Labor Launches Anti-McCain Campaign

By Mark Gruenberg

PAI Staff Writer

EXETER, N.H. (PAI)--The cold north winds from Canada and an even colder crowd of 

Republicans inside didn’t stop more than two dozen unionists from launching 

labor’s anti-John McCain campaign, in the northern wilds of Exeter, N.H.

The group gathered March 12 near where the Arizona senator, the 

all-but-officially-crowned GOP presidential nominee, hosted a “town hall” 

meeting to thank Granite State Republicans for reviving his once-seemingly-dead 

White House drive.

The unionists’ objective was to tell voters--and indeed the rest of the 

country--what McCain’s real record is on issues important to workers.

For the New Hampshire group, their focus was on McCain’s votes against 

legislation that would help workers when plants close--or even require firms to 

warn them of closures--for so-called “free trade” treaties without worker 

rights, his comments in Michigan that jobs won’t come back, and his admitted 

lack of an economic plan.

The New Hampshire unionists, marshaled by the state AFL-CIO, are the van-guard of what 

will be an intense push by the national AFL-CIO to “define” McCain by his 

anti-worker votes, before he gets a chance to define himself by his supposed 

“straight talk,” federation national Political Director Karen Ackerman told 

reporters that day. 

And defining McCain, including a critical website detailing his record, and 

featuring his smiling photo with that of anti-worker GOP President George W. 

Bush, is part of the federation’s overall $53.4 million political drive this 

year, she added. All of that will be for grass-roots organizing and education, 

with none for radio and TV ads.

“He has not yet talked about a plan to focus on preventing good-paying jobs from 

leaving this country, or on a plan to rebuild this country,” and the fed is 

going to hold McCain accountable, Ackerman said. “Everywhere he goes, union 

members will go to confront him and demand he talk on economic items.”

New Hampshire wasn’t the opening salvo in the “McCain revealed” campaign, including a website by that name. The first shots were 

fired at rallies in Columbus and Cincinnati before the Ohio primary. And the 

website features a “briefing book” of the senator’s stands.

Those include his votes for NAFTA, the jobs-destroying U.S.-Mexico-Canada “free 

trade” pact and for successor, similar treaties with Central American and other 

nations. 

They also include McCain’s votes against raising the minimum wage, his votes 

against labor rights, and his health care plan, a variation of Bush’s demand to 

privatize Medicare and to leave everyone at the mercy of the health insurance 

companies. And they include his support for GOP plans to substitute comp time 

for overtime, for Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security, and against 

expanding SCHIP, the joint federal-state children’s health care program. Bush 

vetoed SCHIP expansion, twice.

McCain’s stands on those issues, especially Social Security, SCHIP and the wage 

issues, will be pitched to the wider electorate, not just to unionists, Ackerman said. “We’ll be encouraging him to change his position” on 

those and other economic topics, she pointed out. “But we’ll complete his 

profile to show his unwavering support of Bush’s economic agenda, so people 

won’t be fooled.” She called him “Bush term 3.”

The federation will take its “McCain revealed” campaign into at least 23 states, 

including 17 swing states in the presidential race and six others with hot 

Senate or gubernatorial races. Key states are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, 

Michigan and Minnesota. Others include Missouri and Indiana, where governorships 

are contested, and Kentucky and Alaska, which expect U.S. Senate battles.

The McCain revealed campaign is part of the AFL-CIO’s wider effort to “turn 

America around,” the theme of its overall Election ’08 drive. That drive also 

includes voter registration, efforts to prevent voter suppression, and a 4-part 

platform for changing the economy to help workers.

The four parts are universal affordable health care--type unspecified--good jobs with guaranteed pensions, fair trade and a strong right to organize 

and bargain. All are interconnected, the AFL-CIO says. “We’ll be targeting union 

households with a massive effort,” Ackerman adds. Besides the anti-McCain 

campaign, the overall effort will include a massive get-out-the-vote drive, 

labor-to-neighbor walks on health care on May 17 in more than 100 cities and a 

big presence at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. “We haven’t 

decided yet” on what to do at the GOP convention in the Twin Cities, she said.