen to
like or who happen to like you. Theres no way around it: thats what Mr. Edwards seems to be doing.
As for Mr. Obama, you have to wonder if making this argument, right or wrong, could haunt him later,
especially if he doesnt win the nomination and wants to make another run for higher office. As one labor
activist pointedly told me, Democrats running for president arent supposed to go after their friends.
Maybe Iowans will remember Mr. Obamas stand against special interests when they go to caucus
Thursday. Im pretty sure some unions will remember it longer than that. .
***UNIONS UNIQUENESS
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!!!UNIQUE WINDOW
Now key union and Obama healing their rifts, but its delicate
Stein 2/18/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/18/wisconsin-protests-obama-labor-delicatedance_n_825353.html
Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has
worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center
for Public Integrity. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is
a graduate of Dartmouth College.
The ongoing protests surrounding an anti-union measure in Wisconsin has placed the president and the
Democratic Party in a yet another delicate dance with the labor community. Demonstrations against a
bill that would effectively end collective bargaining for many unions would, on the surface, seem like a
political lay-up for a Democratic administration. Unions represent the base of the party. And a show of
solidarity with those walking the streets of Madison would go a long way toward soothing the muchdiscussed tensions between unions and the White House. On Thursday evening, one top labor activist,
speaking on the condition of anonymity (for fear of jinxing the administration's engagement), said he
thought Wisconsin would be a "turning point" in bringing the two factions together.
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OBAMA WINNING UNIONS AT THUMPERS

Obama is winning UNIONS and all their MONIES
Politico 3/14/12
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51215.html#ixzz1GcvpA8G0
And the operatives organizing his 2012 campaign are not especially worried about winning labor votes.
For all the hand-wringing among some labor leaders, Obama has been a consistent defender of basic
collective bargaining rights.
Meanwhile, union leaders and progressive groups say they are seeing a spike in enthusiasm they havent
witnessed since the halcyon hope-and-change days of Obamas 2008 campaign. The Progressive
Change Campaign Committee has collected $750,000 for its Wisconsin effort so far, and MoveOn.org
raised about $350,000 in the 24 hours after Walker signed the rollback of collective bargaining rights for
public employee benefits.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman posted a photo of this weekends rally on his blog Sunday with
the caption: The big question about Wisconsin has been whether the controversy would just fade away,
or whether it would serve as a rallying cry for an extended period. If yesterdays crowds were any
indication, this is a long way from over.
Unions got over past anger

Easton 3/10/11
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/09/news/economy/unions_failing.fortune/?section=magazines_fortune
Indeed, Obama remains popular with unions even though he hasn't delivered on his promises to them.
Obama winning unions base mobilization

Stone 2/22/11
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/22/union-protests-in-wisconsin-could-affect-obamas-chances-in-2012/
Senior Washington Correspondent, AOL
While there may be relatively few union households left, labor leaders argue that what's happening is a
coordinated Republican attack on the entire middle class, noting that all wages and benefits are hurt
when unions lose ground. Indeed, Amy Dean, a longtime labor activist and co-author of "A New New
Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement," said GOP scapegoating of
unions "is no less significant" than when President Ronald Reagan broke the air traffic controllers union in
1981. Organized labor has steadily declined since then. Dean called public employee and teachers
unions "the last firewall" against powerful GOP interests out to destroy the unions. "Republicans made a
major tactical error in taking up this fight now," Dean said. "They've taken a base that was unenthused
and uninspired by this administration and all of a sudden created an opportunity" for Obama to win
over working Americans.
Unique NRLB appointments

Holland 2/19/11
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/480086/union_organizers_give_obama_administration_mixe
d_marks%3B_frustration_growing/
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About
the Economy (and Everything else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate
America).
Wallsten also omits any reference to the National Labor Relations Board, which ultimately has a far
greater impact on the labor movement than the White House's rhetoric about regulating businesses. The
NLRB had been packed with right-wingers, then the 5-member panel had been saddled with 3 vacancies,
and was by and large unable to function. To his credit, Obama, ignoring critics in both parties, used
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recess appointments to add two pro-labor members to the board. Since then, the NLRB's decisions have
more often than not infuriated Big Business and its conservative allies.
Unique TSA unionization

Bloomberg 3/9/11
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-09/screeners-under-obama-may-give-federal-unions-main-winin-years.html
A collective-bargaining vote by airport security workers that starts today may give federal employee
groups their biggest victory in years, even as public workers in some states struggle to keep their union
status. The countrys two largest federal-employee unions are competing to represent the 44,000
screeners who can cast their ballots through April 19. The effort, which Senate Republicans failed to stop
last month, may raise Transportation Security Administration costs if workers push through changes such
as increased staffing. Its a historic election, said John Gage, president of the 600,000-member
American Federation of Government Employees, which is vying to represent the screeners. This is the
biggest labor vote in probably 25 years. The workers would be the largest-ever group brought into the
union at one time, he said in a telephone interview. Gage and Colleen Kelley, president of the competing
National Treasury Employees Union, with about 150,000 members, expect one of them will prevail over
another option -- no union at all. Thats in contrast to states such as Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey,
where public workers are fighting reductions in benefits and bargaining rights and not expecting gains.
Its really a big deal, Kelley said in a telephone interview. This is the largest election that has ever been
held in the federal sector. President Barack Obama, a Democrat who won the White House with labor
support, is allowing the vote. Republican President George W. Bushs administration blocked union
organization in January 2003, more than a year after the agency was created. Political Kickback
President Obama made this decision for one reason: to give a political kickback to the union bosses who
poured money into his campaign, Senator James DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, said in a
statement e-mailed by his spokesman.
Obama winning unions outreach and Wisconsin

Wallstein 2/19/11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/18/AR2011021807507.html
Peter Wallsten is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who covers national politics. Wallsten joined the
Journal in October 2009 from the Los Angeles Times, where he authored, with Tom Hamburger, One
Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century. A graduate of the University of
North Carolina and a Chapel Hill native, he worked previously at the Miami Herald, St. Petersburg Times,
Charlotte Observer and the Congressional Quarterly. He lives in Washington, D.C. Wallsten is partially
blind as a result of Stargardt disease, which is a genetically inherited form of macular degeneration. In
June 2006, this caused an exchange of words with President George W. Bush at a White House press
conference. Unaware of the journalist's medical condition, the president questioned Wallsten's need to
wear sunglasses when the sun wasn't visible. Bush later apologized for the incident.
Still, Obama aides and administration officials have made an effort in recent weeks to ease tensions.
Obama's new chief of staff, William M. Daley, a former banking executive and Chamber board member
whose arrival was greeted with suspicion by union leaders, has quietly sought to find allies. He trekked
this month to AFL-CIO headquarters two blocks from the White House for a sit-down with Trumka, who
weeks earlier issued a cool statement when Daley was appointed. And even as tensions have simmered
between administration officials and teachers unions over Obama's support for overhauling public
schools, the White House and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have sought to forge closer ties with
teacher advocates. Duncan, urging compromise, this week hosted a summit in Denver for union activists
and school administrators. "In the past year or so there's been a pretty constructive dialogue," said Randi
Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers. Weingarten's
members in Wisconsin are among the thousands demonstrating against Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to
roll back collective-bargaining rights for teachers and many other public workers. She praised Obama for
his assertion that the plan was an "assault" on unions.
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OBAMA WINNING UNIONS 2NR: WISCONSIN EXTENSIONS

Obama winning unions - Wisconsin
Stone 2/22/11
But last week he called Walker's bill an "assault" on unions. Democratic Party officials have worked with
the president's blessing to mobilize protests in Madison and other state capitals. Obama's support was
welcomed by union members who have had little to cheer about during his administration. Many in the
Midwest are demoralized by his support for free trade agreements that they say have sent good-paying
jobs overseas. They also haven't appreciated his alignment with former D.C. public schools Chancellor
Michelle Rhee, an implacable foe of the teachers unions. Still, the budget battles in the states have
reinvigorated hopes on the national level, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. "This helps at least in
the short run to mobilize and unite the Democratic base," she said.
Obama winning unions Republican attacks

New York Times 2/20/11
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/us/politics/21democrats.html
While Republicans seized the opportunity to depict Mr. Obama as siding against deficit-cutting efforts,
some Democrats and union organizers said the political benefit ultimately could be theirs. This has really
kind of put a shot in the arm of the unions and Democratic base, said Eddie Vale, the political
communications director at the A.F.L.-C.I.O., who is returning to Madison on Monday, when even bigger
demonstrations are expected on a federal holiday. If Republicans keep trying to do the same thing in
state after state, theyre just going to be building the 2012 get-out-the-vote operation for Democrats.
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UNIQUENESS: GOLDILOCKS
Obamas perfectly spilt the difference over Wisconsin
Christian Science Monitor 2/25/11
Ln
But Obama has, for the most part, stayed out of the Wisconsin imbroglio, and in fact, political analysts
say, in not carving out an intricate "middle way," Obama has played it right. "The biggest danger in
some ways was for him to be consumed by this issue," says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and
public affairs at Princeton University. "That hasn't happened." Staying on message Instead, Obama has
remained focused on his jobs message. As things stand now, getting the unemployment rate down from
its current 9 percent to closer to 8 percent by Election Day is his most important reelection task. The
president did weigh in on Wisconsin late last week, saying that "some of what I've heard ... seems like
more of an assault on unions." He referenced in particular Gov. Scott Walker's effort to curtail public
employees' collective bargaining rights. The group Organizing for America - Obama's old political
network that is now part of the Democratic National Committee - had encouraged volunteers to support
the protests, but party officials say the White House was not involved. During his first two years in office,
Obama at times derailed his main message by commenting on a side issue - such as the mistaken arrest
in 2009 of a black Harvard scholar by a white police officer in Cambridge, Mass., which ignited a week of
public discussion about race relations, rather than health-care reform. Obama's new message discipline
can be attributed partly to his staff shakeup - a new chief of staff, William Daley, and new top political
adviser, David Plouffe, both of whom are seen as more organized than their predecessors. Obama
"There's a maturity to the situation," says Democratic strategist Peter Fenn. "When you're president of the
United States, you don't just go running around saying whatever comes into your mind." Mr. Fenn agrees
that Obama has handled Wisconsin correctly. He's made it clear where he stands, but has not jumped in
with both feet.
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AT OVER-U: UNIONS LOCKED IN

Unions can still shift either way; its super crucial
Sarlin 3/14/11
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/gop-war-on-unions-could-boost-president-obama-in2012.php?ref=fpi
Capitol Hill reporter for TPM
Certainly firing up union households could be a boon -- they made up only 17% of the electorate in 2010,
down from 21% in 2008. Democrats' hold on their votes is hardly ironclad either, with only 59% of
union households backing Obama in his first presidential race. In an analysis of the union vote's overall
impact, Nate Silver determined that a gain of even a few percentage points in support could prove a
significant obstacle to Republican presidential hopes.
Unions are still with Obama, but its close

Associated Press 3/12/11
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mobile/?type=story&id=2014480736&
Union leaders urged Vice President Joseph Biden during a White House meeting last month to go to
Wisconsin and rally the faithful in their fight against Gov. Scott Walker's move to curtail collectivebargaining rights for most public employees. Request rebuffed, they asked for Labor Secretary Hilda
Solis. So far, however, the White House has stayed away from any trips to Madison, the state capital, or
other states in the throes of union battles. The Obama administration is treading carefully on the
contentious political issue that has led to a national debate over the power that public-sector unions wield
in negotiating wages and benefits. A few labor leaders have complained openly that President Obama is
ignoring a campaign pledge he made to stand with unions; most others say his public comments have
been powerful enough. The stakes are high as Obama looks toward a grueling re-election campaign.
Unions still stay home or shift focus even if they dont party switch
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mobile/?type=story&id=2014480736&
Obama has called Walker's proposal an "assault on unions" and urged governors not to vilify public
workers. After the state Senate relied on a procedural move Thursday to pass the anti-bargaining-rights
measure without any Democrats in the chamber, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama thinks
it is wrong for Wisconsin to use its budget troubles "to denigrate or vilify public-sector employees." Solis
also pledged her support for public employees on a phone call with thousands of members of the
Communications Workers of America. "Budget sacrifices are one thing but, demanding that workers give
up their voice is another," the labor secretary told the union members. But asked whether Solis would go
to Wisconsin or any other state where protesters are rallying, spokesman Carl Fillichio said she's
"keeping an eye on the situation." DeMoro, from the nurses' union, has been reminding Obama about his
2007 campaign promise to walk with union members. She has even sent out news releases offering to
buy the president a pair of shoes to march with demonstrators. "Standing with the embattled workers
would be an important symbol," DeMoro said. There's no question that Obama will keep getting strong reelection support from organized labor. But he stands the risk that unions won't be as enthusiastic if he is
too aloof about the attack on bargaining rights. On the other hand, it's possible that unions will be so
consumed with their own efforts to save bargaining rights, recall governors or other issues of selfpreservation that they won't have the time to work on Obama's behalf with full vigor. Schoen, the
Democratic consultant, said Obama is "trying to have it both ways." If the budget-cutting tactics of Walker
and GOP Gov. John Kasich of Ohio are successful, Obama doesn't want to be seen as aggressively
taking sides, Schoen said. If they fail, the president can say he was always on the side of the unions.
Most union leaders have praised Obama in public for offering support with his words.
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AT NU - EPA GREENHOUSE REGS

EPA backing off BECAUSE of unions proves our link
Power 3/14/11
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704076804576180384094409812.html
wall street journal
Now that labor unions are joining the chorus, the pressure on the agency is intensifying. Some
Democrats, worried about potential job losses in industrial states, are already urging the EPA to slow
down its push to combat climate change.
EPA officials say such criticisms are premature, since some of the rules in question have yet to be
proposed, and that history shows the benefits of tougher environmental rules greatly outweigh the costs.
But on some issues, the EPA has begun to slow the pace of its efforts, saying publicly that it needs
more time to consider the science behind them or review comments from affected groups.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, or her top aide on air quality, Regina McCarthy, has recently spoken with
representatives of several unions that collectively have given tens of millions of dollars over the years to
Democratic candidates. Among them: the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the
International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, the Utility Workers Union and the United Mine Workers.
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AT NU- SKFTA
Obama not pushing SKFTA because of this
Hadar 3/15/11
Business Times Singapoire, LN
Leon Hadar, is a global affairs analyst, journalist, blogger and author. A long-time critic of American policy
in the Middle East,[1] Hadar is a research fellow with the Cato Institute,[2] a contributing editor for the
American Conservative and a regular contributor to Chronicles and Reason and a regular blogger on The
Huffington Post. Hadar has published numerous analyses and commentaries on U.S. global diplomatic
and trade policies, with a special focus on the Middle East and East and South Asia. Hadar is the author
of two books on U.S. policy in the Middle East, Quagmire: America in the Middle East (Cato Institute,
1992), and Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Hadar also served
as a foreign policy advisor to the Ron Paul 2008 presidential camapaign.[3]
Even supporters of the Obama administration insist that when it comes to global trade issues, President
Obama has failed to assume a strong leadership position. Part of the problem has to do with the White
House's reluctance to antagonise powerful political allies in the Democratic Party and the labour unions
whose support the president would need when he runs for re-election next year.
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AT CARD CHECK / WAGE FREEZE THUMPERS

Midwest union battles overcame previous beef
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/19/obama-offers-tactical-support-unions-statebudget-battles/#ixzz1GLd5y4rG
The president waded into the fight between Walker and unions when he told a Milwaukee television
station that any effort to make it harder for public employees to engage in collective bargaining "seems
like more of an assault on unions." Obama's political arm at the Democratic National Committee,
Organizing for America, helped mobilize demonstrators in coordination with unions. Democratic Party
officials also are watching government-labor disputes in Ohio and Indiana to see if the party should step
in there, too. Such visible support for public sector workers signals an effort by Obama's organization to
smooth a sometimes rocky relationship with some in the labor movement. Unions have sought
reassurance from the White House that Obama is not pulling away from them as he ratchets up his
overtures to business. Union leaders have criticized Obama's proposal to freeze federal wages and they
were disappointed that the White House didn't push harder to pass "card check" legislation when
Democrats ran Congress. That measure would have required every employer to recognize a union if a
majority of workers signed cards instead of holding secret ballot elections.
***2012 UNIQ
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!!!OBAMA WILL WIN: 2NC MUST-READ

Obama will win 53%: Polls, approval ratings, independents, coalitions, electoral
math
Padova 3/6/11
http://www.eagletribune.com/opinion/x1609122944/Obama-is-still-the-odds-on-favorite-for-re-election
Faculty, Geography, History, and Government, Northern Essex College
He has been employed in the field of education for 26 years, the last four at Northern Essex teaching
geography, urban geography, western and world civilization, U.S. history, American government & politics
and Quest for the Presidency.
Outside of the classroom, Padova has volunteered on eight presidential campaigns and wrote about his
experiences in a 2007 book, First In The Nation: One Insiders View of the New Hampshire Presidential
Primary, 1980 to 2004, With a Look Ahead to 2008.During 2009, Padova will release an updated version
of this book.
Well, at this time, let me be the first to publicly predict on the editorial pages of The Eagle-Tribune the
likely re-election of President Obama. Here's why: Polls. According to recent Gallup polling data, Obama
is either tied with or slightly ahead of an unnamed or generic Republican candidate. Four out of 10
Republicans have no opinion or do not prefer any candidate. The most frequently mentioned name Mitt
Romney loses to Obama by five points, according to data from Public Policy Polling. The same data
shows Obama creaming Sarah Palin by 17 points. What does all of this mean? First of all, while Obama
is certainly vulnerable, it will also be virtually impossible to find an actual person who can live up to
everyone's preferred image of a generic Republican nominee. And in this current cycle, the GOP
frontrunners are all fairly weak or flawed. The race is wide open. Secondly, while early polls often reflect
name recognition as much as viability, early GOP frontrunners historically tend to win their party's
nomination, with the notable exception of 2008 candidate Rudy Giuliani. Advantage, Romney. Approval
ratings. According to Gallup, Obama's approval rating has averaged 52 percent from inauguration to the
present. Approval ratings are very strong predictors of an incumbent president's re-election. Historically,
presidents who have averaged 50 percent or better throughout a presidential election year have all been
re-elected. According to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Obama's approval rating is at 53
percent, which represents a small but significant improvement. While 2012 doesn't begin for another 10
months, if Obama is able to average 50 percent or better during the upcoming presidential election year,
then a second term is likely and advantage, Obama. The independent vote. According to Gallup,
registered Democrats and Republicans each account for 30 percent of the electorate, with independents
(aka unaffiliated, unenrolled) accounting for 40 percent. Since each party is starting with a base of roughly
one-third of the electorate, it's the remaining 40 percent that are up for grabs. In every presidential
election, the major-party candidate who gets most of the independent vote wins. Indeed, independents
played a decisive role in the nomination and subsequent election of Obama in 2008. According to Gallup,
Obama currently has 40 percent or less of the independent vote. While this can be interpreted as an
ominous sign, it will perhaps also steer Obama more towards the political center, where presidential
elections are won. And, if the Republicans happen to nominate a doctrinaire conservative, then it's over
for them. Potential advantage, Obama. Coalition building. FDR did it, and so did Bill Clinton both quite
successfully. Obama's winning 2008 coalition non-whites, women and younger voters will likely hold
for 2012, but he will have to work at it. Similarly, a united front will be very important for the GOP in 2012.
At the moment, however, this is shaping up to be a daunting task. With a hodgepodge of possible
candidates, constituencies and personalities ranging from tea partiers to Newt Gingrich to Sarah Palin to
Mike Huckabee to even Donald Trump making noise out there, one cannot help but wonder (even
Republicans no doubt) who will bring the party together and how. Advantage, Obama. The Electoral
College. It's true what they say presidential elections are won in the Electoral College. We most
definitely have an indirect election system in our country when it comes to presidents. As each state is
assigned a certain number of electoral votes based on their population (more population means more
electoral votes) math takes on real importance here. With that in mind, and looking at current electoral
votes, I'll start Obama with a base of 146, or 54 percent of the 270 needed. My estimation is based on the
top states where, according to Gallup, Obama's job approval ratings are at their highest, plus the District
of Columbia. These states are Hawaii, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Rhode Island, Illinois and California. Obama carried all 10 in 2008 and can be expected to do likewise in
2012. If we add in some crucial battleground states that tilt Democratic, were won by Obama in 2008 or
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where Gallup shows decent Obama approval ratings, another 154 electoral votes are contributed to the
pot, bringing Obama's total to 300 exactly, 30 more than needed. This formula takes into account the
West Coast, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, the upper Midwest, the entire Northeast, Virginia and North
Carolina. Advantage, Obama. To summarize, while the economy, unemployment, health care,
Afghanistan and other issues will certainly be factors, people vote their pocketbooks bottom line.
According to the New York Times, Yale economist Raymond Fair is predicting almost 4 percent economic
growth in 2012, with a corresponding Obama landslide. According to most other forecasts, growth in the
more modest 3 percent range is likely, which in my opinion still produces an Obama victory. Decent
economic growth plus progress with unemployment is key. Here's my prediction: on November 6, 2012,
it'll be Obama-Biden with 53 percent of the popular vote and 300 electoral votes over RomneyPerry that's Texas Governor Rick Perry.
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OBAMA WINNING ELECTION

Winning incumbency,
Financial Times 3/9/11
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c6b534a-4a87-11e0-82ab-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Gc5odG5E
In the aftermath of Novembers mid-term elections, the sound of Republicans crowing could be heard
across the US. After wresting back control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats, and
coming within a whisker of regaining the Senate, Republican luminaries were falling over themselves to
predict that the White House would be in Republican hands after 2012. The severity of the voters verdict
on two years of Democratic dominance in Washington prompted President Barack Obama, to concede
that his party had taken a shellacking.
So it is striking that barely five months on, the main contenders for the Republican nomination are coy
about their plans for 2012. At this stage in the last electoral cycle, there were already eight Republican
and 10 Democratic declarations. This time around, more Republicans have ruled themselves out than in.
Admittedly, back in 2007, the incumbent president could not stand again. But the first primary is less than
a year away. That is not long for aspiring White House occupants to organise and raise funds.
This reticence is not due to a sudden outbreak of modesty among Republican hopefuls. Despite
Novembers drubbing, Mr Obama retains formidable advantages. Only three sitting presidents have been
ditched by voters since the second world war and, though his first two years have been difficult, Mr
Obamas approval rating remains at about 48 per cent. Moreover, the president is among the best
fundraisers American politics has seen. Running against him will not be cheap.
Winning - Republican dropouts prove

Shaller 3/13/11
http://www.salon.com/news/2012_elections/?story=/politics/war_room/2011/03/13/schaller_2012_gop
Thomas F. Schaller is associate professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
County and the author of "Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South." More:
Thomas F. Schaller
The Ides of March are almost upon us, but few potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates seem to
have their eyes fixed squarely on the White House. As Salon's Steve Kornacki argued recently, the most
obvious reason for the largely vacant GOP field -- sorry, Herman Cain -- is that the prospects of a
Republican beating a once-again formidable Barack Obama seem rather bleak. The 2012 Republican
nomination may be a prize not worth winning
Winning - Intrade caps at 65% and its the best

Manuel 3/6/11
http://www.davemanuel.com/2011/03/06/intrade-com-president-obamas-reelection-chancesstrengthening/
investment advisor
Intrade.com is a widely followed "prediction market" where people can buy and sell predictions for real
money. For instance, if you wanted to bet on the Democrats holding the White House back in December
of 2010, then you could have bought a share for $5.59 (this translates to 55.9%, as the maximum value of
a share is $10). If the Democrats hold the White House in 2012, then your $5.59 share would be worth
the maximum of $10 (which translates to 100%). If the Democrats lose the White House in 2012, then
your share would be worthless. Because people are actually putting down real money on these buys
and sells, the estimates tend to be fairly accurate. -- As mentioned, the going rate on the Democrats
winning in 2012 was $5.59 per share back in December, which translated into the party having a 55.9%
chance of winning. A great deal has transpired since mid-December. The Middle East and Northern Africa
have erupted into chaos and anarchy, while the US economy seems to be finally turning the corner. Have
the last three months helped or hurt the Democrats? According to Intrade.com, the answer is - helped.
As it stands right now, the "Democratic Party candidate to win 2012 Presidential Election" contract would
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cost you $6.25. This means that, according to Intrade.com, President Obama (assuming that he is the
Democratic Presidential nominee in 2012) has a 62.5% chance of winning in 2012. -- The going rate for
the "Republican Party candidate to win the 2012 Presidential Election" is currently $3.50, meaning that
Intrade.com believes that there is a 35% chance of the Republicans winning in 2012.
winning Republicans concede and best historical data

Kornacki 3/1/11
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/03/01/obama_2012_comeback
Steve Kornacki is the news editor for Salon. Hes previously written about politics for the New York
Observer and Roll Call, and his work has also appeared in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal
and on the Daily Beast.
At Politico on Monday, Jonathan Martin does a nice job explaining the "reality check" that Republicans are
now waking up to: Barack Obama seems to be in decent political shape as the 2012 cycle begins, while
"breezy predictions of Obama turning out to be the next Jimmy Carter were premature." That it's come to
this shouldn't be that surprising. As we noted over and over last year as Obama and his fellow Democrats
braced for a midterm drubbing, the two-year verdict on a presidency is often extremely misleading -- as
the examples of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both attest. With his party running Washington and with
the economy reeling, it was pretty much inevitable that the first half of Obama's first term would play out
the way it did. What is surprising, though, is how quickly it's come to this. When Reagan and Clinton
suffered miserable midterms, they were both written off -- by their political opponents, by the media and
even by members of their own party -- as sure one-termers, and the assessment held until well into their
third years in office. Remember that Clinton's defensive assertion of his own relevance as president
came not in the immediate wake of November 1994 midterms, but more than five months later, on April
18, 1995. By that point, the Republican presidential field for 1996 was pretty much in place. And even
though Clinton's poll numbers showed steady improvement in the months after that (while support for the
GOP Congress and its public face, Newt Gingrich, collapsed), conventional wisdom late in '95 still held
that Clinton was the clear underdog heading into '96. For instance, when a poll in early November '95 -just before the famous government shutdown -- showed Clinton's approval climbing to an 18-month high
(52 percent) and gave him a 10-point lead (53 to 43 percent) over GOP front-runner Bob Dole, political
analyst Stuart Rothenberg offered this assessment on CNN:
Frankly, I don't think the president is quite
as strong as he now appears for a couple of reasons. One, I expect the political debate to be very
different next spring and next summer, with different sorts of issues being addressed including tax reform;
and second of all, I was looking at some of these state polls, and Bill Clinton is leading Bob Dole in
Virginia, in Arizona, in Florida. I don't know anybody who follows these sorts of polls and these races who
believes that the president is really going to win those states. Of course, Clinton went on to carry Florida
over Dole with ease in '96. He also won Arizona and finished less than 2 points shy of victory in Virginia.
Overall, Clinton netted 379 electoral votes after a campaign that is now remembered (if it is remembered
at all) for being particularly boring, uneventful and predictable. But it wasn't until the end of 1995 and the
early months of 1996 that it began dawning on the political class that this would be the outcome. Until
then, the "Republican Revolution" of '94 had distorted most political analysis: Look how thoroughly
Americans had rejected Clinton and his party -- there's just no way they'll rally back to the Democrats two
years later! Similarly, it wasn't until well into 1983 that conventional wisdom about Reagan's prospects
shifted. Immediately after the '82 midterms, it was widely assumed that he wouldn't stand for reelection in
1984 (when he'd be 73). And if he did run, many believed that Reagan would face a serious challenge in
the Republican primaries, with a growing number of conservative activists convinced he'd sold them out.
Jack Kemp, Jesse Helms and William Armstrong all saw their names floated as potential challengers. By
early '83, a crowded Democratic pack -- headlined by a former vice president (Walter Mondale) and a
genuine American hero (John Glenn) -- was off and running for the right to oppose Reagan. Only after
several quarters of strong economic growth in 1983 did Democrats and the media begin taking seriously
the idea that Reagan was well-positioned to win a second term -- which he ended up doing in a 49-state
landslide. But with Obama -- whose party lost more than 60 House seats, six Senate seats, and a slew of
governorships and state legislative chambers last fall -- this evolution of conventional wisdom has played
out at warp speed. Barely a month after the midterms, prominent conservatives were already admitting
that he was looking good to win a second term. On Dec. 17, Charles Krauthammer branded Obama the
new "comeback kid," and a few days later, Michael Barone warned his fellow conservatives that Obama
was well-positioned for '12. By early January, Karl Rove was calling Obama "a slight favorite" for
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reelection. And lately, Mike Huckabee -- who might be the front-runner for the GOP nomination, if only
he'd get in the race -- has been making headlines by talking up Obama's strength, as he did to Politico:
"The people that are sitting around saying, 'Hes definitely going to be a one-term president. Its going to
be easy to take him out,' theyre obviously political illiterates -- political idiots, let me be blunt." Thus, the
Republican presidential field for 2012 is now most notable for its lack of depth. No one, it seems, wants to
be the first to jump in, and those who seem most interested in running have clear, significant liabilities.
Meanwhile, potentially stronger prospects like Huckabee, Chris Christie and (maybe) Jeb Bush seem
content to wait for 2016.
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OBAMA WINNING 65%

2-1 shot consensus and Intrade
Bookman 2/28/11
http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2011/02/28/obama-almost-2-1-favorite-to-win-re-election/?
cxntfid=blogs_jay_bookman_blog
Will President Obama win re-election in 2012? Karl Rove concedes that his chances are pretty good. I
consider him a favorite, albeit a slight favorite, Rove told Politico. Republicans underestimate President
Obama at their own peril. Mike Huckabee, a potential challenger, isnt among those making that mistake.
The people that are sitting around saying, Hes definitely going to be a one-term president. Its going to
be easy to take him out, theyre obviously political illiterates political idiots, let me be blunt, he said.
That may explain why Huckabee and others havent been eager to jump into the race. I suspect theyre
waiting to see how the coming budget confrontation plays out between Obama and Washington
Republicans before making their final go/no go decision At Intrade, investors can invest in markets
trying to determine the chances that Arctic ice in 2011 will be greater than that in 2007 (43 percent),
whether physicists will observe the elusive Higgs Boson particle by 2012 (12 percent) or whether the U.S.
will adopt a VAT or sales tax this year (25 percent). The people willing to put their money on the line
have made Obama almost a two-to-one favorite to win re-election.
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OBAMA WILL CRUSH

Obama will win absent disaster
Mullen 3/14/11
http://themoderatevoice.com/103412/why-the-2012-election-is-obamas-to-lose/
Over a long career with newspapers, this award-winning editor and reporter covered the Vietnam War,
O.J. Simpson trials, Clinton impeachment circus and coming of Osama bin Laden, among many other big
stories. Mullen also mentored reporters who went on to be the best in the newspaper and television
business, including two who won Pulitzer Prizes in 2010. He is the author of "The Bottom of the Fox: A
True Story of Love, Devotion & Cold-Blooded Murder."
With the exception of the year 2000, I have picked every winner in every presidential election since I was
old enough to vote for the first time in 1968, and of course the Supreme Court stole that one for Dubya. I
did think that John Kerry had a good chance of wresting the White House from him in 2004, but that was
before I became aware of how hapless a campaigner he was. My batting average is nothing special when
you consider that electoral demographics, as shifty as they can be over the long term, as well as
increasingly accurate public-opinion polling, make it pretty much impossible to pick the loser unless you
are thinking with a part of your anatomy that is below the neck. And so, with only 658 days to go before
the 2012 election, I can say confidently that barring a perfect Republican storm, Barack Obama will be reelected, and that perfect storm is improbable for two sets of reasons.
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AT NU LIBYA
Libya wont impact 2012
Lindsay 3/8/11
http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2011/03/08/will-libya-hurt-obama-in-2012/
James M. Lindsay
Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
Will the administrations slowness in responding to events in Libya hurt Obamas reelection run? Jennifer
Rubin poses that question over at Right Turn. Her answer: Yes, it could. My answer: Almost certainly
not. Rubin has it exactly right that foreign policy doesnt usually figure prominently in presidential
campaigns.
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AT NU FOREIGN POLICY
No one cares about foreign policy
Lindsay 3/8/11
http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2011/03/08/will-libya-hurt-obama-in-2012/
James M. Lindsay
Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
So if Obama goes into the 2012 general election campaign saying he withdrew U.S. troops in Iraq as
promised and has begun drawing down U.S. forces in Afghanistan, he will be in a strong foreign policy
position politically. That will be true regardless of what is happening in Libya (or Belarus or Honduras for
that matter). Obamas biggest foreign policy risk is the opposite of what Rubin supposes, namely,
becoming entangled in Libya. Should the United States intervene in Libya and find itself trapped, Obama
will pay a steep political price. And GOP candidates will be his most vocal critics.
The second reason to doubt that Libya will matter in 2012 is a weak U.S. economy and a federal budget
bleeding red ink. Domestic issues almost certainly will trump foreign policy ones in 2012. Indeed, if
you could guarantee White House officials that foreign policy will shove domestic policy aside during the
election campaign, they almost certainly would be pleased. If GOP presidential candidates are talking
Hugo Chavez and Bahsar al-Assad rather than unemployment rates and trillion dollar deficits, then
Obamas second term is assured.
***2012 UNIONS
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!! UNIONS KEY TO 2012 - $$$ + TURNOUT + U

Unions swing 2012 with turnout and money Obama WINNING
Sarlin 3/14/11
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/gop-war-on-unions-could-boost-president-obama-in2012.php?ref=fpi
Capitol Hill reporter for TPM
Scott Walker may have won the legislative battle over collective bargaining, but the political damage from
the Wisconsin standoff as well as similar battles in other states could follow Republicans all the way to
2012. Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana are each embroiled in battles with unions, each are considered
battleground presidential states, and each swung hard right in the midterm elections after going for
Obama in 2008. Political observers suggest that a newly re-energized union vote could have a
profound impact in all three states the next time around -- and perhaps across the country. "Given
the intensity of emotion that Wisconsin has generated, supplemented by actions in other states, it's very
possible that there will be ripple effects all the way to November 2012," Larry Sabato, Director of the
University of Virginia's Center for Politics, told TPM. "Unions see this struggle as life-or-death, so they are
bound to put extra resources into the swing states that are the epicenter of this controversy." Sabato
cautioned that Democratic gains might be offset by Republicans getting fired up as well, but given the
significant "enthusiasm gap" between the two last November, any boost in turnout is likely a net gain for
Democrats. "It could be that higher turnout all around in 2012 will be the main result, though Democrats
tend to gain more when turnout goes up since it means that more minorities and young people are
participating," he said.
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UNION KEY TO 2012: TURNOUT

Union TURNOUT key to Obama 2012
Zito 3/13/11
http://townhall.com/columnists/salenazito/2011/03/13/unions_skittish_over_obama/page/2
Salena Zito is a political analyst, reporter and editorial page columnist. She has also reported on
Pennsylvania politics for The Weekly Standard. A board member of the Center for Media & Public Policy
at the Heritage Foundation, Salena Zito honed her skills working on the campaigns of George H.W. Bush,
Senator Rick Santorum, Bush2000, Bush-Cheney 2004 served on the senate staff of U.S. Senator Arlen
Specter. Salena Zito has interviewed one on one Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director General Hayden, Homeland Security Director Chertoff, Attorney
General Gonzales and First Lady Laura Bush. Zito spends a third of her time on the road interviewing
legislators as well as current policy makers.
Democrats count on unions in every election. Last falls midterm exit polling showed that households with
at least one union voter did not show at the polls; their numbers were down a staggering 6 points from the
2006 midterm. That anemic turnout contributed to the Democrats thrashing in local, state and federal
races across the country, leaving Democrats to wonder how to re-energize their union base. Enter
Republican Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin: By deciding to take on public-sector unions, he awakened
their sleeping masses. Obamas campaign arm, the Democratic National Committee/Organizing for
America, swung into action; turnouts for rallies were built, phone banks organized, signs made, union
members from around the country bused to Wisconsins capitol, in matching-color t-shirts. Wisconsin
Senate Democrats ran away to avoid a vote on the budget, soon followed by Democrats in Indianas state
legislature. I know the Indiana State Democratic Party has been pouring money into the support of its
hold-out legislators camping out in the stronghold of Democratic political refugees, Illinois, says
Purdue University political science professor Bert Rockman. The DNC/OFA is funneling money to state
parties in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, Rockman says. Have Democrats found their 2012
version of the Tea Party something to ramp-up their base and independent voters as Republican
governors in state after state take on broke state budgets? (They certainly could use something: A
Reuters poll late last week showed Obamas approval rating among independents diving to 37 percent,
down 10 points from the previous month.) At this point, it's mainly helping to energize our base, said
one respected strategist for Democrats. In Wisconsin in particular, Walker's over-reaching and
intransigence is helping with independent voters.
Union turnout key to election

Silver 2/26/11
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/the-effects-of-union-membership-on-democraticvoting/
former East Lansing debater
Specifically, 64 percent of union members in the Annenberg data set voted for Barack Obama. By
contrast, if these same voters were not members of unions but every other demographic characteristic
were held constant, the analysis predicts that 52 percent of them would have voted for Mr. Obama
anyway. Thus, the marginal impact of being a union member on the likelihood on voting for Mr. Obama
was 12 percentage points (64 percent less 52 percent) on average. Because about 10 percent of voters in
the study were union members, this boosted Mr. Obamas overall vote share by 1.2 percentage points.
There was also an effect from voters who were not members of a union themselves, but had someone
else in their household who was (these voters are designated as union member in household in the
chart). These respondents, which represent about 5 percent of the Annenberg data set, were between 8
and 9 percentage points more likely to vote for Mr. Obama than they otherwise would be. This improved
Mr. Obamas overall vote share by a further 0.5 points. Combined, the union voters and the unionhousehold voters improved Mr. Obamas share of the vote by 1.7 percentage points, according to the
model. This is almost exactly identical, you might notice, to the quick-and-dirty estimate provided by the
exit poll. But note that the Annenberg sample contained somewhat fewer union voters about 15
percent, counting both union members and voters in union households than did the exit poll (21
percent), possibly because it did not use a likely voter model. If we assume that the our analysis of the
Annenberg data was correct as to the magnitude of the effect of union affiliation, but that the exit poll was
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correct as to the share of union voters in the actual electorate, then the net effect on Mr. Obamas vote
was 2.4 percentage points. Also, our study is measured in terms of the marginal effect on Mr. Obamas
vote. But the way that we have designed the analysis, any votes that did not go to Mr. Obama instead
went to Senator John McCain. Therefore, the impact on the margin between the two candidates was
twice as large: not 2.4 points, but 4.8 points. This is fairly meaningful. Of the last 10 elections in which the
Democratic candidate won the popular vote (counting 2000, when Al Gore lost in the Electoral College),
he did so by 4.8 points or fewer on 4 occasions (2000, 1976, 1960, 1948). So, while the impact of union
voting is not gigantic in the abstract, it has the potential to sway quite a few presidential elections,
since presidential elections are usually fairly close.
Channeling union rage key to 2012

Poe 3/14/11
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/ad-lib/2011/mar/14/wisconsin-unleashed-politicaltsunami/
Catherine Poe has been a Liberal for as long as she can remember. Last year, Catherine was named
one of the top Progressives in Maryland along with Senator Barbara Mikulski and Congresswoman Donna
Edwards. As past president of Long Island NOW, she worked to reform women s prisons in New York,
open the construction trades to women, change laws to safeguard battered women, and protect the rights
of rape victims.
Democrats need to look at the gigantic demonstrations in the Midwest, bigger than the Tea Party rallies
bused onto the National Mall, as well as understand what the polls are telling us. The Middle Class at last
has awakened to the new reality: the enemy is not us. If this be class warfare, then so be it. The Middle
Class did not start this war. But if the demonstrators are any indicator, they will finish it and at the polls.
Republicans, be afraid, be very afraid. And Democrats, be bold and lead, or be swept away by the
political tsunami thats coming.
Union mobilization key to 2012

Stone 2/22/11
Larry Sabato, a longtime election handicapper at the University of Virginia, said both parties have been
revved up over the clash, but the outcome is likely to matter more for Democrats. "It could be a life-ordeath battle for some of the unions, and they are critical to Democrats' electoral success," he said.
"President Obama is trying to build back into his coalition the energy they had in 2008. If hope won't do it
a second time, then fear might."
Union mobilization key to 2012

Stone 2/22/11
But the president will need to harmonize some if unions, the bedrock of the party's get-out-the-vote
efforts, are to turn out big for him next year. "These governors have stirred a hornet's nest," said
Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank partially funded by labor
unions. "The resulting activism will help any elected official or candidate who is in sync with the need to
strengthen the middle class and sees the right to seek collective bargaining as something people deserve
to have, as the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights does."
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UNION KEY TO 2012: $$$

Union monies key to Obama 2012
Hemingway 2/18/11
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/18/133874808/weekly-standard-obamas-war-on-the-states
Mark Hemingway is an editorial page writer for the Washington Examiner.
So why does the Democratic Party think this issue is a winner for them? It's not about winning hearts and
minds. It is about straight up payback. In case one needs reminding, the single largest supplier of
campaign cash last year was the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. One
union gave Democrats a whopping $87.5 million. AFSCME's head of political operations even told the
Wall Street Journal, "We're the big dog ... But we don't like to brag." So in other words, the biggest
campaign donor in American politics is trying to influence politicians by essentially recycling tax dollars in
the form of union dues taken from the salaries of goverment workers. The inherrent conflict of interest is
so brazen that even FDR was opposed to public sector unionism on principle. In total, unions spent in
excess of $400 million electing Barack Obama in 2008. If the Obama campaign wants to raise $1 billion
for the 2012 campaign, they're going to have to do everything they can to get unions on board.
Obama concessions key to spur crucial union fundraising

Clabough 2/23/11
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/6432-union-influence-with-the-obamaadministration
Raven Clabough was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She received both her Bachelor's and Master's
Degree in English at the University at Albany.
As the relationship between the Obama administration and the labor movement has been strained,
resulting from the Presidents pledge to freeze federal wages and his administrations failure to pass card
check legislation, some Democrats assert the importance of supporting the unions at this juncture in
order to keep a large portion of the Democratic constituency. Democratic pollster Mark Mellman notes, I
think Democrats here are upholding the right principle. Failing to give support to this principle would be a
real problem as far as the Democratic constituency is concerned. Similarly, as unions have been major
contributors to Democratic campaigns having spent $400 million in 2008 alone, much of which went to
the election of President Obama the Daily Caller reports, With President Obama facing reelection in
less than two years, the president and his campaign team do not want to be on the wrong side of this
union fight.
Union money key to 2012 only way to offset corporations

Keen and Kauchon 2/21
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-02-21-RW_publicunions20_ST_N.htm
Union support will be vital to Democrats next year, especially in battleground states such as Wisconsin, to
offset the flow of corporate funds into campaigns allowed by a 2010 Supreme Court decision. Last year,
11.9% of U.S. workers were represented by unions, down from 20% in 1983, the Labor Department says.
"If Wisconsin legislators stand strong, it will embolden other state legislators. If they cave, it emboldens
the unions," says Ned Ryun of American Majority, which trains candidates who espouse its limited
government philosophy. "This is the opening salvo of the 2012 elections."
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UNIONS KEY TO 2012: WI

Unions key to 2012 they swing WISCONSIN the TIPPING POINT
Brooks 2/25/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rakim-brooks/wisconsin-doma-and-presid_b_827747.html
Rhodes Scholar studying Political Theory at Oxford University
Mr. Obama's reelection hangs in the balance. Three years ago, Wisconsin appeared a lock for the
president. Candidate Obama won the state by 14% in 2008, and the Badger State has not voted for a
Republican presidential nominee in over 24 years. Yet, in 2010, Wisconsin swung decisively to
Republicans: Russ Feingold lost his re-election bid, and Republicans gained control of the Wisconsin
Assembly, Senate, and Governor's Mansion. For the first time in over two decades, Wisconsin may be a
battleground state during a presidential election. Mr. Obama will not win the White House in 2012
without Wisconsin because, if Wisconsin falls to Republicans, it is likely that other key states, like
Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, will also turn red. In each state, unions are a key Democratic
constituency. As Jim Jordan, a Democratic consultant wrote, "unions are an important part of the core
Democratic coalition -- from a purely mechanical standpoint, they matter in our elections."
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UNIONS KEY 2012: OHIO

Union turnout in Ohio key theyll turn out in squo
Newsweek 2/27/11
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/showdown.html
There are signs, however, that Kasichs bold move may not be worth the political backlash it inspires.
Already, leaders of major public- and private-sector unions nationwide have agreed to set aside their
longstanding divisions and coordinate a campaign to counter anti-union legislation. Thats good news for
Democrats, who managed to rack up $600 million in union donations in 2008 and 2010election cycles
when the groups werent working together. I dont think they realize how big of a hornets nest they
poked, says Dennis Willard, spokesman for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees. If the Ohio bill passes, the pushback will only intensify. In that case, according to Ohio
Democratic chairman Chris Redfern, Democrats will place a repeal provision on the 2012 ballot and
spend the next two years mobilizing and uniting the base in opposition to the new law (and the party that
passed it). That is the great fear the Republican Party has right now, Redfern says. To get a sense of
why, consider some recent election results. In 2006, Democrat Sherrod Brown won by clobbering
incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine 68 percent to 32 percent among union households; four years later, when
Democrats were demoralized, Republican Rob Portman shrank that gap to a mere 4 percentage points
and came out on top. In other words, the better a Democratic candidate does with Ohios 685,000
union members, the more likely he is to win. Victory is not as useful for mobilizing as defeat, says
Green. A ballot initiative can change the nature of the electorate by bringing people out to vote who
wouldnt normally turn out.
Ohios linchpin of 2012 must set the agenda for Dem win
Galston 2/23/11
http://www.tnr.com/article/the-vital-center/83993/obama-2012-reelection-colorado-ohio
William Galston is a former policy advisor to Bill Clinton and current senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution.
The seductiveness of the Colorado model is obvious. But the consequences of succumbing to it could be
dire. The last Democrat to win the presidency without prevailing in Ohio was John F. Kennedy. The
electoral college math worked only because he won South Carolina, Georgia, half of Alabamas electoral
votes, and even Texas, thanks to LBJs presence on the ticket. None of these states is remotely within
Democratic reach today. Ohio is more than a rich pool of votes; it is the closest state we have to a
microcosm of the nation. Barack Obamas path to reelection runs through Ohio and the Midwest, not
around them. And that means taking seriously the concerns of the voters throughout the region who
deserted Democrats in droves last yearAmericans unlikely to be moved by an agenda of high-speed
rail, cleaner energy, and educational reforms that rarely seem to yield good jobs for themselves or their
children. Instead, ratcheting up efforts to boost exports would work better; so would toughening our line
against the excesses of Chinas economic nationalism. In addition, Obama should acknowledge clearly
that no region has gained more from the administrations forward-looking restructuring of the U.S. auto
industry; and none would have lost more if the administration had allowed it to collapse. Despite the
continuing unpopularity of this initiative nationwide, the administration might as well take credit and tout it
full-throatedly. Obama should also use his proposed Infrastructure Bank as the leading edge of a program
to rebuild America that would create large numbers of good jobs that cant be exported. And white
working-class skepticism about the first two years of the administrations economic agenda gives the
president one more reason to participate in broader bipartisan discussions about our fiscal future. Its
easy to claim that the administration need not choose between a Colorado strategy and an Ohio strategy.
At the level of tactics, that may be true. If the Obama campaign raises as much money as, or more than it
did, in 2008, it will be able to organize and advertise everywhere. But at a deeper level, that doesnt hold.
The administration can have only one agenda. If its policy choices over the next 18 months are
directed principally toward mobilizing voters from its base, it will pay a price among the millions
of others without whose support Obama would never have been elected.
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EXT: OHIO UNIONS KEY TO 2012

Outcome of Ohio union battle key to 2012
Newsweek 2/27/11
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/showdown.html
All of which invites an important question: have Republicans gone too far, damaging their political
prospects in the process? Or are Christie, Daniels, Branstad, and Corbett missing some sort of golden
opportunity here? Ohio may be the best place to look for answers. In part thats because Kasich is one of
the only governors still waging war on collective bargaining. But its also because the political stakes are
higher in Ohio than almost anywhere else. In the general assembly, Republicans outnumber Democrats
82 to 50, which means the bill has a better chance of passing than in the more evenly divided Wisconsin
legislature. But it also means a lot of Republican lawmakers now represent union-heavy districts that
usually elect Democrats. If they overreach, they risk losing their seats. The presidential politics are even
chancier. Since 1944, Ohioans have sided with the losing candidate only onceopting for Nixon over
Kennedy in 1960and few Republicans have won the White House without winning the states electoral
votes. Any passions unleashed by the collective-bargain battle could alter the local political landscape
heading into 2012and potentially swing a crucial battleground state. Something like this can tilt the
balance one way or the other quite easily, says John C. Green, a political-science professor at the
University of Akron. It really doesnt take very much in Ohio.
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EXT: OHIO KEY

Ohio key tipping point means WHITE WORKING CLASS is key
Galston 3/8/11
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/84860/obama-election-2012-ohio-president
Institution.
Two weeks ago, I published a piece arguing that the Obama campaign would do better to take Ohio as
their campaign template than to focus on Colorado. Critics pointed out the arithmetic truth that you could
remove Ohio and several other Midwestern states from Obamas 2008 victory column and still have
enough electoral college votes to prevail. Thats true but largely irrelevant. My argument rests on the
fact that Ohio is close to being a microcosm of the countrycloser than any other pivotal state. As such,
winning Ohio is a statistical tipping-point for any presidential election: If a candidate can carry Ohio, he
will have appealed to a large enough slice of the national electorate to have won the states that tilt even
further in his preferred direction, and he is odds-on to win the race. Likewise, a candidate who loses Ohio
will almost certainly lose nationally. Here are the numbers from the six post-Reagan presidential elections:
Over these elections, the Democratic candidates share of the Ohio vote averaged 1.5 points below his
national share. And the winner of Ohio prevailed in the electoral college in all six elections. Compare
these results to those from Pennsylvania, another state often viewed as contested and pivotal.
Democratic candidates averaged about two percentage points above their national performance in
Pennsylvania, but winning that proportion of the votewithout winning enough to carry Ohiois never
sufficient. Gore won in Pennsylvania but lost in Ohio; so did Kerry. Likewise, both Gore and Kerry won in
Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota, because those states are more liberal than Pennsylvania,
but lost the nation as a whole. You might argue that Ohio is less central to the new majority that Obama
forged than it was to Democrats whose appeal was narrower, and theres something to that. But look at
the nine states that Obama won but Kerry didnt. In three of themIndiana, North Carolina, and Florida
his share of the vote was actually lower than in Ohio. Unless his relative appeal among them were to
change, a loss in Ohio would mean losing at least three other swing states as well, putting him on the
brink of defeat. Thats not a chance a sensible campaign would take. As I showed in my first piece on this
subject, a Democratic majority coalition in Ohio doesnt look much like a majority in Colorado. A focus on
Ohio means understanding why Democrats experienced ruinous losses there in 2010and taking
seriously the concerns of the coalition that Democrats need to recreate a majority. Lets be clear about
whats at issue in this debate. In a post-election analysis published in TNR last November 5, Ruy Teixeira
and John Halpin (two thinkers not exactly opposed to the new majority thesis) pointed out that
Democratic reverses among white working-class voters were a major contributor to the 2010 Republican
avalanche: The most significant shift against the Democrats occurred among the white working class
defined here as whites without a four-year college degree. Congressional Democrats lost this group by 10
points in both 2006 and 2008. Yet this deficit ballooned to 29 points in 2010a deficit even larger than the
22 point margin Democrats suffered in 1994. How threatening is that margin? According to an analysis
by Teixeira and Alan Abramowitz, Al Gore lost the white working class vote by 17 points, and John Kerry
lost it by 23. Obama did better than Kerry, holding the gap to 18 points, which helped boost him to victory
throughout the Midwest. Bottom line: Absent an even larger turnout from new majority voters than we
saw in 2008, theres no way that Obama can prevail in 2012 without doing much better among white
working-class voters than Democrats did last year.
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ISSUE UNIQUENESS: UNIONS MOBILIZED FOR ELECTION

Unions mobilized
Brownstein 3/11/11
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/03/gop-white-house-candidates-follow-the-agendainstead-of-setting-it/72360/
Ronald Brownstein, a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of presidential campaigns, is
National Journal Group's Editorial Director, in charge of long-term editorial strategy. He also writes a
weekly column and regularly contributes other pieces for both National Journal and The Atlantic, and
coordinates political coverage and activities across publications produced by Atlantic Media.
The best example is in Wisconsin, where newly elected Gov. Scott Walker is seeking to revoke most
collective-bargaining rights for public employees. Every major Republican presidential hopeful has
endorsed Walker's initiative--which has galvanized conservatives but ignited volcanic resistance from
organized labor. The eventual Republican nominee may still consider that issue a winner in 2012. But
regardless, he (or she) has already locked onto a position that will allow union leaders to present a GOP
White House victory as a threat to the very existence of organized labor. That could electrify rank-and-file
mobilization.
Unions fired up for 2012: wisconsin

Huffington Post 3/10/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/10/wisconsin-loss-for-labor-_n_834369.html
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Todd Richmond, Dinesh Ramde and Jason
Smathers, and videographer Robert Ray in Madison; Carrie Antlfinger in West Allis; and Sam Hananel
and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington.
With the labor movement suffering an epic defeat in Wisconsin, union leaders plan to use the setback to
fire up their members nationwide and mount a major counterattack against Republicans at the ballot box
in 2012. Wisconsin's measure stripping public employees of most bargaining rights swiftly advanced to
GOP Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday, and he promised to sign it as soon as possible. But labor leaders
say the events in Wisconsin have helped galvanize support for unions across the country. They hope to
use the momentum to help fight off other attacks and grow their membership. Said the president of the
AFL-CIO: "I guess I ought to say thank you particularly to Scott Walker. We should have invited him here
today to receive the Mobilizer of the Year award from us!" As several states seek to follow Wisconsin's
lead, newly invigorated public unions are looking ahead to the next election. Democrats are pressing to
recall Republican opponents of organized labor and turn the debate into a focal point of next year's
campaign.
Unions mobilized to fight for Obama

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/19/obama-offers-tactical-support-unions-statebudget-battles/#ixzz1GLd5y4rG
Unions are among the better organized foot soldiers of the Democratic Party, and party officials are wary
of weakening their political motivation. "I think Democrats here are upholding the right principle," said
Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. "Failing to give support to this principle would be a real problem as far
as the Democratic constituency is concerned." Besides lobbying and public demonstrations, the unions
are considering ballot initiatives, costly legal fights and even launching recalls against newly-elected GOP
lawmakers. They are planning to seek help from like-minded progressive groups, immigration activists,
environmentalists and religious leaders. They expect momentum from the protests to spill into the 2012
election cycle, when they can try to punish Republicans they accuse of overreaching. Unions are focusing
on the states with the most serious attacks and where they have the strongest ability to fight: Florida,
Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
Wisconsin.
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FUNDRAISING NOW AT LONG TF

Money race happening now
Isikoff 3/14/11
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/14/6266822-obama-2012-let-the-12-money-race-begin
Michael Isikoff (b. Syosset, New York, 1952) is an investigative journalist for the United States-based
magazine Newsweek. He joined the magazine as an investigative correspondent in June, 1994, and has
written extensively on the U.S. governments War on Terrorism, the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner
abuse, campaign finance and congressional ethics abuses, presidential politics and other national issues.
On July 1, 2010, Isikoff became the national investigative correspondent for NBC.
Obama 2012: Let the 12 money race begin NBC's Michael Isikoff reports: Jim Messina, the presidents
former deputy chief of staff, who left the White House last month, recently began a series of meetings
aimed at courting-- and reconnecting with -- Democratic bundlers, the elite fundraisers whose ability to
package large numbers of checks are crucial to any presidential campaign. Within days after leaving the
White House, the Center for Public Integrity's Peter Stone reports, Messina began a nationwide tour,
starting off with a Feb. 3 cocktail party at the swank Park Ave. apartment of investment banker Ralph
Schlosstein and attended by several Wall Street moneymen. The larger story is that the role of the big
party bundlers -- the ones Messina is courting-- may be more important than ever. Obamas 2008
campaign was best known for its ability to bring in enormous amounts of cash from small donors via the
Internet. But that is expected to be harder to pull off this time around because of the sputtering economy
and possibly because the grassroots enthusiasm that drove the first Obama campaign is likely to be
much more difficult to replicate. As one big Democratic bundler, Peter Buttenweiser of Philadelphia, who
raised more than $500,000 for Obama in 2008, tells Stone, the presidents re-election campaign will
need to rely more on the large givers and raisers because I dont think they have as lively an Internet
presence as they did before. The other big wild card on the Democratic side is whether outside political
groups (liberated, largely thanks to the Supreme Court, from any limits on the size of contributions and
the burdens of disclosing the names of donors) can duplicate the fundraising prowess that such groups
on the Republican side demonstrated in the 2010 cycle. Several Democratic-leaning political groups are
starting to get off the ground for the 2012 campaign to compete with such GOP juggernauts as American
Crossroads and its non-disclosing affiliate Crossroads GPS, both of which are spearheaded by Karl Rove.
Among some of the new Democratic groups: American Bridge 21st Century headed by Media Matters
chief David Brock and another called Majority PAC (which will focus on Senate races) led by Harry Reids
former chief of staff Susan McCue. These and most likely othernewly formed Democratic-leaning
political committees are expected to have non-profit affiliates, registered under 501 C 4 section of the IRS
code, that will allow them to take in huge gobs of money without reporting who is doing the giving. The
irony couldnt be any richer: After bashing the Republicans for flooding the airwaves with secret money
in the 2010 cycle, it now appears the Democrats are getting ready to do the same thing in 2012.
President Barack Obama's advisors are telling potential donors that he is in a weaker position heading
into the 2012 election than he was in 2008 and are detailing potential vulnerabilities of likely opponents,
according to people who have seen their presentation, the Wall Street Journal writes. The centerpiece of
their pitch to donors is a 10-page slide show, which features the slogan Change that Matters and offers
an early glimpse into the thinking of the president's re-election team.
The fundraising race is on

Gold 2/6/11
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-money-20110206,0,2262809.story
staff writer for the LA times
Days after leaving his post as White House deputy chief of staff, campaign manager Jim Messina spent
the last week hopscotching across the country to hold sessions with prominent donors in San Francisco,
Los Angeles, New York and Boston. His outreach is part of an intense push to rebuild the finance
operation that helped Obama raise a record $745 million in 2008. Republican campaign finance lawyers
have predicted Obama could top $1 billion in 2012. The donor gatherings come weeks before the
campaign is expected to register with the Federal Election Commission and set up a mechanism to
accept contributions. The goal for now is simply to reengage with the party's big financial backers,
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emphasizing the administration's focus on building the economy. Obama's likely Republican rivals for the
presidency are undergoing the same exercise. On Friday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney held a
conference call with more than 300 contributors from his last race to update them on his activities.\
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EARLY MONEY KEY (AT TF LONG)

Early money key YEAST proves
Sieffe 8
http://www.ralfseiffe.com/money.html
Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago and is a political analyst and
columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.
If you doubt the time value of political money, consider a group of Democrat women who support
candidates advocating permissive abortion laws. They have created a funding mechanism to help their
favorite politicians with something called Emilys List. There is no Emily; the organizations name is an
acronym for Early Money is Like Yeast. These donors recognize that their money creates infrastructure
and awareness for beneficiaries which, as time goes on, can be leveraged to yield much greater support
from the public at large. They believe that early participation magnifies the utility of their money. They
are right.
Early money key

Wolff 3/10/10
http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2010/03/early-money-is-like-yeast.htmlWolff 3/10/10
retired philosophy professor
EARLY MONEY IS LIKE YEAST
This saying, for those who don't know, is the origin of the acronym "Emily," as in "Emily's List." And in
politics, it is true. Your money has a greater weight in primaries than in the general election, and it has a
greater impact early than late.
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FUNDRAISING KEY
Money crucial need war chest
Kroll 3/4/11
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/03/obama-donor-2012-president
Andy's work has appeared at The Wall Street Journal, SportsIllustrated.com, The Detroit News, Salon,
and TomDispatch.com, where he's an associate editor. He works in Mother Jones' DC Bureau, and can
be reached at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com.
With conservative heavyweights planning to spend lavishly to topple President Obamathe White House
anticipates $500 million or more in outside spendingthe biggest challenge facing Obama aides and the
Democratic Party is amassing a campaign war chest large enough to fight back against the Koch
brothers, the Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove's Crossroads groups, and so on.
The Wall Street Journal today has an in-depth look at the Obama team's early courting of donors in cities
such as Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. The "strategy briefings" by Obama aides, featuring
the requisite PowerPoint presentation branded with the "Change the Matters" slogan, emphasizes the
president's "clear but narrowed support" in blue-collar, Midwestern states, but points out the stiff challenge
facing Obama from deep-pocketed donors on the right.
Fundraising crucial Dems have to FIGHT NOW to WIN

Stone 3/14/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/14/democratic-fundraising-moneychase_n_835243.html
Center money and politics journalist Peter Stone has been unraveling the complicated issues of campaign
finance for more than 20 years. Hes written for The New York Times, The Washington Post and the
Atlantic, among others, and during his tenure at the National Journal he broke several stories on the Jack
Abramoff scandal, and wrote a book about it: Casino Jack and the United States of Money. He now leads
the Money & Politics team at the Center for Public Integrity. Hes been tracking the campaign cash gold
rush by independent groups since the Citizens United ruling.
Democrats are in a defensive crouch. They have no Karl Rove. Instead, they have David Brock, Bill
Burton and Craig Varoga, none of whom have Rove's marquee fundraising appeal to fill the coffers of
outside groups trying to influence the election. Fresh off his astonishing success helping two GOP-allied
groups raise tens of millions in 2010, Rove has set his laser-like focus on the 2012 trifecta: capturing the
White House and Senate while keeping the House. Rove is already in motion. He schmoozed with rich
Florida Republicans in North Palm Beach and Naples last week, and he pitched conservative moguls in
New York earlier this year. The Democrats are desperately seeking their own Rove. They were late to
recognize the avalanche of unregulated money unleashed by the Supreme Court ruling in January 2010,
letting Rove, former White House adviser Ed Gillespie and other Republican money men write the new
script for a Wild West era of campaign finance.
Citizens United means its all about the money

Stone 3/14/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/14/democratic-fundraising-moneychase_n_835243.html
Center money and politics journalist Peter Stone has been unraveling the complicated issues of campaign
finance for more than 20 years. Hes written for The New York Times, The Washington Post and the
Atlantic, among others, and during his tenure at the National Journal he broke several stories on the Jack
Abramoff scandal, and wrote a book about it: Casino Jack and the United States of Money. He now leads
the Money & Politics team at the Center for Public Integrity. Hes been tracking the campaign cash gold
rush by independent groups since the Citizens United ruling.
"Just as Olympic records are broken every four years, we can expect to see fundraising records shattered
in 2012 by both outside groups and the main presidential candidates," said Larry Noble, former general
counsel to the Federal Election Commission and now a private election law attorney. The Supreme Court
ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission gave the green light to corporations and unions
to spend unlimited sums on ads and other campaign tools to directly advocate for a candidate's election.
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Curbs on campaign finance that had been in effect since the Watergate era were gutted. Suddenly, sixand seven-figure checks were the weapon of choice in politics. Rove and other savvy political players
channeled tens of millions to groups like the American Crossroads, which by law must disclose its donors,
and its affiliate Crossroads GPS, which can keep donors' names secret. "2010 was only Crossroads'
opening act," Steven Law, the group's president, told the Center for Public Integrity. These two groups
hope to rake in $120 million for 2012 compared to $71 million last year. Republican efforts got a head
start in 2010 from big donors including Houston home builder Robert Perry, who gave $7 million to
American Crossroads. Multi-billionaires David and Charles Koch several years ago launched and helped
finance Americans for Prosperity, which planned to spend $45 million last year. Democrats initially stayed
on the sidelines of the outside group money chase. But by fall, as the U.S. House began to slip away, the
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees jumped in with $91 million, which led
spending by all groups. AFSCME president Gerald McEntee said unions, now at war in states like
Wisconsin with newly elected Republican governors, are determined to do more. "We have to build a
broader coalition to counter Rove & Co.," McEntee said. "2010 provided a lesson and a beating. We
have a lot of work to do."
***2012 ATS
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AT ECON/REPUB PRIMARY THUMPERS

Strategic decisionmaking will outweigh econ or choice of Republican opponent
Galston 2/23/11
Institution.
In some presidential cycles, an incumbents reelection strategy doesnt matter all that much. When the
economy is very strong (1984), the incumbent wins big; when its very weak (1932), he loses even bigger.
And when a party chooses a nominee seen as outside the mainstream (1964, 1972), it suffers a crushing
defeat. Its possible that one or more of these circumstances could prevail next year. The economy could
over- or under-perform current projections; the Republicans could choose a nominee whos too
conservative or lacks credibility as a potential president. But its more likely that both the economy
and the presidential nomination contest will yield results in the zone where strategic choices
could prove decisive.
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AT T/ - HISPANICS
Our internal outweighs its a FUNDRAISING race first right now, thats
FREIDMAN. Small donors are uniquely disempowered after Citizens United, and
theres no good Latino PAC
Latinos dont vote
Michelson 10
Faculty Fellow, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Stanford University. 5 Duke J.
Const. Law & Pub. Pol'y 159 MAJORITY-LATINO DISTRICTS AND LATINO POLITICAL POWER
The size of the Latino electorate does not accurately reflect the size of the Latino population in the U.S.
and is failing to keep pace with the community's rapid growth. From 2000 to 2008, the size of the Latino
population grew from 35.2 million to 46.8 million, increasing from 12.5% of the population to 15.4%. n52
Unlike Black populations--which are generally concentrated in the South, generally concentrated in
segregated communities, and holding steady in comparison to non-Black populations--Latino populations
are moving in increasing numbers to "new destinations," generally integrating into communities rather
than creating new segregated communities, and growing quickly in comparison to other populations. n53
Latinos are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the country, and are predicted by the U.S. Census to
make up a third of the national population by 2050. n54 Yet, Latinos only constituted 7% of the electorate
in November 2008, continuing a longstanding pattern of low voter turnout. n55 This is generally due to a
variety of factors: lower levels of citizenship; lower [*173] levels of English-language proficiency; and the
demographic nature of the Latino community, including lower median levels of age, income, and
education--all of which are strong predictors of turnout. n56 Even among Latinos eligible to vote,
participation lags behind that of Whites and Blacks. In other words, part of the reason Latinos are
underrepresented is because they do not vote. Black citizens, in contrast, generally vote more than
would be predicted by their socioeconomic characteristics and in levels approaching those of Whites. The
historic 2008 Presidential election was unusual, in that Black turnout almost matched White turnout
(65.2% and 66.1%, respectively), n57 but even in previous elections Black turnout was much closer to
White turnout than it was to Latino turnout. In 2006, 51.6% of White individuals of voting age claimed to
have participated in the midterm elections, compared to 41% of Blacks and only 32.3% of Latinos. n58 In
2004, 67.2% of Whites and 60% of Blacks reported voting, but only 47.2% of Latinos reported voting. n59
And in contrast to the spike in Black turnout in November 2008, only 49.9% of Latino citizens made it to
the polls (and only 31.6% of the voting-age population). n60 In California, the population has shifted over
the past three decades from 69% White to only 43% White, while the size of the Latino population has
more than doubled from 18% to 37%. Yet, Whites are still 65% of the electorate, and Latinos only 21%.
n61 Low Latino turnout is also due to asymmetries and deficiencies in mobilization and outreach by
political parties and candidates, which have been found in multiple studies to be crucial to participation.
n62 [*174] While non-partisan community organizations such as the National Association of Latino
Elected and Appointed Officials and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project expend
considerable resources every election season to mobilize Latino voters, their efforts cannot compensate
for the general lack of outreach by Democrats and Republicans, who tend to focus their efforts on likely
voters. In July 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama made headlines with his pledge to spend $ 20 million
to reach out to Latino voters. This was double what the GOP had spent on similar efforts in 2000, but less
than 3% of the candidate's overall campaign budget of $ 744.9 million.
The bottom line is that despite the Latino community's growing size and geographic scope, various
demographic characteristics and chronic neglect by major party candidates and organizations combine to
keep Latino turnout low. This limits the ability of Latinos to win elections in districts where they do not
constitute a majority (or sometimes a supermajority) of the population, and severely limits their ability to
"elect representatives of their choice" in coalitional or influence districts. The growth of the Latino share of
the electorate continues to lag behind the growth of the Latino population.
Lesser of two evils and Obama wins spin on failure

Ellison 2/16/11
http://politic365.com/2011/02/16/latino-voters-favor-obama-but-2012-support-not-guaranteed/
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Charles D. Ellison is host of The New School on Sirius/XM satellite radio, an edge-filled weekly take on
the world of politics. He is author of the critically-acclaimed urban political thriller TANTRUM. Ellison is
also Washington Correspondent for Politic365.com and for the Philadelphia Tribune. He is a former
Senior Fellow at the University of Denver a former Visiting Fellow at the George Washington University
Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. More information can be found at
http://www.cdellison.com
Still, Democrats have little to worry about when glancing the numbers on the other side of the partisan
aisle: only 9% of Latino voters said they would vote for a Republican candidate for president while only
8% said they might. Because of perceived GOP hostility to immigrants and the impression that
Republicans are blocking comprehensive immigration reform (opinions solidified by staunch Republican
opposition to the DREAM Act), the party is earning a reputation as being somewhat draconian on the
issue of immigration. The failure to pass DREAM actually proved politically beneficial to Obama, as
Latino voters perceived him as the good guy fighting bad Republicans.
No unique turn Obama has enough Latinos to win

Shaller 2/23/11
http://www.texasinsider.org/?p=42963
Thomas F. Schaller is professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is
the author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South and national political
columnist for the Baltimore Sun.
But if recent numbers from Public Policy Polling in key swing states are any indication, at least in
potential head-to-head matchups against Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and (most
especially) Sarah Palin, Obama is in as good a shape if not better in all four of Latino-pivotal swing states.
Immigrations a wash both parties get credit and attempts to SPIN BACKFIRE
Lawrence 3/8/11
http://www.counterpunch.org/lawrence03082011.html
Stewart J Lawrence is a Washington, DC-based public policy analyst and writes frequently on immigration
and Latino affairs. He is also founder and managing director of Puentes & Associates, Inc., a bilingual
survey research and communications firm
In polls, they pretty much blame both parties equally for failing to make progress to date, which means
moderate Republicans who arent completely hostile to Latino aspirations like Newt Gingrich, and
especially Jeb Bush are likely to get a fair hearing and a fair amount of Latino support if they also
offer compelling strategies for reducing the deficit and stimulating job growth. These issues concern
Latinos as much as anyone else - and in fact, more than immigration in the final analysis, because Latino
voters arent immigrants, legal or otherwise, even if many of their family members and friends are. And
when Democrats try to appeal to Latinos on the immigration issue alone, or to exploit it narrowly,
they get mixed results, as we saw last November. It worked in several states in the Southwest only
because the GOP candidates like Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Meg Whitman in California - virtually
self-destructed over missteps with Latinos during the final weeks of the campaign. Its doubtful that
Democrats will get so lucky in 2012.
Latinos hate immigration

Smith 11/27/10
Lamar Seeligson Smith (born November 19, 1947) is the U.S. Representative for Texas's 21st
congressional district, serving since 1987. The district includes most of the wealthier sections of San
Antonio and Austin, as well as nearly all of the Texas Hill Country. He is a member of the Republican
Party.
The conventional wisdom has already settled like a blanket over Washington. Allegedly, Hispanics flocked
to the polls to punish Republicans for the Arizona immigration law. They "saved" the Senate for
Democrats. And on and on. The conventional wisdom, however, is wrong. The 2010 election actually
paints a very bright picture of the Republican Party's relations with this country's growing Hispanic
population. Exit polls reported by CNN and updated this week reveal that a historically robust 38 percent
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of Hispanic voters cast ballots for House Republican candidates in 2010 - more than in 2006 (30 percent)
and 2008 (29 percent). In fact, since 1984, Republican House candidates have only won a higher
percentage of the Hispanic vote in one election: 2004. This level of Hispanic support for Republican
candidates came despite widespread pre-election claims by advocates for illegal immigration that the
Arizona law and a pro-rule-of-law stand would undercut Hispanic support for Republicans. Journalist
Shikha Dalmia admitted in Forbes that the 2010 election "casts severe doubts" on the assumption that
Hispanics will necessarily be advocates for illegal immigration. "Anti-immigration sentiment," she wrote, is
"driven by economic and other fears that have to be addressed anew for every generation regardless of
its ethnic make-up." Hispanics certainly share these fears with all other American workers, and Hispanic
workers face the impact of illegal immigration head-on. Among native-born Hispanics without a high
school degree, 35 percent are either unemployed, are so discouraged that they have left the labor force
or are forced to work part time. Many Hispanics indeed voted for the very Republican candidates
most identified as having a pro-enforcement or anti-amnesty stance. And these Republicans
generally did as well as, or better than, the Republicans running for the same positions in the previous
election.
No risk of backlash - Latinos support Dems inevitably

Tucker 2/28/11
http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker/2011/02/28/obama-can-win-because-of-gops-lunatic-fringe/?
cxntfid=blogs_cynthia_tucker
Cynthia Tucker (born March 13, 1955) is a American politically liberal[1] columnist and blogger for The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate. She received a Pulitzer Prize for
Commentary in 2007 "for her courageous, clear-headed columns that evince a strong sense of morality
and persuasive knowledge of the community." She was also a Pulitzer finalist in 2004 and 2006. Tucker is
on the Advisory Council at the International Women's Media Foundation.[2]
The Republicans are wandering in a similar wilderness, stalked by their lunatic fringe: birthers, nativists,
Muslim-haters, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck fetishists. Lets take a look at just one issue:
immigration reform. No Republican can hope to win the GOP nomination unless he takes a no-holdsbarred, foot-on-their-throats attitude toward illegal immigrants. Even Republicans who had previously
supported the DREAM Act, which would allow a path to citizenship for fewer than a million law-abiding
young adults, refused to vote for it in December. As a result, the GOP has precious little support among
Latino voters. From Politico:
The electorate will look much different in 2012 than it did in 2010, said
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who was a political operative for decades before coming to Congress. Its
going to be younger, browner, and more to the left.
The problem for Republicans is most acute among
Hispanics, a pivotal bloc of the electorate in must-have Florida and the West.
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!!!EXT: NO T/ UNIQUENESS
70% support now disproves link
Marrero 2/14/11
http://www.impre.com/noticias/2011/2/14/latino-voters-continue-support-239269-1.html#commentsBlock
political columnist and metropolitan editor for La Opinion newspaper in Los Angeles
Despite the dire situation of the economy and the lack of immigration solutions, President Barack
Obamas approval rating among Latino voters increased again to 70% after decreasing in mid-2010.
Latinos swinging to O without immigration

Ellison 2/16/11
While there is little chance of any movement on immigration reform this year during the 112th Congress,
Latino voters have put a lot of thought into the topic as their population numbers grow and both parties
mull over how best to leverage a growing electoral bloc. It is a primary factor driving Latino attitudes
regarding President Obama. But, there is also a growing sense that the president has moved in the right
direction on the issues that concern Latinos the most, just like every other demographic: jobs and the
economy.
DREAM act attempt was enough

Ellison 2/16/11
The latest figures show diminished anxiety about the economy and immigration. [T]he image began to
improve when there was a new attempt to approve the DREAM Act, which ended up failing, observed
Matt Barreto, Latino Decisions pollster and a professor in Political Science at the University of
Washington. There is no doubt that Obama has the ability to win the Latino vote, and he still has solid
support within the community.
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EXT: LATINOS DONT VOTE

Latinos dont vote mobilizations a myth
Burka 10/31/10
http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/burkablog/?p=8260
Paul Burka joined the staff of TEXAS MONTHLY one year after the magazine's founding. A lifelong
Texan, he was born in Galveston, graduated from Rice University with a B.A. in history, and received a
J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.
Burka is a member of the State Bar of Texas and spent five years as an attorney with the Texas
Legislature, where he served as counsel to the Senate Natural Resources Committee.
Burka won a National Magazine award for reporting excellence in 1985 and the American Bar
Associations Silver Gavel Award. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and teaches at the
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a frequent
guest discussing politics on national news programs on MSNBC, Fox, NBC, and CNN.
Democrats dream of a surge in the Latino vote that could propel them to victory, but the numbers out of
Houston suggest that the opposite is happening: The Latino vote is less of a factor in 2010 than it was in
2008 (based on consultant Marc Campos analysis of early voting). Even the Voter I.D. and Arizona
immigration-law fights have not caused a spike in Latino voting.
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EXT: LATINOS HATE IMMIGRANTS

Latinos hate immigrants: 2010 data
Smith 11/27/10
Lamar Seeligson Smith (born November 19, 1947) is the U.S. Representative for Texas's 21st
congressional district, serving since 1987. The district includes most of the wealthier sections of San
Antonio and Austin, as well as nearly all of the Texas Hill Country. He is a member of the Republican
Party.
What about the much-trumpeted victories of Reid, Boxer, Gov.-elect Jerry Brown (D-Calif.) and Sen.
Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)? Their Republican opponents lost not because they underperformed among
Hispanic voters but because they underperformed among white voters. National exit polls reported by
CNN indicated that Republican U.S. House candidates received 60 percent of the white vote overall. But
Fiorina and Angle won only 52 percent of the white vote, Ken Buck in Colorado won only 51 percent and
California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman won only 50 percent of the white vote. Had each
received 60 percent of the white vote, they all would have won There was a story in the 2010 midterms
that many in the media missed. Dalmia found that "one of the hugely under-reported stories of this
election is that Republicans fielded far more minority candidates than Democrats - and they won by
touting a restrictionist agenda, proof positive that skin color - and even immigration status - are not always
correlated with [illegal] immigration views." Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, one of the most trusted
commentators on Spanish-language television, concluded that "the United States moved to the right, and
Latino politicians did so too - among them, a new generation of Hispanic Republicans who support
policies that are essentially opposed to the undocumented immigrants in this country."
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!!!AT T/ - WE CAPTURE HISPANICS: OUTWEIGH

Rank and file more key demographic than new swing blocs
Galston 2/23/11
Institution.
In that context, two recent events are alarming, because they offer clues to what may well become
President Obamas reelection strategy.
The first was a Ron Brownstein interview with David Axelrod, who said that he saw Michael Bennets
2010 senatorial victory in Colorado as particularly instructive. As Brownstein noted, Bennet prevailed by
mobilizing enough minorities, young people, and socially liberal, well-educated white women to
overcome a sharp turn toward the GOP among most of the other white voters in his state. The second
event was DNC chair Tim Kaines selection of educated, new economy Charlotte, North Carolina, as the
site for the 2012 Democratic convention. In the process, he rejected three Midwestern finalists: St. Louis,
Minneapolis, and, most notably, Cleveland.
Taken together, these clues suggest that the Obamas 2012 campaign will focus more on the Democratic
peripheryterritory newly won in 2008than on the heartland, where elections have been won and lost
for the past half-century. This could turn out to be a mistake of epic proportions. Why? Because the
United States looks a lot more like Ohio than like Colorado.
White working class will outweigh swing in 2012

Galston 2/23/11
Institution.
cites Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at both The Century Foundation and American Progress. He is also
a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution,
In a less noticed portion of his analysis, Teixeira offered a cautionary note. The white working class is still
an enormous group of votersstill larger than white college graduate votersand there are good
reasons to suspect that the exit polls may significantly underestimate the size of this group. He went on
to observe that Progressives ignore that large a group at their peril ... [their] already large deficit among
the white working classclearly their biggest political vulnerabilitycould easily become larger. If that
happens, any fall-offs in support among their core and emerging constituencies could put the progressive
majority at risk, despite continuing demographic trends in their favor.
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AT TOO FAR AWAY

Its pretty close
The Economist 3/3/11
http://www.economist.com/node/18284021?story_id=18284021&fsrc=rss
BY THE absurdly elongated standards of American politics, next years presidential election is not that far
away. It is less than a year until the first primaries and caucuses.
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AT ECON K TO ELECTION
The counterplan resolves the turn better
Money swamps the economy is still spinnable with enough advertising. We can
just carpet bomb ads blaming it on the Republicans
No timeframe lag time between policy and economic effects is very long
Wasington Times 8
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-7393800/Long-term-economic-plan-seen.html
cites David Smick, a veteran economic and political strategist who advises Republican policy-makers and
global business leaders.
What has Mr. Smick and party policy-makers worried is the long lag time between economic policy
changes and when they are actually reflected in the economic data, plus an additional lag before those
improvements are actually felt by most Americans.
Econ doesnt determine elections

Kuhn 7/20/10
David Paul Kuhn is the Chief Political Correspondent for RealClearPolitics and the author of The
Neglected Voter. He covered the 2008 campaign for Politico and the 2004 campaign for CBSnews.com.
Kuhn got his start in national politics as the domestic news intern for Time magazine during the 2000
campaign. He can be reached at david@realclearpolitics.com
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/20/on_economic_fatalism_and_elections_its_not_always
_economy_stupid_krugman_klein_forecasting_106384.html
But it's not always the economy. In fact, the economy is not always the dominant environmental factor.
Think 1952, 1968 and 2000 in presidential years. Think 1966, 1974 and 2006 in midterm cycles. Now hold
the thought. We'll return to it. Political scientists have forecast elections for generations. These
professorial seers rely on myriad environmental elements: presidential approval ratings, incumbency,
seismic social and national security issues, as well as the economy. "The economy is a junior partner
compared to preference polling and incumbency," said the University of Buffalo-SUNY's James Campbell
of forecasting models. Campbell has spent years analyzing different models. Emory political scientist
Alan Abramowitz agreed. In his words, "The point is not that the economy isn't important, of course, but
that it's one factor and not always the most important one." Abramowitz is also a leading expert on
election forecasting. Why is it only "one factor?" Consider Klein's case. Klein heavily relied on a graph
published along with his story. It illustrated the correlation between income growth and the vote. But one
should always look at the outliers. Two jumped out on this graph: 1952 and 1968. Both are classic
examples of good economies not saving the party that controlled the White House. The big factors of the
1952 race: Korean War, a deeply unpopular incumbent and Dwight Eisenhower's towering personality.
Had Ike run as a Democrat, once thought possible, Democrats might have had their sixth consecutive
term. The good economy proved of little weight in the late sixties as well. In the 1966 midterm,
Democrats were sunk by the unpopularity of Lyndon Johnson, his Great Society and social issues. Two
years later, those social issues (race, urban upheaval) and the Vietnam War particularly took to the fore of
the American mind. The mistake arises from the absolutist view of economic influence.
Economics internal is small best data

Kuhn 7/20/10
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But Klein looked at the upper right of Sides' graph, saw a correlation and argued grand causation. There
were three landslide elections in that corner: 1964, 1972 and 1984. "We understand elections in terms of
candidates, but it seems awfully convenient that the three worst candidates happened to end up in the
three most impossible election years," Klein wrote. It's also "awfully convenient" to ignore that all three of
these campaigns had popular incumbents. There were those other factors as well, like the assassination
of John Kennedy. Richard Nixon had a good economy in 1972. But other presidents had better. Yet
George McGovern won one state, and only about three-in-ten whites that year. Replace McGovern with
Henry Jackson and, to borrow from a young Pat Buchanan, Nixon's strategy of "square America" versus
"radical America" would have been significantly undercut. Replace Barry Goldwater with Nelson
Rockefeller; 1964 is a closer race. The economy was relevant in these years. For these longshots, strong
economies made their long odds longer. Yet the more one looks at the data, the more economic fatalists'
larger case falls apart. The Post graph relied on real disposable income. That's Americans' after tax
income, when adjusted for inflation. It includes benefits packages, like health insurance. Studies suggest
it's the best of imperfect political indicators (including unemployment). Income growth correlates to
election outcomes. But the correlation is weaker than Klein contends. It's also far from determinative.
Real income growth, per capita, was actually larger in the 2000 election year than in 1972. If income
growth is destiny, 2000 should have been the landslide. Income growth was significantly larger in 1988
than the greater blowout of 1980. This correlation is even weaker in midterm years. (See the graph below
for the big picture as well as my methodology.)
Economic election predictions are demonstrably wrong

Kuhn 7/20/10
Political fortunetellers deserve healthy skepticism partly because of this human factor. Models were
notoriously wrong in years like 1982 and 2000; Al Gore was expected to defeat Bush by a clear, some
said large, margin. Why were these models wrong? A critical reason, they relied too heavily on the
economy. Klein wrote that academic forecasters get, "within 2 points of the final vote, and they don't need
to know anything about the ads and the gaffes and the ground games. All they really need to know about
is the economy." The most widely known economic prognosticator is Yale economist Ray Fair. Even Fair
does not only rely on the economy. But he does rely on it more than most. Fair correctly predicted George
Bush's victory in 1988 by, yes, about 2 points. But by 1992, Fair wrongly forecasted Bush's vote margin
by nearly double digits. He predicted Al Gore would win with 51 percent. By 2004, Fair once again greatly
overshot the GOP vote. The best models in one cycle are not necessarily the most accurate in the
following cycles. And several models are significantly more accurate than Fair's. One reason, they rely
less heavily on the economy. The economic fatalists are demonstrably wrong.
Econ not key Bush v. Gore proves

Bergmann 6/8/9
http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2009/06/hey-krugman-sometimes-its-not-the-economy-stupid.html
Bergmann received his masters degree from the London School of Economics in comparative politics
with a concentration on ethnic conflict regulation and the European Union. Max is from Gainesville, FL
and received his B.A. from Bates College.
But the state of the economy is not the sole determining factor for political success or failure. It
contributes, but there is every reason to believe that if the econmic crisis never happened Brown would
still be in trouble even if everything were rosy economically. Just as the economic crisis ended up hurting
McCain and helping Obama, it wouldn't be right to say that Obama won simply because of the economic
meltdown. A lot more went into it. Additionally, Krugman points to Bush vs. Gore - but that election
demonstrated that even with a roaring economy the party in power could be put into jeopardy. This may
sound like quibbiling, but Krugman's implication that nothing else matters then the state of the economy
strikes me as a crude form of economic determinism - which I guess can sometimes be expected when
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an economist does politics. Krugman is dead on about the economic lessons, but the political lesson that
the Obama administration should internalize from Brown's troubles is that political movements - such as
New Labour - after a period of time lose energy and inspiration and therefore must evolve and develop
and bring in new blood.
Election can go either way despite econ

The Economist 3/3/11
http://www.economist.com/node/18284021?story_id=18284021&fsrc=rss
There are reasons to think Mr Obama is vulnerable, however. The economy, the most important factor in
almost all elections, remains weak. Unemployment, at 9%, is higher now than it has been at any election
in the past 60 years. High unemployment, of 7.5%, contributed to Mr Carters defeat at the hands of
Ronald Reagan in 1980. True, Mr Reagan then won re-election four years later despite a similarly grim
rate, of 7.2%; the difference was that the economy was strengthening during Mr Reagans re-election
campaign, but had weakened during Mr Carters. One reason Republican candidates may be
procrastinating, pundits reason, is to wait and see whether Mr Obamas situation is more like Mr Reagans
or Mr Carters
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AT ECON: NO U FOR T/
Econs good enough for Obama win
Financial Times 3/9/11
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c6b534a-4a87-11e0-82ab-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Gc5odG5E
A more capricious factor that could work in Mr Obamas favour is the economy. Though jerky and fragile,
growth is starting to pick up. True, $100-oil will do the economy no favours, and unemployment remains
stubbornly high at 8.9 per cent. But jobless figures recently nudged downwards, and hiring is spreading
across a range of industries. If he is lucky, the economy may have turned decisively in time for re-election,
though the jobless rate will remain critical to the outcome.
Good enough bars low

Bradley 2/24/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/if-obama-loses-it-wont-be_b_827977.html
Political analyst William Bradley is an award-winning columnist and former political advisor. His
NewWestNotes.com is the California leader in real-time political analysis. Bradley has been a senior
advisor in several U.S. presidential and California gubernatorial campaigns, was senior advisor of
Shadow Conventions 2000, and advised political parties in Mexico, Japan, Germany, and Russia. The
HuffPost featured columnist and former chief political writer for the LA Weekly and California Business
has served in national, state and local posts, co-founded a newspaper in California's capital, has dabbled
as Hollywood consultant/producer and SAG member, written for a score of major international
publications, and hosted a national radio show. A U.C. Berkeley grad who was in the U.S. Navy, USC's
first senior fellow for online journalism and judge of the national AltWeekly Awards is a former national
merit scholar, Stanford post-grad student, VISTA Volunteer, and American Legion member
Not that the domestic economy is going great guns, which it's clearly not, but that it will be good enough
for Obama to muddle through on against unimpressive Republican opposition tied to the policies which
nearly got us into Great Depression II in the first place. Late last week, meeting with high tech industry
leaders over dinner in Silicon Valley, Obama showed that he might be able to add some forward-leaning
vision, and counter the Republican spin that he's anti-business, to the policies that have us moving away
from the abyss he inherited from the Bush/Cheney Administration.
Obama still wins

Norman 3/8/11
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-obamas-secondterm-is-safe-republicans-will-see-to-that-2236065.html
* Political commentator at The Independent
If these, in Rumsfeldese, are the unknowns we cannot know, the US economy is the known unknown.
With growth accelerating and unemployment finally, if gingerly, starting to ebb, the cycle looks as well
calibrated in this incumbent's favour as it was for those other mid-term strugglers Ronald Reagan and Bill
Clinton.
Republican weakness swamps econ

Norman 3/8/11
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-obamas-secondterm-is-safe-republicans-will-see-to-that-2236065.html
* Political commentator at The Independent
Yet even if the economy should suddenly stagnate, how can he lose to any of the potential Republican
contenders on view? If God invited him to pick the ante post GOP field for 2012, he could hardly improve
on the list with which fate has rewarded him by adding the Unabomber.
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AT GAS PRICES DETERMINE

Gas prices dont determine elections
Silver 3/2/11
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/risks-to-obama-in-oil-price-instability/
Nathaniel Read "Nate" Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, psephologist, and
writer. Silver first gained public recognition for developing PECOTA,[2] a system for forecasting the
performance and career development of Major League Baseball players, which he sold to and then
managed for Baseball Prospectus from 2003 to 2009.[3
Heres the good news for Mr. Obama: theres not a lot of evidence that oil prices are all that important.
Below is a chart considering two pieces of economic data for each presidential election since 1948:
G.D.P. growth during the first three quarters of the election year (as compiled by the Yale economist Ray
C. Fair), and gas prices as listed in current, inflation-adjusted dollars. For elections since 1976, gas
prices are averaged for the six months (May through October) prior to the presidential election; before
that, only annual estimates are available, and so thats what the data reflects. The chart also lists the
margin by which the incumbent party won or lost the popular vote. [CHART] The highest gas prices were
in 2008, when John McCain lost as gas was selling at about $3.81 per gallon, and in 1980, when Jimmy
Carter lost as gas cost the equivalent of $3.37 a gallon in todays prices. There is a big gap between
1980 and 2008 and any other recent years. The next-highest prices, however, were in 1984 and in 1956,
when Republican incumbents won easily. Over all, the relationship goes in the direction that you might
expect higher gas prices mean a poorer performance for the incumbent party but it is fairly weak
statistically. Heres what it looks like for all elections since World War II: [CHART] And heres the chart if
we look only at cases where an incumbent president was running for another term (excluding years like
2008 in which the incumbent was term-limited). [CHART] In both cases, the relationship between the two
variables falls short of being statistically significant, and gas prices only explain a small percentage of the
performance of the incumbent party.
No price spike
Washington Post 3/8/11
Oil prices remain well below 2008 levels, and, despite the troubles in Libya, global supplies are still
adequate, in part because Saudi Arabia and other producers have more than enough spare capacity
to make up for whatever Libya can't supply.
Will stabilize
Market Watch 3/15/11
http://fidelityfinancegroup.com/news/mortgages/18763-asia-stocks-to-watch-investors-see-opportunitiesin-korea
The impact of higher oil prices will likely complicate building and already uncomfortable inflationary
pressures in emerging markets, including Korea, analysts at Daewoo Securities said.
However, Citigroup analysts said our base case assumes Middle East unrest will be short-lived, and oil
prices will stabilize soon and on that basis, we believe recent weakness represents an attractive
opportunity.
Too far this wont matter in a year because its crisis not fundamentals
Zweig 3/10/11
http://money.msn.com/how-to-invest/why-you-should-not-buy-oil-stocks-wsj.aspx
Jason Zweig became a personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal in 2008. He was a senior
writer for Money magazine and a guest columnist for Time magazine and cnn.com. He is the author of
Your Money and Your Brain (Simon & Schuster, 2007), one of the first books to explore the neuroscience
of investing. Zweig is also the editor of the revised edition of Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor
(HarperCollins, 2003), the classic text that Warren Buffett has described as "by far the best book about
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investing ever written." Before joining Money in 1995, Zweig was the mutual funds editor at Forbes.
Earlier, he had been a reporter-researcher for the Economy & Business section of Time and an editorial
assistant at Africa Report, a bimonthly journal. Zweig has a B.A. from Columbia College, where he was
awarded a John Jay National Scholarship. He also spent a year studying Middle Eastern history and
culture at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. A frequent commentator on television and radio,
Zweig is also a popular public speaker who has addressed the American Association of Individual
Investors, the Aspen Institute, the CFA Institute, the Morningstar Investment Conference, and university
audiences at Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford. Zweig was for many years a trustee of the Museum of
American Finance, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. He serves on the editorial boards of
Financial History magazine and The Journal of Behavioral Finance. Jason Zweig is not related to money
manager Martin E. Zweig.
With crude oil prices cracking $100 a barrel and $1.4 billion in new money gushing into energy funds in a
recent one-week period, should you be pumping oil stocks into your portfolio, too? It may seem obvious
that you should buy energy stocks, since the price of oil is bound to go higher. But precisely because it
seems obvious, you should doubt that belief. Adjusted for the overall rate of inflation, the price of oil has
tended to go down, not up. All the way from the Civil War (when a barrel of oil cost roughly $168 in
today's money) to the early 1970s, the oil price, adjusted for inflation, sloped jaggedly downward. Since
then, it has lurched up and down and up again in response to events, such as the wave of revolutions
sweeping across North Africa, that investors believe will affect supply or demand. Even after the recent
run-up, oil is down more than 25% from its price in mid-2008. Adjusted for inflation, the price of oil today is
just 4% higher than it was at its last peak in January 1981, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration. There were many sickening bumps throughout the intervening 30 years, but in the end
the average annual gain, adjusted for inflation, was roughly 0.014% -- a return that makes even a money
market fund look like a gusher. Even from early 1973, before oil prices tripled, the long-run real return is
less than 4.5%, according to analyst Howard Simons of Bianco Research. That is less than the return on
cash after inflation. When prices have spiked, it has usually been because of supply fears -- as in Iraq
and Iran in 1980-81, during the early part of their long war; Kuwait in 1990, after it was invaded by Iraq;
and Venezuela and Iraq in 2003. But supply shortages tend to be solved quickly. Over time, rising
prices have consistently brought on rising production, which has tended to lead to falling prices.
Even Douglas Ober, the portfolio manager of the oldest fund specializing in energy stocks -- Petroleum &
Resources (PEO, news), which was founded in 1929 -- isn't a long-term bull. "As long as there is unrest
in the Middle East and North Africa, we're going to have higher oil prices," says Ober, who has run the
fund since 1986. "But once it settles down over there, oil prices will probably come back down. There's a
fair amount of speculation in the price."
Middle east gets the blame

LA times 3/3/11
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/03/news/la-pn-republicans-gas-prices-20110304/2
Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland who is critical of Obama's energy policies, said if
gas hits $4 a gallon this year, "it would tank the recovery." But, he said, the GOP may not realize a huge
political benefit regardless. "The public would blame conditions in the Middle East," he said.
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AT SOME WEIRD STATE IS KEY

We dont know which state is key yet
Silver 3/9/11
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/theres-nothing-special-about-ohio/#more-6914
But really, the headline is referring to this analysis by The New Republics William Galston, in which he
argues that President Obama is unlikely to win the election without winning Ohio. In a literal sense, this is
of course true. Ohio is close to the national average in terms of its propensity to vote for Democrats or
Republicans. Its also well-balanced demographically. If Mr. Obama appeals to the sorts of voters that he
needs to appeal to in order to have a good election night over all, Ohio will probably come along for the
ride. If he isnt, it probably wont. As an actuarial matter, the odds that a candidate wins the election
without winning Ohio are probably something like 10 to 1 against. The same is true, however, for almost
all states that are close to the national median, including Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania and
Virginia. In terms of endgame tactics, the precise ordering of these states matters. If the popular vote is
extremely close, for example, the fact that (for instance) Pennsylvania is even a point or two more
Democratic than Ohio could have fairly profound effects on the optimal allocation of resources like
campaign visits and advertising. It is, however, much too early to have that discussion. We know, more or
less, which states are likely to be close and which ones arent. But we dont know exactly how the states
will line up, and we need to have a fairly precise understanding of that before the conversation about
electoral tactics is all that salient.
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AT OHIO KEY
State key claims mix cause and effect
Silver 3/9/11
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/theres-nothing-special-about-ohio/#more-6914
But Ohio so closely resembles the rest of the country that there is almost no deliberate strategy a
president could pursue in order to single it out. What working-class voters in Youngstown think about Mr.
Obama will greatly resemble what working-class voters in Reno think. The college kids in Columbus
arent all that different from the ones in Charlottesville, Va. A president could conceivably pursue a
strategy to win North Carolina or New Hampshire or New Mexico, since those states are more
idiosyncratic. But theres not much he can do to exploit any advantage in Ohio. This is why I say theres
nothing special about it although one could argue that Ohio is special precisely because it is so
uncannily average. Nor does it follow that working-class voters are going to be especially important in
2012 just because there are a lot of them in Ohio. There are roughly as many swing voters, for instance,
in upper-crust Colorado, the state that Mr. Galston contrasts Ohio against: Yes, the swing voters in
Colorado are different than the ones in Ohio. But, as we mentioned last week, demographics alone dont
do all that much to predict how someone will vote. In contrast to 2004, when the conversation was all
about what security moms in the suburbs would do, the focus now seems to be on the white working
class. But both groups contain their share of winnable votes. And there are about as many electoral votes
in swing states with above-average incomes (for instance, Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire and
Minnesota) as there are in states with below-average ones like Ohio or New Mexico. In short, analyses
like these risk confusing cause and effect. Its not so much that as Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Its
more that as the nation goes, so goes Ohio.\
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AT PRO-UNION STANCE HURTS OBAMA

Doesnt assume the aff their conservative hacks think Obama should ditch
unions but not over immigration
Doesnt assume fundraising fundraising outweighs short term perceptual
issues. Thats Friedman 11, also logical because carpet bomb ad buys outweigh
Pro-union messaging looks moderate THUS WINNING
Beinart 3/14/11
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-14/how-the-rights-wisconsin-budget-win-helpsobama-in-2012/?cid=bs:archive2
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism and political
science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
But its for precisely that reason that Barack Obama will likely win a second term. When Democrats
controlled both houses of Congress, and Obama was pursuing his version of the Great Society,
Republicans had a fighting chance of portraying him as a radical, frightening figure. Now that opportunity
is gone. Instead, he looks like the bulwark against conservative radicalism. In 2010, Republicans
successfully accused Obama of abetting the extremism of Nancy Pelosi. In 2012, Obama will ask
Americans if they want a president who abets the extremism of Scott Walker. By so successfully shifting
the ideological debate to the right, Republicans have reframed Obama as a man of the center. And by
terrifying liberals, they are helping ensure that Obama gets the large Democratic base turnout he needs.
.
Obama realizes the risks hes balancing pro-union and independent appeal now
Politico 3/14/12
The ongoing labor battle in Wisconsin gives President Barack Obama a chance to test-drive what could
emerge as a major 2012 campaign theme that hes the only man who can stop wild-eyed GOP
radicals. While that may not be the enthusiastic embrace of labor that union leaders might like to see,
the theme fits well with an election strategy in which winning back independents will be critical. Obama
allies and people who are likely to be involved in his campaign sense opportunity in the growing anger
and enthusiasm of pro-union Democrats in Wisconsin, but they also realize that there are risks. They are
keenly aware of the perils of the direct and forceful intervention demanded by labor leaders, especially the
possibility of alienating independents who resent the guaranteed pensions and benefits offered to
unionized state workers. So for Obama, Wisconsin will require what is likely to be something of a high
wire act.
Pro-union stance helps Obama he will be a hero

Elk 1/7/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-elk/abandoning-efca-is-obamas_b_414209.html
Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer and labor journalist based in Washington, D.C. He writes
for Harper's Magazine, the American Prospect, the Huffington Post and In These Times and has
appeared as a commentator on CNN, Fox News, and NPR. When Mike is not reading twenty blogs at a
time or walking a picket line, he enjoys golden retrievers, crab bakes and playing horseshoes.
It's true we might not win the fight over the EFCA. The Chamber of Commerce will pull all the stops in
order to knock off a few Southern Democrats on this bill. They will find a village in Kenya to come out and
claim Obama was born there. They will secretly fund the nasty personal attacks against Obama in
addition to the hundreds of millions they will pump into killing the bill outright. We might lose the fight over
the EFCA because of the power of big corporations to perversely influence the debate. However, it's a
fight on which we must persevere. As Truman's example shows, even if we don't win at first, we can win
over the long term. Obama's popularity will soar and he will be endeared to the working class of this
nation. In his State of the Union speech next month, Obama needs to go before Congress and advocate
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vigorously for Employee Free Choice. Not just a giveaway sentence or two in favor of it, but a full scale
declaration of war against bosses who illegally fire their workers for expressing their democratic right to
join a union. If he does this, the working class of this country - union members and teenagers alike - will
see him as a hero willing to fight for the working class against special interests. The biggest problem that
the Democratic Party faces now, after going along with the Wall Street bailout, is that they are seen as a
party of special interests. A recent Wall Street Journal poll showed that more Americans have a more
favorable view of the Tea Party Movement than both the Democratic and Republican parties. Obama
could make the Democratic Party the workers' party once again. By advocating forcefully for workers'
rights and against the unlimited ability of big corporation to push their workers around, Obama could win
back over the mass of people disaffected with the Democratic Party. We might very well lose this fight, but
over the long run, we will have won the war to bring the working class over to our side.
***2012 IMPACTS
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GREENHOUSE, IMMIGRATION
Obama win completes his agenda greenhouse regs, immigration reform, close
gitmo
Krauthammer 7/15/10
Charles Krauthammer (pronounced /krat.hmr/; born March 13, 1950) is an American Pulitzer Prizewinning syndicated columnist and political commentator, and physician. His weekly column appears in
The Washington Post and is syndicated to more than 200 newspapers and media outlets.[1] He is a
contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and The New Republic. He is also a weekly panelist on the
PBS news program Inside Washington[2] and a regular panelist on Fox News's Special Report with Bret
Baier.
The net effect of 18 months of Obamaism will be to undo much of Reaganism. Both presidencies were
highly ideological, grandly ambitious and often underappreciated by their own side. In his early years,
Reagan was bitterly attacked from his right. (Typical Washington Post headline: "For Reagan and the
New Right, the Honeymoon Is Over" -- and that was six months into his presidency!) Obama is attacked
from his left for insufficient zeal on gay rights, immigration reform, closing Guantanamo -- the list is long.
The critics don't understand the big picture. Obama's transformational agenda is a play in two acts. Act
One is over. The stimulus, Obamacare, financial reform have exhausted his first-term mandate. It will bear
no more heavy lifting. And the Democrats will pay the price for ideological overreaching by losing one or
both houses, whether de facto or de jure. The rest of the first term will be spent consolidating these gains
(writing the regulations, for example) and preparing for Act Two. The next burst of ideological energy -massive regulation of the energy economy, federalizing higher education and "comprehensive"
immigration reform (i.e., amnesty) -- will require a second mandate, meaning reelection in 2012. That's
why there's so much tension between Obama and congressional Democrats. For Obama, 2010 matters
little. If Democrats lose control of one or both houses, Obama will probably have an easier time in 2012,
just as Bill Clinton used Newt Gingrich and the Republicans as the foil for his 1996 reelection campaign.
Obama is down, but it's very early in the play. Like Reagan, he came here to do things. And he's done
much in his first 500 days. What he has left to do he knows must await his next 500 days -- those that
come after reelection. The real prize is 2012. Obama sees far, farther than even his own partisans.
Republicans underestimate him at their peril.
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AT OBAMA AGENDA BAD: SPLIT GOV

Obama agenda wont pass 2012
Emery 2/18/11
http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/02/how-worried-should-gop-be-about-obama2012#ixzz1GdwojoxW
Examiner columnist Noemie Emery is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of Great
Expectations; The Troubled Lives of Political Families.
So what should Republicans do? First, they should question how big this election may be. The fact is
Obama has been stopped already, and the things they feared earlier have not come to pass: He isnt, and
will not be, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He moved the country to the right, not the left, and helped to
revive the Republican Party. Cap-and-trade and card check were never enacted, and his health care
reform act is coming apart. He is on a short leash already, and if he makes it through 2012, it will be even
shorter. People like Obama more than his ideas, and his chances will only get better as people realize he
will never be able to pass his agenda. If re-elected, he may pass six of eight years politically
neutralized. An Obama safely under House (and probably Senate) arrest might be just what the
public would want.
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AT SPLIT GOV BLOCKS AGENDA: COAT TAILS

Obama coat tails determine the Senate
Sabato 3/10/11
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/
Larry Joseph Sabato (born August 7, 1952) is an American political scientist and analyst. He is the Robert
Kent Gooch Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, and director of its Center for Politics. He
founded Sabato's Crystal Ball, an online newsletter and website that provides free political analysis and
electoral projections. He has been called "the most-quoted college professor in the land"[1] and a "pundit
with an opinion for every reporters phone call."[2]
The Senate class of 2012 is substantially Democratic, with Democrats holding 23 seats to the
Republicans 10. Obviously, this gives Republicans a leg up in contesting seats. The GOP has a small
number to defend, while Democrats will have to cover a broad map, and depend on President Obama for
long coattails. As the chart shows, there are seven toss-ups at the moment, six of them Democratic:
incumbents Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Jon Tester (D-MT), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Sherrod Brown (D-OH),
and the seats of the retiring Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), John Ensign (R-NV), and Jim Webb (D-VA). In
addition to Bingaman and Webb, three more Democratic incumbents have chosen to step down: Daniel
Akaka (D-HI), Kent Conrad (D-ND), and Joe Lieberman (D/I-CT). Democratic Senate leaders believe the
rest of their incumbents are running againthough surprise retirements can never be ruled out (Sen.
Herb Kohl of Wisconsin is a prime example). The three Republican senators to have announced that they
are stepping down are Arizonas John Kyl, Texass Kay Bailey Hutchison, and scandal-drenched John
Ensign of Nevada. The North Dakota seat is very likely to switch to the GOP, and Republicans have a
clear edge to hold Arizona and are certain to retain the Texas seat. The Hawaii and Connecticut seats will
probably stay Democratic. Two currently Democratic seats start off as toss-ups, New Mexico and Virginia,
along with the Republican open seat in Nevada. The identity of the eventual party nominees and the
coattails from the top-of-the-ticket presidential race may well determine the winners in these three states.
President Obamas support, or lack thereof, could also have a great influence on the contests in Hawaii,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, and Ohio. There are eight seats currently
leaning to one or the other party. Six are Democratic and two are Republican. Of the eight, the seat of
Scott Brown (R-MA) may be the most endangered, initiallyalthough we believe some are
underestimating his ability to win a full term despite the states heavily Democratic tilt. The remaining 18
seats are likely or solid for the twelve Democrats and six Republicans who occupy them. Depending
on the party identity of the Vice President elected in 2012, Republicans will need to win a net three or four
Senate seats from the Democrats to take control of the upper chamber of Congress. With six Democratic
toss-ups to just one Republican toss-up, the GOP can obviously win the Senate in theorybut it is far too
soon to say whether theory will become reality.
The map means its all or nothing no ticket splitting

Rothenberg 3/10/11
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_94/-203993-1.html
Roll Call Contributing Writer
Stuart Rothenberg is an American editor, publisher, and political analyst best known for his Washingtonbased, biweekly, self-proclaimed non-partisan political newsletter The Rothenberg Political Report. He is
also a regular columnist at Roll Call and an occasional op-ed contributor to other publications, including
The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Orlando Sentinel.
At least eight states that are likely to be among the most competitive and fiercely fought on the
presidential level next year are also headed for high-profile Senate contests that could determine control
of the chamber.
The list includes Florida and Virginia in the South, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri and Wisconsin in the
Midwest, and New Mexico and Nevada in the West. (The Badger State makes the list because of growing
questions about whether Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl will run for re-election.)
Other states could move the list in the months ahead Pennsylvania and West Virginia are obvious
candidates, of course but right now they arent there.
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As the national parties and campaign committees start to think about the 2012 map, they have to be
struck by the importance of a relative handful of states next year in both the race for the White House and
the fight for control of the Senate.
And, they have to wonder whether, given the increasingly partisan nature of American voting, carrying
those key presidential states also translates into winning a majority in the Senate next year.
In 2006, 2008 and 2010, voters approached the general election more as a parliamentary choice than
ever before. Thats the only way to explain losses by popular incumbents such as Reps. Jim Leach (RIowa), Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) and Walt Minnick (D-Idaho).
Certainly, some voters continued to split their tickets during the past three cycles. But three wave
elections in a row suggest that in 2010 Republicans who had voted for moderate Democrats in the past
switched to the GOP candidates, while in both 2006 and 2008 Democratic voters who had cherry-picked
GOP moderates in the past opted to vote a straight Democratic ticket.
Want more evidence? Democratic pollster Pete Brodnitz argues that the results of Sen. Jim Webbs
narrow win in Virginia in 2006 and Harold Fords narrow loss in Tennessee that year were strongly related
to President George W. Bushs relative approval ratings in both states.
The development of parliamentary voting raises many questions for party strategists, as well for Senate
campaign managers in the key state battlegrounds.
Will the trend continue into 2012? And if it does, how do campaigns deal with the development?
Brodnitz assumes that the trend will continue, and another Democratic pollster agreed that the countrys
continued polarization could lead to another parliamentary election.
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SHUTDOWN FIGHT INTERNAL

Union support key to controlling shutdown spin
Istook 2/24/11
Ernest Istook was a U.S. Congressman for 14 years and is now a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage
Foundation.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/24/government-unions-will-play-key-role-in-shutdown-fight/
Government unions will play key role in shutdown fight
It looks like history may be repeating itself.
A stalemate between a Republican House and a Democratic president may result in a government
shutdown, just like it did in 1995 when Bill Clinton was president. Its also a repeat of a key role played by
government employee unions.
Whats different now is that the public has awakened to how theyve been duped with false promises
about big government.
In the 1995-96 shutdowns, the public-sector unions reportedly played a huge role behind the scenes;
today their role has been brought into the open, becoming common knowledge even before the mass
union protests at the Wisconsin state capitol.
President Obamas allegiance toward government unions is well known. The failed $800 billion stimulus
was mostly about protecting government jobs. His minions in Organizing for America have orchestrated
the Wisconsin protests, which Obama labeled an assault on unions. And its well known how the unions
spent $400 million for the 2008 election.
Thats the backdrop as House Republicans insist on billions in spending cuts before they approve funds
for the rest of government. The House spent long days and nights in session to create their plan; the
Senate Democrats sit inactive instead, criticizing lots but doing nothing.
So the action comes from the public workers, as their demonstrations provide visual proof of who wants
big government to continue unchecked. Their key role was behind the scenes in the 1995-96 shutdowns,
but every bit as vital.
These unions believe they will benefit from emphasizing the negative aspects of a shutdown, just as they
did when Bill Clinton was president. That story is rarely told, but needs to be.
As reported by The Washington Times in March 1996:
President Clintons close ties with federal employee unions enabled him to weather two record
government shutdowns and an unprecedented $80 billion raid on federal retirement funds while laying the
blame on Republicans.
Internal documents from both the administration and unions reveal close coordination between the
unions and Mr. Clinton in developing a strategy of confrontation with Republicans over the spending bills
needed to keep the government open and prevent hundreds of thousands of government employees from
being furloughed.
The unions not only took the administrations side in the confrontation, but the largest union the
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) urged Mr. Clinton to veto the bills and shut
the government down for weeks rather than compromise with Republicans.
Meanwhile, the unions provided critical political cover for the administration and Democrats on Capitol
Hill by waging an extensive public relations campaign designed to blame the confrontation and shutdowns
entirely on the Republicans, particularly on the Houses 73 freshmen.
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Leaders of the union, which says it represents 700,000 of the governments 2 million employees,
deduced that throwing employees out of work for a few weeks with no guarantee of pay would be better
than the higher federal pension contributions and large agency cuts the GOP was planning, which might
force extensive layoffs.
***TEACHERS UNIONS BAD SHELL
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TEACHER UNION BACKLASH SHELL

Obama pushing merit pay
Huffington Post 3/10/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/10/florida-teacher-merit-pay_n_834299.html
Across the country, a divisive education reform movement has widely called for schools to hold teachers
accountable for their students' performance.
President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have been vocal in their support for merit pay,
the practice of financially rewarding teachers for students' improvement on standardized tests. Now,
Idaho is on the brink of enacting a statewide teacher merit pay policy, while Florida isn't far behind.
Union backlash forces Obama to retrench on compensation reform

President Obama often professes his desire to shake up public education while also working with
teachers unions. But a question hangs over this week's gathering of hundreds of labor leaders and school
officials: Can he do both at the same time?
More than any of his predecessors, Republican or Democratic, Obama has pushed a reform agenda
centered on teachers. He wants the good ones to earn more money and the bad ones to leave the
profession. He wants test scores to count in evaluations. He wants personnel shake-ups at failing
schools.
Accomplishing such goals often means confronting union rules that protect teacher tenure and pay scales
based on seniority rather than student achievement. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday that
labor and management can overcome hurdles through what he called "tough-minded collaboration."
But some analysts say the administration's quest for union support could dilute results.
"The political challenge is, how do you do this without alienating an important part of your constituency?"
said Frederick M. Hess of the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. You could end up with a
civil war in the Democratic Party. That's why what we've seen from the administration is a lot of two
steps forward, one step back."
Compensation reform key to global competitiveness

Jerald 9
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/07/pdf/teacher_alignment.pdf
Craig Jerald is president of Break the Curve Consulting, which provides expertise to leaders and
policymakers on issues related to education policy, communications, research, and practice. Since
founding Break the Curve in 2004, Craig has worked with organizations such as the Center for American
Progress, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Governors Association, the National
School Boards Association, the Education Trust, Achieve Inc., Education Sector, the Learning First
Alliance, ACT, and the Alliance for Excellent Education. Prior to founding Break the Curve, Craig served
as a principal partner at the Education Trust, where he worked on issues ranging from school
accountability to teacher quality and school finance equity. As a senior editor at Education Week from
1996 to 2000, Craig founded and managed the organizations research division and helped create and
direct Education Weeks special annual reports series, Quality Counts and Technology Counts. Craig also
has worked at the U.S. Department of Education, and he began his career as a Teach for America recruit
and middle school teacher in Californias Long Beach Unified School District.
Teacher evaluation and professional de velopment help teachers develop a clearly defined repertoire of
instructional skills that are rewarded by annual bonuses. The schools improvement planning process
and professional development provide teachers with new instructional strategies that have been proven to
produce learning gains for students in the schoolanother factor rewarded by annual bonuses.
Differentiated pay is used to create a team of teacher-leaders who have the authority, time, and expertise
to improve teacher evaluations, professional development, and school improvement planning. Achieving
widespread consensus that traditional ways of paying teachers must change is just the first step on the
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path to worthwhile reform. Now policymakers are confronting difficult design issues as they craft policies
to advance performance-based compensation. So far most of the research and debate has focused on
criteria for triggering annual performance bonuses. This paper will illustrate that policymakers must
broaden their thinking about compensation reform to consider how other policies can support better ways
of paying teachers, andjust as importanthow all of these new investments in performance- based
compensation can be leveraged to build the capacity of our public schools to take on the hard work of
systemic improvement, without which it will be impossible to raise the achievement of Americas students
to globally competitive levels.
Key to leadership, outweighs immigration

Given 1/28/11
http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/archives/44953/
Brandon Given is a Hall County teacher and a frequent columnist.
Germany's success has been attributed to its program for educating and re-education of workers. For
example, a German mechanic may find his skills are no longer in demand, but if he meets school
entrance requirements, he will be retrained in a skill that is in demand at minimal cost to him. This insures
heavy industry a continual supply of skilled labor. For a worker to retrain here, he or she must take out
thousands in loans. Repaying those loans will reduce the power of future earnings, and take money out of
the local economy at that future point. When our elementary schools and high schools are underfunded,
we completely lose out on our human resource potential. We are in a struggle for our economic survival.
Having the best education in the world is the only thing that could possibly save us. At present, instead of
educating our own children, we are relying on importing foreigners to jump start new business, and doing
a poor job at that.
KAGAN, 7 (Robert, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Robert, End of
Dreams, Return of History, 7/19,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/07/end_of_dreams_return_of_histor.html)
This is a good thing, and it should continue to be a primary goal of American foreign policy to perpetuate this relatively benign international
configuration of power. The unipolar order with the United States as the predominant power is unavoidably riddled with flaws and contradictions. It
inspires fears and jealousies. The United States is not immune to error, like all other nations, and because of its size and importance in the international
system those errors are magnified and take on greater significance than the errors of less powerful nations. Compared to the ideal Kantian international
order, in which all the world's powers would be peace-loving equals, conducting themselves wisely, prudently, and in strict obeisance to international
the unipolar system is both dangerous and unjust. Compared to any plausible alternative in the real
world, however, it is relatively stable and less likely to produce a major war between great powers. It is
also comparatively benevolent, from a liberal perspective, for it is more conducive to the principles of
economic and political liberalism that Americans and many others value. American predominance does
not stand in the way of progress toward a better world, therefore. It stands in the way of regression toward
a more dangerous world. The choice is not between an American-dominated order and a world that looks
like the European Union. The future international order will be shaped by those who have the power to
shape it. The leaders of a post-American world will not meet in Brussels but in Beijing, Moscow, and Washington. The return of great powers and great games If the world
law,
is marked by the persistence of unipolarity, it is nevertheless also being shaped by the reemergence of competitive national ambitions of the kind that have shaped human
affairs from time immemorial. During the Cold War, this historical tendency of great powers to jostle with one another for status and influence as well as for wealth and power
was largely suppressed by the two superpowers and their rigid bipolar order. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has not been powerful enough, and probably
could never be powerful enough, to suppress by itself the normal ambitions of nations. This does not mean the world has returned to multipolarity, since none of the large
powers is in range of competing with the superpower for global influence. Nevertheless, several large powers are now competing for regional predominance, both with the
United States and with each other. National ambition drives China's foreign policy today, and although it is tempered by prudence and the desire to appear as unthreatening as
the Chinese are powerfully motivated to return their nation to what they regard as its
traditional position as the preeminent power in East Asia. They do not share a European, postmodern view that power is
possible to the rest of the world,
pass; hence their now two-decades-long military buildup and modernization. Like the Americans, they believe power, including military power, is a
good thing to have and that it is better to have more of it than less. Perhaps more significant is the Chinese perception, also shared by Americans, that
Japan, meanwhile, which in the past could have

been counted as an aspiring postmodern power -- with its pacifist constitution and low defense spending
-- now appears embarked on a more traditional national course. Partly this is in reaction to the rising
power of China and concerns about North Korea 's nuclear weapons. But it is also driven by Japan's own
national ambition to be a leader in East Asia or at least not to play second fiddle or "little brother" to
China. China and Japan are now in a competitive quest with each trying to augment its own status and
power and to prevent the other 's rise to predominance, and this competition has a military and strategic
as well as an economic and political component. Their competition is such that a nation like South Korea, with a long unhappy
status and honor, and not just wealth and security, are important for a nation.
history as a pawn between the two powers, is once again worrying both about a "greater China" and about the return of Japanese nationalism. As
Aaron Friedberg commented, the East Asian future looks more like Europe's past than its present. But it also looks like Asia's
past. Russian
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foreign policy, too, looks more like something from the nineteenth century. It is being driven by a typical,
and typically Russian, blend of national resentment and ambition. A postmodern Russia simply seeking integration into the
new European order, the Russia of Andrei Kozyrev, would not be troubled by the eastward enlargement of the EU and NATO, would not insist on
predominant influence over its "near abroad," and would not use its natural resources as means of gaining geopolitical leverage and enhancing Russia
's international status in an attempt to regain the lost glories of the Soviet empire and Peter the Great. But Russia, like China and Japan, is moved by
Although
Russian leaders complain about threats to their security from NATO and the United States, the Russian
sense of insecurity has more to do with resentment and national identity than with plausible external
military threats. 16 Russia's complaint today is not with this or that weapons system. It is the entire postCold War settlement of the 1990s that Russia resents and wants to revise. But that does not make
insecurity less a factor in Russia 's relations with the world; indeed, it makes finding compromise with the
Russians all the more difficult. One could add others to this list of great powers with traditional rather than
postmodern aspirations. India 's regional ambitions are more muted, or are focused most intently on
Pakistan, but it is clearly engaged in competition with China for dominance in the Indian Ocean and sees
itself, correctly, as an emerging great power on the world scene. In the Middle East there is Iran, which
mingles religious fervor with a historical sense of superiority and leadership in its region. 17 Its nuclear
program is as much about the desire for regional hegemony as about defending Iranian territory from
attack by the United States. Even the European Union, in its way, expresses a pan-European national ambition to play a significant role in the world, and it
more traditional great-power considerations, including the pursuit of those valuable if intangible national interests: honor and respect.
has become the vehicle for channeling German, French, and British ambitions in what Europeans regard as a safe supranational direction. Europeans seek honor and respect,
too, but of a postmodern variety. The honor they seek is to occupy the moral high ground in the world, to exercise moral authority, to wield political and economic influence as an
antidote to militarism, to be the keeper of the global conscience, and to be recognized and admired by others for playing this role. Islam is not a nation, but many Muslims
express a kind of religious nationalism, and the leaders of radical Islam, including al Qaeda, do seek to establish a theocratic nation or confederation of nations that would
encompass a wide swath of the Middle East and beyond. Like national movements elsewhere, Islamists have a yearning for respect, including self-respect, and a desire for
honor. Their national identity has been molded in defiance against stronger and often oppressive outside powers, and also by memories of ancient superiority over those same
powers. China had its "century of humiliation." Islamists have more than a century of humiliation to look back on, a humiliation of which Israel has become the living symbol,
which is partly why even Muslims who are neither radical nor fundamentalist proffer their sympathy and even their support to violent extremists who can turn the tables on the
is the United States

itself. As a matter of national policy stretching back across numerous administrations, Democratic and
Republican, liberal and conservative, Americans have insisted on preserving regional predominance in East
dominant liberal West, and particularly on a dominant America which implanted and still feeds the Israeli cancer in their midst. Finally, there
Asia; the Middle East; the Western Hemisphere; until recently, Europe; and now, increasingly, Central Asia. This was its goal after the Second World War, and since the end of
the Cold War, beginning with the first Bush administration and continuing through the Clinton years, the United States did not retract but expanded its influence eastward across
it is also engaged in
hegemonic competitions in these regions with China in East and Central Asia, with Iran in the Middle East
and Central Asia, and with Russia in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. The United States,
too, is more of a traditional than a postmodern power, and though Americans are loath to acknowledge it,
they generally prefer their global place as "No. 1" and are equally loath to relinquish it. Once having
entered a region, whether for practical or idealistic reasons, they are remarkably slow to withdraw from it
until they believe they have substantially transformed it in their own image. They profess indifference to
the world and claim they just want to be left alone even as they seek daily to shape the behavior of
billions of people around the globe. The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations
and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system.
Nationalism in all its forms is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power ,
influence, honor, and status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying -- its
regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the
regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and
lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often
through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such
a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars
between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic. It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the
Europe and into the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Even as it maintains its position as the predominant global power,
role the United States plays in providing a measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is the dominant naval power
everywhere, such that other nations cannot compete with it even in their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the guarantor of
international waterways and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its
role as guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and
Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed
embargos, of the kind used in World War i and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in a way
that is now impossible. Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power. Even the
possibly beyond.
European Union, that great geopolitical miracle, owes its founding to American power, for without it the European nations after World War ii would never have felt secure enough
Europe 's stability depends on the guarantee, however

distant and one hopes unnecessary, that the United States could step in to check any dangerous
development on the continent. In a genuinely multipolar world, that would not be possible without
renewing the danger of world war. People who believe greater equality among nations would be preferable to the present American predominance often
to reintegrate Germany. Most Europeans recoil at the thought, but even today
succumb to a basic logical fallacy. They believe the order the world enjoys today exists independently of American power. They imagine that in a world where American power
was diminished, the aspects of international order that they like would remain in place. But that 's not the way it works. International order does not rest on ideas and institutions.
It is shaped by configurations of power. The international order we know today reflects the distribution of power in the world since World War ii, and especially since the end of
the Cold War. A different configuration of power, a multipolar world in which the poles were Russia, China, the United States, India, and Europe, would produce its own kind of
order, with different rules and norms reflecting the interests of the powerful states that would have a hand in shaping it. Would that international order be an improvement?
Perhaps for Beijing and Moscow it would. But it is doubtful that it would suit the tastes of enlightenment liberals in the United States and Europe. The current order, of course, is
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Even under the umbrella of unipolarity,

regional conflicts involving the large powers may erupt. War could erupt between China and Taiwan and
draw in both the United States and Japan. War could erupt between Russia and Georgia, forcing the United
States and its European allies to decide whether to intervene or suffer the consequences of a Russian victory. Conflict between India and
Pakistan remains possible, as does conflict between Iran and Israel or other Middle Eastern states.
These, too, could draw in other great powers, including the United States. Such conflicts may be
unavoidable no matter what policies the United States pursues. But they are more likely to erupt if the
United States weakens or withdraws from its positions of regional dominance. This is especially true in
East Asia, where most nations agree that a reliable American power has a stabilizing and pacific effect on
the region. That is certainly the view of most of China 's neighbors. But even China, which seeks gradually to supplant the United States as the dominant power in the
region, faces the dilemma that an American withdrawal could unleash an ambitious, independent, nationalist Japan. In Europe, too, the departure of the
United States from the scene -- even if it remained the world's most powerful nation -- could be
destabilizing. It could tempt Russia to an even more overbearing and potentially forceful approach to
unruly nations on its periphery. Although some realist theorists seem to imagine that the disappearance of the Soviet Union put an end to
not only far from perfect but also offers no guarantee against major conflict among the world's great powers.
the possibility of confrontation between Russia and the West, and therefore to the need for a permanent American role in Europe, history suggests that
If the United States withdrew from Europe -- if it

adopted what some call a strategy of "offshore balancing" -- this could in time increase the likelihood of
conflict involving Russia and its near neighbors, which could in turn draw the United States back in under
unfavorable circumstances. It is also optimistic to imagine that a retrenchment of the American position in
the Middle East and the assumption of a more passive, "offshore" role would lead to greater stability
there. The vital interest the United States has in access to oil and the role it plays in keeping access open to other nations in Europe and Asia make it unlikely that American
leaders could or would stand back and hope for the best while the powers in the region battle it out. Nor would a more "even-handed" policy toward Israel, which
some see as the magic key to unlocking peace, stability, and comity in the Middle East, obviate the need to come to Israel 's aid if its security
became threatened. That commitment, paired with the American commitment to protect strategic oil supplies for most of
the world, practically ensures a heavy American military presence in the region, both on the seas and on the ground.
The subtraction of American power from any region would not end conflict but would simply change the equation. In the Middle East, competition for
influence among powers both inside and outside the region has raged for at least two centuries. The rise
of Islamic fundamentalism doesn't change this. It only adds a new and more threatening dimension to the
competition, which neither a sudden end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians nor an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq
would change. The alternative to American predominance in the region is not balance and peace. It is further
competition. The region and the states within it remain relatively weak. A diminution of American influence
would not be followed by a diminution of other external influences. One could expect deeper involvement
by both China and Russia, if only to secure their interests. 18 And one could also expect the more powerful states of the region, particularly Iran, to expand
conflicts in Europe involving Russia are possible even without Soviet communism.
and fill the vacuum. It is doubtful that any American administration would voluntarily take actions that could shift the balance of power in the Middle East further toward Russia,
China, or Iran. The world hasn 't changed that much. An American withdrawal from Iraq will not return things to "normal" or to a new kind of stability in the region. It will produce
a new instability, one likely to draw the United States back in again. The alternative to American regional predominance in the Middle East and elsewhere is not a new regional
stability. In an era of burgeoning nationalism, the future is likely to be one of intensified competition among nations and nationalist movements. Difficult as it may be to extend
American predominance into the future, no one should imagine that a reduction of American power or a retraction of American influence and global involvement will provide an
easier path.
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MERIT PAY U
Obama successfully pushing toward teaching merit system
Administration officials say Obama's policies have spurred progress on a host of fronts, leading states
across the country to take steps toward performance pay, charter school expansion and tenure reform.
Many Republicans say they applaud elements of Obama's reform agenda that are at odds with union
traditions. "I do have some respect for the fact that the president and Secretary Duncan have challenged
their constituencies to go out of their comfort zone," said Tony Bennett, superintendent of public
instruction in Indiana and a Republican.
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LINK: BACKLASH TANK MERIT PAY

Union backlash forces Obama to cater to teachers unions
Wallsten 2/19/11
Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, has faced a balancing act of his own, praising the White
House push for infrastructure funding, for example, while offering careful criticism in other areas. Some on
the left, including Ralph Nader, have tried to pressure the unions to push Trumka to be tougher on
Obama. Nader wrote Obama last month to decry a "wide symmetry" in his recent aggressive courtship of
corporate chiefs vs. his relations with labor. White House officials point to their work with the UAW and
other unions as examples of how the administration seeks to work with labor when there is a common
purpose. "There are areas where we agree and there are areas where we disagree, but we all share the
same goals" of reviving the economy, said White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki. Still, Obama aides
and administration officials have made an effort in recent weeks to ease tensions. Obama's new chief of
staff, William M. Daley, a former banking executive and Chamber board member whose arrival was
greeted with suspicion by union leaders, has quietly sought to find allies. He trekked this month to AFLCIO headquarters two blocks from the White House for a sit-down with Trumka, who weeks earlier issued
a cool statement when Daley was appointed. And even as tensions have simmered between
administration officials and teachers unions over Obama's support for overhauling public schools, the
White House and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have sought to forge closer ties with teacher
advocates. Duncan, urging compromise, this week hosted a summit in Denver for union activists and
school administrators from across the country.
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INTERNAL: CAVING TO TEACHERS KILLS OTHER UNIONS

Caving into teachers unions dooms unions across the board
Klein 2/25/11
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/where_the_teachers_unions_go_t.html
Ezra Klein (born May 9, 1984) is an American blogger and columnist for The Washington Post, a
columnist for Newsweek, and a contributor to MSNBC. He was formerly an associate editor of The
American Prospect political magazine and an American liberal[1] political blogger at the same publication.
Most people don't have much contact with the janitors at their city hall or machinists in Chicago. But they
do have contact with their child's teacher and they do read about how well the schools are doing. The
education system is a shared American project. It is the only place where people really notice unions on a
day-to-day level. It's the only place where they really care about unions. If they loved teachers unions,
they'd probably have a much better impression of the union movement in general. But though they love
teachers, they don't love teachers unions. Not even close. And that does organized labor an incalculable
amount of damage.
The teachers unions protest that they've been unfairly maligned, the victim of a hit campaign that vastly
overstated the quality of the solutions proposed by the Michelle Rhees of the world and vastly underrates
how much teachers unions have done to professionalize teaching. And that might be be true. But it
doesn't really matter: America has a broken educational system and the people who seem to have a plan
are being opposed by the people whom that system is paying. That doesn't look good. That looks like how
you lose the future.
So I'm glad to see Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, come out with a
proposal (pdf) outlining a specific process for evaluating and, if necessary, firing underperforming
teachers. It's a couple years late, but it's a start. In the end, Stern is right: Unions have no chance if the
public continues to see them as part of the problem afflicting sclerotic bureaucracies and industries rather
than as a force for aggressive and overdue change in those institutions. Weingarten's proposal isn't
enough to refashion teacher's unions as agents of change. But it's at least an admission that that's what
they need to become.
***UNIONS GOOD DA
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UNIQUENESS: UNIONS WILL SURVIVE!

Unions will survive
Van Jones 2/22/11
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, American Progess Action Fund
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/van-jones/american-dream-movement_b_826477.html
In the past 24 months, those of us who longed for positive change have gone from hope to heartbreak.
But hope is returning to America -- at last -- thanks largely to the courageous stand of the heroes and
heroines of Wisconsin.
Reinvigorated by the idealism and fighting spirit on display right now in America's heartland, the
movement for "hope and change" has a rare, second chance. It can renew itself and become again a
national force with which to be reckoned.
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LINKS: MORALE
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PUBLIC SUPPORT KEY UNION SURVIVAL

Wisconsin makes now key to public support for unions
Chaison 2/19/11
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/18/the-first-blow-against-public-employees/a-turningpoint-in-labor-history
Gary Chaison is professor of industrial relations at Clark University.
A Turning Point in Labor History This is an explosive issue that goes to the core of the right of workers to
be represented by unions while also conjuring up images of all-powerful union leaders raiding the public
treasury. Thousands of protesters appeared at the Wisconsin state Capitol, and governors in other states,
particularly Chris Christie of New Jersey, are building their political careers on their records of fighting
public employee unions. And those who teach labor relations at universities and those who bargaining for
unions are incensed by the Wisconsin restrictions on union and workers freedoms. But this is more than
proof of the obvious premise that once you give a group of workers' bargaining rights, you cant take them
away. Rather, I believe this is the second of a two-stage attack on a weakened American labor movement.
The unions are being made the scapegoats for all that is going bad economically. Stage one. Two years
ago, at Congressional hearings over the bailout and possible bankruptcies of the Detroit Three
automakers (G.M., Ford and Chrysler), members of all parties apparently felt the need to publicly blame
both company management and the United Auto Workers for the industrys decline. It was argued
energetically and repeatedly that union and management had jointly agreed to high wages and strong job
security measures, and, by their own fault, Detroit carmakers were being capsized by high labor costs
and no longer able to compete globally. As workers at non-union companies were being laid off or forced
to accept cuts in wage and benefit cuts, why should auto workers be protected? No one wanted hear that
the automakers had a marketing problem they couldnt make cars that consumers wanted. The public
demanded equality of sacrifice: the union members must also feel the pain of the economic hard times.
Stage two. Now, as the high unemployment continues and many states have huge budget shortfalls and
appear on verge of bankruptcy, once again the unions are being blamed. In the private sector, only 7
percent of workers are union members, but fully 36 percent of government workers are in unions. Unions
of government workers seem relatively large and powerful and, according to politicians and many voters,
they need their comeuppance. A decade ago, candidates for governor in highly unionized states eagerly
sought the endorsement of government workers unions, knowing that this could lead to election victory.
They seem to have learned that confronting the unions rather than courting them pays off. Blame the
public workers' unions, particularly the teachers, clerical and transportation workers unions (there is
nothing to be gained politically by attacking the unions of police and firefighters), and tremendous public
support will surely follow. There has never been anything like this in American labor history. In the late
1960s and early 1970s there may have been some qualms about giving public workers the right to
unionize, but those qualms have turned into animosity. There seems little difference in the approach
toward government workers unions taken by Governor Walker and his Wisconsin Legislature than there
would have been in most states 100 years ago. Why is Governor Walker attacking the unions and
threatening the rights of union members? It's simply because he can and he benefits by doing so. It
resonates with the voters. This second stage in union scapegoating could only happen with a labor
movement in decline in size and public support (unions lost more than 600,000 members over the past
years and the Gallup polls, for example, show a trend toward lower public support for unions). Although,
government worker union may seem large, this is only in a relative sense for every public worker in a
union there are two who arent. The unions must fight for the hearts and the minds of the voters. It is not
enough for them simply to demand that what has been given to them in the past must be continued, or
argue that they are really not better paid than private sector workers and that cuts are not justified. The
unions can only repel attacks with concessions in bargaining reasonableness that seems adequate and
fair.
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UNION UNITY U
Unions unified now
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/19/obama-offers-tactical-support-unions-state-budgetbattles/#ixzz1GLbqV5SK
For the labor movement, which suffered a bitter split in 2005, the brash moves by GOP lawmakers such
as Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., have brought unions together in a way unthinkable a few years ago.
Nearly every major union leader -- both public and private sector -- has united behind an ambitious $30
million plan to stop anti-labor measures in Wisconsin and 10 other states.
The group at the new "Labor Table" includes AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka working with leaders
such as Teamsters president James Hoffa. Until recently, the two barely were on speaking terms.
"There's nothing like the possibility of extinction to focus people's attention," said former Rep. David
Bonior, D-Mich., who spent more than a year trying without success to reunify the labor movement.
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COLLECTIVE BARGAINING KEY

Winning collective bargaining key to union survival
Wallace 2/22/11
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/careers/wisconsin-the-end-of-labor-unions/19850363/
Charles Wallace is a veteran business journalist who has written about economics, corporate finance and
consumer electronics for Time, Fortune, The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times and Institutional
Investor magazine. He won the Business Journalist of the Year award given by the city of London for a
piece about stock markets
With the efforts in Wisconsin and some other states to eliminate or severely limit collective bargaining for
public employees, the entire labor union movement in the U.S. is threatened with a potential starvation of
funds and a sharp drop in membership. That could have a big impact on labor's voice on everything from
the value of China's currency to new laws dealing with worker protections.
"This is a direct assault on the institutional viability of labor unions," says Marick F. Masters, director of the
Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues and Labor at Wayne State University in Detroit. "This isn't
an effort to legislate changes in benefits. This is an effort to rewrite the collective-bargaining laws."
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has proposed a plan that would end collective bargaining for a number of
state and municipal workers on retirement pay and on health-care benefits. He also wants to limit the
"agency shop" -- where workers covered by union contracts pay either union dues or a fee even if they
aren't union members -- and require public sector unions to be recertified on an annual basis.
Ohio is also holding hearings on a bill that would eliminate all collective bargaining for state workers. And
New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie has introduced measures to require teachers to pay
more for retirement and health benefits and has proposed ending their tenure.
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/hBZ1Un
Current fight key to labors survival obama/union alliance has to win

Cooper 2/18/11
http://nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/why-obama-and-the-unions-fight-in-wisconsin-20110218
Matthew Cooper is Managing Editor of White House coverage for National Journal. Cooper has held
reporting and editorial positions at several of Washingtons most respected news organizations, serving
as White House Correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, deputy Washington Bureau Chief for
Newsweek, deputy Washington Bureau Chief and White House Correspondent for Time, and Politics
Editor for Time.com. Cooper has also been an Editor for Washington Monthly and The New Republic,
Washington Editor for Conde Nast Portfolio, Politics Correspondent for TheAtlantic.com, and Editor-atLarge for TalkingPointsMemo.com. Cooper has also contributed to Slate and the New York Times. Prior to
joining National Journal, he was Senior Adviser to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
The standoff between public employees in Wisconsin and the states new Republican governor has drawn
President Obama into the fray and marks an important turning point in the century-plus story of organized
labor in America.
More than 25,000 protesters turned out in Wisconsin to sound their dismay at Gov. Scott Walkers plans
to use emergency legislation to roll back collective-bargaining rights for the states employees. The
measure would limit workers' ability to strike over issues other than pay. Foremost on that list is health
insurance, which has become an increasingly important part of the compensation package for public and
private union members in recent years as governments and corporations have pushed back against
salary increases. Democrats in the Wisconsin Legislature are trying to block Walkers measure, and
theyre getting support from Obama who talked to a Milwaukee television reporter on Tuesday about his
concerns.
"Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they're just making it harder for public
employees to collectively bargain, generally, seems like more of an assault on unions," Obama told the
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local reporter. "I think everybody's got to make some adjustments, but I think it's also important to
recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens."
For his part, Gov. Walker responded Friday morning during an appearance on Fox News to the
presidents comment. I think were focused on balancing our budget, said Walker. It would be wise for
the president and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budget, which they are a long ways
from doing.
It's no wonder that the White House's political arm, Organizing for America, and the Democratic National
Committee have been lending support to the Wisconsin protesters.
Of course, fights between management and labor are nothing new, and battles between officeholders and
public-employee unions arent unique. Anyone who has lived through a sanitation workers' or a teachers
strike can testify to that. Indeed, politicians of both parties regularly seek to keep public-employee costs
down to relieve pressure on budgets and taxes.
But the Great Recession has created a fiscal crisis in states, counties, and municipalities. As a
consequence, some governors have gone beyond traditional budget-cutting. Like Wisconsins Walker,
they have instead sought to revamp the basic collective-bargaining rules that public employees have
come to see as beyond political debate.
Walker's moves are similar to proposals by two old-hand Republican politicians who find themselves as
freshman governors -- John Kasich, the former House Budget chairman who is now Ohios governor, and
Terry Branstad who has retaken the governors chair in Iowa. Each is trying to pare not only the state
budget but also the rights of public employees.
This is a far cry from other recent measures such as Obamas freeze on federal salaries in his proposed
$3.7 trillion budget. It is of an entirely different stripe than the Democratic Congresss failure in 2009 to
pass the Employee Free Choice Act, the so-called card-check bill, that would have made it much easier
for unions to hold, and win, electionsa setback that broke the hearts of union officials. No, the Walker
move is more akin to the 2002 debate in Congress over the creation of the mammoth Homeland Security
Department where President George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress managed to exempt
many jobs from traditional union work rules.
Whats happening in Wisconsin is more threatening to unions because its not just giving back money
something thats become a mainstay in the auto industry for years. Its giving back hard-won rights. By
going after collective-bargaining rules, Walker has taken on public-employee unions in a way thats more
fundamental, profound, and threatening to unions than New Jerseys Republican Gov. Chris Christie's
wielding of the budget axe. Christie has become the darling of the GOP circles because of his
administrations fiscal austerity.
By taking aim at the ability of public employees to strike, Walker has found a tool that may well cut the
state's budget deficit. In doing so, however, he has lit a fire under Democrats and a chastened labor
movement that has gotten used to givebacks.
Collective bargaining is the infrastructure--the essential core of labors rights and power--and so attacks
on that right go to the heart of the union movement. That is why the president weighed in on what is at
first glance a local issue. If the battle of Madison spreads beyond Columbus and Des Moines to the rest of
the country, well be hearing a lot more on this topic from the president.
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PUBLIC UNIONS KEY

Public unions key to labor survival
Wallace 2/22/11
If there's a general attack on public unions, it could be a huge setback for the entire labor movement.
Since the 1950s, union membership has declined in the U.S. from about 35% of the workforce to about
12% today.
Most of that drop was due to automation in factories or jobs being sent offshore to places like China. At
the same time, unions covering public employees grew substantially beginning in the 1960s and now
constitute 48.9% of the unionized workforce, according to Amaya Tune, a spokeswoman for the AFL-CIO
in Washington.
Not only are public service unions such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees largely financed by dues paid by covered workers who are not in the union, but some other
large unions, such as the Teamsters, also have a large public service membership. The Teamsters is the
country's largest police union, and about 300,000 of the Teamsters' estimated 1 million members are in
public sector jobs.
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/hBZ1Un
Public union death spills over to private unions

Drum 2/22/11
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/02/stakes-wisconsin
Kevin Drum (born October 19, 1958) is an American political blogger and columnist. He was born in
Long Beach, California and now lives in Irvine, California.
Drum attended Caltech for two years. He transferred to California State University, Long Beach and
received his bachelor's degree in journalism in 1981. While at CSULB he served as city editor of the
university's student run newspaper, the Daily 49er.
But that doesn't mean this is the only benefit of unions. I also value unions for moral reasons: workers
should have the right to effectively bargain with management over wages and working conditions no
matter who management happens to be. Taxpayers can act unfairly just as easily as any other employer.
And I value them for purely economic reasons: workers should be paid decently no matter who they work
for and unions help make that happen. And for reasons of solidarity: the death of public sector unions will
only hasten the further demise of private sector unions too. And for reasons of partisan hackery: public
sector unions provide considerable support for the more liberal of our two great political parties.
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PUBLIC UNIONS KEY TO WAGES

Only maintaining strong public unions can prevent wage deflation and rich-poor
gap
Karabel 2/26/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerome-karabel/wisconsin-labor-and-the-f_b_828604.html
Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley
This is a watershed moment for the American labor movement. Drastically weakened by decades of a
corporate offensive against workers in the private sector, the labor movement is now being frontally
attacked at its last stronghold: public-sector unions. If the current assault on labor -- now being
spearheaded by Governor Scott Walker's push to eliminate the bargaining rights of public-sector workers
in Wisconsin -- succeeds, it will leave the United States as the only wealthy democratic country with little
more than a shadow of a union movement. In a recent statement, Governor Walker accurately, if
somewhat grandiloquently, described the stakes: "This is our moment. This is our time to change the
course of history."
Public employees, just 17 percent of union members nationwide in 1973, now comprise half of all union
members in the United States. The rise of public-sector unions has coincided -- and partially counterbalanced -- a disastrous decline of private-sector unions, which now represent just 6.9 percent of all
workers in the private sector, compared to 24 percent in 1973 and roughly one-third in 1960. In sharp
contrast, public-employee unions now represent 36 percent of all public-sector workers -- a figure that
goes a long way towards explaining why the right wing has now targeted government workers in an
attempt to destroy what is left of the labor movement.
Even the rise of public-sector unions has not, however, been enough to arrest a massive long-term
decline in the strength of organized labor. Representing one-third of all workers in the late 1950s,
unionized workers had dropped to 22 percent by 1980. Ronald Reagan's election to the presidency -- and
his firing of over 11,000 air traffic controllers in the PATCO strike of 1981 -- both embodied and reinforced
a growing corporate offensive against labor. By the time Reagan left office in 1989, unions represented
just 16 percent of all workers, and only 12 percent of workers in the private sector.
With private-sector unions now at their lowest ebb since the early 1930s, the public-sector unions have
become the last redoubt of a battered labor movement. While not a substitute for a vibrant union
movement in the private sector, public sector unions have been crucial in enabling organized labor to
remain a major player in national politics. Without their financial resources and their capacity to mobilize
voters during elections, neither progressive candidates nor progressive policies would stand a chance in a
money-drenched political system increasingly tilted towards the interests of the wealthy and powerful.
Organized labor is far weaker in the United States than in any other wealthy democratic country; to cite
just one example, in a number of European countries the percent of the labor force covered by union
contracts surpasses 90 percent and is nowhere less than 34 percent, compared to 13 percent in the
United States. Yet the decline of American unions was not inevitable; it was not simply a byproduct of
impersonal forces such as de-industrialization and globalization. Canada and the U.S., neighbors with
interconnected economies that are subject to many of the same pressures, both had roughly 30 percent
of their workers in unions in 1960. But by 2008, Canada still had a similar percentage in unions, while
union membership in the U.S. declined by more than half. The difference in the two countries is political:
as Seymour Martin Lipset has shown, whereas unions in Canada enjoy more cooperative politicians, a
friendlier legal environment, and less hostile employers, American unions have for decades faced an
unrelenting corporate assault, aided and abetted by a Republican Party increasingly hostile to collective
bargaining.
The consequences of a weak labor movement -- and one that is growing weaker by the year -- are central
to the future of American society. For the first time in American history, rapid increases in productivity
have not been accompanied by corresponding gains in wages; at the same time, the minimum wage has
lagged behind increases in the cost of living. Inequality, while growing in virtually all the wealthy
democratic countries, has increased more sharply in the United States than elsewhere, and the U.S. now
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leads the advanced world in inequality. The poverty rate in the United States, which was cut in half during
the 1960s, is now the highest of the wealthy democratic countries. And according to a recent UNICEF
study of child well-being, the United States ranks 20th out of 21 OECD countries.
The societies that rank high in the UNICEF study -- and in other studies of social well-being and the
quality of life -- are almost invariably societies with strong labor movements. This is not a coincidence. For
it is the labor movement that is among the stoutest defenders of the social safety net and shared
prosperity, and labor is one of the few institutions able to serve as an effective counter-weight to the
power of corporations and their political allies in an increasingly marketized global system.
For the United States, the implications could not be more clear. The attack on public-employee unions,
should it triumph, will remove one of the last remaining obstacles to the untrammeled power of private
corporations and the politicians committed to their agenda. This will have dire consequences that will go
far beyond union members and their families, for it will shred America's already tattered safety net and
further concentrate power in the hands of the privileged. It is precisely because labor and its allies have
realized what is at stake that they have succeeded in mounting a fierce counter-offensive that may
nevertheless be repulsed. But whatever the outcome, the battle in Wisconsin may mark not the historic
blow to organized labor that Governor Walker had expected to deliver, but the first step in the renewal of a
beleaguered, yet still essential, movement.
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UNION SURVIVAL KEY TO OBAMA 2012

Bogging down unions cripples them in 2012
Atlanta Journal Constitution 2/27/11
ln
Underlying the rhetoric on both sides is the reality of politics. A top source of interest-group funds for
Democratic candidates in recent election cycles has been the unions, which conservatives claim gave
$400 million to President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign.
Forcing the unions into costly legal and political fights now, while cutting back their membership, could
leave them in a weakened state in 2012, the next presidential election year.
Obama himself has gotten involved, as his Organizing for American grass-roots group mans phone banks
to rally support for Wisconsin workers demonstrating against Walker's bill. The unions are also mobilizing
across the country, holding demonstrations Saturday at all 50 state capitols.
Union survival in WI crucial to Obama 2012

Rove, 2/24/11
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703529004576160370862157158.html?
mod=googlenews_wsj
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 20002007 and Deputy Chief of
Staff from 20042007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs,
Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the
White House policy-making process. Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's
2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm
that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included
over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the
Moderate Party of Sweden. Karl writes a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek
columnist and is the author of the book "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions).
Why is the president trying to bully the Wisconsin governor? After all, Arizona, Utah, Arkansas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama and West Virginia are among the states to explicitly prohibit collective bargaining for
public employees, which is far beyond what Mr. Walker is seeking. The answer is found in four digits:
2012. Unlike those states, Wisconsin is a 2012 battleground. Gerald McEntee, president of the American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, told a reporter from this newspaper last week that
a union defeat in Wisconsin "can put [Mr. Obama] in some danger" of losing the next election. Labor
spent $400 million to elect Mr. Obama in 2008: Mr. McEntee was sending a not-so-subtle message that
unions would be unable to spend so generously on his behalf in 2012 if they continue hemorrhaging
members and dues money. And hemorrhage they have. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS), last year alone 612,000 U.S. workers dropped their union memberships, each representing as
much as $500 in lost dues. While labor is still powerful, its decline has been precipitous among privatesector workers. According to the BLS, just 6.9% of private-sector workers (7.1 million) are unionized,
while 36.2% of public- sector workers (7.6 million) are. And the number of public-sector union members is
rising.
Obama needs unions to win in 2012 Wisconsin loss kills their monies
Stone 2/22/11
Labor also contributes heavily to Democratic candidates.
Public-sector unions gave nearly $17 million to congressional candidates in 2010, almost all of it to
Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That was the largest single chunk contributed
by organized labor that year.
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But if Walker -- who today threatened layoffs if unions don't agree to his demands -- wins, the coffers of
labor's political action committees could run dry. And that would deprive Democrats, including the
president, of an important source for cash.
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UNIONS GOOD: WAGES

Unions increase overall wages and decrease unemployment
Johnston 2/24/11
http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8EDJYS?OpenDocument
David Cay Johnston (born Dec. 24, 1948) is an investigative journalist and author. Until April 2008, he
was the tax reporter with The New York Times for thirteen years. He now works as an author, reporter,
radio and television essayist, and lecturer. On June 23, 2008, Johnston inaugurated Johnstons Take, a
regular column that he writes for Tax Analysts, the nonprofit publisher of the weekly trade journal Tax
Notes.[1] Johnston also is a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Syracuse University College of Law, where
he teaches the courses History of the Regulation of Trade and Business and Property and Tax from
Ancient Athens to Modern America[2]
When you control for the education required to be a prosecutor or nurse, government workers get total
compensation that is less than those in the corporate sector. This may reflect the fact that fewer and
fewer private sector workers are in unions, about 7 percent at last count. As economic theory predicts, as
fewer workers can bargain collectively the overall wage level falls. Effectively wiping out public employee
unions would only add to downward pressure on wages, standard economic theory shows.
On the other hand, unionized state workers run a much smaller risk of going through bouts of
joblessness, an economic benefit. Numerous studies indicate that public workers, including those in
Wisconsin, make about 5 percent less than private sector workers when you control for education. But
what is the lifetime cost, and risk, of episodic joblessness among comparable private sector workers? Is
that cost equal to 5 percent or so of lifetime earnings, which would even out the differential? I have yet to
read an analysis of that issue by an academic economist, much less a journalist, so I do not know the
truth of that question.
Unions key to overall wages

Wallace 2/22/11
Daniel Cornfield, a professor at Vanderbilt University and the editor of the journal Work and Occupation,
says another consequence of clampdown on public sector unions would be a widening of the gap in
wages between women and men and between racial minorities and whites. That's because women and
minorities are disproportionately represented in state and local work forces nationally.
Nonunion Workers Could Also Suffer
"The public sector unions played a significant role in narrowing any wage gaps that exist between races
and genders because of who they represent," Cornfield says. "The dismantling of collective bargaining in
the public sector could exacerbate the gender gap and the race gap on pay." Cornfield says. He notes
that the rise of public sector unions in the 1960s was closely associated with two other trends: the
burgeoning women's movement and civil rights movement.
Cornfield also points out that weakening of organized labor could also hurt the wages for the bulk of
workers who are now employed in companies that don't have unions. That's because nonunionized
companies often will match union benefits in an effort to keep union representation out of their firms.
Without that model, Cornfield says, the "wages of the 90% of the labor force that's not unionized" could be
threatened.
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UNIONS GOOD: RACE/GENDER WAGE GAP

Maintaining unions key to address racial and gender wage disparity
Wallace 2/22/11
Daniel Cornfield, a professor at Vanderbilt University and the editor of the journal Work and Occupation,
says another consequence of clampdown on public sector unions would be a widening of the gap in
wages between women and men and between racial minorities and whites. That's because women and
minorities are disproportionately represented in state and local work forces nationally.
Nonunion Workers Could Also Suffer
"The public sector unions played a significant role in narrowing any wage gaps that exist between races
and genders because of who they represent," Cornfield says. "The dismantling of collective bargaining in
the public sector could exacerbate the gender gap and the race gap on pay." Cornfield says. He notes
that the rise of public sector unions in the 1960s was closely associated with two other trends: the
burgeoning women's movement and civil rights movement.
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UNIONS GOOD: HEG

Unions key to American power rollback eviscerates them
Van Jones 2/22/11
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, American Progess Action Fund
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/van-jones/american-dream-movement_b_826477.html
And we should announce that our renewed movement is more than just a mobilization to back unions or
oppose illegitimate power grabs (as important as those agenda items are). Something more vital is at
stake: our country needs a national movement to defend the American Dream itself. And the fight in
Wisconsin creates the opportunity to build one.
After all, it is the American Dream that the GOP's "slash and burn" agenda is killing off. We need a
movement dedicated to renewing the idea that hard work pays in our country; that you can make it if you
try; that America remains a land committed to dignity, justice and opportunity for all. Right now, this very
idea is on the GOP chopping block. And we must rescue it now -- or risk losing it forever.
America will not make it through this crisis healthy and whole if -- at the first sign of trouble -- we are
willing to throw away millions of our everyday heroes. Our teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses
and others make our communities and country strong. Their daily work is essential to the smooth
functioning and long-term success of our nation. An attack on them is an attack on the backbone of
America.
Nobody objects to politicians cutting budgetary fat. But the GOP program everywhere is so reckless that it
would actually cut muscle, bone and marrow, too. This approach is both shortsighted and immoral. We
should rise up against it -- in our millions.
GOP Cuts Muscle, Fat and Bone -- Republicans Attack American Way
Both parties should be taking steps to solve the country's problems in a balanced, fair and rational way. If
deficits are truly the issue, then raising taxes and cutting spending both should be on the table, as tools.
But Wisconsin's governor recently handed out massive corporate tax breaks, reducing the state's
revenues. That move greatly added to the problem he now wants to fix by attacking essential services
with a meat axe. A slew of GOP governors in places like Ohio are gearing up to take similar approaches.
If a foreign power conspired to inflict this much damage on America's first responders and essential
infrastructure, we would see it as an act of war.
And if a foreign dictator unilaterally announced that his nation's workers no longer had a seat at the
bargaining table in their own country, the U.S. establishment would rightfully go bananas.
If Republicans would oppose that kind of thuggery abroad, how can they champion it here at home? How
can they accept for the American people what they would denounce for the people of any other nation on
Earth?
GOP governors in multiple states are advancing schemes to erase the long-standing rights of American
employees to choose a union and bargain collectively. We need to call these outrageous plots what they
are: un-American and unacceptable. They are not just assaults on workers; they are assaults on the
American Way itself.
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UNIONS -> PROGRESSIVE TAXATION

Union power key to progressive taxation
Yglesias 2/22/11
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/unions-and-budget-deficits/
Yglesias went to high school at The Dalton School in New York City and later attended Harvard University
where he studied philosophy. He graduated magna cum laude in 2003. He was editor-in-chief of The
Harvard Independent, a weekly newsmagazine, and also wrote for several other campus publications.
Yglesias started blogging in early 2002, while still in college, focusing mainly on American politics and
public policy issues, often approached from an abstract, philosophical perspective. He was one of the
supporters of the Iraq war, although he's changed his mind since then. Yglesias joined the American
Prospect as a writing fellow upon his graduation in 2003, subsequently becoming a staff writer. His posts
appeared regularly on the magazine's collaborative weblog TAPPED.[1] His personal blog has been
hosted, at various times, on blogger, Typepad, Josh Marshall's TPMCafe, and at matthewyglesias.com.
From June 2007 until August 2008, he was a staff writer at The Atlantic Monthly, and his blog was hosted
on the magazine's website, The Atlantic. In July 2008, he announced that he would leave The Atlantic
Monthly for his current home at the Center for American Progress, because he missed "the sense of
collegiality that comes from working with like-minded colleagues on a shared enterprise" and thought he
could "help advance their mission".[2] He has also written for mainstream publications such as the New
York Times Magazine, and has made occasional appearances on radio and television as a political
commentator. He is a regular contributor to BloggingHeads.tv. Yglesias is often referred to in the
blogosphere as Big Media Matt, a semi-affectionate nickname coined by Duncan Black after his
recruitment by the American Prospect.[3]
Looking at this chart, what I think you would see is that unionization levels have a strong relationship to
progressive taxation. New York, Hawaii, and Washington are all high-tax states, especially on rich people,
while the non-union south has generally low levels of taxation and regressive tax structures. The
conservative movement is financed by rich people whose primary interest in life is lower taxes. And on an
intellectual level, the main wellspring of conservative economic policy ideas comes from people who
believe that progressive income taxes are very economically damaging. A secondary intellectual
inspiration is people like Greg Mankiw who believe that such taxes are an immoral imposition on a genetic
elite. A key problem with this agenda is that higher taxes on rich people are a politically popular way to
solve budget deficits. The solution is to create a dynamic in which political parties are entirely reliant on
rich businessmen for their financing. Reducing labor unions to a state of political impotence will get the
job done.
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UNIONS GOOD: CORPORATE POWER BAD

Destroying unions equals unlimited corporate dominance
Drum 2/21/11
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/02/why-we-need-unions
Long Beach, California and now lives in Irvine, California.
Every single human institution or organization of any size has its bad points. Corporations certainly do.
The military does. Organized religion does. Academia does. The media does. The financial industry sure
as hell does. But with the exception of a few extremists here and there, nobody uses this as an excuse to
suggest that these institutions are hopelessly corrupt and should cease existing. Rather, it's used as
fodder for regulatory proposals or as an argument that every right-thinking person should fight these
institutions on some particular issue. Corporations should or shouldn't be rewarded for outsourcing jobs.
Academics do or don't deserve more state funding. The financial industry should or shouldn't be required
to trade credit derivatives on public exchanges.
Unions are the most common big exception to this rule. Sure, conservatives will take whatever chance
they can to rein them in, regulate them, make it nearly impossible for them to organize new workplaces.
But they also routinely argue that labor unions simply shouldn't exist. This is what's happening in
Wisconsin: Gov. Scott Walker isn't satisfied with merely negotiating concessions from public sector
unions. He wants to effectively ban collective bargaining and all but do away with public sector unions
completely.
Nobody should buy this. Of course unions have pathologies. Every big human institution does. And
anyone who thinks they're on the wrong side of an issue should fight it out with them. But unions are also
the only large-scale movement left in America that persistently acts as a countervailing power against
corporate power. They're the only large-scale movement left that persistently acts in the economic
interests of the middle class.
So sure: go ahead and fight the teachers unions on charter schools. Go ahead and insist that public
sector unions in Wisconsin need to take pay and benefit cuts if that's what you believe. Go ahead and rail
against Davis-Bacon. It's a free country.
But the decline of unions over the past few decades has left corporations and the rich with essentially no
powerful opposition. No matter what doubts you might have about unions and their role in the economy,
never forget that destroying them destroys the only real organized check on the power of the business
community in America. If the last 30 years haven't made that clear, I don't know what will.
Unions key to maintaining social spending generally

Drum 2/21/11
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/02/why-we-need-unions
Long Beach, California and now lives in Irvine, California
One of the arguments in favor of organized labor is that they advocate for broad social change even on
issues that don't directly affect union members. (For example, national healthcare and high minimum
wages. These don't really affect union members much since they've already negotiated health coverage
and wages far higher than the minimum, but unions have consistently fought for them anyway.) This
behavior is actually a little mysterious, since interest groups usually stick to fairly narrow parochial
concerns, but there's a pretty broad consensus that unions have always acted this way, both in the U.S.
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and Europe. If Pump's correlation holds up, it's another piece of evidence that unions really do tend to
produce more egalitarian social policies in general, not just policies that favor union members.
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UNION DEMANDS GOOD: PENSIONS > IRAS

Pensions over IRAs key to long-term US growth
Johnston 2/24/11
There are two other important aspects to this, which go to the heart of tax policy and why our country is in
for a long stay in the economic doldrums. Traditional or defined benefit pension plans, properly
administered, increase economic efficiency, while the newer defined contribution plans have high costs
whether done one at a time through Individual Retirement Accounts or in group plans like 401(k)s.
Efficiency means that more of the money workers contribute to their pensions - - money that could have
been taken as cash wages today - - ends up in the pockets of retirees, not securities dealers, trustees
and others who administer and invest the money. Compared to defined benefit pension plans, 401(k)
plans are vastly more expensive in investing, administration and other costs. Individually managed
accounts like 401(k)s violate a basic tenet of economics specialization increases economic gains. That
is why the average investor makes much less than the market return, studies by Morningstar show. This
goes to Adam Smith's famous insight in 1776 about specialization increasing wealth: when pins were
made in full by each worker each could make only a few each day, but when one person draws the wire,
another cuts, another fashions the point, etc., the output rises to tens of thousands of pins and their price
falls from dear to cheap. Expecting individuals to be experts at investing their retirement money in
defined contribution plans -- instead of pooling the money so professional investors can manage the
money as is done in defined benefit plans -- is not sound economics. The concept, at its most basic, is
buying wholesale instead of retail. Wholesale is cheaper for the buyers. That is, it saves taxpayers money.
The Wisconsin State Investment Board manages about $74.5 billion for an all-in cost of $224 million.
That is a cost of about 30-cents per $100, which is good but not great. However it is far less than many
defined contribution plans, where costs are often $1 or more per $100. So, I hope that Mr. Sulzberger in
particular will take the initiative to correct the inaccurate reporting and show the way to other reporters, for
the betterment of both America and his family' s investment
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AT PENSIONS BUST BUDGETS

Total bullshit pension demands are budget neutral because theyre drawn from
wage deferments
Johnston 2/24/11
When it comes to improving public understanding of tax policy, nothing has been more troubling than the
deeply flawed coverage of the Wisconsin state employees' fight over collective bargaining. Economic
nonsense is being reported as fact in most of the news reports on the Wisconsin dispute, the product of a
breakdown of skepticism among journalists multiplied by their lack of understanding of basic economic
principles. Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements
to "contribute more" to their pension and health insurance plans. Accepting Gov. Walker' s assertions as
fact, and failing to check, created the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra,
a gift from taxpayers. They are not. Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin' s pension and health
insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers. How can that be? Because
the "contributions" consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages as pensions when
they retire rather than take immediately in cash. The same is true with the health care plan. If this were
not so a serious crime would be taking place, the gift of public funds rather than payment for services.
Thus, state workers are not being asked to simply "contribute more" to Wisconsin' s retirement system (or
as the argument goes, "pay their fair share" of retirement costs as do employees in Wisconsin' s private
sector who still have pensions and health insurance). They are being asked to accept a cut in their
salaries so that the state of Wisconsin can use the money to fill the hole left by tax cuts and reduced
audits of corporations in Wisconsin. The labor agreements show that the pension plan money is part of
the total negotiated compensation. The key phrase, in those agreements I read (emphasis added), is:
"The Employer shall contribute on behalf of the employee." This shows that this is just divvying up the
total compensation package, so much for cash wages, so much for paid vacations, so much for
retirement, etc. The collective bargaining agreements for prosecutors, cops and scientists are all on-line.
Reporters should sit down, get a cup of coffee and read them. And then they could take what they learn,
and what the state website says about fringe benefits, to Gov. Walker and challenge his assumptions.
And they should point out the very first words the state has posted at a web page on careers as a state
employee (emphasis added):
The fringe benefits offered to State of Wisconsin employees are
significant, and are a valuable part of an individual's compensation package. Coverage of the
controversy in Wisconsin over unions collective bargaining, and in particular pension plan contributions,
contains repeated references to the phrase "contribute more." The key problem is that journalists are
assuming that statements by Gov. Scott Walker have basis in fact. Journalists should never accept the
premise of a political statement, but often they do, which explains why so much of our public policy is at
odds with well-established principles.
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AT BUDGET BUSTERS EXT: LIES!: 1AR

Pensions are wage deferments the error is because Politfact screwed it up
Johnston 2/24/11
Politifact.com has a Wisconsin operation and it was also among those that got it wrong 100
percent dead wrong -- because it assumed the facts as stated by Gov. Walker and failed to
question the underlying premise. Further, contrived assumptions make it is easy for the
perpetrators of the misrepresentation to point to data that support a false claim, something
Politifact missed entirely, on at least two occasions, in proclaiming false statements to be true.
Given how many journalists rely on Politifact to check political assertions, instead of doing their own
research, this is, by far, the inaccuracy likely to have the greatest (or most damaging effect) on
subsequent reporting. (Examples of Politifact' s inaccurate assessments can be found here and also
here.)
Again, the money the state "contributes" is actually part of the compensation that has been negotiated
with state workers in advance so it is their money that they choose to take as pension payments in the
future rather than cash wages or other benefits today.
Their evidence is lies union demands are budget neutral

Johnston 2/24/11
The fact is that all of the money going into these plans belongs to the workers because it is part of the
compensation of the state workers. The fact is that the state workers negotiate their total compensation,
which they then divvy up between cash wages, paid vacations, health insurance and, yes, pensions.
Since the Wisconsin government workers collectively bargained for their compensation, all of the
compensation they have bargained for is part of their pay and thus only the workers contribute to the
pension plan. This is an indisputable fact. Not every news report gets it wrong, but the narrative of the
journalistic herd has now been set and is slowly hardening into a concrete falsehood that will distort public
understanding of the issue for years to come unless journalists en masse correct their mistakes. From the
Associated Press and The New York Times to Wisconsin's biggest newspaper, and every broadcast
report I have heard, reporters again and again and again have written as fact what is nonsense.
Compared to tax, this economic issue that reporters have been mishandling is simple. But if journalists
cannot grasp the economics of this issue, then how can we hope to have an intelligent debate about tax
policy? Dedicated tax journalists like my colleagues Lee Sheppard and Martin Sullivan at Tax Analysts
have exposed, and explained in laymen terms, the arcane rules underlying the important tax debates and
controversies that affect corporate and individual taxpayers. But the mainstream press is not even getting
basic labor economics right, a much simpler matter.
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***AFF V. UNIONS
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N/U: NURSE SPECIFIC

Nurses unions mad at Obama now
Politico 3/14/12
Meanwhile, its not entirely clear whether all of those being mobilized by the protests 100,000 prounion demonstrators jammed into the streets of Madison on Saturday, rivaling the biggest tea party
gathering last fall are happy with the president. Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National
Nurses United, the nations largest nurses union told The Associated Press that Obama has been largely
a bystander in Wisconsin, adding, Were feeling a sense of betrayal from him and not liking it
much.
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N/U: EPA REGS

Non-unique: Greenhouse regs
Power 3/14/11
wall street journal
The Obama administration's environmental agenda, long a target of American business, is beginning to
take fire from some of the Democratic Party's most reliable supporters: Labor unions.
Several unions with strong influence in key states are demanding that the Environmental Protection
Agency soften new regulations aimed at pollution associated with coal-fired power plants. Their
contention: Roughly half a dozen rules expected to roll out within the next two years could put
thousands of jobs in jeopardy and damage the party's 2012 election prospects.
"If the EPA issues regulations that cost jobs in Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Republicans will blast the
President with it over and over," says Stewart Acuff, chief of staff to the president of the Utility Workers
Union of America. "Not just the President. Every Democratic [lawmaker] from those states."
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1AR EXT: EPA REGS

Swamps the aff for 2012
Power 3/14/11
wall street journal
All this could come into play in 2012. Nine states Mr. Obama won in 2008home to more than a fifth of
Electoral College votes and a third of the country's greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired
power plantsreplaced Democratic statewide officeholders with Republicans in 2010. Four of
those states have Democratic senators facing reelection in 2012, including Ohio, which relies on coal for
more than 80% of its electricity.
Greg Haas, a Democratic political strategist based in Columbus, and Jerry Austin, a Democratic political
consultant based in Cleveland, say EPA regulations could determine which presidential candidate
wins Ohio's critical electoral votes.
Greenhouse regs anger unions

Bernhard 3/14/11
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/capital/2011/03/14/unions-call-for-obama-to-back-off-greenhousegas-regs
We already knew many of the big and small businesses that back organizations like the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce were by and large strongly opposed to the Environmental Protection Agencys plan to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions.
Now, those big businesses have a new ally: Big labor. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama
administration is catching heat from labor organizations. Those loyal allies of Democrats are warning that
regulations aimed at limiting emissions from such sources as coal-fired electric plants could cost
thousands of jobs and hand Republicans a powerful weapon in the 2012 elections.
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N/U: CONVENTION SITE

Non-unique North Carolina
Weiss and breen 3/4/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/04/dnc-2012-convention-plans_n_831582.html
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Mitch Weiss will be teaching as an adjunct journalism
instructor this fall at the University of South Carolina Upstate in the Fine Arts and Communications
Studies Department. A veteran writer, editor and special projects reporter, Weiss, 49, will teach Media
Management, a class about the business side of media operations.
With the American labor movement newly energized by its most serious threat in years, the Democratic
Party's decision to hold its 2012 convention in the least union-friendly state is causing friction with a key
constituency. The Democratic National Committee selected Charlotte to show confidence in the party's
ability to win crucial swing states in the South, including North Carolina, that President Barack Obama
carried in 2008. But the choice isn't sitting well with some union leaders. "I think the Democratic Party is
in crisis and they're trying to figure out who are they really going to represent," said Angaza
Laughinghouse, president of the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union. Workers around the
nation have rallied in solidarity with union brethren fighting Republican efforts to curtail collective
bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin and Ohio. But the issue is a moot point in North
Carolina, one of two states where all public workers are prohibited by law from engaging in collective
bargaining.
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NU: TAX CUTS AND SKFTA

Tax cuts and SKFTA
Wallstein 2/19/11
Now, many union leaders are bristling at White House efforts to reset its relationship with corporate
America. Unions were opposed to the extension of tax cuts for the wealthy in the December deal Obama
struck with Republicans. Some have criticized his call for a review of regulations, including the temporary
withdrawal last month of one proposed rule governing how companies report certain worker joint and
muscle sprains. And most unions oppose the South Korea deal.
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N/U: GENERAL
Unions are enraged at Obama
Wallstein 2/19/11
Two years into a presidency that carried immense promises for the labor movement, this is how it has
gone for Obama. Some unions remain firmly by his side, while others think he has reneged on promises
or - as he seeks to mend relationships with business leaders - abandoned them altogether. "He's
basically trying to be everything to everybody," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National
Nurses United, a nursing union that claims 160,000 members and is an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. "Until you
look at the policies, and then it's clear he's there for the corporate sector." The union arranged a protest
this month when Obama addressed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, accusing him of cozying up to big
businesses. Officials from another AFL-CIO affiliate, the International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers, said that tens of thousands of its members have been laid off and that they don't see
the White House advocating for them. "They may be lost to the Democratic cause," said Rick Sloan, a
spokesman for the union. John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees,
said he "resented" the president's recent calls to reorganize the government and freeze salaries because
they seemed to feed into a growing criticism of workers. Pointing to Obama's defense this week of
Wisconsin public workers, Gage said, "It's about time."
Public unions already backlash against obama

New York Times 2/20/11
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/us/politics/21democrats.html
Mr. Obama has had strained relations with unions in general, and many do not believe he fights hard
enough for their issues; public employee unions have been especially critical lately, since he proposed a
two-year freeze of federal employees pay.
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PRO-UNION HURTS OBAMA

Union support worst on balance alienates swing and unions will never switch
Freiburger 3/14/11
Hailing from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Calvin Freiburger is a political science major at Hillsdale College.
He also writes for the Hillsdale Forum and his personal website, Calvin Freiburger Online
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/03/14/peter-beinart-spins-walkers-conservative-victory-as-a-boon-forobama/
Sure, right now people have been whipped into a frenzy about attacks on the working class and the
impending collapse of education as we know it. But theres a big risk inherent in predicting the apocalypse
when the planet keeps on turning, people are usually gonna notice. Sure, the left-wing ideologues and
union zombies will stick with Obama (no matter how many federal pay freezes he calls for), but
conservatives never had them anyway. Among more moderate and truly independent voters (rather than
people who simply call themselves independent because they think it sounds better than picking a side),
theres a greater risk that theyll abandon the union ship the more they realize that perception and reality
dont match.
Union support kills Obama in 2012

Caruba 3/8/11
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/34173
Alan Caruba (b. Oct. 9, 1937) is an American public relations counselor and freelance writer who is a
frequent critic of environmentalism, Islam and global warming
In the late 1970s Caruba founded the PR firm The Caruba Organization, and in 1990, the National Anxiety
Center, which identifies itself as "a clearinghouse for information about 'scare campaigns' designed to
influence public policy and opinion" on such subjects as global warming, ozone depletion and DDT.[1][2]
[3] From 1984 until 2004, he ran The Boring Institute, a "spoof" satirizing the media by releasing annual
lists of the year's "boring" celebrities.[4] From 1994 until 2004, he was director of communications for the
American Policy Center.[3] He is an adjunct scholar at the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, a
wise use think tank in Bellevue, Washington.[3][5] Caruba's clients have included corporations,
publishers, think tanks, trade associations, chemical and pharmaceutical companies and other
organizations.[3][6]
Gangster tactics of public service unions
Another factor that will contribute to his defeat has been his support for the gangster tactics of public
service unions in Wisconsin and the runaway members of its legislature. Opposition to the public sector
unions has been on the rise in the nation as more voters became aware of how they have bankrupted
virtually every State with salaries, pensions and healthcare plans that exceed those of taxpayers who are
expected to pay for them.
Union support is political poison, everyone hates them

Stone 2/22/11
The numbers, however, may lean in Republicans' favor.
Just 11.9 percent of American workers belonged to a union in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. That's a 70-year low. Membership has dropped steadily since the mid-1950s, when 35 percent
of workers carried a union card.
Today, the rate of union membership among public employees is far greater than in the private sector,
36.2 percent vs. 6.9 percent.
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Nearly half the states, mostly in the South, have "right to work" laws that make it all but impossible for
workers to organize. They are the models for today's GOP efforts.
"There are a whole lot more taxpayers than union members," said Earl Black, an expert on Southern
politics at Rice University. He predicts little sympathy for union members, even if their wages are
comparable to those of private-sector workers.
"The more the public unions try to make a case for themselves, the more they point out the gap between
what is ordinary practice in the private sector -- especially in times of great economic stress -- and the
benefits they have been able to bargain for with Democratic politicians," he said.
John Pitney, a former GOP congressional aide who now teaches at Claremont McKenna College in
California, said unions and their Democratic allies will have a tough sell to make the current controversy
pay off politically in the next election.
"Their challenge is that many voters are hearing the following: 'We want you to pay higher taxes so that
we can keep better pay and benefits than you have,' " he said. "Perhaps that characterization is unfair, but
it's what a lot of people think. And it's not a winning message."
Alienates the crucial middle

Economist 2/26/11
Lexis
So Mr Walker is not completely right. But Mr Obama, who threw his weight behind the unions, not the
taxpayers, at the first sign of political cannonfire, is completely wrong. No doubt the unions will now
dutifully stuff more dollars into Mr Obama's campaign chest; but elections are won in the centre and, with
the federal deficit bulging, reforming the state could be one of the main issues next year. Does America
really want to retain a chief executive who appears to have so little interest in making the public sector
work more efficiently? That is a question many independents should ponder.
***AT 2012
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NU: OBAMA WILL LOSE - SPEX

Losing gas prices
Wingfield 3/11/11
http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2011/03/11/events-keep-on-breaking-against-obama/?
cxntfid=blogs_kyle_wingfield
Kyle Wingfield joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as an opinion columnist in May 2009. The move to
Georgia was a homecoming for the Dalton native, who spent the previous four and a half years as an
editorial-page writer for The Wall Street Journal based in Brussels, Belgium. In Europe, Wingfield wrote
editorials and columns about topics including international trade, antitrust cases, the telecommunications
and aerospace industries, energy and environmental policy, British politics and Russia. Prior to that, he
worked as a reporter for the Associated Press in Atlanta and Montgomery, Ala., where he wrote about
education, courts and general-interest stories. Wingfield is a 2001 graduate of the University of Georgias
Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and the recipient of the colleges John E. Drewry
Young Alumnus Award
But the emerging issues things we werent even talking about four months ago, such as gas prices,
Mideast revolutions and government unions are shifting the political ground in ways that dont bode
well for Obama. The economy finally appears to have stabilized. The national unemployment rate in
February fell below 9 percent, the first time it has broken that barrier in almost two years. Itd all be good
news for the president if inflation didnt threaten to sabotage the gains. Gas prices in particular have
shot up, by more than 40 cents a gallon nationally during the past month. The reasons are varied, but its
been easy for Republicans to point to Obamas clampdown on new deepwater drilling permits since last
years BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It doesnt help Obama, who spoke Friday about increasing both
production and conservation, that he has acknowledged before that higher energy prices are crucial to his
environmental policies. One big factor in rising oil prices lately has been unrest in the Middle East and
North Africa. There, too, the news isnt good for Obama. From Egypt to Iran to Libya, the president has
always seemed off-balance or a step behind. Hosni Mubarak is our man in Egypt. No, he should leave
gradually. No, now. We stand with Libyans who want freedom, but only figuratively unless NATO or the
United Nations thinks its a good idea, in which case well contribute. Maybe. Unless it looks like
Moammar Gadhafi will survive after all, or that the arms embargo we signed prevents us from helping
rebels, too. In which case, maybe not. Uprisings in faraway lands are tough to gauge and impossible to
manage from the outside. But Obama hasnt even articulated a consistent message on American ideals
and interests. Hell bear some blame for that if things go poorly. Even if they turn out well and thats
unlikely to happen throughout the region I stayed out of the way isnt a winning line. Between his
reaction to the uprisings and his belated decision to resume military trials for terror suspects at
Guantanamo Bay, Obama has managed to make himself vulnerable to hawks on the right as well as
doves on the left. No mean feat.
Losing ObamaCare strikedown

Wingfield 3/11/11
http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2011/03/11/events-keep-on-breaking-against-obama/?
cxntfid=blogs_kyle_wingfield
Kyle Wingfield joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as an opinion columnist in May 2009. The move to
Georgia was a homecoming for the Dalton native, who spent the previous four and a half years as an
editorial-page writer for The Wall Street Journal based in Brussels, Belgium. In Europe, Wingfield wrote
editorials and columns about topics including international trade, antitrust cases, the telecommunications
and aerospace industries, energy and environmental policy, British politics and Russia. Prior to that, he
worked as a reporter for the Associated Press in Atlanta and Montgomery, Ala., where he wrote about
education, courts and general-interest stories. Wingfield is a 2001 graduate of the University of Georgias
Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and the recipient of the colleges John E. Drewry
Young Alumnus Award
Finally, ObamaCare. We knew the health law would be politically relevant in 2012, but the expedited
appeal of a Florida court ruling striking it down means its fate might be decided by the Supreme Court by
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summer 2012. After that, the odds of fixing the law if its struck down or repealing it if it survives will
be longer. The losing side will be deflated. And the way things are going, that will be Obamas side.
Losing health care backlash

Caruba 3/8/11
One has to reach back to the Clinton years to recall how soundly rebuffed Hillarycare was as the initial
attempt to take over the health care industry in America. One needs to recall how Hillary Clinton fought
through the primaries until her only opponent was Barack Obama and how, after he had secured the
Democratic Party nomination, the plum assignment of Secretary of State was given to her; two peas from
the same Alinsky pod.
On top of the financial crisis that too conveniently began as the 2008 campaigns were coming to an end
was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care ActObamacarethat was taken off the shelf and, this
time, forced through a Democrat controlled Congress, often with bribes, often with a lot of brutal political
arm twisting. And the response, even before it became law a year ago was the sudden rise of the Tea
Party movement. The next response came in the 2010 elections that returned political power in the
House to Republicans and narrowed the Democrat majority in the Senate. And that is why Barack
Obama will be defeated in 2012.
Obama will lose food and lies

Caruba 3/8/11
First Ladys caloric hypocrisy
In the past two years during which upwards of twenty million Americans lost their jobs, the unseemly and
frequent vacations by the President or by his wife have not been well received by those less fortunate
and, it should be said, less ostentatious. Dictating what Americans should eat while dining on spare ribs
reminded many of the First Ladys caloric hypocrisy. Mostly, though, it has been the accumulation of lies
about virtually all aspects of his political agenda that now comprises a record that will be mined by
whoever is chosen to run against him in 2012.
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NU: OBAMA LOSE GENERAL

Obama will lose
Caruba 3/8/11
To this observer, the likelihood of Barack Obama being reelected in 2012 is so remote that I can safely
predict it will not happen. Of course, as is commonly said, two weeks, let alone two years, is a long time in
politics and all manner of events could intervene, but if one follows the trends in place, he will be a one
term president. Recall that Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were one term presidents for differing
reasons. Despite a genuine victory when U.S. led forces drove Saddam Husseins army out of Kuwait,
Bush 41 was savagely attacked by a hostile press throughout the campaign and his term in office. The
former WWII hero was called a wimp and, when he did accede to raising taxes, he sealed his own fate.
As to Carter, he was seen by all to have been a monumental failure. Incompetence and sheer arrogance
of President Obama has been manifest since he took the oath of office Almost weekly the incompetence
and sheer arrogance of President Obama has been manifest since he took the oath of office. I recall an
interview in which he expressed the opinion that he might well be a one term president and I thought that
odd at the time. In retrospect, it seems to me now that he always knew that his radical socialist agenda
would likely ensure his defeat for a second term. Obama was and is the Manchurian candidate, put into
the Oval Office to achieve as quickly as possible the completion of a Socialist/Communist agenda.
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T/ INTERNAL LINK ECON K TO 2012

Economy swamps other variables
Congress Matters 3/13/11
http://www.congressmatters.com/story/2011/3/13/2714/-Budget-Battle2012-Politics
About Congress Matters Congress Matters aims to bring the community-based political watch party that
we've built at Daily Kos to the United States Congress. By watching, learning, analyzing and discussing
the daily activities of the Congress, we hope to improve our effectiveness as advocates and activists.
We'll pull back the curtains on how Congress conducts its business, both public and "private" (i.e., within
the party caucuses and conferences), explain floor procedure and rules, and even throw in a little gut
feeling when appropriate to try to get a better picture of what's going on, and more importantly, what we
can do about it. Congressional rules and procedure have long been a mystery to even the most
dedicated political junkies, and sometimes that keeps us from being the best advocates we can be.
Knowing your basic procedure helps make sense of the process, prevents panic-inducing
misunderstandings, and makes influencing outcomes more feasible. As we cover each day's activities,
we'll discover the critical pressure and pivot points in the legislative process, learn better how and when to
insert ourselves into that process, and in so doing hopefully get "more and better" results out of our
Democratic Congress.
Make no mistake about it, the 2012 elections will hinge on the 2010-2011 jobs picture and whether that
picture is trending towards improvement or decline. You have no doubt heard many pundits (e.g., Chris
Matthews) argue that if the 2012 unemployment rate is around 8% and declining, it will be impossible for
any Republican to beat President Obama.
Only economy matters Truman proves

Chait 11/11/10
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/79096/the-truman-myth
Jonathan Chait (pronounced /tet/; born 1972) is a senior editor at The New Republic and a former
assistant editor of The American Prospect. He also writes a periodic column in the Los Angeles Times.
You've probably heard about how Harry Truman was doomed to lose his presidential reelection bid in
1948, but came back to shocking win through spit, gumption, and lots of fiery speeches from the back of a
train caboose. Brendan Nyhan points out that it's a fairy tale. He came back because the economy caught
fire in 1948:
Unfortunately, the dramatic narrative of Truman's victory and what it tells us about "the
American character" doesn't hold up to scrutiny. As James Campbell pointed out in 2004 (gated),
Truman's comeback was fueled by "sizzling" economic growth:
Until recently, for instance, the Bureau
of Economic Analysis (BEA) figured that GDP in the first half of 1948 (leading into the Truman-Dewey
contest) was growing at a healthy 4.1% rate. The BEA's latest series indicates that this greatly
understated growth at the outset of the 1948 campaign. The BEA now figures that the economy was
growing at a sizzling 6.8%, a revision that helps explain Truman's miraculous comeback...
Truman
actually enjoyed three consecutive quarters of rapid growth in the run-up to the election. Here's what GDP
growth looked like between the second quarter of 1947 (the earliest period for which BEA has quarterly
data on growth) and the third quarter of 1948: Indeed, relative to the rate of growth he enjoyed in the
second quarter of an election year, Truman actually slightly underperformed according to this plot by Alan
Abramowitz (PDF): Keep this in mind when reading the endless stream of commentary about what
President Obama needs to do to win re-election, and then the post-commentary for years to come about
how he moved to the center and therefore won, or rediscovered his fighting liberal spirit and won, or
refused to change his liberal message and lost, or failed to find his populist voice and lost. About 80% of
the question is what happens to the economy. The rest matters only at the margins.
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EXT: GAS PRICES = LOSING

Obama will lose- gas prices
Caruba 3/8/11
Then there are the events in the Middle East and Obamas uncertain response to them. The immediate
impact will be a rise in the cost of gasoline at the pump and that is something that everyone can grasp.
Add to that Obamas attack on the nations energy industries, coal, oil, and natural gas, and you have
the perfect storm for a president whose popularity is dropping.
Spiking gas prices will tank Obama

Kuhn 3/9/11
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/03/09/could_gas_prices_sink_obamas_reelection_2012_stu
dy_president_approval_gas_price_109157.html
campaign.
But there is a statistically significant correlation between what Americans pay at the pump and a
president's public standing, based on a RealClearPolitics study of the average gasoline price, adjusted for
inflation, and Gallup presidential approval ratings since 1976. In fact, gas prices correlate far more with a
president's standing than the unemployment rate (for wonks, -.53 compared to -.14). For the non-wonks,
that's a strong indication that gas prices matter more politically than unemployment. The return of even
$4 a gallon gas could undercut Obama's political recovery because it would undermine the economic
recovery. "I don't know that it actually pushes us into a recession but it would be very uncomfortable,"
Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi recently said of $4 gasoline on Bloomberg Television. National gas
prices have had their second-largest increase in a two-week period since the Lundberg Survey began
tracking them in 1950. The national average price for a gallon of gasoline rose above the $3.50 threshold
Monday, according to AAA. Prices have surged 39 cents per gallon since the mid-February revolt in Libya.
High fuel prices helped sink Jimmy Carter's bid for reelection, and unanticipated price spikes haunted the
previous three presidential campaigns. "It's a huge issue. There is no way of getting around it," said
Tad Devine, who wrestled with gas politics as John Kerry's chief strategist in 2004 and as a senior advisor
in the Al Gore's 2000 presidential bid. "It's the awareness. If you ask someone the cost of carton of milk or
the cost of a gallon of gas, they're going to know the cost of gas."
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T/ INTERNAL LINK - GAS PRICES K TO 2012

Gas prices key to Obama re-election
Hayes 3/9/11
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/09/134388980/the-nation-how-oil-impacts-obamas-re-election
Christopher Hayes is The Nation's Washington, D.C. editor.
Christopher L. Chris Hayes is a liberal American journalist and the Washington, D.C., editor of The
Nation. His writing has appeared in such publications as In These Times,[1] The American Prospect, The
New Republic, The Washington Monthly, and the Chicago Reader. He is a frequent guest and substitutehost on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show.
Hayes attended Hunter College High School, where he met future Americans for Prosperity policy director
Phil Kerpen.[2] He attended Brown University for his undergraduate education, where he received a
Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and worked with Production Workshop, the university's student theatre
group. Previously, Hayes was Adjunct Professor of English at St. Augustine College.
From 2006 through 2007, Hayes was a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute,[3] and a
Contributing Writer for The Nation. On November 1, 2007, The Nation named him its Washington, D.C.,
Editor, succeeding David Corn. He is also currently a Senior Editor at In These Times, a liberal monthly
magazine based in Chicago. He has written extensively on issues central to the liberal community,
including what ails the Democratic Party in the post-9/11 era[4] and how the labor movement is changing.
[5] Hayes is also a regular contributor to the Chicago Reader, an independent weekly newspaper, where
he covers local and national politics.
He guest-hosted The Rachel Maddow Show in July 2010, while Maddow was traveling in Afghanistan;
Hayes often fills in for Maddow when she is absent. Hayes has also hosted The Ed Show and Countdown
with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC
But arguably the biggest threat to recovery is the price of oil. If oil prices in particular, and commodities in
general, begin to rise, those trends will almost certainly constrain demand and consumer confidence at
exactly the moment they are most needed. This week oil traded at $104.42 a barrel, up 7 percent from
last week and at its highest since the September 26, 2008, close at $106.89. And we know from recent
experience the oil prices (along with all sorts of other commodities) can skyrocket with little warning. Cast
your memory back to the summer of 2008, before the financial crisis and in the heat of the presidential
campaign. That summer, oil hit $147 a barrel and gas hit above $4 a gallon; airfare went through the roof
and nearly every single major carrier came very close to declaring bankruptcy. Food prices shot up as
well, with wheat trading up 137 percent year over year in July 2008, and corn 98 percent. Famine and
food riots spread throughout the globe.
Though it seems like a distant memory now, for about six weeks during the 2008 presidential campaign,
all anyone talked about was the price of gas. John McCain and Hillary Clinton went so far to advocate for
a temporary repeal of the gas tax, Congress held hearings and the Senate actually came close to passing
legislation to crack down on oil speculation. And lest we forget, it was in this panic over the rising cost of
living that the catchphrase "drill baby drill" was born.
So the White House should not only be worried about oil prices and recovery. They should also be
worried about the well-established fact that when the price of gas spikes, the country's politics go haywire.
FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver recently showed that high gas prices are correlated with poor incumbent
party performance in presidential elections.
***LINK TURN
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LINKS: UNIONS LOVE AMNESTY

Unions love amnesty they see it as key to reverse wage deflation
Linday 2/18/11
http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/unions-illegal-immigration-and-you-by-alpha-unit/
BA Journalism (California State University, Long Beach, 1980), MA Linguistics (California State University,
Fresno, 1994).
Last summer AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka addressed this issue. In a speech he gave in Cleveland,
he spoke about the history of immigrant labor in America and about some of the complaints lodged
against the immigrant forebears of many union members.
And yet today I hear from working people who should know better, some in my own family that those
immigrants are taking our jobs, ruining our country. Havent we been here before?
When I hear that kind of talk, I want to say, did an immigrant move your plant overseas? Did an
immigrant take away your pension? Or cut your health care? Did an immigrant destroy American workers
right to organize? Or crash the financial system? Did immigrant workers write the trade laws that have
done so much harm to Ohio?
In discussing the need for what people refer to as comprehensive immigration reform, Trumka talks about
what lies at the heart of our failed immigration policy.
Too many U.S. employers actually like the current state of the immigration system a system where
immigrants are both plentiful and undocumented afraid and available.
The current system provides employers with an endless supply of socially and legally powerless cheap
labor, he says.
This is what is driving down working conditions and wages for all American workers, the unions are telling
us. Until we get some meaningful immigration reform in this country, these people need to be
organized.
Georgetown 2010-11
Unions DA Work
Antonucci
NDT 11
SKFTA NO PASS
No SKFTA public opinion, timing
Hadar 3/15/11
Business Times Singapoire, LN
Leon Hadar, is a global affairs analyst, journalist, blogger and author. A long-time critic of American policy
in the Middle East,[1] Hadar is a research fellow with the Cato Institute,[2] a contributing editor for the
American Conservative and a regular contributor to Chronicles and Reason and a regular blogger on The
Huffington Post. Hadar has published numerous analyses and commentaries on U.S. global diplomatic
and trade policies, with a special focus on the Middle East and East and South Asia. Hadar is the author
of two books on U.S. policy in the Middle East, Quagmire: America in the Middle East (Cato Institute,
1992), and Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Hadar also served
as a foreign policy advisor to the Ron Paul 2008 presidential camapaign.[3]
Public opposition Mr Obama has been stressing in his speeches that expanding trade with other
countries benefits the American economy and creates new jobs. But most public opinion polls show that
growing number of Americans are opposed to free trade, a sentiment that has become more intense in
the face of a slow economic recovery and a continuing high rate of unemployment. In short, free trade is
not really a winning issue for any candidate running for political office. And it's doubtful that Mr Obama is
going to win any brownie point with the voters if the FTAs with Korea, Colombia and Panama are
approved by Congress. Major initiatives And, in any case, with so many domestic and foreign policy
issues crowding the White House, it's unlikely that Mr Obama is going to have the time or the energy to
win public and Congressional support for major trade initiatives before the end of his term next year. The
conventional wisdom in Washington is that if the White House wants to get Congress to pass any trade
agreement, it will need to bring it to a vote before the end of this year. Very little can be achieved on trade
issues during a presidential election year. US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said at a Congressional
hearing last week that the Obama administration was hoping to finalise the trade agreements with
Colombia and Panama before the end of the year. But he expressed scepticism about the proposal of
bringing the FTAs with Korea, Colombia and Panama for a vote in Congress at the same time.
***GRAB BAG
Georgetown 2010-11
Unions DA Work
Antonucci
NDT 11
AT WONT FUCK UP DEBT CEILING

Republicans are cynical enough to do it. They want failure
Let's be honest with ourselves. What the Republicans hope to get out of the battle over the 2010-2011
Budget is all about the 2012 elections and nothing else. They hope to cut federal spending to a degree
and in a way that it not only halts any jobs recovery, but better yet, reverses the recovery to make for a
toxic political atmosphere for President Obama and the Democrats come 2012.
Sounds pretty cynical doesn't it? But remember we're dealing with Republicans here, who play politics
Hardball style in order to achieve there ends, and those of their rich corporate supporters.
Political calculus means Republicans will deliberately tank the economy

But why aren't the Republicans afraid that voters will blame them for a bleak 2012 jobs picture caused by
the cuts in federal spending they are seeking?
Well for one, Republicans know that most voters usually blame those in charge for high unemployment
and a bad economy. In this case, since Dems. control the Presidency and the Senate, they are the ones
in charge in the eyes of most voters, not the Republicans. They generally don't look beyond that point to
see who might of actually had a hand in causing their poor economic situation. Even if Dems. could
somewhat successfully argue that it was the Republicans' budgetary cuts that caused jobs and the
economy to stagnate or tank, Republicans know that such an argument makes the Democrats simply look
weak, unable to have had the fortitude to stop Republican budget cutting when they controlled 2 of the 3
branches of government. Voters don't reward politicians who look weak.

Unions Da 1.0 - Antonucci - GT 11 - NDT

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Georgetown 2010-11

[INSERT LINK THAT PLAN ANGERS UNIONS]

Money key to #WINNING

Losing sets the Middle East on fire

TRICK (ALSO AT TOO FAR)

Their too soon arguments work VERY well - for us!!!

This internal link MAGNIFIES the further the election TIMEFRAME

OBAMA WINNING UNIONS AT THUMPERS

Unions got over past anger

Obama winning unions base mobilization

Unique NRLB appointments

Unique TSA unionization

Obama winning unions outreach and Wisconsin

OBAMA WINNING UNIONS 2NR: WISCONSIN EXTENSIONS

Obama winning unions Republican attacks

AT OVER-U: UNIONS LOCKED IN

Unions are still with Obama, but its close

AT NU - EPA GREENHOUSE REGS

AT CARD CHECK / WAGE FREEZE THUMPERS

!!!OBAMA WILL WIN: 2NC MUST-READ

OBAMA WINNING ELECTION

Winning - Republican dropouts prove

Winning - Intrade caps at 65% and its the best

winning Republicans concede and best historical data

OBAMA WINNING 65%

OBAMA WILL CRUSH

!! UNIONS KEY TO 2012 - $$$ + TURNOUT + U

UNION KEY TO 2012: TURNOUT

Union turnout key to election

Channeling union rage key to 2012

Union mobilization key to 2012

Union mobilization key to 2012

UNION KEY TO 2012: $$$

Obama concessions key to spur crucial union fundraising

Union money key to 2012 only way to offset corporations

UNIONS KEY TO 2012: WI

UNIONS KEY 2012: OHIO

EXT: OHIO UNIONS KEY TO 2012

EXT: OHIO KEY

ISSUE UNIQUENESS: UNIONS MOBILIZED FOR ELECTION

Unions fired up for 2012: wisconsin

Unions mobilized to fight for Obama

FUNDRAISING NOW AT LONG TF

The fundraising race is on

EARLY MONEY KEY (AT TF LONG)

Early money key

Fundraising crucial Dems have to FIGHT NOW to WIN

Citizens United means its all about the money

AT ECON/REPUB PRIMARY THUMPERS

Lesser of two evils and Obama wins spin on failure

No unique turn Obama has enough Latinos to win

Latinos hate immigration

No risk of backlash - Latinos support Dems inevitably

Latinos swinging to O without immigration

DREAM act attempt was enough

EXT: LATINOS DONT VOTE

EXT: LATINOS HATE IMMIGRANTS

!!!AT T/ - WE CAPTURE HISPANICS: OUTWEIGH

White working class will outweigh swing in 2012

AT TOO FAR AWAY

Econ doesnt determine elections

Economics internal is small best data