Jim Grossfeld and Celinda Lake illuminate a key challenge facing Democrats and Unions in their American Prospect article “A Union Hearing.” Although the article focuses on new approaches for organizing white collar workers, it includes some fresh insights about how Dems and Labor can help each other grow together. First they outline the problem:

Among Washington’s political cognoscenti it is considered a no brainer that idle chatter about unionism will brand a candidate as a hopelessly unreconstructed “old” Democrat. At the very least, they warn, it would be “off message,” given that voters have about as much interest in labor issues as they do in, say, the Law of the Sea. The upshot of this conventional wisdom is that, today, not many Democrats are willing to step forward to promote unionism. What’s more, few labor leaders even ask them to.

For Dems, this timidity has a price, as Lake and Grossfeld note:

That’s too bad, because by speaking out for unions Democrats could not only help to mobilize public support for one of their most effective and most embattled allies, but also speak to the growing economic insecurity of one of their least reliable constituencies: young, educated, white collar workers, particularly younger women struggling with low wages and high prices.

The authors argue that Democrats must talk more about unions, but in different ways. And targeting millions of white collar workers who are experiencing a growing sense of economic insecurity is critical for prospects for both unions and the Democratic party. As they conclude:

There’s no question that it would be in the labor movement’s interest if more Americans knew about this kind of unionism. But it could also help Democrats, if they embraced it as part of their commitment to helping Americans navigate their way through the new economy. It could be one way that Democrats help workers gain the training, health care, and pensions they need, and create more balance between work and family. Democrats ought to speak out for new unions because they believe partnerships between employers and employees are fundamental to keeping American businesses strong and competitive.
Recently, AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel said that it would “take a movement” to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and strengthen the right to organize. With new majorities in the House and Senate, Democrats can help build that movement. And they should. But to do that they need to talk less about unions as they are and more about what they can become. It is not enough to persuade young, college educated Americans that unions are a good things for janitors and poultry workers. They need to understand that this is about their future, too.

If sinking deeper roots in the middle class is a priority for long-range Democratic strategy, reading Grossfeld’s and Lake’s article is a good place to begin.

Speaker-elect Pelosi has had her share of controversial appointments during the last month. But her choice for the new head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (MD), is drawing plaudits from donkeys of all shades. Naturally, WaPo has the best story on the Van Hollen appointment, since his congressional district borders on the capitol. As Ann E. Marimow reports:

Emanuel, who will chair the Democratic Caucus, praised his successor yesterday as a “political strategist and thinker of the first order” and said Van Hollen’s recruitment of House candidates helped create the first Democratic majority elected in 12 years.
“Throughout this election, I sought his advice and counsel in every critical decision I had to make,” Emanuel said in a statement.

Van Hollen knows something about how to beat popular Republican incumbents, having defeated well-liked Rep. Connie Morella to win his seat in Montgomery County. More importantly, Van Hollen is reputed to be a tireless and shrewd workhorse, as Marimow reports:

Maryland Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) called Van Hollen a hard-working go-getter who should never be underestimated. “He doesn’t take no for an answer. He pursues his goals tenaciously…”
In the past year, Van Hollen worked closely with Emanuel as a leader of the campaign committee’s effort to pick up seats in Republican strongholds. He spent months traveling from Pennsylvania to Ohio and Indiana to identify and mentor candidates, then helped build fledgling campaign and fundraising operations.

It would be hard to top outgoing DCCC Chair Rahm Emanuel’s run-of-the-table on November 7th. But Dems can rest assured that their ’08 House campaign will be at full strength in a few weeks.

Some broad outlines of the mandate voters gave incoming congressional Democrats are delineated in a new NPR survey conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner 12/7-10. Perhaps the most significant finding, in terms of policies voters would like to see implemented with respect to Iraq, is described thusly in the GQR Executive Summary:

Iraq continues to be the leading concern for voters and our survey finds the public skeptical about achieving stability in Iraq. While a sizable plurality of 44 percent say Iraq will be less stable if the US begins to withdraw troops during the first half of 2007, nearly two-thirds favor withdrawing from Iraq during the first half of 2007 regardless.

Another interesting finding of the poll indicates that voters are not “over” their dissatisfaction with the GOP a month after the mid-term elections, according to the Executive Summary:

Opinion of the Republican party has worsened. Currently 46 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the party.

And even better for the Democrats:

The November election helped Democrats improve their standing as this poll records the highest percentage of favorable feelings toward the Democratic party in the past two years.

The poll also found an 18-point advantage for Dems with respect to generic presidential preferences and only one out of four voters saying the country is “heading in the right direction.” The poll also found that 71 percent of voters wanted congressional Democrats “to work together in a bipartisan way with Republicans and encourage more cooperation and compromising to get things done,” although the poll did not indicate how far voters wanted Dems to compromise on specific issues. For more details see the PDF here and the NPR report here.

Democrats now control both houses of 24 state legislatures (20 before the election) and have added 6 governors for a new total of 28. In light of this substantial increase of strength at the state level, should Dems now press the case for redistricting before the next census where we can?
The Democratic Strategist discussed various aspects of “the redistricting myth” in our July roundtable and posts here and here. But things have changed for the better since November 7th, and the new political reality cries out for a reconsideration. Now Jonathan Singer at MyDD kicks off a new debate about redistricting with his post “House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting in New Mexico?.” Singer is wary of early redistricting in NM in particular, and of redistricting before the census in general:

Voters went to the polls looking for change on November 7 and as a result will have scant patience if Democrats start using the type of strong-arm tactics implemented by Republicans to maintain power over the last dozen years. Secondly, redrawing lines to create more theoretically Democratic districts has the potential to make Democratic support in the remaining districts so thin that the Republicans can come in and challenge previously safe seats, potentially negating any benefits of redistricting.

Singer’s points are well-made, but there may be some cases where pre-census redistricting makes strategic sense, and/or serves fairness. Additionally, the population is so fluid and mobile nowadays that the ten year census provides a flawed reflection of demographic reality. Further, some states conduct their state-wide census counts mid-point between the federal census, so the demographic updates are available. It’s an important strategic choice, which merits a thorough discussion.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any sweeter, along comes Ciro Rodriguez with an upset run-off victory over 7-term GOP congressman Henry Bonilla in TX-23. This gives the Dems a net 30 pick-up in the House and will leave Republicans without a single Mexican-American member of Congress. So much for the GOP’s pipedreams about winning the support of Hispanic voters. Rodriguez undoubtedly benefitted from the court-ordered redrawing of TX-23. But he also used his party affiliation to good effect. As CQPolitics.com‘s Greg Giroux notes in his New York Times article:

…one of Rodriguez’ biggest added advantages in the runoff campaign was that he could boast of being a member of the House majority if he were to be elected — something he could not definitively claim before the primary, which coincided with the national Election Day.

And don’t let anyone get away with chalking this one up to a Democrat moving to the right. As Giroux notes:

Rodriguez’s win probably will be brandished by political liberals as evidence that they can prevail in partisan battleground districts. Rodriguez voted against authorizing military operations in Iraq; in favor of a minimum wage increase; and against proposed bans of same-sex marriage and “partial birth” abortion.

Yep, that’s right. Deep in the heart of Texas.