Obama and the Union Vote

David Moberg writes that union members are voting their economic interest by supporting the Obama-Biden ticket. One important factor hurting workers has been the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and similar free-trade agreements. It encourages outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries.
Moberg knows that both Obama and Biden support free trade.

Joe Biden has been in Washington for three decades. What has he ever done to help workers? Read the excellent article by Michael Yates “Obama and the working class: what exactly does he have to say to them?”
at http://www.counterpunch.org/yates08262008.html
Obama’s first appointment was Rahm Emmanuel, who led Bill Clinton’s fight to get NAFTA through Congress.

Obama is a strong campaigner, and a powerful orator, but his positions on the issues doesn’t differ from standard Democratic Party boilerplate, which includes support for free trade and other measures that hurt American workers.

Posted by Nevada_Ned on Nov 10, 2008 at 7:06 AM

My greatest worry in American politics is how Republicans have been so successful over the last 30 years in using race, religion and nationalism to get working class whites to vote against their own class interests.  In the South, especially, there seems almost no way to break through this Republican hold on white voters.  In places like Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, etc, they may simply be unreachable by any Democratic candidate. 

In this respect, cultural politics have proven absolutely lethal for the Democratic Party in most elections since 1968.  In the future, though, I think Obama will be able to expand his reach among working class cultural conservatives, at least outside the South.  The key to that will be the sucess of his policies on the economy, unions, health care, housing and education. 

It may be enough to keep Democratic control of the White House and Congress for eight or even sixteen years, and allow the current round of progressive reforms to become well established.  There may be nothing we can do to win most white southern voters, especially evangelicals, but perhaps it won’t be necessary. 

Of course, if Obama follows the free trade-free market Clintonite policies, there will be no chance at all, but I do not think he’s going to do that.

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