Ezra Klein has a short, but provocative Newsweek post “Do We Still Need Unions? Yes: Why they’re Worth Fighting For,” which opens up a long-overdue dialogue. I like Klein’s opening grabber, which presents the danger and opportunity:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s effort two weeks ago to end collective bargaining for public employees in his state was the worst thing to happen to the union movement in recent memory–until it unexpectedly became the best thing to happen to the union movement in recent memory. Give the man some credit: in seven days, Walker did what unions have been trying and failing to do for decades. He united the famously fractious movement, reknit its emotional connection with allies ranging from students to national Democratic leaders, and brought the decline of organized labor to the forefront of the national agenda. The question is: will it matter?

Klein goes on to limn some of the specific benefits of unions — higher wages, safety, addressing workplace grievances and the weekend. He could have added the 40-hour work week, overtime, workman’s comp, holidays, health insurance and pensions, to name a few others we take for granted — none of which would be a reality today for millions of workers without the leadership of organized labor. I’m sometimes amazed how many presumably intelligent people I meet who diss unions in a knee-jerk way seem unaware of this important history — apparently it’s not well-taught in public schools, nor even colleges nowadays.
Klein also notes the important socio-political benefits of unions in the U.S. — checking corporate economic domination, lobbying for working people instead of corporate profits, fighting for a broad range of legislative reforms that benefit even unorganized workers and serving as the largest source of support for progressive candidates. Any further weakening of unions would be disastrous for America in this regard.
As part of the Change to Win movement a few years ago, there was an ongoing discussion about the kinds of reforms needed to modernize trade unions and broaden their membership options, as critical to increasing labor’s numbers and strength. I was looking forward to this dialogue eventually bearing some fruit. But it seems instead to have withered on the vine. Hopefully the Wisconsin protests will encourage invigorating this discussion in a more pro-active direction.
There’s a chance Klein is right that Walker may have inadvertently done a good thing for unions, by rallying them and their supporters and awakening progressives to the reality that organized labor’s survival is at stake. The law of unintended consequences occasionally works for the good.
But the trade union movement’s weak public relations outreach is puzzling. In this age of streaming video, where is Labor’s television station, or even nation-wide radio programs? Where are the academy-award nominated documentaries about labor’s pivotal contributions to American society? How about some public service ads educating people about union contributions to social and economic progress in America?
It’s no longer enough have labor leaders do guest spots on news programs and talk shows. a much more aggressively pro-active p.r. and educational effort is needed. That commitment, coupled with an effort to modernize union recruitment and membership could help insure that union-busting politicians like Walker don’t get the chance to do their worst.

For an interesting slant on what’s at stake for Democrats in the Wisconsin demonstrations, read Nate Silver’s “The Effects of Union Membership on Democratic Voting” at his Five Thirty Eight blog at The New York Times. Silver mines exit poll data and considers the propensity of union voters and households to vote for Democratic presidential and congressional candidates, noting:

In 2008, for instance, 59 percent of people in union households voted for Barack Obama, as compared to 51 percent of people in non-union households — a difference of 8 percentage points, according to the national exit poll. An extremely simple analysis might conclude, then, that the presence of the labor union vote boosted Mr. Obama’s share of the vote by slightly under 2 points overall: the 8 percentage point “bonus” that he received among union voters, multiplied by the 21 percent of the sample that was in labor union households, which is 1.68 percent.
The potential problem with this is that labor union voters are not distributed randomly throughout the population. Instead, virtually every other demographic variable — age, income, geography, occupation, gender, race, and so forth — is correlated in some with the likelihood of being in a union.
It could be, for instance, that because labor unions are concentrated in blue states, especially those in the Northeast and the industrial Midwest, the apparent influence of union membership on voting is really just a matter of geography. Alternatively, it could be that union members tend to vote Democratic despite having certain other characteristics that are ordinarily harmful to Democrats: for instance, union members tend to skew a bit older than the rest of the population and older voters normally tend to vote Republican. If so, the quick-and-dirty estimate from the exit poll might understate the effect of union membership on voting behavior.

Silver runs a logistic regression analysis on a large data sample from the National Annenberg Election Survey to help isolate the various factors. He presents a couple of bar charts which provide graphic depiction of the influence of 23 demographic variables on voters for president and congressional representatives, respectively. Silver calculates that members of unions and “union households” provided a 1.7 percent net advantage to Obama in ’08. However, if the National Exit Poll accurately reflected the union percentage of the turnout, Silver explains, the union member and household edge goes up to 2.4 percent. The figures were similar for congressional elections.
Further, in Silver’s 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.

Silver then offers this interesting conclusion about the possible reverberations of Governor Walker’s and the GOP’s escalation of the political war against unions:

More tangibly, Republican efforts to decrease the influence of unions — while potentially worthwhile to their electoral prospects in the long-term — could contribute to a backlash in the near-term, making union members even more likely to vote Democratic and even more likely to turn out. If, for instance, the share of union households voting for Democrats was not 60 percent but closer to 70 percent, Republicans would have difficulty winning presidential elections for a couple of cycles until the number of union voters diminished further.

They could also energize union participation in campaign volunteer efforts. In the worst case scenario, Governor Walker may win his battle to eradicate most public employee unions. Even then, however, he may insure that it costs his party the presidency, and perhaps some other offices, in 2012.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker apparently thinks he is poised for a big victory. But the latest Gallup opinion data indicates that he may instead be opening a big can of self-sabotage. Gallup is not infrequently accused of conservative bias in survey methods, which makes this lede from Dennis Cauchon’s USA Today article, “Poll: Americans favor union bargaining rights” all the more interesting:

MADISON, Wis. — Americans strongly oppose laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. The poll found 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to such a proposal in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law.

The 28 point advantage favoring public employee unions in this controversy is impressive, but Independents were even more opposed to limiting public employee bargaining rights, with 62 percent opposed vs. 31 percent favoring limits. Wisconsin voters can’t be all that different from this nationwide survey sample in their views on the topic.
Not content to advocate an unpopular policy, Gov. Walker seized the opportunity to showcase his ignorance of labor history and a certain flair for Orwellian ‘logic,’ quoted by Cauchon:

“Most people … mistakenly think worker rights come from collective bargaining,” Walker told USA TODAY Tuesday. He said his plan would not remove union workers’ protections from wrongful termination or inappropriate discipline or hiring. “When you alter collective bargaining, it doesn’t alter workers’ rights,” he said.

Just wait till he starts meddling with Wisconsin’s educational system.

Evan McMorris-Santoro’s report at TPM on new polls of Wisconsin voters, conducted by GQR Research for the AFL-CIO 2/16-20 should give the demonstrators some encouragement in their struggle against Gov. Walker’s union-busting. McMorris-Santorro explains,

Sixty-two percent of respondents to the poll said they view public employees favorably, while just 11% said they had an unfavorable view of the workers whose benefits packages Walker says are breaking the state budget.
Meanwhile, just 39% of respondents had a favorable view of Walker, while 49% had an unfavorable view of the freshman Republican governor. Voters are split on his job performance, with 51% saying they disapprove of the job Walker has done.

As the GQR pollsters explain in their analysis, “Since the protests began, Governor Walker has seen real erosion in his standing, with a majority expressing disapproval of his job performance and disagreement with his agenda.” And when read the following description of the conflict in Madison, 52% of respondents said they don’t favor Walker’s scheme, with just 42% favoring it:

As you may know, Governor Scott Walker recently announced a plan to limit most public employees’ ability to negotiate their wages and benefits. The plan cuts pension and health care benefits for current public workers, and restricts new wage increases unless approved by a voter referendum. Contracts would be limited to one year, with wages frozen until a new contract is settled. In addition, Walker’s plan also changes rules to require collective bargaining units to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union, stops employers from collecting union dues, and allows members of collective bargaining units to avoid paying dues. Law enforcement, fire employees and state troopers and inspectors would be exempt from the changes.

…Which underscores the importance of unions telling their side of the story. The survey also found that 53 percent of voters rate unions favorably, with only 31 percent rating them unfavorably. Of those polled, 67 percent said they sided with the public employees, 62 percent with the protesters, 59 percent with the unions and 56 percent with Democrats in the state legislature. A majority, 53 percent, disagree with Governor Walker and 46 percent disagree with Republicans in the state legislature.
When asked, 58 percent of respondents oppose eliminating collective bargaining, 57 percent oppose cutting wages for public employees and half are against cutting pension benefits for public employees. Independents (59 percent) don’t like it much, either, nor do a third of Republicans, along with 78 percent of Democrats. Three out of four respondents said they opposed taking away public employees’ collective bargaining rights, including nearly half of Republicans.
It appears Governor Walker may have succeeded in currying favor with the Koch brothers. But Wisconsin voters are unimpressed with his polarizing attack against state workers.

Eric Lipton’s WaPo article “Billionaire Brothers’ Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute” raises disturbing questions about the motivation of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who has introduced a measure that would dismantle public unions. Lipton writes,

State records also show that Koch Industries, their energy and consumer products conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., was one of the biggest contributors to the election campaign of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who has championed the proposed cuts.
…Campaign finance records in Washington show that donations by Koch Industries and its employees climbed to a total of $2 million in the last election cycle, twice as much as a decade ago, with 92 percent of that money going to Republicans. Donations in state government races — like in Wisconsin — have also surged in recent years, records show.

Lipton points out that direct campaign contributions are just one pipeline for Koch money for union-bashing. As Lipton explains,

But the most aggressive expansion of the Koch brothers’ effort to influence public policy has come through the Americans for Prosperity, which runs both a charitable foundation and a grass-roots-activists group. Mr. Phillips serves as president of both branches, and David Koch is chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
…The organization has taken up a range of topics, including combating the health care law, environmental regulations and spending by state and federal governments. The effort to impose limits on public labor unions has been a particular focus in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all states with Republican governors, Mr. Phillips said, adding that he expects new proposals to emerge soon in some of those states to limit union power.

Lipton reports that Tim Phillips, the president of the right-wing Americans for Prosperity, told an anti-union counter-demonstration at the capitol, composed of members of the Wisconsin chapter of the organization “We are going to bring fiscal sanity back to this great nation.” As Lipton notes,

What Mr. Phillips did not mention was that his Virginia-based nonprofit group, whose budget surged to $40 million in 2010 from $7 million three years ago, was created and financed in part by the secretive billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch.

Lipton adds that Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause warns that the Koch brothers are using their money, in Lipton’s words “to create a façade of grass-roots support for their favorite causes.” Edgar adds “”It is not that these folks don’t have a right to participate in politics. But they are moving democracy into the control of more wealthy corporate hands.”
Paul Krugman explained it well in his Sunday column,

In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.
…What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.

Governor Walker knows that if he hangs tough, he will earn the gratitude of the Koch brothers, and likely become the new GOP poster boy for anti-union conservatism. The question is whether the people of Wisconsin will see through the Koch Brothers’ astroturf counter-demos and take a stand for workers’ right to union representation.

Baltimore Sun columnist Thomas Schaller has a post up at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, “The Latino Threshold: Where the GOP Needs Latino Votes and Why” mulling over different scenarios for allocation of the Hispanic vote for President in ’12. In assessing Republican prospects with Hispanics in the upcoming presidential election, Schaller cites three key considerations:

First, as the white share of the electorate shrinks, the share of the Latino vote Republicans need to remain competitive will gradually inch higher. It is axiomatic that if one party attracts a minority share of votes from any group or subset, if that subset is growing as a share of the electorate these losses are magnified. Republicans get roughly the same share of the vote from Asian Americans as Latinos. But GOP losses among Asian Americans are less punitive overall because the Asian American vote is smaller and growing less fast as a share of the electorate than are Latino voters.
Second, whatever threshold the GOP needs to maintain–40 percent, 45 percent–will zigzag up and down a bit between midterm and presidential elections. Because midterm electorates trend older, whiter and more affluent, until and unless the Democrats can find ways to mobilize presidential-cycle voters in off years, the GOP’s Latino competitiveness threshold drops slightly in midterms before rising again in presidential years.
Finally, the Latino vote is of course not uniformly distributed across districts and states. So the calculus varies depending upon geography. In states where Latino voters are paired with significant African American populations–such as Florida, New York or Texas–the Republican cutoff is higher; where Latinos represent the bulk of non-white voters–such as Colorado or Nevada–the threshold is easier to reach.

Schaller doesn’t discuss a worrisome scenario for Dems, in which the Republicans nominate Sen. Marco Rubio for vice president, which would likely ice Florida for the GOP presidential candidate and maybe even help them get a bigger bite of the Latino vote elsewhere. Rubio only got 55 percent of the Latino vote in Florida’s Senate contest. I say only, because I would have expected a higher figure. But even assuming he would be a big asset on the GOP ticket, and assuming Dems lose NC and VA, Dems would likely have to win Ohio, or all of the remaining three swing states with large Latino populations, NM, NV and CO.
In terms of public opinion, Schaller explains:

…Is Obama’s Latino support holding steady?
On Monday, impreMedia and Latino Decisions released a new survey showing a strangely bifurcated answer to this question: Although 70 percent of Latinos approve of Obama’s performance as president, only 43 percent say they will for certain vote for him in 2012. Of the poll results, impreMedia pollster Pilar Marrero writes that “doubts about the president and the Democrats are not turning into support for the Republicans.”
To win re-election, President Obama must close the sale again with Latinos during the next two years. 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.

Regarding the Latino Decisions poll, Ed Kilgore’s take is a little different:

The president’s job approval rating in this poll is at 70%, up from 57% in the last LD survey in September. The percentage of respondents saying they are “certain” they will vote to re-elect Obama is at a relatively soft 43%; but with “probables” and leaners, his “re-elect” number rises to 61%. Meanwhile, the total percentage of Latinos inclined to vote for a Republican candidate in 2012 is at 21%, with only 9% certain to vote that way. It’s worth noting that in most polls, a “generic” Republican presidential candidate has been doing a lot better than named candidates in trial heats against Obama. And the 61-21 margin he enjoys among Latinos in this survey compares favorably with the 67-31 margin he won in 2008 against John McCain.
With the Republican presidential nominating process more than likely pushing the candidates towards immigrant-baiting statements, and with Latinos having relatively positive attitudes towards the kind of federal health care and education policies the GOP will be going after with big clawhammers, it’s hard to see exactly how the GOP makes gains among Latinos between now and Election Day…

Democrats received 64 percent of the Latino vote in the mid-terms, with Republican candidates winning 34 percent. After crunching all of the numbers, Schaller concludes “Republicans don’t need to carry the Latino vote–yet–but in the near term, and particularly in presidential cycles, they need to stay reasonably competitive, whereas Kilgore concludes of GOP hopes for ’12, in light of Hispanic opinion trends, “They’d better hope their 2010 margins among white voters hold up.”
In between those two perspectives, there are lots of variables that can influence Hispanic turnout and voter choices in different directions. But it’s certain that Democrats stand to benefit, perhaps decisively, from a greater investment in Latino naturalization, voter education and turnout.

There is some excellent reporting at The Nation and other progressive websites about the loathsome effort of Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker to gut unions in his state. But it would be hard to find a better video primer explaining the motives behind the scam and what may be at stake than this alarming clip from Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC report, “The Survival of the Democratic Party.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Even the anti-Maddow, Sean Hannity acknowledges in his FoxNews diatribe that Walker’s measure “would eliminate collective bargaining rights for most state workers.” Hannity conveniently omits noting that the unions exempted in Walker’s initiative are precisely the three unions that supported Walker’s election campaign, as Maddow points out in her clip above.

Expect the debate about the importance of new media in the nonviolent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt to continue for years, although I’m satisfied that facebook, twitter and cell phones were highly significant tactical tools in both countries.
In terms of strategy, however, give due credit to a central idea in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions — the unique power of organized nonviolence to topple entrenched totalitarian regimes. For a good read on the topic, see “A Tunisian-Egyptian Link That Shook Arab History” by New York Times reporters David D. Kirkpatrick and David E. Sanger. As part of their investigation, the authors note the influence on both uprisings of a new England scholar who has dedicated his life to the study and advocacy of nonviolence as a potent political strategy:

Breaking free from older veterans of the Arab political opposition, they…were especially drawn to a Serbian youth movement called Otpor, which had helped topple the dictator Slobodan Milosevic by drawing on the ideas of an American political thinker, Gene Sharp. The hallmark of Mr. Sharp’s work is well-tailored to Mr. Mubark’s Egypt: He argues that nonviolence is a singularly effective way to undermine police states that might cite violent resistance to justify repression in the name of stability.
The April 6 Youth Movement modeled its logo — a vaguely Soviet looking red and white clenched fist–after Otpor’s, and some of its members traveled to Serbia to meet with Otpor activists.
Another influence, several said, was a group of Egyptian expatriates in their 30s who set up an organization in Qatar called the Academy of Change, which promotes ideas drawn in part on Mr. Sharp’s work. One of the group’s organizers, Hisham Morsy, was arrested during the Cairo protests and remained in detention.

Sharp is the founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, an important, though underfunded organization dedicated to the study and promotion of nonviolent action. The author of ground-breaking scholarly works, including “Making Europe Unconquerable” and “Civilian-Based Defense: A Post-Military Weapons System,” Sharp has long insisted that his key writings, available on the Einstein Institution’s web pages be translated into Arabic and numerous other languages. He is undoubtedly the foremost expert on nonviolence, in both theory and application, and has been called the “Machiavelli of nonviolence” and the “Clausewitz of nonviolent warfare” — although neither designation does justice to his progressive outlook.
One shudders to consider the countless billions of dollars Sharp could have saved taxpayers, had a long line of U.S. presidents consulted with him before launching expensive nation-building schemes and other military initiatives. In a saner world, he would be a top national security advisor to the President.
Sharp isn’t the only nonviolence advocate being consulted by the young revolutionaries of Egypt. The American Islamic Congress re-published (in Arabic) and distributed in Egypt a 50-year old comic book about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. You and anyone else in the world with internet access can read the entire comic book in English, Arabic and Farsi right here.
Comforting, that along with all of the blundering disasters of U.S. foreign policy over the years, two humble but dedicated Americans could have such a constructive influence on the freedom struggles of oppressed people in the Middle East.

It’s a long way from our national day of despair in Tucson to Egypt’s day of jubilation in Cairo. But it’s a distance worth thinking about as we try to understand how a great democracy like the U.S. can produce such sick young men as Jared Louchner, while an inspiring, nonviolent movement lead by tens of thousands of courageous young people can emerge in a nation ruled by a brutal dictatorship like Mubarak’s regime in Egypt.
Nonviolent movements are not well understood by America’s right-wingers. It’s an article of faith among second amendment fundamentalists that guns are necessary to maintain “freedom.” I guess the young Egyptians didn’t get that particular memo.
Instead they poured into the streets of Cairo, armed only with courage, determination and cell phones (service soon cut off by Mubarak) and brought down a tryranical regime without firing a shot. Had the youth of Cairo been stocked up with firearms, their blood would be flowing in the streets and Mubarak would still be in power, more secure than ever.
Give the youth of Cairo due credit for leading Egypt’s nonviolent revolution. But note that their revolution gained decisive momentum when the workers went on strike.
One of the casualties of their revolution is the western stereotype of Arabs as a violence-prone people. The protestors in Tahrir Square remained nonviolent and refused to be intimidated, even while Mubarak sent in his goon squads, who have now melted away in silence and shame.
The paranoiacs who brought guns to political rallies in the U.S. last year were scary to many at the time. Now they too look more like pathetic, fearful relics of the past, not so unlike Mubarak’s goons with their camels and clubs.
Another casualty of the Egyptian revolution is the terrorist movement based in Muslim nations. No, I’m not saying it is over. They will still be a force. But their argument that terror is the most effective form of resistance to oppression has been irrevocably damaged in the eyes of millions of young people they hoped to recruit. The new generation of Arab youth now have a dazzling example of the power of nonviolence to challenge political oppression.
Meanwhile in the U.S., conservatives are groping awkwardly for a credible response to Egypt’s revolution and to President Obama’s eloquent statement (transcript here, video here) congratulating Egypt’s nonviolent movement. No doubt, the conservatives will fall back on the old fear-filled arguments (like TimPaw here and Newt here) and stereotypes. And there may yet be setbacks to come, as Egypt charts its path to democracy. But Democrats can be optimistic that the leader of our party gets it that a new era of freedom and democracy is awakening in the middle east, one deserving of our respect and support.

TDS Advisory Board Member Alan Abramowitz posits an optimistic 2012 scenario for President Obama in his current post at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Abramowitz, author of The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy, cooks up a regression analysis forecasting model using polling, electoral and economic data, and explains:

…The dependent variable in this analysis is the incumbent party’s share of the major party vote. The independent variables are the incumbent president’s net approval rating (approval-disapproval) in the Gallup Poll at midyear, the annual growth rate of real GDP in the second quarter of the election year, and a dummy variable distinguishing between first term incumbents and all other types of incumbent party candidates.
This simple forecasting model does an excellent job of predicting the outcomes of presidential elections, explaining just over 90 percent of the variance in the incumbent party’s share of the popular vote. The model has correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1988 more than two months before Election Day. In 2008, the model correctly predicted a comfortable victory for Barack Obama over John McCain at a time when McCain had taken the lead over Obama in a number of national polls following the Republican National Convention.

And Abramowitz adds,

…Regardless of who wins the Republican nomination, even modest economic growth and a mediocre approval rating in 2012 would probably be enough to give Barack Obama a second term in the White House. For example, an annual growth rate of three percent in the second quarter (slightly below the most recent estimate for the fourth quarter of 2010) and a net approval rating of zero at midyear (slightly worse than Obama’s average rating over the past month) would result in a forecast of 53 percent of the national popular vote for the President which would almost certainly produce a decisive victory in the Electoral College.

Abramowitz cautions that, while the model has accurately predicted the winner of the last five presidential elections, the margin of victory has been smaller in four of the elections than the model predicted, possibly because of increasing polarization. He concludes, “If Barack Obama does win a second term in the White House, it will most likely be by a fairly narrow margin unless economic growth and the President’s approval rating both show dramatic improvement in the next 18 months.”