Posts Tagged Union Thugs
How To Help In Wisconsin – Now
Posted by Joshua Sharf in Labor, PPC on March 31st, 2011
Game on.
We all know about the efforts by unions and other lefties to recall eight Wisconsin Republican state senators, and to overturn the results of last year’s election, and this year’s vote to limit public sector unions.
You may not know about another effort to do so by politicizing a race for the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. Unlike our justices, who need only face retention votes, Wisconsin State Supreme Court justices run against each other in nominally non-partisan elections. Via National Review:
The Greater Wisconsin Committee is preparing to throw $3 million into the judicial election to defeat Prosser — not because it is feared that he will fail to administer the law impartially, but because it is feared that he will. To that end, Wisconsin Democrats are working to install one of their own on the court and, if the GWC ad is any indicator, they are prepared to do just about anything to win. Because of legal restrictions, Prosser cannot solicit contributions to aid his campaign under this onslaught. But you can help his campaign by helping the Wisconsin Club for Growth (donate here) or donating to Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (donate online here; fax donation form here).
It is important that conservatives nationwide make this campaign their own.
Indeed it is. The elections is next Tuesday, April 5, and the day before, Monday, April 4, unions across the country plan to hold “events.” It’s quite clear that the “event” in Wisconsin will be little more than a campaign rally for Prosser’s opponent.
As Ross Kaminsky has pointed out in recent days, what’s needed is a national effort here, not just against the recall efforts (that will come later), but also for Justice Prosser. If successful here, unions may succeed in cowing the one Republican they need in Ohio’s State Senate to kill a bill limiting public unions in that state. You can forget about making progress in California. And they’ll feel a free hand to go on the offensive in places like Colorado, where thus far, efforts to organize state workers have more or less been a bust.
State legislators across the country will learn a lesson about who’s in charge, and their resulting unwillingness to take bold positions will demoralize the Tea Party movement at a critical moment, and deny citizens victories over would-be aristocrats at a moment when we had all the political momentum, and stretch these battles out for years.
The Left picked this battlefield because it looks like the friendliest turf around for them. If they can’t win in Wisconsin, it’s hard to see where they can win. If we can win in Wisconsin, it’s hard to see where we can’t.
Folks, we’ve seen this movie before, right here in Colorado, where it was test-piloted and perfected: it’s called “The Blueprint,” and this is it on a national scale. It’s a scaled coordination of resources at a point where they can make the most difference. In fact, this may even be the national rollout of that plan. Here’s State Senator Randy Hopper on Fox News:
HOPPER: Well, I can tell you in my district the person that’s heading up the recall effort in my district was doing some work on behalf of either the administration or big labor in Colorado prior to moving into my district to do my recall.
Tea Parties don’t like to be astroturf (as opposed to the Left, which merely has an aversion to looking like astroturf), which sometimes leads them to be resistant to coordination. And independent-mindedness is a virtue. But in situations like this, it plays right into the strengths of union-led activism: their ability to coordinate money and activists on whatever scale is necessary, their exemption from many campaign finance restrictions, and the fact that they’re an easy address to find.
It is necessary – now – to contribute to these advertising efforts, and to the recall campaigns of affected senators. No Republican, Tea Party, or activist event should go by without passing the hat.
It’s hard, raising money for someone else, out of state. But that’s where the battle is.
It’s hard, raising money for an election, when you’re not a party member. But it’s one thing to punish Republicans in office for doing the wrong thing. It’s another thing altogether to let the other side punish them for doing the right thing.