If you thought the nuclear power plant disasters in Japan were going to recast the energy debate in the U.S., you may have to think again — or at least wait a while. That would be a prudent conclusion drawn from the just-released CNN/Opinion Research Poll, conducted 3/18-20 (PDF here). According to CNN’s ‘Political Ticker’:

Opposition to building new nuclear power plants in the U.S. has edged up since last spring, a likely reaction to the nuclear power plants crisis in Japan, according to a new national poll.
But a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday also indicates a majority of Americans approve of using nuclear energy to produce electricity…Fifty-seven percent of people questioned in the poll say they approve of the domestic use of nuclear energy, with 42 percent opposed.
“Attitudes toward nuclear power in the U.S. are more positive than they were after Chernobyl in 1986, when only 45 percent approved of nuclear energy plants, or Three Mile Island in 1979, when 53 percent approved of nuclear energy and the number who said nuclear plants were not safe was 10 points higher than today,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

I was a little surprised by the 57 percent approval, given the horrific video and images coming from Japan. But opponents of nuclear power plants may find encouragement in some other findings in the poll:

The survey indicates that 53 percent of the public opposes building more nuclear power plants in the U.S., up six points from last year. Forty-six percent support the construction of new plants.

A fairly even split, but favoring nuclear power skeptics. Six in ten would opose building a nuclear power plant in their community, while 57 percent say that the U.S. should rely less on nuclear power as a future energy source. Another new poll, by CBS News (conducted 3/18-21) found that 50 percent of respondents opposed new construction of nuclear power plants, with 43 percent favoring new plants. The CBS poll found that 62 percent opposed having a nuclear power plant in their community, with 35 percent saying it would be OK.
When it comes to existing nuclear power plants, however, the gap widens, favoring those who want to keep them, according to the CNN/ORC poll:

Sixty-eight percent say continue to operate all of them, with 27 percent saying that some should be shut down and one in ten calling for all of the plants to be closed.
According to the poll, 28 percent say domestic nuclear power plants are very safe, with just over half saying they are somewhat safe and one in five saying they are not safe.

The CNN report notes that 54 percent of the respondents considered nuclear power plants on or near earthquake zones and oceans “very safe) (12 percent) or “somewhat safe (42 percent). Two out of three respondents expressed confidence that the federal government was prepared to handle a major crisis at a nuclear power plant, which may be a bit of an “ostrich reflex,” given the post-Katrina mess. There are nuclear power plants on the Gulf of Mexico, near New Orleans, Galveston and Tampa, in addition to the two located on the Pacific in California earthquake country. The CBS poll found a higher level of skepticism, with 35 percent saying the government is prepared to deal with a nuclear emergency, while 58 percent say it is not
There are 104 nuclear power plants licensed to operate in the U.S. It’s hard to imagine that the public has a realistic grasp of the enormously expensive and complex security and safety issues surrounding the plants that merit concern. President Obama has expressed support of the expansion of nuclear power in the U.S., while calling on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review the safety of the 104 operating plants, most of which are aging significantly.
I was one of those ostrich Democrats who became complaisant about nuclear power in recent years, thinking that the diminishing anti-nuclear power plant protests had started to sound like Chicken Little. After all we had not seen reports of any major disaster threats in the U.S. since Three Mile Island.
But the sobering images from Japan have jerked my head out of the sand. And reports like the one out today noting that there is an advisory to new mothers in Tokyo not to let their babies have any tap water because it has double the level of radioactivity considered safe for infants insures that I’m staying opposed to it. It’s not like we’ve got a big edge in scientific or technical expertise over the Japanese. The Union of Concerned Scientists reports that U.S. Nuclear Power Plants had 14 “near misses,” or serious “events” in 2010 alone, involving “inadequate training, faulty maintenance, poor design, and failure to investigate problems thoroughly.”
I’m hoping President Obama will rethink the issue, declare a moratorium on new construction of nuclear power plants and invest the money saved in developing truly green energy options, like solar thermal and wind, which would create a hell of a lot more jobs, according to the Worldwatch Institute. Despite the relatively small number of jobs they create, nuclear power plants often end up being more expensive, because of unexpected safety issues that must be addressed. For a disturbing account of the ever-increasing expenses and dangers associated with nuclear power in the U.S., read Christian Parenti’s article “After Three Mile Island: The Rise and Fall of Nuclear Safety Culture” in The Nation.
The more you read about the dangers and expenses of nuclear power plants, the harder it gets to accept glib assurances about their safety and economic feasibility. Even if one accepts the premise that the odds are very high against a major disaster in the U.S., all it takes is one long shot disaster to do vast damage to America’s economy and politics. At the very least, Dems should consider a much stronger emphasis on development of alternative sources of power. Anybody up for a Manhattan Project/Marshall Plan for solar/wind power development?

Most Americans remember the date April 4 as the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., a day of commemorating the courage, vision and contributions of one of America’s greatest leaders. It is a measure of King’s legacy that he is honored in observance programs across the nation, not only on his birthday, a national holiday, but also on the anniversary of his death.
The 2011 anniversary of MLK’s death, however, will have added poignancy, since it will be observed in the context of the historic protest demonstrations in Madison resisting the attack on public workers’ collective bargaining rights. King was martyred in 1968 while leading a protest campaign supporting the rights of striking sanitation workers in Memphis. When the new monument honoring Dr. King is unveiled at the Great Mall in Washington, D.C. this summer, America will have our first major memorial honoring a leader of the struggle for worker rights, as well as for racial equality.
Organized labor will mark the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King with a mass mobilization, including rallies, marches and other activities to defend workers’ rights in cities and towns across the nation. For a partial listing of events (more being added continually) check here, and for assistance with event ideas and resources, click here. (Facebook page here)
In addition to labor unions, the ‘We Are One’ MLK commemorations are expected to draw a significant turnout of African Americans and students, because both have been targeted by GOP disenfranchisement campaigns. April 4 could well mark a rekindling of King’s ‘Coalition of Conscience,’ a new 21st century movement for social and economic justice.
For an inspiring and informative read on the topic of MLK and worker rights leading up to April 4, you can’t do much better than “All Labor Has Dignity,” a new collection of King’s writings, edited by Michael Honey.
Mark it on your calendar, Monday, April 4th — We Are One.

Twenty months out from the 2012 election, the GOP’s voter suppression strategy is taking shape. By crushing public sector unions and expanding felon and student disenfranchisement, they hope to weaken Democratic turnout. While they have always supported these strategies, the margins Republicans gained in state houses in the November elections have empowered them to launch a much stronger voter suppression campaign.
There is reason to hope that their efforts to gut public sector unions will backfire, as evidenced by recent public opinion polls regarding Governor Walker’s union-busting campaign in Wisconsin. The fact that Walker exempted the three unions that supported him is proof enough that his primary objective is to disempower public unions because they have provided significant support for Democratic candidates.
In Florida, Governor Scott and his cohorts on the all-Republican Executive Clemency Board are setting a new standard for shameless partisan sleaze, with a racist twist. Here’s how Peter Wallsten’s Washington Post article explained this bit of political chicanery:

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and other Cabinet-level officials voted unanimously Wednesday to roll back state rules enacted four years ago that made it easier for many ex-felons to regain the right to vote.
Now, under the new rules, even nonviolent offenders would have to wait five years after the conclusion of their sentences to apply for the chance to have their civil rights restored.

In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist initiated a measure to make civil rights restoration “almost automatic” for most ex-felons. Wallsten reports that more than 100,000 ex-felons took advantage of Crists initiative to attempt to register to vote. “Experts say many of those new voters were likely Democratic-leaning African Americans,” reports Wallsten, which likely helped Obama win Florida.
Approximately 54,000 ex-felons in Florida had their civil rights restored since 2007, before which the state restored the rights of only about 8,000 ex-felons annually, according to the ACLU.
The “rationale,” for the initiative according to a spokesperson for the Republican Florida A.G.:

“This issue of civil rights restoration is about principle, not partisanship…Attorney General Bondi is philosophically opposed to the concept of automatic restoration of civil rights and believes not only that felons should apply for their rights, but wait for a period of time in order to attest to their rehabilitation and commitment to living a crime-free life.

Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sees the Republican measure a little differently. “It clearly has the effect of suppressing the vote as we go into a presidential election cycle.”
Unfortunately, the constitutionality of felon disenfranchisement has been upheld in courts from time to time, even though punishing people beyond the terms of their sentence remains a dubious proposition in a real democracy. Certainly the Florida Republicans have no qualms about making a mockery of the principle of rehabilitation in their criminal justice system. And no fair-minded person could deny that felon disenfranchisement targets African Americans, given their disproportionate incarceration rates, which numerous scholars have attributed to bias in sentencing.
In addition to the Republican efforts to crush public employee unionism and disenfranchise African American voters, Tobin Van Ostern reports at Campus Progress on the escalation of the conservative campaign to disenfranchise another pro-Democratic group, students:

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative organization linked to corporate and right-wing donors, including the billionaire Koch brothers, has drafted and distributed model legislation, obtained by Campus Progress, that appears to be the inspiration for bills proposed by state legislators this year and promoted by Tea Party activists, bills that would limit access of young people to vote.
…Charles Monaco, the press and new media specialist at the Progressive States Network, a state-based organization that has been tracking this issue, says, “ALEC is involved with a vast network of well-funded right wing organizations working to spread voter ID laws in the state legislatures. It is clear what their purpose is with these laws–to reduce progressive turnout and tilt the playing field towards their preferred candidates in elections.”

In Wisconsin and New Hampshire, for example,

Conservative representatives in the state have proposed a law, backed by Walker, that would ban students from using in-state university- or college-issued IDs for proof-of-residency when voting. If this legislation became law, it would become one of the strictest voter registration laws in the country and would provide significant logistical and financial barriers for a variety of groups, including student and minority voters.
Meanwhile, as Campus Progress reported last month, in New Hampshire, state House Speaker William O’Brien (R- Hillsborough 4) says that proposed election legislation will “tighten up the definition of a New Hampshire resident.” O’Brien claims that college towns experience hundreds of same-day voter registrations and that those are the ballots of people who “are kids voting liberal, voting their feelings, with no life experience.”

To repeat, the Speaker of the New Hampshire House says it’s OK to deny a group of predominantly young people voting rights because they are “voting liberal.” If Dems don’t make an ad about that targeting youth voters nationwide, they should be cited for political negligence. In other states,

…According to research by the Fair Elections Legal Network (FELN) and Campus Progress, in the past six years, seven states have enacted laws that disenfranchise students or make it more difficult for them to vote. This year, 18 additional states are considering similar laws, while other states are proposing voter ID laws that would depress turnout among other groups of voters–particularly those who traditionally lean left…These requirements run the gamut from requiring in-state driver’s licenses, to banning school IDs, to prohibiting first-time voters–essentially every college-aged voter–from voting by absentee ballot…

There can be no doubt at this point about the GOP’ political strategy for 2011-12: Crush unions, disenfranchise ex-felons and students — such are the often unintended consequences of voting Republican. For Dems, the challenges couldn’t be more clear: Publicize the GOP’s contempt for voting rights; Reach out to win the support of blue collar workers and energize our base constituencies with bold, populist reforms that create jobs and protect and improve their living standards.

In his HuffPo post, “Three Fatal Republican Mistakes That Could Spell Their Defeat Next November,” Democratic political strategist Robert Creamer illuminates some potentially costly GOP blunders:

First, Republicans forgot the fundamental truth that it is much more difficult to take something away from people that they already have, than to prevent them from getting something for which they aspire.
It’s one thing to campaign against the possibility of better health care — or against legislation that would restrain the power of banks to sink the economy. It’s quite another to propose measures that would cut someone’s pay, eliminate their power to bargain, or slash services that benefit everyday Americans — even worse to propose cutting Social Security or Medicare. Those kinds of proposals are downright personal. They really make people angry.
Nothing changes a political calculus like “facts on the ground.” That’s why the Republicans are crusading so hard to prevent the Affordable Health Care Act from being implemented. Once it’s in force, millions of stakeholders will form a political army that will prevent it from ever being repealed.

Creamer provides more detail on how the Republicans paid a political price for their ill-considered efforts to undermine Medicare and Social Security, then notes their second major blunder:

…The Republicans have forgotten the all-important political principle, that you can’t believe your own spin. That’s especially true if you spend all of your time talking to the small group of people who agree with you. Take the House of Representative’s newly-elected Tea Party Caucus. This insular crew talks to each other — repeats each other’s slogans — listens to Fox News and has convinced themselves that most Americans agree that government spending is the worst thing since murder and mayhem.
…But now that the Republicans have begun to propose concrete cuts to important public services, their view of what the “American people” want is completely disconnected from reality.
Last week’s NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that a 51% to 46% majority says the government should do more, rather than less. Fifty-six percent say that jobs and economic growth should be the government’s top priority compared to 40% who rate deficit reduction that way.
By 54% to 18%, Americans do not believe that cuts in Medicare are necessary to reduce the deficit. Forty-nine to twenty-two percent say cuts in Social Security are not needed. Fifty-six percent say cuts in Headstart Programs are “mostly” or “totally unacceptable.” Seventy-seven percent say the same of cuts in primary and secondary education. Majorities also call unacceptable cuts to defense, unemployement insurance, student loans, and heating assistance to low-income families.
On the other hand, while Republicans rail against increases in taxes — even for the rich, a whopping 81% favor placing a surtax on people who make more than a million dollars. Sixty-eight percent want to end the Bush tax cuts on those who make over $250,000.
An overwhelming 77% support the right of public employees to collective bargaining…To top it off, a Rasmussen (Republican) poll shows Wisconsin Governor Walker’s positives dropping to 43%, and his negatives soaring to 57%.
The winds have shifted — and because they believe their own spin, many Republicans have yet to notice.

The third major blunder Creamer cites is the GOP’s refusal to get it that voters will not buy discredited b.s. indefinitely:

Over and over, the Republicans have repeated their mantra that we need to “cut spending” in order to create jobs. Now, it is certainly true that controlling the nation’s long-term deficit will benefit the economy in the long haul. You can even make a case that when government debt begins to sop up lots of available credit, it can be a drag on private sector investment and growth. But no reputable economist agrees that cutting spending now — as we are just emerging from a recession — will create jobs. Just the opposite.
…The public is beginning to get the picture. The polling shows that voters want investments that actually do increase long-term growth — investments in education, research and infrastructure — that will allow us to win the future.

Chris Bowers has an equally encouraging (for Dems) take in his Daily Kos post “Why Wisconsin poses such a serious threat to Republicans.” Bowers notes that the normal fragmentation of progressives is being replaced by a more unified spirit because of Governor Walker’s union-bashing, and adds

If you will forgive me for being elliptical and finally returning to the subject promised by the title of this article, that last sentence is why the new labor uprising is potentially so dangerous for Republicans. In these fights, the interests and organizing of labor, the netroots, and the Democratic Party are very closely aligned. The result has been astoundingly effective activism: tens of thousands of people at continuous rallies, a constant buzz from progressive media covering the rallies, paid media campaigns of high quality and quantity funded by the people consuming that coverage, and Democratic elected officials willing to use whatever procedural means necessary to take the fight as far as possible. It’s caused at least the temporary disappearance of what my astute friend Matt Stoller called “the rootsgap,”–a lack of alignment between the interests of the grassroots and the leaders of a political movement.
In Wisconsin, all of the “everyone-elses” are joined together in a coherent political operation, and we are winning because of it. Despite the full-backing of the iron fist of the conservative movement, a newly elected hard-right Governor has seen his approval ratings plummet to around 40% only two months after taking office. That’s unheard of.
If what happened in Wisconsin is replicated elsewhere, then conservatives are in a deep pile of doo-doo. They know it, too. Tea party groups are sending out fundraising emails on Wisconsin admitting that they are losing…

And if it seems that this perspective is just pretty much what you might expect from progressives like Creamer and Bowers, here’s an excerpt from a post, “Gov. Scott Walker Has Lost The War” by Rick Ungar at Forbes magazine, which proudly promotes itself as the “capitalist tool”:

In what may be the result of one of the great political miscalculations of our time, Scott Walker’s popularity in his home state is fast going down the tubes.
A Rasmussen poll out today reveals that almost 60% of likely Wisconsin voters now disapprove of their aggressive governor’s performance, with 48% strongly disapproving.
While these numbers are clearly indicators of a strategy gone horribly wrong, there are some additional findings in the poll that I suspect deserve even greater attention.
It turns out that the state’s public school teachers are very popular with their fellow Badgers. With 77% of those polled holding a high opinion of their educators, it is not particularly surprising that only 32% among households with children in the public school system approve of the governor’s performance. Sixty-seven percent (67%) disapprove, including 54% who strongly disapprove.
Can anyone imagine a politician succeeding with numbers like this among people who have kids?
These numbers should be of great concern not only to Governor Walker but to governors everywhere who were planning to follow down the path of war with state employee unions. You can’t take on the state worker unions without taking on the teachers – and the teachers are more popular than Gov. Walker and his cohorts appear to realize.
…The Wisconsin governor’s desire to be at the forefront of his perceived GOP revolution may not only have doomed the anti-union effort, but it may forever label him as the man who gave the democrats the gift that keeps on giving – the return of the union rank and file into the arms of the Democratic Party.

It’s looking a lot like Governor Walker is more interested in projecting himself as the new Reagan, than in helping his party win working class support in 2012. Other Republican leaders like Ohio Governor Kasich are nipping on the political koolaide as well. And that, for Dems, could be a very good thing.

Andy Kroll has a good MoJo article, “Inside Labor’s Epic Battle in Wisconsin: How big labor and progressive groups pulled off the biggest protests in 40 years,” featuring a dramatically told account of the protests.The lede:

They piled off of buses and out of cars, filling the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, and surrounding the towering Capitol. Thousands crowded inside the building’s beautiful rotunda, their cheers echoing throughout the domed structure. An estimated 100,000 people had descended on frigid Madison to protest Republican Governor Scott Walker’s “budget repair bill,” a sweeping piece of legislation that would strip 170,000 public-sector workers of their right to collectively bargain.
Last Saturday’s “Rally to Save the American Dream” was the culmination of two weeks of protests and a 24-7 sit-in inside the Capitol. Not for 30 or 40 years have unions and progressive groups come together in such an outpouring of support for workers’ rights. What makes the Madison protests even more incredible is how spontaneous they have been: There has been no master plan, no long-anticipated strategy to turn Madison into ground zero for a reenergized labor movement.

Kroll explains how Wisconsin progressives rose up and got organized in the wake of the hideous beating Dems took there in November, after losing both chambers of the state legislature and watching the governorship be taken over by a union-hating ideologue. It’s an inspiring and instructive case study, one which provides hope and guidance for Dems across the nation.

Read more…

Unfortunately, Wisconsin has no provisions authorizing initiative and referendum in state law. It’s a shame, because polls indicate that Wisconsin voters would shred Governor Walker’s union-busting measure in short order.
In Ohio, however, not only is such a referendum possible, there is very likely going to be one to repeal a GOP-supported measure that would limit public employee collective bargaining and strike rights, as Evan McMorris-Santoro reports in his Talking Points Memo post, “The Next Union Battlefield In Ohio: The Ballot Box.”

As the Ohio state House prepares to take up the controversial collective bargaining and union rights provisions contained in the just-passed state Senate Bill 5, union supporters and Democrats are looking ahead to a battle that will put the legislation in the hands of people they say are on their side: the voters of Ohio.
Though they plan to fight SB 5 tooth-and-nail as it works its way through the Republican-controlled House, leaders of the SB 5 opposition tell TPM that they don’t expect to win there. There are 59 Republicans in the House and just 40 Democrats, meaning there’s little chance for a repeat of the drama seen in the Senate, where SB 5 passed by just one vote.
But, thanks to the eccentricities of Ohio law, passage in the House doesn’t mean SB 5 is guaranteed to go into effect. Though they more than likely can’t stop it in the legislature, the opposition can potentially block its implementation by promising to take it on at the ballot box. That means the fight over SB 5 could extend for months — maybe even all the way to November, 2012.

After Republican Governor Kasich signs the bill into law next week, there will be a 90-day period during which opponents of the union-busting bill will gather 231,147 signatures (6% of the vote total in the 2010 gubernatorial race) to put the referendum invalidating the legislation on the ballot. The referendum could appear on either the 2011 or 2012 ballot, depending on the date the governor signs the bill. Either way, union supporters believe they can win.
If the referendum is held in 2012, it would likely increase turnout among voters who would be inclined to vote Democratic, which could put Ohio’s electoral votes in President Obama’s tally. That would be fitting poetic justice of a high order for union-busting Republicans.

It’s likely that we are going to see a lot more Madison-like protest demonstrations at state capitols across the U.S. Regardless of the outcome in Wisconsin, it’s fortunate that Madison is taking the lead among state capitols and providing a template for future protests in other states. Few, if any state capitols, have a more creative and energetic progressive community to show the way.
In terms of protest optics, I would give the Madison demonstrators high marks for signage that covers every angle. It might be good, however, to have more signs propagating variations on the Walker = Polarizer meme. The latest PPP poll, which I flagged yesterday, indicates that union families are now much more disposed toward dumping Governor Walker next election (2014), but there has been very little change in his image among non-union respondents. Make Walker the new poster boy for divisive, polarizing politicians at every opportunity. Same for his egocentric refusal to compromise. Ever the ambitious narcissist, Walker looks in the mirror and sees himself as Reagan 2.0, not a reasonable conservative who is willing to compromise to secure the best outcome for his constituents — which should be highlighted by the protesters.
The Madison demonstrators are making effective use of the American flag, and could even display a few more in the crowds. There’s a reason MLK always marched under the American flag. He knew his adversaries would try to portray him as somehow un-American. And when the opportunity was presented, King would leverage expressions like “the sacred heritage of our nation” to support his protests. Unlike the right wing, Progressives are often reluctant to tap the power of patriotic symbols and verbal expressions. But America is now awash in a rancid wave of neo-McCarthyism, in which every progressive reform is slimed by right-wingers as “Socialism.” The flag conveys a resonant visual impression that “We’re doing this because we’re good Americans,” and the more flags in this particular situation, the better.
Some spokespersons for the Madison protests have raised concerns about Walker’s attack as a an assault on the first amendment. While the first amendment does not explicitly reference the right of unions to organize, it comes close enough, as some constitutional scholars believe. Here’s the entire text:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The 1st amendment card could be played more effectively with a little more message discipline among spokespersons. Call out Governor Walker for trying to undermine workers’ constitutional rights. Make him waste time and energy defending himself with trifling terminology arguments that most people won’t relate to. Look, for example, at the traction the NRA has gotten out of a broadly interpreted 2nd amendment, despite the fact that the founders were talking about flintlocks, not high-capacity ammo clips. Walker’s initiative to crush workers’ rights to union representation is un-American, and it should be plainly said.
MLK also used prayer creatively. In tense situations, surrounded by armed adversaries, King would sometimes call his marchers to drop down on one knee and say a prayer for justice and a peaceful outcome. A third generation preacher, King and his followers were sincere in appealing for God’s help. But he also understood the power of humility in winning support from fence-sitters and in neutralizing potential adversaries. Prayer serves protesters well.
Lastly, leaders and spokespersons for the protest should always make a point of appealing for reconciliation in public statements, as did King, so that Wisconsin citizens can live together in a new spirit of cooperation and goodwill, in stark contrast to the chaos created by Walker’s stoking the fires of anger and resentment. It’s all about sharing a more inspiring vision of hope and opportunity for all, an invitation to real community most citizens will support.

Jon Terbush has a post up at Talking Points Memo, “Poll: Wisconsin Voters Wouldn’t Elect Gov. Walker In Do-Over,” which makes for a good addendum to Nate Silver’s post on union voters, which I flagged earlier today. Here are the nut graphs:

Wisconsin voters already have buyers remorse about electing Gov. Scott Walker (R).
In a PPP poll released Monday, a majority of registered Wisconsin voters say that in a hypothetical re-do of last year’s gubernatorial election, they would vote for Democrat Tom Barrett, whom Walker defeated in November. That finding comes as Walker continues to stand firm on his budget proposals that would strip most state public employees of long-held collective bargaining rights.
Fifty-two percent of respondents said they would vote for Barrett if the election were held today, while 45% said they would vote for Walker. That’s almost exactly the opposite of what happened in the election, when Walker won the governorship with 52% of the vote to Barrett’s 47%.

Terbush notes that almost all of the shift is in union households, which now favor Barrett by a 31 point margin, compared to 14 points in the November election. He also cites a poll by conservative Dick Morris indicating 54 percent of Wisconsin respondents oppose Walker’s plan to gut collective bargaining for public employees.
Walker clearly believes time is on his side in the Wisconsin conflict. But, It’s possible that the longer the protest goes on, the more Walker looks like a tiresome polarizing figure, a meme which could eventually take root among non-union households. And the more he refuses to compromise, the more reasonable the protestors will appear to non-union voters. It’s still early in his term, but his re-election is already in doubt.

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.